Isla Mujeres, MX -- Surace Honeymoon -- Casa Del Buceo SCUBA

12.09.2010. Thurs

The morning sky was slightly cloudy at breakfast, with a few slight breezes now and then. We wolfed down our breakfast so as to make our 8:30am rendezvous with Pablo, our dive master for the day from the nearby SCUBA shop “Casa Del Buceo” which means “Diving House”. With breakfast conquered, we rush back up to the room to change and pack our dive stuff. It was then that I grabbed my wallet to toss it in the safe but as I glanced at it I noticed that we Debit card wasn’t there. Long story short I realized that when I had withdrawn cash the day before the machine in town never gave me the card back. I was too worried about stashing all those pesos that I totally forgot about the card. After a very tense 20 minute call to Bank of America, I blocked the account and we were then able to head out to do some diving with some sense that ‘all would be ok’.

I was in luck, the somewhat choppy seas and the more than gentle rocking of the boat helped me clear my head (now when I say ‘boat’ I mean that only in the most conservative of terms as it was basically just a converted local fishing vessel [5 ft wide by 12 long]…not really anything super nice). From the look on Andrea’s face, she wasn’t thinking about the lost Debit card either, rather she was fully concentrating on the looming task at hand – her very first open water SCUBA dive (my 261^st; she was in good hands…). Pablo chose a shallower, easy spot called Cross of the Bay for her to get her feet wet. A back-roll over the side later and she and I were quickly getting acclimated to the new surroundings. She took to the sport very quickly, seeming very comfortable in the water, much more so than I was when I first dove in back in ’99 at Provo in the northern Caribbean. I was darn impressed with her.

The water visibility being pretty good for the time of year, we saw much of the regular things that SCUBA Folks see in the Caribbean including: Lionfish, Barracuda, Christmas Tree worms, Conch snails, Lobsters, Angel and Parrotfish and various schooling fish along the reefs. Also there was the Cross that was submerged in about 25 ft of water, see pic below. I think Andrea really liked the dive, she was impressed with what she saw, a bit scared of the Barracudas and really glad to see the Tree worms in person (they are so colorfully delicate and feathery). I was real happy to be in the water with my new wife and to see her comfortable and taking to my second favorite activity with such gusto. One issue which turned out to be pretty big was an ear issue I had due to the dive depth that Pablo picked. I requested that we dive to 40-45 ft, but our site was only ~30 if that. Since right around 30 feet in depth amounts to 2 atmospheres (sea level is 1 atmosphere-FYI) and all we did was go from 24 to 32 feet for just under an hour my ears just popped and popped until they were worn out. When back on the boat I discovered that I had water in the ear and a worn out ear drum in my left ear. Writing this over a month later, this issue is just now starting to correct itself. Ah well, im just glad she had a good time.

The second dive was much like the first; similar looking dive site topography: lots of sand with some interspersed coral heads here and there that we were able to swim around and inspect. A cold, windy trip home finished our day as we had forgot to bring towels, this cost us more than a few goose-bumps each during the bumpy 10 minute return trip. One cool thing: instead of returning to the dock to disembark we opted for the more James Bond-ish method of ending the day, that of driving right up to the beach and running partially aground, much to the chagrin of the hotel staff and those lounging on the beach reading their books enjoying the peace and quiet. We definitely got a few looks as we parted with the guys on the boat.

I thought it was a good day. I had no idea our next day in the water would be oh so momentous! Next post coming soon…

Cay Sal -- Bahamas ’07:

So in light of my recent [pointless] layoff from my past-employer, I am again forced to ‘go to my happy place’ and to therefore remember a few more of my past delights of the underwater world as they, better than many other things (not all), give me something to smile about or to be in awe of.

