John was doing a great job of keeping us informed, but only what we needed. It was an hourlong boat ride to the site.
That hour was choppy, with water splashing in. We closed the hatch and braced ourselves, quiet to keep our stomaches calm, but increasing my nerves.
Our briefing was thorough - down to the foot and the minute. Down to 130ft in the first minute or two. At eight minutes in, we're headed back to 80. Then chill at forty for a few, then a five minute safety stop.
I've been the slowest equalizer, so I hopped in first and tried to get down to eight or ten feet to start equalizing - it took me a minute to relax enough to start sinking. I was blowing through my nose continually, huffing air and blowing out the bubbles. Though I was still about ten feet above everyone, I kept pace!
The hole is shaped like a funnel, except after it narrows down, there's an overhang, and the stalactites are clinging to the top. We were there before I knew it.
The clarity of the water and the lack of sea creatures made us look like dangled ornaments. Just the seven of us. If we could have made the right noise, the hole would've echoed back at us.
The formations were over six feet in diameter. Alisa and I swam behind a pair; for us, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. For many of the visitors this week (the shareholders), it's something that can be done every week!
During the dive yesterday, none of us had any symptoms of narcosis. Today, a few people admitted that they were a little loopy, but not anything that impacted the dive.
I was peering around, and I hear the clicks of John's carabiner. I look down quickly and see the shadow of a reef shark below us fifty feet. He disappeared into the deep blue in a few more sinuous motions.
I was watching the dive computer carefully, and headed up to 80 where we were meeting the group. The shelf levels out at 40, so we made it there and paused for a bit. There were scrubby patches of coral, plenty of sand, and assorted fish, but not in the amounts we've gotten used to.
With such a deep dive, we stopped at fifteen feet for five minutes as a safety stop. John kept Alisa entertained with Hangman on his slate. Once we were tossed back in the boat, Haydee started feeding the rimora that had been a great gatekeeper to the Blue Hole.
As we sat up in the boat, a little plane was doing fly-overs of the Blue Hole - it must be amazing to see from the air when you can take the vastness of it in!
The ride to the Caye where our second site was had a school of sardines that was being attached from all sides. We could see the bar jacks flipping out of the water, and a bunch of birds dipping in, looking for their chance. A female frigate was in the feeding frenzy, her large, pointed wings dwarfing the other birds. Frigates are bullies, and like to harass other birds for their catches, but she was doing her own work in this case.
Our second dive site was the wall at Half Moon Caye. It started with a gorgeous swim-through - surrounded on all sides by corals waving at you, fish darting in and out of your vision, and crawling creatures trying to keep pace.
I was still about twenty feet behind John when he signaled for a turtle! One swam up the surface, while we watched from below. I trailed behind the group as it rocked with the swells. A minute or two later, it dove. It has not problems equalizing - it was down to at least 100 feet in 20 seconds!
Lee Ellyn found a lobster and a hermit crab that she shared with me. As we were kicking back to the ledge above the wall, we ran into some lionfish.
These invasive fish eat everything, and have no natural predators, so humans have been acting as an intermediary. Firstly, by eating them ourselves - apparently a lionfish seviche is a great treat on the boat. Secondly, by trying to show the eel and the grouper that the fairly slow lionfish are edible, as long as you eat them face-first.
John tagged one, then had another on the spear and waggled it at a giant Nassau grouper that we'd been petting, since it was clearly begging for us to do its work. When John released it, it was inches in front of the grouper. The lionfish sat, I hovered with my camera, and the grouper swayed closer and farther from it. I was hoping to see it grab the lionfish by itself, but no luck - still too much work for the grouper.
A stingray was in the sand over the crest as well. With its sand coating, it looked pretty comfy.
A few minutes later, a similar interaction happened, but the lionfish was killed by the spear and the grouper decided to not pass up a free lunch. Down in one gulp, that lionfish.
As we headed out over the sea grass meadows in search of more turtles, little nests of coral still existed in the green. At one, I peered down to see a fish getting cleaned by a shrimp at what are called - aptly - a feeding station. We also ran into another stingray nestled into the sand, lurking.
There was no luck with turtles, so we headed back to the edge of the ledge for our safety stop. At three minutes, Alisa and I started ascending, but I was giving myself some time for my ears to pop when I looked past John and saw a shark!
About twenty feet below us, gliding around with a small posse of bar jacks, it figured-eighted around the edge of the coral. I was at the surface at this point, one fin off, but face still completely in the water and entranced by the Caribbean reef shark.
He disappeared into the distance, and I paddled back to that boat. Apparently they had been yelling at me to see if I was coming back in, but I heard nothing.
Since we were so close to Half Moon Caye, we collected the others then headed to land for lunch. The caye also had a small interpretive center with some painting of the different sealife and a man-size red-footed booby, which nest on the island. We were told to bring cash for the gift shop - it was a dozen t-shirts and some shell jewelry, so Lee Ellyn was pleased that it wasn't as commercialized as she had feared.
Haydee doesn't stop as feeding rimora - she fed birds as well, much to my chagrin. While we picnicked, a large iguana came out of a palm tree to peer at us. As Alisa and I walked to Sunset Beach (for a refreshing dip - being out of the water for over an hour is hard) and then to the Bird Tower, we saw the skitters of a little lizard, which then jumped over a foot between trees. Another couple majestic iguana made our acquaintance as well.
The bird tower was fifteen steps up to a platform right in the tree tops, with a dozen frigate nests being tended to, and three red-footed boobies perched in the thick of it all. We had seen a tree full of boobies as well on our walk. You know a boyfriend is going to be jealous when I spent half an hour looking at and taking pictures of foreign boobies...
The last dive of the day was at Long Caye. "The Aquarium" was another wall dive, and I handed off my camera to Alisa then just hovered.
I saw a few more honeycomb box fish, but didn't see their phase change; when they fed, they transition their triangular little bodies from honeycomb to spots and back.
The others dove lower, but there was a bit of a thermocline at 50 feet, so I followed along above. It was serene - I did as little work as possible to examine the fans and brains, think of whether a fish was a parrot or hamlet, look in the cracks for more lobster or eel (nope - guess there are only fish in this aquarium). It was twenty minutes in, and time for everyone to get back to 40 or so feet when I see out of the corner of my eye, John swimming along, camera pole extended in front of him, chasing a pair of tarpin.
His eagerness made me laugh. After we all crested the wall a few minutes later, the rest of the group got to see the shiny big tarpin.
I was waiting for another stunning moment during our safety stop, but no shark this time. Instead, just another hour-long ride back to the resort (both less choppy and less sickening because of the nausea meds) where Alisa got another coconut.
Showered, attempted to blog by the pool, got pulled into conversation, and all of a sudden, it was time for queso. Our table was small last night - just the pair of us and Lee Ellyn and her husband as we ate steak (or fish, for Alisa) fajitas and creme brûlée. Alisa was falling asleep at the table, but I was psyched for the croc "hunt" that she said was happening.
Turns out crocs are on Thursday. I took a picture of the bats drinking out of the swimming pool as my nature for the night. So I had thirty minutes of writing before being in a comfy bed got the better of me. Over nine hours of sleep - not a shabby night.
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