Sea Horses!

Sarah looking for fish

We did two more dives this afternoon. On the first dive, the girls did different adventure dives. Sarah wanted to do a Fish ID dive while Emily decided on Search and Recovery. Sarah's job was to swim around and look for interesting fish to identify in a book later. Emily used a compass to practice search patterns while looking for sea horses. She ended up finding five--three while she was doing the patterns and another two while we were swimming around later in the dive. She also used a lift bag to raise a weight belt from the bottom. 

The second dive was Peak Performance Buoyancy. They practiced skills like fin pivots and hovering and then had some fun while practicing further. We set up PVC squares with a weight in the middle to form an obstacle course. They had to swim through the first hoop, drop down to the sand to knock over a weight with their regulator, and then swim through the second. After that, they did it on their backs. Finally, everyone took off their fins and had a race along the sand before the activities switched to underwater ballet and slow-motion fights. 

Upside-down Jellyfish

Aside from the sea horses, my favorite find was Upside-down Jellyfish. These lie on the bottom with their bells against the sand their tentacles pointing up. At first glance, I thought it was an anemone or maybe a soft coral. I was excited! I've seen these in aquariums but never in the wild. 

Lined Seahorse

Long-snout Seahorse

An enchanting echinoderm!

More of the obstacle course

Emily doing the obstacle course on her back

Not an efficient way to travel underwater, in case
you're wondering

Sarah doing her own stunts

Advanced Adventure Dives

Emily and Sarah began their Advanced Open Water course today. This morning started early and they completed the two required Adventure dives, a deep dive and a navigation dive. 

The deep dive was done at a site that was new to me, too. It's called Black Hills. The site is actually a sea mount just off shore on the north side of the island. The top of the mount is about 30 feet deep. From there, you can follow the side down, probably past recreational limits (130 feet) if you go long enough. We went to 95 feet. 

Emily doing a back roll
entry (aka James Bond roll)
off Octopussy.

Sea mounts are unique due to the number of fish they attract. Especially if the sea mount is further from shore than this one, the mount serves as a refueling station, of sorts, for fish. It is a place to find food, a place where you can get cleaned by wrasse, and a nursery. This one attracts some fish which I haven't seen often on dives on the shallower reefs. We saw Queen Triggerfish (rarely seen above 85 feet or so around here), Black Durgan (another species of Trigger), and more jellyfish than I've ever seen on a dive, among other things. 

For the navigation dive, we went to a site called Ted's Point. The major item of interest at Ted's Point is a boat that was sunk at about 60 feet, creating an artificial reef. It's not big enough to go inside (it looks like it might have been an old dive boat) but you can peer through a couple windows and into other nooks and crannies. We swam around the reef for a little and then the girls had to lead everyone else back to the boat. Highlights of the dive were Brown Garden Eels and a gigantic puffer fish. 

Sarah doing a giant stride entry off the boat.

Sarah striking a pose. I think it's a heart, you'll have to
ask her to be sure.

Robyn and I at Ted's Point

The picture doesn't do this justice. This puffer was
probably a foot long.

No, Emily's not Asian at all! Why do you ask?

Scuba Tune-up

The girls went down to Utila Dive Center this afternoon and did a Scuba Tune-up. They reviewed all the skills they learned back in their Open Water courses in preparation for starting Advanced Open Water tomorrow. For the course, they have Maya as an instructor (the same instructor we worked with for Robyn's Rescue course) and she worked with them today for the tune-up. Robyn and I snorkeled around the dock and took photos from the surface while they worked. I'm signed up to be a DMT on their course and it will knock out one of the last things on my checklist for completing my own course. 

As for my own course, I'm almost done! I took and passed my second exam while the girls were doing their tune-up. I have to complete the map that I started a couple days ago and enter the Coral Watch data. That, paired with leading a dive during the Advanced course, will be all I need to be done!! 

Finding gear

Setting up gear under Maya's watchful eye

Practicing skills underwater

"Sisters, sisters..."

We have house guests again! This time, it's my two little sisters. Ok, fine, for the sake of exactitude and the aforementioned sisters who will argue with the term "little" (they're both as tall or taller than me), my younger sisters. Sarah and Emily flew in this afternoon and they'll be leaving at the same time I do. 

Yup, I'm getting down to nearly single digits of days left on Utila. Anyway, still have some diving left (I'm helping on the girls' Advanced Open Water course) and hopefully a nest of turtle hatchlings!! 

Our ATV can comfortably fit four with a little creative
seating arrangement. We look like natives now!

Emily joining us in our baleada dinner.

100 Dives and Counting

This afternoon, I logged dive number 100! I have now spent more than 3 days of my life underwater. It was beautiful weather for a dive and Black Coral Wall had awesome visibility. It's also one of my longest dives to date at an hour and 25 minutes long. I love tropical diving! I worked on a map of the dive site as part of my DMT requirements and then we just swam around till the class on our boat was ready to leave. 

