Sunday Diving

 
 
 
 
First picture is what an underwater grin looks like! I never get tired of parking on my knees in front of some of these walls and just watching to see what swims in and out of the coral.

Next picture is of me getting ready to go in one of the caves I especially like. The camera was fogging pretty badly, but I think the ghosting makes a kind of cool effect.

Next two are just swimming. I've really been working on trying to get good control over my buoyancy, something I've always fought. I'm happy that I'm making progress, and in both of these pictures, I managed to stay planed out effortlessly. This is also the reason why unfortunately, 98% of the dive pictures are of me... Steve's been keeping the camera most of the time so it's one less piece of equipment I'm fighting - at least until I get my BC, weights, and breath control back to being second nature.

Sunday morning Dive

 
 
 
 
After seeing the manatee, there was no way we weren't going back out with dive gear first thing Sunday morning. So, here are some more shots of all the beauty that is the underwater world of the Blue Hole.

I love the first picture of Steve unloading the tanks. What arms my man has!! Incidentally, diving has just taken on a whole new level of enjoyment for me, thanks to finding the 67cubic inch tanks at Technical Divers. I may never use my old Steel 80s again. I had no idea what it was like to be able to turn my head underwater without getting my hair hopelessly wrapped around the SOV, all the while, having the tank bang the back of my head and tail bone simultaneously with every surge of the water. Hallelujah for short, fat tanks for short (ahem) girls!!

The next picture Steve took of me from the surface as I'm going down into the hole. Behind me is the tunnel that the manatee came out of yesterday. First thing we did was swim up in that tunnel, but she was nowhere to be found.

Heavenly Saturday

 
As if life weren't good enough with a good splashing around in the ocean with my favorite person in the world and 2 million of the coolest creatures I've ever seen, we capped off Saturday with a fabulous dinner, compliments of Angie and Luis. They fixed Ossobuco with risotto and asparagus, and we all licked the plates clean. If you've not tried ossobuco, here's what you're missing:

Ossobuco, when loosely translated from Italian, means hollowed bone, a reference to the large piece of marrow in the center of the veal shank bone. It derives from the phrase osso buco (literally hole bone) in the Western Lombard dialect because the bone marrow is part of the appeal of the dish.
This dish is a Milanese specialty of veal shanks cooked in meat broth, flavored with white wine and vegetables. Slowly braised, this relatively tough, yet flavorful cut of meat becomes meltingly tender, and the connective tissues and marrow dissolve into the sauce, making it rich and creamy.

Fabulous food, excellent company, and a muy buenos noche.

Manatee!

 
 
 
 
This was the highlight of Saturday morning's dive. I knew that Manatees frequent the Blue Hole, but in a year of swimming out there, I seem to always miss them. Saturday, we had just crossed into the hole, and I was swimming off to go inspect a pretty aenemonae, when Steve grabbed my ankle and gave me a good shake, telling me to look below me. This little girl was swimming out of one of the tunnels about 30 feet below me. What a treat! She let us swim with her for a little while, but since we didn't have scuba tanks, our time underwater with her was pretty limited, as we had to keep clawing to the surface for air. Apparently, some of them out here are happy to let you scratch their noses, and will roll over on their backs for a good tummy rub. Do I need to tell you how long it took us to get our dive gear set up the next day? :-) You can see that she's had a pretty unfortunate run-in with some discarded fishing line - it's wrapped around her tail and her fins, to the point of cutting into flesh. It's really sad to see how badly someone's carelessness can affect the critters who live here. On the way back, we told some of our diver friends that she was out in the hole and they went out that night to try and find her and cut some of it off, but she had taken off to another location. Steve and I went back out Sunday morning with tanks and knives, but she didn't make another appearance for us.

Incidentally, I found this one Wikipedia: The name manatí comes from the Taíno, a pre-Columbian people of the Caribbean, meaning "breast"

I'm thinking those are some SERIOUS gazongas.

All of the underwater critters decidedly lead to one happy girl - especially with a beautiful smelling plummeria in her hair! That's got to be one of the best smells on earth... yum.