‘Cay Sal’ is a small island chain made up of 96 uninhabited spits of land that barely break the surface of the water located in the south western corner of the Bahamas. This Bank of islands is actually located about 26 nautical miles from the northern Cuban coast. Technically a part of the Bahamas, the chain is actually the furthest westernmost group of islands from the Bahamas, the next closest being Andros at about 78 nautical miles to the east. Some people think that since Cay Sal is close to Cuba, one might be able to see the coast from the boat. Actually, when on the ocean (or on land at sea level) the furthest point away you can see is 11 miles from your current position, the reason for this is actually due to the curvature of the earth which takes effect as it slopes away after this distance. Military snipers have to take this phenomenon (its called the Coriolis Effect..see the movie ‘Shooter’ for reference to this) into effect when practicing their craft. Anywho, you can’t see Cuba from Cay Sal as it is slightly over double the distance of the 11 miles threshold mentioned above. I thought that info might have interested you (thanks Dad!).

Ok, now onto the ocean stuff.

Cay Sal was a very neat place to visit. To me it seemed like the most wild place I’ve been to, I say that due to the vast distance from anything resembling civilization. All the other places I have seen have been usually just offshore of whatever island we were at, at the time of whichever trip we were on. Not that those islands themselves were not wild in their own right but this place was just out there in the middle of the ocean. We stayed on what is called a Live-Aboard boat called the Nekton Pilot (see pic below) which just travels around to various sites of interest to allow for diving there. Many of these sites are so far away from the closest port of call that they make day-trips impossible. So I wake up on day two after boating all night and move to the top deck of the boat to take a first look around and in the bright sun I stand with my arm on the shoulder of my brother Brad and for 360 degrees all we can see is water (again only 11 sq. mi. of water in any direction) but still…; the captain tells us that, per his GPS, we are in the middle of a desert made of water…as odd as that may sound.

I have to say that I really do enjoy that feeling of being so far away from everything, so far that I or we are totally on our own in many senses, so far away from anyone that if anything happens we will have to figure it out on our own. I know that sounds kinda scary, even typing it I had to read it again to be sure that I really meant what I just wrote. But I do mean it. Out there, we are quite literally in God’s ‘country’ if you will. Out there still, after thousands of years of human history, is largely untouched by man. Out there the animals and the weather rule absolutely. Their rule is completely unquestioned; an analogy of an iron scepter wouldn’t do it justice. {I think man’s best attempt to conquer the seas is the invention of the Oil Rig…and it really is a great try…but if a storm comes thru and its big enough, it really doesn’t matter how big your Rig or your boat is} It is so amazing to me to be able to pierce that world with my presence and observe as a frail human the way things go there, so far removed from my air-conditioned home, my anti-lock brakes, my noise canceling headphones or my 9 grain honey oat subway sandwich (foot long just so you know). It is a wild that so few in this world ruled by cities and sprawling metropolitan areas experience. Even I wish I could live in those worlds more often than I have the sincere privilege to do.

We dove off Bimini on the way south to Sal (from Ft. Lauderdale) on day one which was lots of fun; this was the locale of the night dive where the Barracuda was using my dive light to help hunt for small fish around the circumference of the coral head under our boat. For those of you who haven’t heard this story, here goes: we went under at about 6 pm and stayed under for about an hour, this allowed it to get completely dark during the first 10-20 minutes of our dive. We get to watch when the daytime creatures go to sleep in the cracks of the reef, at the same time the nighttime creatures begin to emerge from their lairs and prowl their territory for some dinner. The transition begins and slowly continues as we leisurely make our way around the coral heads in the area to observe what we can. The darkness deepens and thickens more and more drastically as our bottom time lengthens and soon we find ourselves alone in this pitch black liquid world gently rocking back and forth in the slight ocean surge. Our sealed flashlights provide the only real light (other than a slight glow from the moon), diver to diver communication drops to very near zero as the hand motions we normally use become even harder to do with a light in one hand so the goal becomes to stay together and share the ambient light from the other divers lights. Plus if any diver has a fear of the dark (*throat clears…not ME of course…) it also provides some comfort to be a bit closer to the others in the water, you know, strength in numbers and all – same as the fish, just check out the bait ball picture from my prior post. As my light passes slowly over the reefs periphery, the edge of the beam illuminates a fish or two floating a few inches above the reef-scape in the darkness; I wasn’t sure if the fish was sleeping or not, as it is fairly dangerous for prey like that to be so exposed in the water, but either way things would soon turn for the worst. Most night dives are not as focused on lots of motion as there is in the daylight so my eye is quickly drawn to any motion or movement that I might catch in whole or in part. I see a flash and a bit of movement to my far right, almost out of my view. My head moves quickly in that direction as does my flashlight beam but I see nothing there, wondering what that could have been I notice something slowly falling toward the sand, closer inspection shows them to be scales. My brow furrows slightly as I file that in the back of my head and move on with my exploration, unaware of what might be lurking just behind me.

