The next morning we were all up at 07.00 ready to go diving. Fabrisio was our dive master and the boat was picking us up at 08.00 sharp.

Plus there were scalloped hammerhead sharks, so we were excited, but also apprehensive. I checked my dive log book and the diving I did in Roatan was in a lycra skin with water temperature of 24°, so I decided that with my swimsuit, rash guard and lycra I would be ok.

The first dive was amazing, no sooner had we dropped to the bottom than we were checked out by curious seals, who swam around us, rolled onto their backs and almost winked at us.

The water was a very comfortable 29°  but there were lots of thermo-clines, where the temperature dropped by about 15° , fortunately the warm water was never too far away. The current wasn’t too bad, so it was a very comfortable dive.

The dive just got better and better, with numerous turtles, eagle rays and finally a huge (and that is no fisherman’s tale, it must have been 5 mts across its wingspan) Manta Ray.

None of us had ever seen one in the wild and it was awesome. It seemed as curious about us as we were about it, staying with us for a good third of our dive. WOW! This had been the best dive I had done in a very long time. After a while, as with many things, you become jaded, seeing the same things over and over, but this dive brought back the excitement I used to get when I first started diving.

After our surface interval, we moved further round the Island, spotting nesting Masked Boobies and Frigate birds as we went. The male frigate bird put on a glorious show with his red breast/gullet puffed out. I managed to capture 2 on camera.