Well I took a day off from diving and treated myself to a trip to the much lauded Plaza Mar. Boy was I disappointed!!! But I did manage to get a few goodies for the larder and when Roger gets back he can replenish our much depleted alcohol supplies!

Today, a few of us took a dive/lunch trip. We went up the coast towards Jonesville. It wasn’t the most comfortable of boat trip as there was a heavy swell and we were battling into the wind (I know, I know, that what Beaujolais does all the time, but this was a much smaller boat!) so it was a very long and very wet trip.

The two dives were ok,  the first was a very gentle dive with a slight swell, which if you just lay there made me think that is what it must feel like to be weightless in space, very relaxing.

The second dive started with a head first decent into a narrow canyon via a small opening, not my most favourite type of diving as I don’t feel comfortable in narrow enclosed spaces. So I decided not to hold anyone else up and went last. When I got down into the canyon, there was not only limited visibility, because someone touched bottom and stirred up all the sand, but there was also a traffic jam, everyone was backed up. I consciously made an effort to remain calm and in control, but as soon as the bottleneck freed itself, I was out of there so fast I left a wake!!!!

Now as I mentioned earlier I have been a little disappointed in the variety of fish here. There is a healthy reef, but apart from shoaling fish, there isn’t a lot going on. So I continued with my quest to find a seahorse, also we had been told to look out for a toadfish.

Unfortunately I saw neither, but I did see a huge (about 3 foot) Scribbly File fish and a Spotted Scorpion fish.

The Scorpion fish was so well camouflaged that when I was trying to show Hal and Shaun, had it not swam off, neither of them would have seen it, even with me pointing it out (which was why it swam off!!!)

Towards the end of the dive, Michelle, our dive master, pointed out a crevice containing 3 juvenile Spotted Drum fish.

I eagerly peered into the crevice. I spotted one, but only just, it was the smallest one I had ever seen, probably between a quarter and half an inch long. When I got back to the boat and processed my photos I was delighted to see that the camera had caught 2 of the 3.

So I have been focussing on the corals and reef animals and it has been rather nice and I have learned quite a lot. Anyway, for those of you that enjoy these photos here are a few of the other things I saw.

One thing I will say is how nice it is to dive with people who have mastered neutral buoyancy. So many times in the past when I have been diving, I have winced every time someone kicked a fan or broke a barrel sponge by landing on it on their descent, because they simply could not control their buoyancy.

In fact on one occasion I was diving in Dominica and one of the divers, who in my opinion should never have been allowed to dive, couldn’t control his buoyancy and wreaked havoc with the coral. He left a trail of destruction so bad that several of the divers, myself included, refused to dive with him again.

Anyway, I’ll get off my soap box. After the second dive we were all ready for lunch. So Travis (the captain) took us up to the ‘hole in the wall’. No it wasn’t an ATM, it was an eatery that could only be reached by boat.

It is a rather kooky little place run by (well they have the run of it anyway) a beautiful Macaw named Lawyer and two dogs.

The décor is rather unusual too. The ceiling is covered in t-shirts, presumably donated by previous visitors. Either that or the prices were too high for some???

On the floor was something a little more sinister. You know in scenes of crimes, they draw an outline of the victim? Well on the floor there were 3 outlines, 2 humans and a dog. Now I don’t know whether they were murdered or got so drunk they passed out, but it was a little worrying to say the least.

The food there is excellent and I tucked into a delicious lobster sandwich.

On the way back to Barefoot Travis showed us the shrimp and lobster boats.

Tammy, a park ranger from Washington State who was diving with us, asked if they still had problems with the divers. I was a little puzzled by this question.

She told me that they employ local people to dive for the lobster, but they aren’t trained and not only do they not have the luxury of a dive computer, they don’t even have depth gauges.

As a result many of them get ‘bent’ (suffer from the bends, due to diving too deep and ascending to quickly) and end up crippled or disabled in some way or another.

Sort of leaves a bad taste in the mouth!