I move away from the group a bit to take a gander at another coral head close by. On a night dive you are free to do just about anything you want, being limited only by your own fears of the ocean or the dark…or both. Some divers stay lock-step with the group, practically breathing down your neck and others wander off by themselves into the thick black of night (I just thought of yet another story of the night dive in Utila last year, THAT ONE is a doosie – more on that sometime later) My light moving slowly back and forth seeing what I can see and the flash occurs again, just a minute or so after the first one a few feet away. This time I saw more of a dark outline before the scales began their fall to the sandy bottom. Slowly turning around I muzzle my light with the palm of my left hand and quickly reveal the beam once I turn fully. The beam reveals a black/dark green and grey colored Great Barracuda about 3 feet away from me hanging motionless in the water. From the look of him (or her) I would estimate the length to be at least 2.5 feet long with a girth of approximately 5-7 inches in diameter. If you’ve ever seen a barracuda breathe you know what a sight you’d be in for if you were in my position – much like the moray eel the fish must open and close its mouth regularly to pass the water over its gills, of course the side effect of the opening and closing of the mouth is that all those in attendance get to check out the large and somewhat frightening array of super sharp teeth housed within the bacteria ridden mouth of the Cuda in question. Personally I don’t mind the barracudas at all but still it was a pretty amazing experience to behold and im sure many other would have wet themselves in their wetsuit upon witnessing such an event.

I thought it so cool that this fish determined that the hunting was better with my light than without it and actually followed me around just behind my head and picked off some fish with my help. WHAT A TEAM!!! Its also stunning to note just how quickly the cuda can move if he wants to; the word ‘impressive’ really does not do justice to the level of its acceleration. With a single tail flick the fish can be literally 40 feet plus away and in less than a single second. What a simple but supremely breathtaking sight to view! This has often caused me to look up at the sky and wonder just how many epic life and death battles and all the amazing feats of strength and speed and cunning of those involved that must be occurring in the world’s oceans even at this moment. It would be so cool to experience them! Perhaps the Lord will allow me to witness them once I am in the life to come.

Once again, I haven’t even gotten to the part about Cay Sal itself….or its resident sharks! More to come ladies and gents (assuming anyone reads this!) J

Utila, Honduras -- Whale Shark Experience pt.2

Allow me to set the stage for this next story as there are many factors that come in to play, without which you wont be able to share (at the very least, in some small part) in the feelings of those on the boat at the time. If you ever been deep sea fishing you know what its like to sit still or to putter around on the water in your boat for long periods of time with no real or tangible outcome. Now as a diver hearing stories over dinner of miscellaneous undersea spectacles as veiwed by those expereienced divers with decades of years spent traveling and seeing creatures that would amaze you - it should come as no real surprise that the epic Whale Shark is sort of akin to that of the Unicorn or something that is oft raved about and seldom seen by many, even those with hours upon hours of bottom-time logged. We spent about 20 or minutes watching the birds actually - I'll tell you why: here is how this all works, the birds circle the area from above, watching the shadows in the water herd the bait fish together into something called a 'boil' (these fast moving shadows being the Tuna), the Tuna are kind of like the sheepdogs of the ocean, the Tuna, working together and numbering sometimes in the hundreds, push the bait fish to the surface so they are trapped against the air with nowhere to go for escape, the whale shark follows the tuna (allowing them to do all the hard work) to the concentration of its dinner, once the bait fish or shrimp get close enough to the surface the birds actually dive down into the water (all the way down to 80+ feet deep, using their wings to move the water) to get at the fish - even with tuna and a huge whale shark in the area! Then the shark just comes in for the small fish and shrimps and all the tuna jump out of the way right before the shark eats a huge gulp of the bait ball. So we watch the birds and all of a sudden the fish hit the surface and theres all this splashing around and the birds are going crazy and now we know where to jump in - I guess that makes us crazy too huh...ah well, its fun!

