November 28, 2024
It’s Thanksgiving Day. We got up at the usual time to go diving, and Chover arrived at 7:15 to pick us up, which was good. He deposited us at Tank’d by 7:30, and we arranged for him to pick us up both tomorrow for diving and Saturday morning to catch the ferry to La Ceiba.
Diving today are the three divemasters-in-training with Magda, and Michael, an American living in Tegucigalpa and a French Canadian woman whose name I did not catch. For now, we’ll call her Greta, because both Nathan and I felt she had similar characteristics to “Greta” from Austria on our Peruvian Amazon adventure.
Because it’s a holiday, and I’m feeling charitable, I won’t delve into her unpleasant traits. But know that I’m grateful this Thanksgiving that we only dove with her one day on this vacation.
The first dive site was Iron Bound, and it was a good long boat ride to the north side of the island. The site was fascinating and had tall coral walls and pinnacles, with a sandy bottom at 60 feet. There was a lot of current, so we wove in and out of the coral walls following Mariam. Michael had not been diving for two years, struggled a bit, and ended up using his oxygen before the rest of us. Mariam sent him to the surface, helped him with his safety stop, and onto the boat, and then came back to join the rest of us underwater to finish the dive.
Once on the boat, we had a snack, and George our boat captain, drove us to the second dive site. On the way there, we found a mysterious object floating in the sea. The thing was large, heavy, and rusty with sharp edges, but we attempted to get it onto the boat, with no success.
The second dive site was closer to the bay, and was called Radar Reef. The five of us descended and followed the reef in one direction. It was easier to spread out, and there was a lot less current. We stayed under the surface for over 60 minutes, and I still had 1300 psi remaining.
We saw Queen Angelfish, French Angelfish, an eel, banded coral shrimp, cleaner shrimp, lettuce slugs, indigo Hamlet, Black Durgon, moon jelly, yellow head Jawfish, and lots of parrotfish with their huge toothy grins.
After the dives, we walked home, with a stop at the grocery store for sandwich cheese.
Once at home, we fixed our lunches and sat on the porch. It’s been sunny today, so we’re loving the weather and our view.
We went out snorkeling at about 2 pm, and we stayed out until nearly 4 pm. The water is not that clear, but we both saw spotted eagle rays, a remora, a southern ray, a flounder, a couple cowfish, a spotted trunkfish, a smooth trunkfish, French and Queen Angelfish, a few lionfish, and more parrotfish.
Once we got out of the water and showered, we filled out our dive books before heading to Thanksgiving dinner at the local Italian restaurant.
Tomorrow is our last full day on the island before we head home to the real world.