Oh, and if anyone was wondering, I use an Olympus Stylus Tough for an underwater camera. It's rated to only 33 ft but that's deep enough to reach the top of the reef and it can take some nice shots. (The camera can survive a deeper dive but the buttons don't work due to the ambient pressure. I had it on a dive a few days ago where we ended up with a maximum depth of 65 feet. It wouldn't turn on at depth but it worked perfectly fine once we ascended.)

A juvenile parrotfish eating

A Flamingo Tongue on a piece of coral

Black Coral. What the site is named for and a very
valuable coral if you dare risk the fine if you're caught with it.

My dive buddy

Fire coral. Don't touch!

Four-eye Butterflyfish

Practicing blowing bubble rings. Absolutely a required
 dive skill in order to be awesome.

These Gray Angelfish showed up as we were blowing
our bubble rings. They were only about a foot and
a half away from us.

My beautiful bubble ring! I'm finally getting really good at them.

Pollution, more Pollution, and Parades

 Yesterday, Robyn and I began working on a pollution assessment on the beach were we've been monitoring turtles. (Pollution, take one.) Eventually, we'd like to be able to test whether the amount of pollution on a given beach affects the speed with which hatchlings can reach the water. We're definitely looking forward to racing baby turtles. And transecting the beach for pollution coverage is definitely faster than transecting for profiling. 

In the evening, the dive festival had a parade of lights in the bay. Nearly every dive shop sent out a boat, decked in lights. Some even had spinning disco balls and were decorated with palm fronds. Or entire potted palms. One boat had an air horn and, on board another, someone was setting off fireworks. 

This morning was another dive festival activity--an underwater cleanup. (Pollution, take two.) Instead of just head out to one of the cays and do a short cleanup, Utila Dive Center's boat went out for a dive and then moved to our cleanup spot. Unfortunately, I seem to have contracted a cold in the last few days and, while I could descend to about 30 feet with no problems, below that, one sinus threw a fit. Fortunately, the top of the reef was at about 25 feet and I was thus able to complete a Coral Watch survey for my divemaster course. UDC is participating in the Coral Watch survey by Project AWARE to help monitor coral bleaching. These surveys are being done all over the world and the data is sent to a single database so researchers have access to worldwide information about reefs. DMTs at UDC are required to survey 60 pieces of coral during their training and submit their data to Coral Watch. Anyway, hoping things clear up soon so I can do some diving in my last couple weeks here. 

Time to head off to the closing ceremonies of the dive festival!

Collecting data for Coral Watch. Somehow
I do research even in my free time from research...

Robyn helping with the underwater cleanup.

Prizes!

At the beginning of the dive festival, everyone got a passport that was both an entrance ticket to events, a discount card for some restaurants, and an entry to various raffles. Almost every evening, the various programs have had drawings for all sorts of gear and cameras, plus a few larger prizes like stays in dive resorts and dive courses. Last night, I got two things! 

First, I won a Scubapro hat at a presentation on whale sharks. Yay! Later that evening, I entered a bid in a silent auction at another festival event. I wasn't sure exactly how much the item I was bidding on was worth, but I figured $40 was a fairly low bid. Turns out it was a low bid in relation to what the item's worth but enough to win me the item. I am now the owner of a DiveRite surface marking buoy and slate. Also turns out that the buoy alone costs around $100. Hopefully my luck holds through the photo contest tomorrow night!

Dolphins and a Fish Dive

This morning, the dive festival event was a Fish ID dive. Last night, a presentation was given covering the basic families of fish that can be found on a reef. Today, we went out and took notes on some fish we saw so we could identify ones we were unfamiliar with when we got back to the shop. 

We went to a dive site on the north side of Utila called Blackish Point. On the ride out, we spotted a small pod of Spinner Dolphins!!! A poll was quickly taken and it was decided that the dive would be delayed long enough that those who wanted could snorkel with the dolphins. Robyn and I definitely wanted to. There were about five dolphins and they hung around for about 15 minutes. Jumping in the water with dolphins is exciting. You may not be able to see them all the time, but you can easily hear the clicks and whistles they send out to communicate and navigate. 



Blackish Point is my favorite Utila dive site, so far, and it's perfect for a drift dive. When you enter the water, the reef is sitting about 40 feet below you. Then, there's a short drop off to a sandy corridor at around 65 feet that follows the coral wall. As you swim along the wall, there are all sorts of indentations and holes that you can swim into looking for more creatures. It's also the only spot on the island where you can see Midnight Parrotfish--a large (the one we saw was easily 2 feet long), blue parrotfish. We also saw a lot of surgeon fish, jacks, wrasse, and damsel fish.

Certainly makes up for sleeping through our dive yesterday. By far, one of the most exciting dives I've had here on Utila!