They say they are large as a school bus underwater, that as they slowly pass by you and can almost count foot after foot between the head and dorsal fin and then count again from the fin to the tail. They say that if the tail hits you, it can knock a 300 pound man unconsious instantly. They say that in comparison the size of a man is so miniscule that if you can hang on to the fin of the fish, it wont even feel you hanging onto it. The fish could swallow you 100% effortlessly in its mouth which when opened is larger than the diameter of a dinner table that sits 6 people. But yet, the diet of the fish consists completely of shrimps and bait fish that are no bigger than your pinkie finger; in fact if it swallows anything larger that something that size it will actually expel it voluntarily. For its size it is the most gentle animal in the ocean, actual whales are the only other creature in the sea that can compare to its size and weight and girth and a whale is by nature and instinct a much more aggressive and territorial animal which obviously makes it quite a bit more dangerous for a person to be in the water with the latter as opposed to the former.

I think when you look at what it eats and, in relation to its size, how gentle and easy going its nature is that God has kind of struck a balance within this animal that would be the reverse of what many might think, certainly the reverse of what I would think. This thing is the biggest fish in the sea, literally, but yet it has no rows and rows of razor sharp teeth, no real aggression towards man, no real aggression towards any other sharks or inhabitants of its home turf. Also, God created it to feed wholly on a fish that is so small that even a man would have to eat over a pound to get full - this thing has to eat TONS of them per day. This means that it must travel l-o-n-g distances to find them (how does the fish know how to find them in the vast ocean?), then it has to get them grouped together (how does it get them in a tightly packed bunch to feed when it moves to slowly?), the shrimps have to mate AND reproduce AND grow to maturity at such a fast rate in order to not have their numbers wiped out by the sharks AND also to have enough around to feed the sharks seemingly endless hunger (think of the biggest guy you know and imagine how much food it takes to sate him at dinner time..then multiply that by a factor of 6 to 800 times). Now try to tell me that God is not amazing, try to tell me that God is not an ongoing part of this world, that He doesnt take extreme interest in even the smallest things (remember that these fish live and eat and die in a world that for the most part +95% of all people in all of history have not seen or experienced first hand)...why such a high level of detail and complexity for this particular chain in the eco-system that also no humans would ever know about? I find the ocean to house a plethora of mysteries like this, I find them over and over each time I go under to explore some more. See, there is another tangent for you! Tangents are my bread and butter...ok moving on...