Flame Box Crab and Flounder

 
 
 
We keep finding these crabs this week - they're pretty neat critters! Like I mentioned in an earlier post, they scrounge up the sand and scoop all kinds of little critters up from just under the surface. We've since discovered that where you see a box crab, you will find at least one flounder. The first time we saw it, we assumed that the crab was trying to eat the flounder. Nope. In fact, if you separate the crab from the flounder, it will race to catch back up with the crab. I'm assuming that they must eat whatever the crab stirs up and leaves behind. We have one picture of the crab, and a whole line of flounder behind it. It's really hard to see the flounder in that picture though, so I'm posting 2 where it's much easier to spot the trailing fish. In the second picture, you can see the flounder is all but touching the crab.

The last picture is of a really big flounder we found under a rock. He's about the size of a serving platter. I've been using a preset levels adjustment to color correct most of our underwater photographs; in this particular case, it added too much red to the pic. This particular fish's markings were really bright and bold, but they're not quite this pink. I wanted to post the picture anyway, so you could see just how pretty they really are, as well as why they call them "peacock flounder"!

Schools of Tang

 
 
 
 
While we were out playing around the coral, we found ourselves in the middle of a huge school of Blue Tang - they were everywhere! It was really fun to look around you and see nothing but fish!

Snorkeling

 
 
 
 
We both really enjoyed how pretty the coral was in this spot, and the FANS! These were small, but there were so many of them! As the water got deeper at the dropoff, the fans got much bigger, but they were too far away to really get a good picture

Snorkeling

 
 
 
 
Saturday, we planned on getting up early and renting a couple of tanks for a full day of diving. Unfortunately, Mother Nature was looking pretty grim; it looked ready to rain at any moment, and the waves hadn't calmed quite as much as we hoped. But, we couldn't stand to stay out of the water, so we took the scooters and went snorkeling anyways. This time, we went to a sandy channel Steve had seen while flying over, and it proved to be a really fun place to hang out! The waves were a little rough while we were getting into the water, but once we swam past the breakwater, it wasn't too bad at all. In the first picture, I'm swimming on top of a ledge above a 40-60 foot drop off. Next picture is of a puffer fish, and then the next 2 are just some nice coral we enjoyed watching fish pop in and out of

Coral and Critters

 
 
 
I love the tiny little blue polka-dotted fish in the first picture. They're juvenile Yellow-tailed Damselfish. When they're grown, they'll be a pretty blue with a bright yellow tail, but when they're little like this, they're that deep blue with blinding light blue spots. They honestly look electric; their blue spots are that bright in the sun!

Next picture is that same coral, with some of our friendly urchins.

Last picture is Steve; bored with how long it was taking me to try and get the shots of the Damselfish, he came clowning by trying to make me laugh. It worked. I don't know how many times he's made me flood my mask because I'm laughin at some shenanigans he's up to!

Snorking and Scootin

 
 
 
 
First picture is Steve, on his way up from trying to find our Moray. Last week, that 4.5 footer was under that ledge. Steve couldn't find him this morning. I'm getting a LOT better at breath-holding, but I still can't make it down the 30-40 feet he's at here on one gulp of air.

Next picture of me is in the outer reef. The waves were breaking right on top of us, which can look kind of cool when they fold in on you, but doesn't do a whole lot for visibility. I thought this one looked kind of cool though - you can just see the reef lurking behind the foam. Incidentally, what a difference a little rain makes in water temperature... I broke down and put on my wetsuit, and I was still turning purple by the time we got out of the water!

Last 2 pictures are of the outer reef as well. It's just so pretty

More Underwater

 
 
 
 
Summer's finally starting to get here, which means the water is getting more and more calm. I'll put up with the hot and the sticky for the beautiful underwater scenery any day!

Mom, this first picture of Steve is for you; he's showing you how much he loves the Five Finger shoes you got him for his birthday! They really are nice to have when you're walking on the beach; there are so many urchins around, as you'll see in some of the next pictures... yeouch