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Friday morning there were two dives scheduled, but we decided to do just one since we needed to rinse our gear and start to pack. We were moored at Mary's Place again and went down and found one of the sea horses. As we wandered around the site Rick was taking pictures when one of the Damsel Fish zipped right up and nipped at his arm to tell him to back off (it left a mark!). It startled Rick who looked around for the culprit, once he realized what had happened, Randy could see him chuckle. They really don't like you to get near their eggs! Then we headed back to the boat for the last time for the week.
We had done a grand total of 24 dives! That puts us at 52 dives total. Back on board everyone was spreading their gear out to dry, it looked like a giant yard sale on the top deck. Randy talked with another passenger, Terry, about buying his underwater navigation system and decided to get it. Should make for a fun toy for the next trip. Another gadget we got to try out was a hand held satellite phone that Rusty had with him. His friend actually owns the company and had loaned the phone to Rusty to let people try it out. The call quality was great, and it works over about 80% of the globe. Might be a nice security blanket to have stashed in a bag for these trips! The boat was docked at the Fantasy Island Resort, which is a nice looking place with lots of bungalows right on the beach. Rather than do one of the organized tours, we decided to rent a taxi for the afternoon. We stopped first at the "Iguana Farm" were we saw several dozen iguanas lounging around. They dumped out some lettuce for them to eat and they all made a big pile on top of it as they munched on lunch. We went down to the water and they had a pen with turtles, tarpin, lobster and even a few trunk fish. They tossed chopped squid into the water and we watched as everyone fought over the food. The little trunk fish managed to get a big piece, even though it moves around in such an awkward way. Next we went to a canopy tour which consists of eleven steel cables that run from tree to tree, with a suspended metal platform at each station. The whole thing drops 2800 feet, and ends up right on the beach. It must have been almost two miles of cables, several of which were very fast! The way that you slow down is with a leather glove on your right hand that you use to pull down on the cable with. We didn't really see much of the wildlife along the way, but we did have a great time speeding down the lines!
After driving back to the boat (driving in Roatan is quite an experience, passing in crazy places and people crowding the road in the denser areas) we changed and got ready for the cocktail party and open house. They were opening up the boat for people from the resort to come aboard and see it. We set the laptop out with a slide-show of our best pictures from the week and were very pleased to hear a number of positive comments about them. About an hour later our transportation to dinner arrived and a large group of us headed to Gio's for seafood. Dinner was great, lots of laughing, joking and a general good time. The boat was full of really wonderful people and we had a great time hanging out with them. The portions were large and we were given hammers to break open the lobster and crab. The aftermath on the table was quite amazing! Back on the boat we sat on the back deck for a while and talked with everyone for a while, then headed to our cabin to get some sleep. We still hadn't packed, so we're have to get up early to do it in the morning. Saturday We woke up at 6am so we could pack. Amazingly everything fit back into the luggage it had arrived in. We only had to expand one of the suitcases. Over breakfast we said our good byes to some of the passengers and traded emails with them. Hopefully we'll keep in touch with many of them, they were lots of fun to dive with. Our gear was packed on the shuttle and we all went to the airport where we checked in and waited around for our flight. Getting on the plane we noticed that the air conditioning was blowing out huge quantities of mist due to the high humidity. It was like a fog machine in a club, all they needed was disco lights! The flight to Houston was not too full, so we grabbed three seats and were able to stretch out.
Once in Houston we again marveled at how terribly the airport is set up. Long lines winding through the customs area with no definition to them, confined areas for re-checking baggage, narrow concourses with electric carts forcing travellers to the sides (and the operators yelling "mind the cart please" constantly); it seems they never considered what the terminal would be like with people in it while they were planning construction. We found a Subway and grabbed a sandwich, then sat near our gate and giggled at the constantly repeated security reminders on the P.A. system and the diversity of the people walking by. After three hours of lay-over, three and a half hours on a packed flight to SFO, and a half hour limo ride, we were finally home! We ordered a pizza and headed for bed. It had been a fantastic week, awesome weather (we saw one rain storm one day while we moved the boat during lunch), an awesome bunch of divers, a fantastic crew and a great boat. It really seems that divers are a fun bunch. Everyone wants to be there, and there's a common interest in what they're doing. We're really enjoying this new sport! Many thanks to the crew: Irwin, Eddy, Slim, Randolph, Jergen and Candy and also to our fellow divers: Martha, Chuck, Michelle, Kim, Chandler, Scott, Tom, Joe, Pete, Sherry, Rusty, Franklin, Anne, Roslyn, Cindy, Kyle and Terry. They all made us feel really welcome and made the week really special. We hope to dive with many of them again over the coming years. We spoke quite a bit with the other divers about other places to dive, right now it looks like Belize and Fiji are at the top of our list. Now we need to work on several of our local friends and get them signed up for a trip to Belize in May! Stay tuned! |