So the dive boat is setup in such a way that there are two rows of air tanks and the rows of divers sit facing each other before the dive begins, well when you are searching for whale sharks the divers don their snorkel (not scuba) gear and sit on the little bench behind the tanks facing out to the ocean on each side (see pic). Then you hang onto the railing behind your back and dangle your legs and fins just above the water as the captain slowly positions the boat at the best spot to view the fish. So eventually the engines are cut and the OK is given to enter the water, as you can imagine the fall from 3 or 4 feet over the water will cause a bit of a splash and when 25 people jump at the same time from both sides of the boat the splash is pretty big and can serve to scare the fish away as sudden quicks movement and white water are signs of danger in the animal world. Well it happened exactly this way and after I entered the water and the bubbles cleared some I could see the 25 foot long giant in the water vertically under the boat. Talk about seeing it at an odd angle, it was opening and closing its mouth against the white hull of the boat as though it was trying to nurse its mother or something. When we all jumped in we actually jumped in all around it and surely surprised the heck out of the poor guy. He started moving away below us, at a fairly good 'clip', moving to the other side of the boat actually and toward open water. Now I go the gym 2 to 3 times per week and I really wanted to see this fish (we came to Honduras particularly to see this guy) so I came up, took a big gulp of air and dove down, swimming under the hull of the boat and down to about 15 feet under the surface following the shark. I was kicking those fins as hard as I could, rapidly using up that gulp of air! I began to acend and took another breath while still maintaining my fast fin kicks, I probably followed him (or her) for 60 feet before the giant began to slow a bit. It was kind of funny to notice how this thing was leisurely swimming along using only a gentle tail kick and yet it was gaining on me and I was kicking as hard as I could. Boy, I felt like a fish out of water (sorry for that horrible pun). At this point, I must have been well over 150 feet from the boat, alone, with this behemoth in probably about 2,000+ feet of open water. The fish slowed and actually came to a bit of a halt in the water about 20 feet below me, I stopped kicking and laid there over it watching and breathing easy. I was doing all I could to take it all in. After a few minutes together just looking at each other, the fish stirred slowly to the left so a second after it I matched its movement, it slowed again and then moved its enormous head to the right, so again I kicked twice to my right, I kicked horizonally in the water so I wouldnt make much sound or splash as I certainly didnt want to scare the beast off. It stopped again, but soon started moving again, just a slow back and forth of the tail so I was able to keep up quite effortlessly. Taking a small breath a went under a bit to gauge its comfort level with my proximity and sure enough it descended some as I came down a bit too. Obviously it was a bit timid after such a sudden exposure with a bunch of people. Back to the surface I went and the fish rose slightly as I distanced myself from it again...seemed like it was OK with 15-20 feet between us but not any less. My ear broke the surface at that moment and I could hear the dive boat moving over toward us; knowing the noise would certainly prompt the fish to move away, either deeper or laterally, I took a big breath and dove straight down hoping to get to touch the giant before they plucked me from the water. The fish was waiting for me to do this I think for as soon as I reached 5 feet under it had already started moving down into deeper water, I again kicked hard anyways but couldnt catch it, I probably went down maybe 35-40 feet and it was a good ways below me so I bid my friend adu and came up again slowly to meet the boat as it got nearer to me. This experience was the second of two sightings we had of two different fish. The Captain told us that this guy was the bigger of the two, measuring about 25 feet long (making him/her a juvenile, not having even reached adulthood yet). The first one we saw was a baby at about 15 feet long - that viewing was only about 5 seconds long as it moved past the boat and all of us snorkelers quite fast diving down at the same time. Obviously I was much happier with my one-on-one experience described above.

Oh, all I had at the time was one of those crap-quality plastic Walmart underwater cameras so the pix above that are super grainy were taken with that thing. At least they are some sort of memento of our time there seeing such an amazing animal! Hopefully not the last time we see it too! Hope you enjoyed that story!

Utila, Honduras -- Whale Shark Experience pt.1

I haven’t looked over my dive log lately and that, perhaps, is why I am finding it a bit difficult to remember any further big 'eyebrow raising' experiences we had while in the South Pacific (though I am sure there were many more that can be shared...more later possibly); none the less, I thought it prudent to mention another great experience I had the pleasure of enjoying somewhat recently. That being our contact (not physical contact of course) with 2 whale sharks in Honduran waters. Here we go:

