Dog Eat Dog

It would be interesting to see more places this around the world. As long as building them doesn't upset the ecosystem of course. It could be quite interesting......

Link: HERE

"Now, a new high-end restaurant is being built in Norway that will let you do just that, and its dining area is completely under water. It’s called, fittingly, “Under,” and it’s being built on the coast of Norway — or, to be more specific, it will become part of the coastline itself. Designed by architecture firm Snøhetta, the structure will be built on a rocky shore and dip down into the sea, where customers will be able to watch fish swim as they eat their brethren."

Free Fallin

Roatan, nicknamed "the Big Island", is found 40 miles North of Honduras and is a mecca for divers. Now that Cayman Airways do direct flights to Roatan, there really was no excuse to go and visit as they're just over an hours flight away.

 We stayed at Half Moon Bay on the West End of Roatan and hooked up with Roatan Divers who had a solid reputation and were conveniently only a 3 minute walk along the beach from our hotel. 

Being an salty old diver, I like to set up and check my own kit but Russell and the rest of the crew will quite happily be at your beck and call to do your bidding if you prefer not to wrestle with your own equipment and have a lazy time of it.

 Most dive sites were minutes away by boat, the furthest being 7 minutes so that gives you and idea of how quick you'll be getting wet. Forget your morning coffee as your wake up call, just roll off a boat!

The quality of diving on Roatan is excellent, easily as good as diving on Cayman with similar conditions, marine life and topography. I sometimes forget how spoiled we get with all this warm water and endless visibility, makes me long for the good old days of drysuits in Scotland. But I digress. The West End is a fantastic array of colours with voluminous hard coral formations topped off with a plethora of ginormous barrel sponges.

Conditions whilst we were there were flat calm with barely a ripple and on most occasions during the week the Roatan Aggressor was moored up a couple of buoys along from us. So if you want to save a pile of cash, forget the live aboard and just do the day boat diving.

Some of the memorable sites worth a visit were Melissa's Reef which gave you a good mix of scenery, depth and marine life, particularly if you're a shutter bug, with a great selection of rope and barrel sponges along with some nice gorgonias and cruising fusiliers to brighten the place up.

I would be remiss if I neglected the small stuff and somewhere like Eddie's Trifecta is an ideal spot for the macro lovers. It's a hotbed of action for seahorses, pipefish and nudis. We got two of the three on the day. 

We also had a large selection of gobies, blennies, arrow crabs, barber shrimp and lizard fish to name a few. It was like being a kid in a sweet shop, too many options and you want them all to yourself.

One thing that took me by surprise is the sheer volume of sharpnose pufferfish. These things are everywhere you go, on every dive site, everywhere you look. They must breed like rabbits down here, possibly to do with the Viagra in the water or something.....

Did I also mention the turtles? Yep, quite a few hawkbills and greens with occasional loggerhead sighting. And yes, typically the big stuff will turn up when you are rigged up for macro, It's the unwritten law of underwater photography.

You can do three dives a day but we opted to just do two in the morning and chill the rest of the day as it was a "recharge the batteries" kind of holiday as opposed to a "balls to the wall" diving experience. It was a nice chilling week away.

Roatan Divers had two main boats with a third on hand if required and soon to have a fourth boat to be added to the fleet. Rental kit is available if you don't want hump your own and is in good clean serviceable condition with separate rinsing facilities for wetsuits, BCD's, masks and cameras.

There's plenty of options as far as food and drink goes at Half Moon Bay as everything is in walking distance and you can walk the main drag in about 6 minutes. Noteworthy mentions were Gingers, three feet away from the waters edge and 8 feet away from the dive shop. Good tasty simple food and plenty of it with some nice burgers and Mexican food. Most places you go will also serve monkey lala cocktails. Well worth sampling. Lots of times.....

And if you go to Oasis, you get great original food, but they're known for having the best ribs on the island. Their menu changes on an almost daily basis but the one thing that's always available is the ribs, and they are superb. Go for a half rack if you are a normal person or a full rack if you are a fat bastard.

Roatan, easy to get to, easy diving, great scenery and marine life, friendly people, good food and drink, not outrageously expensive and one of the best things about Roatan?  They have hummingbirds!!!!!  They're so fluffy!!! I love these things!!!

