I was super excited to get pictures off our veranda, but couldn't get Alisa's camera to work, so she ended up outside with me too. We got a "we woke up like this" pajama shot. Not sure that one is going to be all that public since my oversized shirt is billowing like a sail.
But we did our typical morning routine - grab some internet, then sit in a lounge chair outside and read until breakfast. I studied some more reef fish as well - there are so many!
Breakfast was omelettes, then the 8 o'clock boat time was a loose 8 o'clock as John and Denroy stroll up about five after.
It was windy this side of the atoll, so it was back up to the Rendezvous area. We actually repeated a dive site! The glum weather was making me feel glum, and having a repeat site made me think twice about not just going on the Atoll Adventure program today to try to find manatees. The Terrace was blooming, though, and the water temperature is the same at 82'F whether it is cloudy or not.
The first dive, we saw a free swimming moray. Wasn't quite the psycho eel of a few days ago, but it really got into Denise's face while she was taking a picture, but she didn't notice until it swam away.
I didn't get as deep as the others, but I did see the big channel crab that the group was flocked around before it scurried under the coral.
Today was "hamlet" day - Denroy wanted us to try our hand at identifying those small, longjawed, triangle fish. I saw an indigo one and a black one (actual names of hamlets, by the way), but he saw the butter and a tan as well. He's also got a few years of experience on me.
We got a few little lionfish that dive, but left them for the groupers and the moray. We had drifted along The Terrace until we were at Molly's Folly, then John swung by in the boat.
Up for a surface interval, some pineapple, and very nearly a nap on the bow, but then we were back into it.
The second dive had much more on my "checklist". (I say that because once I see it, I feel like I should have seen it, so I add it posthumously.) At the beginning of the dive, Alisa spotted a sting ray cruising over the coral. At the end of the dive, she spotted a spotted nudibranch. (Those are well-branded sea slugs - we saw some in Thailand.)
There were not one but three types of morays this dive - a green one swam right up to Denise's camera, then I found a spotted one with only its head out, but a similar size as the green. It is apparently more aggressive than the green though. The final golden tailed moray was a mite smaller - just his little head peeking out.
I did a tighter swim through that Ron and Lee Ellyn had done. Not a lot interesting underneath except practicing the buoyancy and steering.
What I was proud of that dive was spotting a resting turtle. Alisa had cruised right over the hawksbill, but his shape stood out to me for some reason - you seen these creatures in their natural habitat and you understand what camouflage really is.
I was also excited to spot and identify a scrawled cowfish. They differ from their puffer cousins by having horns over their eyes (and they don't inflate when harassed). This is a very awkward-looking fish; its like a rectangular toaster strudel was made into a diamond, given eyes, horns, and a tail, then dunked in blue, scribbled on in yellow, and let loose again.
So maybe that's a long, contrived process, but the scrawled cowfish was cool to bumble along with, ok?
Each of the dives today whizzed by, even though I was chillier and less impressed than at the beginning of the week. We all had ordered quite a lot of food for lunch, so we ate it on the bow while John amused us with stories of men and drawn out punchlines. Alisa abandoned ship to snorkel instead, the jokes were so bad.
Our third dive was at an unnamed site south of Chasbo's Corner, which we did on Monday. It was a similar fish-filled wonderland. There were big schools of blue tang mating, and we saw another two hawksbill sea turtle on the ledge above the wall.
Everyone was getting to the end of their bottom time, so a lot of us stayed at 40 feet. Ron and Denise - diving Nitrox - could still go deeper and later than us, but it wasn't too much of a sacrifice to hang out on the shelf instead of the wall.
Ron found a rockfish - scorpionfish according to Denroy. I pointed out a shiny, funny-looking fish to Haydee, and she identified it as a hogfish. (She also laughed later in the boat that I was lucky because she doesn't know a lot of fishes, so I picked one she knew!) I found another huge tiger tailed sea cucumber.
And then there were the lionfish. I found two big ones, but they were too close to each other, so Denroy only got one.
We didn't see any big eel, just another golden tail, so we got to keep the fish.
We were nearly back to the resort when John called out dolphins! There were a few of us ready to jump in, but they were being shy, so I stayed on the boat while Alisa, Haydee, and Lee Ellyn floated in the water. We circled them with the boat a few times, trying to tempt the dolphins closer to the swimmers, but it didn't happen. Got a few fun pictures, but that was it.
These were bottlenose - I knew the ones from Saturday weren't bottlenose, but I didn't know they were "spinners" until Denroy told us today.
I might have harassed Denroy a bit to make sure he cleaned the lionfish so we could eat them. I've heard they are good, and the others have been lusting after some ceviche.
So, we got back, I showered, then I went back to learn how to fillet a fish. Haydee popped over to keep us company and take pictures, and Denroy talked about how to cut off all the spines with neurotoxin, then get the meat off the bones.
The carcasses were thrown ten feet out for the croc that would be there later that evening, but Alisa and I were planning on going on the croc walk with Abell.
Abell really didn't want to do this walk - he was giving us a hard time about how much it was going to cost, but, after a dinner of barbecued pork, corn on the cob, and bacon-baked beans (with tres leches cake for dessert - with a candle for Jad's birthday!), we put on the longest sleeves we had and met by the pool.
The first stop was the crazy amount of hermit crabs that came out right under the bats' nesting area just twenty feet behind our cabana.
Then we started getting into the thick of the mangroves, and the second thing we encountered was mosquitoes. I got bit through my jeans and on my forehead - I'm getting itchy just writing this. When we weren't actively seeing something new and I was distracted, I was being driven to distraction by the mosquitoes.
We passed a croc nest, with their leathery eggs empty inside. At one point, there were only 300 American saltwater crocodiles left; now, Turneffe Atoll is the biggest breeding site, and they are everywhere. There was a head of a "smaller" (only six foot) croc sticking up on the beach, then a slightly bigger one in one of the nesting ponds.
We encountered some tarantulas, and Alisa saw an iguana sleeping in a termite hole. It was creepy-crawly central!
The big mama's nesting pond had her back in her little cave-y hole and Abell attempting to pick up a baby so we could pet it. They were a little too clever, and the half dozen whiny tourists that were getting eaten alive standing there (of which I was one) didn't have the patience to wait for him.
I had heard there might be a boa, and I was very excited for that. As we were headed back (thank goodness), right at the edge of the trees, Abell saw the right movement and unwrapped the constricter from the base of a mangrove tree.
It was probably six feet long, and weighed maybe seven pounds. Alisa and I got to hold it! Smooth, slightly slick scales, and beautiful muscle underneath. Oh, it was worth all the bug bites.
It was 10:15, and we said hurried thank you's and good night's then I hurdled into bed, in the air conditioning, under covers where bugs would stop getting me. The protection of sheets, and I was out.
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