A full week of diving around the island had passed by and with a single week remaining and to date no sights of a whale shark yet we were slowly becoming increasingly disillusioned about the prospect of finding one. I am sure this same feeling has been felt by hundreds and thousands of avid divers throughout the last 30+ years of recreational (and professional/commercial) oceanic exploration! This tense, uncertain feeling in the pit of our collective stomachs was not without some reprieves at different times though; let me explain: after the first morning dive we were puttering around the area during our surface interval watching the surrounding water for 'boils' of bait fish driven to the surface by predators below as this is the tell-tale method of finding anything of note in such a vast empty ocean. Off to starboard about 150 feet in front of the boat we see just such a boil; hoping a whale shark is below, a wave of excitement washes over those on board. As we slowly close in on the boil we are treated to something entirely different: a ~5 foot long striped marlin we see snapping up those baitfish as a morning snack with much enthusiasm! The water was so clear and since the marlins depth was not more than 2 feet under at any moment, we could not help but see the full coloration of this sides as well as the slight wave action of his color changes from purple to blue to red to dark green while he was feeding. This is done as another way to confuse and disorient his prey at the moment before they are eaten. Kind of brutal, I know, but so wild and still amazingly perfect in its balance too. That fact I feel is undeniable. It was a true pleasure to see such an amazing predator in the wilds of nature, his place in the world. Yet another event of which I am humbled to have witnessed.

On another day, we had a joy of spending our surface interval snorkeling with a pod of wild dolphins numbering approximately 50-65 members. We saw them coming towards us a short way off our bow and we all quickly suited up in snorkels, masks & fins to meet them in the water as they approached us. I entered the water and as fast as I could I moved far away from the rest of the crowd and floated there in the water by myself waiting for our looming contact. I even tried to make some high pitched dolphin-like sounds as I waited for them. Most likely to no avail at all but at the time it felt like the right thing to do to at least alert them that I was there (hoping them would come to investigate me closer). As I lay there, my back barely breaking the surface as the ocean gently jostles be back and forth a bit my eyes are locked in their direction as I keep my head just under the surface. Times passes slowly and the anticipation grows so I pop up to check on the distance to see where their dorsal fins are breaking the surface and if they are still oncoming toward my position in relation to the boat and the other divers. They are, I am right in their path. After that confirmation, my head quickly goes back under and I watch even more intently for them. Finally, I see some faint movements in the water, 25+ dark shapes moving up and down approaching me; with my heart beating faster now I cannot help making a few more high pitched dolphins sounds like you hear on the Discovery Channel (please don’t laugh too hard). They come into full view and seem to slow a bit as they see me in person. I had heard a few chirps and beeps from them as they use their sonar ability to map out the path in front of them so I already knew that they knew exactly where I was already. I laid in the water largely motionless as the pod parted to the left and right around me, giving me a birth of about 15 feet. My head darting around quickly now, trying to take it all in I noticed a few, maybe 8 to 9 members, from the next little group coming toward me diving to pass by me from below, not to be outdone I take a large breath and dive straight down to try to meet them in our mystical underwater nexus. I kick hard to gain the depth I think I will need to have a good look-see. Keeping my eyes on the group I see a head look up toward me as an extension of the downward kick, at this point I am 5 feet away, and can clearly see all the markings and some scars on their backs as they pass below me (indeed ocean life is a tough life). They pass below me as others pass me on either side and as the pod slowly goes by in its entirety I am left knowing fully how unsuited for this place I am as a man but yet connected and deeply moved to see this sight and for even a few excellent moments to have been a part of their pod, as the weakest link most certainly but I like to think of my presence as a part none the less. Go ahead, call me crazy… :)

