Sliding Our Way Through the Oasis - Roatan, Honduras, Nov. 6, 2016

I woke up quite a few times last night, though at 6 decided that I'd had plenty of sleep. It was our first day of diving, and there was so much to do!

First was breakfast. It was raining on and off yesterday, so I finally acquiesced and wore my flip-flips that I haven't broken in yet, but that have a good deal of traction so Alisa wouldn't be worried about me slipping on the wooden stairs or dock. 

Let's just say that by the end of today, we knew which of us should be worried about slipping - because on the stairs up to breakfast, Alisa missed the last one (getting her toe caught on the lip) and landed on her right knee. She realized it was bleeding a bit during our oatmeal and pancakes, but shook it off. 

We had gotten our BCDs and regulators yesterday, along with fins and a shortie wetsuit for me (sorry that 84 degrees gets a little chilly after an hour). We got assigned a boat during the orientation, then set up our gear on one of the tanks to prep for the buoyancy and mask check. 

Our boat is called the Isantamaa - her name is apparently the first initial of all the boats that came before her. The first dive my new watch recorded was just a jump off her stern into the green, low visibility water of the harbor. Hector wanted to check our weights and that we could clear a flooded mask. Since I regularly flood mine when I breath through my nose, it was a cinch. The claustrophobic water did remind me of the quarry back home, except fifteen degrees warmer and the sun was shining (during those ten minutes at least).

We set sail for our first coral dive of the trip - an arduous four-minute ride to "Over Heat." We dropped down beside a wall of coral and started pointing out critters. An eagle ray was spotted in the deep blue beside us, and the wall was filled with morays, lobsters (the Atlantic kind with no claws), sea turtles, as well as the parrotfish, angelfish, hamlets, groupers, tangs, and so many more. I found the first of many of my squirrelfish - a personal favorite for their giant eyes and reddish spiny body. Nothing else looks quite like them, so I'll nail it every time. 

The memorable pair from that dive was a crab hanging out with a "spotted" (I feel like striped is the better name) drumfish - a gorgeous tail and extra ribbon from its dorsal. 

Alisa and I ascended, and I was halfway up the ladder behind her when I heard metal on metal and her on the deck of the boat. Elwis, our boat captain, was right there to pull off her BCD (with weights and a tank, not easy to get off if it's ended up on top of you) and get her on the bench. 

Yup, again it was her and not me that slipped. Maybe I should've echoed all of those caring "watch out"s and "hold the railing"s, but I definitely wasn't going to say anyway when she was looking a bit dazed with a scratch right across her cheek. 

The tumble was told and retold as the rest of the boat re-boarded. It was when we got back to the dock, though, that we decided to skip the 10:30 dive and come back after lunch. 

There's a clinic on site (and hyperbaric chambers, a good-to-have with all the divers), so the captain and guide recommended a check-in. Ibuprofen and ice - a pretty easy care regime when your patient is a pharmacist who carries it with her. 

We headed back across the channel to our room and chilled (and got hungry) for the hour before lunch started. Rice and beans, then a little bit more time before our final dive of the day.

It was another wall dive, called "Green out house wall" (there used to be run-off from a greenhouse on shore). We'd be going against the current, then returning with the current to the boat. 

Good news: the reef was buzzing, and even the sand nearby held a flounder on its side, both of its eyes face up. Bad news: a strong current meant we had to fight to get up-current, had to fight to stay near enough to the wall, had to fight to stay off the wall, and we each were facing some difficulties - Alisa had a pressure squeeze in her head and I had a regulator that was giving me half-salt-water when I was looking down (which, when you're swimming hard, is the most effective way to swim).

Once we got Hector's attention, he pointed us to the boat, and we ended diving for the day. Between a bruising first dive and an exhausting second dive, we were ready for a shower and dinner.

Pete, one of the scuba instructors, had a fish identification presentation happening at 6pm (right after happy hour, though adding alcohol to our already accident-prone day was playing with fire, so we skipped the drinking.) It was an hour of him passionately talking about the reef inhabitants that the dive master isn't going to point out: the French angelfish that pair for life, or the spotlight parrotfish, with the male visiting all the female in his harem until he dies and one of the females converts to a male and takes his place. He ended with an impassioned speech for protecting the reef around Roatan with a donation to the Roatan Marine Park, which encompasses all of our dive sites. It sustains the permanent mooring (so no anchors needed which wreck the reef) as well as conducts lionfish rodeos to keep the population under control.

After the presentation, I asked about a "blue lightning" fish I'd been seeing, and he pointed me to the indigo hamlet. During one of our dives in Belize, we had searched for all kinds of hamlets - this was one of them!

We are dinner with the light rain falling around us and an early night. When it gets dark at 5:30, every night is an early night!