Permanent Waves

I know my posting a has been a bit spotty the last few weeks but I do honestly have some good excuses for that. Firstly my wife has abandoned me to go to the states and has been there for the last three weeks, so no model/dive buddy. 

Secondly, if you haven't been following the weather we've been getting some serious hurricanes ripping through the Caribbean. Thankfully for us (but not for some other islands) we've managed to dodge the bullet so far, but we have been getting the after affects which has precluded any diving.

On the upside, weather permitting, we will be in Roatan in two weeks, so hopefully I'll have one of two nice pictures for a decent blog update. Stay tuned.

 

Every breath you take

Captain Nige, dive instructor, boat captain and scourge of lionfish everywhere has a book out which is worth a read if you have questions about air consumption and how to improve it. Do yourself a favour and grab a copy.

Link: HERE

I'll let him tell you in his own words........

"Customers have been suggesting for years that I write this book because I’m regularly suggesting tips for how to improve their air consumption and a lot of them have really benefited, and enjoy their vacations so much more. With the help of many real life examples this book will help you improve your dive times and ensure you have a happy buddy."

" This book is ideal for many divers both inexperienced or for those who have filled up many dive logs, but have not yet mastered the art of excellent air consumption. It’s a 42 page pdf e-book download so you can read it on your laptop, tablet or phone with any PDF reader. Read it at home before your vacation, then take it with you and re-read it before your dive for last minute tips."

Hard Road

You know it's going to be an interesting dive when you see the fish struggling against the current. Conditions at the surface were as good as you could expect them to be with a 2-3 knots NE at the surface, relatively flat with good viz. 

Under the water was a different matter with a ripping Northerly current that was a challenge and a half to work against. But then we were in the throws of tropical storm Harvey passing us down South which would later bring torrential rain and thunderstorms.

A lot of the dive was spent in the shelter of the Nicholson as there really wasn't anywhere else we could go. I had to dump all my air, dig my heels into the sand and lean back as far as I could into the current to keep steady and Jill had to swim like a mad bugger to stay in frame. Who said underwater photography was all fun and glamour? Spot and Brutus came to hang out with us for a while, which was nice but I think even they got tired out.

We went out to the main wall to check things out but is was exactly as expected, complete washout so we came back to the Nicholson for some more shots from the interior with a few more friends..

Not much bottom time to be had today, which was a real shame but that's the way things go. There's always another day for a dive. If next weekend has currents like this, I'll need some concrete fins to keep me in place!......

Oh, and there's some random video of the dive below from my Youtube channel if anyone is interested.......

Link: HERE

Killing in the name of

Link: HERE

Captain Nige makes headlines, and for all the right reasons this time (we don't talk about that incident involving 6 gallons of cider, 3 ferrets and a combine harvester).

Well done Nige, a grand achievement and something that all the cullers can aspire to.

"Last weekend, East End dive instructor Nigel Coles killed his 10,000 lionfish since the spcies was first spotted in the Caymans, That is an average of 3.5 lionfish a day sin September 2009."

"This weekend he took his tally past the 10,000 mark – an achievement that has not only helped protect East End reefs, but has also paid for his boat.
Mr. Coles, who dives with his wife and “spotter” Deby, sells his catch to chefs at Morritt’s Tortuga Club and the Rum Point restaurant, which serve them to tourists."

Silver & Gold

Been a few years since we were last at Devil's Grotto, but then there's never any real reason to dive there unless the silversides are out. It now was the time for the Silversides. There's nothing quite like squirming through the narrow tunnels and swimthroughs whilst surrounded by thousands of silversides with the occasional  squadron of tarpons cruising past for a feed.

And seeing as it was a Saturday ( are time for me to be off) Miss Sarah was able to come along for the odd pose or two in front of the camera.

The Silversides have been absent the last couple of years and even this year, there hasn't been nearly as may as previously but it was still good to have a dive in amongst them. And I still haven't lost my sense of direction either........

So we twatted around in the Grotto for awhile before me moved over to have a swim through Eden Rock.

I'll tell you what though, the swim through under Eden Rock was a sh*t load narrower than I remember it. And it certainly didn't help with having to fight the local residents to get some elbow room. Or maybe its just that I have longer arms on my camera these days.......

But anyways, the silversides have come and gone now, and maybe we'll see them again next year. Oh, and there's a little video below as well. Not the greatest as video is never a priority when I've got the camera in the water but you get the idea. Till next time.