Ok, so I don’t think I will be getting to the actual story of the whale sharks in this post, but that is kind of my style isn’t it?!?! We will save that for next time and I promise I will get right into it then. I will leave you with a final story about yet another dolphin experience we had on the exact opposite side of the island during a surface interval during our first week of diving there in Utila. As ocean experiences go, I am sure the word 'risqué' doesn’t usually factor in much at all, but what we saw while on the boat was, for lack of a better term quite 'risqué' indeed. We notice some splashing and movement at the surface about 200 feet off the port side of the boat, almost directly abeam of us and our Captain 'Waggy' (Wagner) starts to move us over in that direction as we can investigate closer. I am looking intently now and can see flashes of white and dark blue/grey very near the surface. I start to wonder if it is sharks feeding or fighting with other sharks or dolphins or something. As we close in it becomes much more obvious: what we are seeing is dolphins mating, hence the white underbelly coloration as the females turn over for the males. Upon seeing this, the Dive Masters start to tell us some random facts about this topic: that dolphins don’t just mate for procreation but rather for the propagation of close feelings of community & togetherness, that a female will mate with multiple males at the same time and that males will mate with each other also - this being more for the maintaining of that strong connection within the pod (to keep the pod in close 'emotional' contact if you will). I found these facts very surprising as you could probably imagine, ESPECIALLY...no surprise here...the last one I just shared with you! None the less, some of us requested permission to enter the water in snorkel gear to observe more closely the activity we were having some trouble viewing from the surface, as the immense glare from the sun was difficult to see through, even with sun glasses on. We were promptly told "No" with the following reason: during mating and feeding times, dolphins many times take on a much different 'persona' than that of what most humans associate with them. This is much like your family dog being fun loving and gentle to your children but when eating his food in his bowl, that same dog may snap or growl a bit at those same kids when they approach him at that time. One Dive Master told us a story of how a snorkeler was actually rammed by a couple dolphins after entering the water close-by while some in the pod were mating. He was rammed so hard that their hard snouts tore his skin and broke a few ribs to boot. For sure, a recreational diver doesn’t need to hear more than a couple stories similar to this one to start thinking "maybe I'll stay on the boat this time!!" What a thought!
Ok I think that's all for now. See you next time.

Fiji, South Pacific pt.4

Apart from the occasional large sized reef fish or pelagic, i found Fiji to consist more of smaller sized life, mostly found on the bottom, nestled between the sharp rocks and hard corals which litter the sea floor. From the hundreds if not millions of varieties of small gelatin-ish nudibranchs (yes thats the actual name for them) to the massive red, grey & yellow starfish to the hundreds of sea cucumbers and all the little fish that live on the sand in small nooks, their coloring perfectly blending them in with their surroundings, shades of ivory, greens, browns, blacks, tans, etc,...where you can only see them when you get close and they flinch - darting back into their den. hope you saw them then, cuz you'll have to wait motionlessly for another few minutes for them to emerge again!

The starfish were by far the largest i had seen in all of my H2O experience. they were so thick! some were over 2.5 inches thick in the middle with shorter, fatter, stubbier arms protruding outwards. These are called 'Cushion Stars'. Most Caribbean starfish are much flatter but with much longer thinner arms extending out, making them look more like a persons hand than a roadside traffic cone. Truly a neat difference to see. I still like to put a starfish on my open hand and leave it for a few seconds to feel it start to stick. I feel like if i leave it for too long, when i pull it off it will take some skin with it, though of course this hasnt happened yet!

Why not, ill do a paragraph on sea cucumbers...the turds of the deep. we were able to see actually 3 types of these guys while in Fiji! The first 2 types looked basically the same with slight coloration differences while the third one looked so drastically different that i was too timid to pick it up (not that anyone should just go around touching random, possibly poisonous, marine life). Colors were white one light green for the first one, and more of a banded white and dark green/grey for the second (i believe the dive master called this a Tiger Cucumber, which i think is funny cuz to me you cant get much farther from a real tiger than a peice of poop that hardly moves on the ocean floor..but anways...) and the last was by far the most 'floral' of the group with bright red 'fingers' all over a dark purple on the body. Mr. Red and Purple has me so perplexed that i really didnt want to touch as so many ocean creatures that are brightly colored are highly venomous! You will have to check out my FB page for some pictures of what i am talking about in this post. Ok, thats all for now. more to follow!

Fiji, South Pacific pt.3

My posts are becoming more and more spaced out...guess i havent been in too much of a writing mood lately. Perhaps due to a case of 'mainland depression' coupled with a sense of 'soon-to-be-unemployed-itis'. I have had weighty things on my mind. Poor me. Ok onto the meat of the post:

I think it is really sort of difficult to classify the experience with the Pacific because of a few different things: cold water, local hospitality, island climate, accomodation quality, time of year, wildlife. A diver who is simply out of his/her element regarding the items listed in the preceeding sentence, in my opinion, cannot give a real valuation to a trip to an environment as it compares to a diving experience elsewhere in the Pacific or in the Caribbean/Atlantic; its apples and oranges as I see it.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, including me, and their rating of the time they had at any certain place should carry some weight but my point is that a divers dislike of certain aspects of a trip to a new place should in some sense be taken with a grain of salt. It would be terrible to rate a resort or ocean locale poorly due to unfamiliarity. If I dont like the cold water, OK, but I need to remember that the Pacific is...well...cold (colder than the Caribbean on any day), even during their summer months! Its just the way it is. Therefore, it has to be asked: is it a negative? Well, if someone desires to be a part of an experience with the abundance of life that calls the Peaceful Sea home, then you have to live with a wetsuit of at least 3 mil (4 to 7 mil is better). I thought it was important to make that distinction before moving on in my description of our time at Wananavu.

A description of the northwestern coast of Viti Levu in the winter season (September) and the daily trip out to the Bligh Waters absolutely would not be complete without some words on the boat ride out through those 'choppy' seas. As I write this, my brain struggles to think of an analogy fitting enough to give the reader some sense of what it was like. Ok here goes - lets say you have a metal lawn chair, like one found in someones back yard maybe, ok so if you were to stand up and hold the chair behind you then jump up as high as you can and instead of landing on your feet, land in a sitting position instead. The jarring SLAM of your bottom onto the metal seat will give you some idea of the experience. Of course, to get the full affect, imagine a slam like that every 2 - 9 seconds for the hour long trip each way. Yikes! My family really does those extreme adventure type vacations that most people probably arent into as much as I am.

One great benefit of a dive trip in cold water is ~usually~ a higher degree of underwater visibilty. I think we enjoyed this to some extent at least while trying to search out sleeping blacktip reef sharks sleeping on the sandy bottom of the ocean as we passed by them. We did manage to find more than a few during our hours amongst the fishies; I hope to post some video of that to my Facebook page one of these days.

I think in large degree, and I have probably said this before, the oceans topography out there was just as impressive as the vast quantity and vivid colors of its marine residents. The amount of caves, overhangs, gradual to sheer drops from the vibrant lively shallows down into the dreary grayscale largely lifeless depths of the abyss, random depressions and narrow tunnels in the ocean bottom or in the vertical face of the rock walls, the sandy 'rivers' that seem to be carved at random through the pastures of hard corals of all sorts of colors and textures, dotted with bright jello-soft anenomes in various shades and blendings of reds, oranges, greens and yellows all waving in the gentle back-and-forth ebb-and-flow of the oceans morning 'breeze'. Needless to say, I am and have forever been trapped, captivated and absolutely addicted to the awe that such sights inspire. I truly experience God, and the immense creative ability of Jesus Christ in the making of His planet, in almost no other way than being in the ocean or in nature of some kind.

Fiji, South Pacific pt.2

After that brunch we, Brad & I, moved on to our Bure (another name for Cabin) which was a short walk down the path toward the beach. We enjoyed it very much as it had a decidedly rustic look and feel to it as they designed it with hardwoods a-plenty. The beds were very comfortable and the patio was great too, though it would have been nice to have a more unobstructed view of the ocean from there (too many palm trees in the way). I enjoyed sitting out there smoking my pipe, feeling the breeze from open water and listening to the sea birds chirp at each other! The pool had a small but fairly tall waterfall and some boulders afixed in the pool at the shallow end, I brought a few books to read through and it was great to sit by the pool and read with the waterfall in the background. The locals were nicer to us than I was prepared for and alot of fun as well! The amount of down-time or re-covery time that you have after diving allows for alot of relaxation even though for many, it all may be needed after fighting and swimming against the ocean current for the better part of 45 minutes twice or more per day.