aow dives on roatan

i spent the past 2 days getting my advanced open water scuba certification.  it took me a while to figure out why i might want it since i've done way more dives than regular certification lets me, so why bother, but i guess some places actually regulate diving and it might be necessary.  no one in central america seems to care.

i picked 5 dives, navigation, deep, wreck, search and recovery and fish id.  it was so much fun having something to do besides follow someone around and look at stuff.  i did follow marco around but he was my private tour guide, really, i was the only one in the class.

deep was first, we went to 130 feet and saw (from above) a shipwreck.  then we did puzzles underwater to test how slow my reactions were, or if i had any reactions left at all.

navigation next, and i was dreading this one.  swimming straight lines back and forth with a compass was ok, hard to get lost.  the squares weren't even bad, even way out in the ocean with nothing for reference.  but where's the boat?  i have no idea.

next day was my first wreck dive, we went to el aguila, a ship that was purposely sunk to add something interesting for all the divers.  click here for pictures.  tight spaces, sideways rooms, all sorts of things growing and hiding all over the place.

search and recovery was the most fun.  after el aguila marco and i sat on the boat (windy, wavy, little bit crazy) and we tied knots until i thought i'd be seasick.  the mission for this dive was to find a scuba tank that marco had hidden and transport it back to the boat.  i got to ask him a few questions (in what direction was it last seen?  how deep?  etc), then me and my compass were off.  i had to go about 300 feet south in 45 foot depth and grid search a sandy patch.

found the tank without too much trouble but tying knots underwater was way fun.  attach a lift bag, blow some air in it and swim everything back.  i was actually shocked at how easily i found the boat again but blindly stumbling onto the boat counts just as much as knowing where it was in the first place.

my last dive was fish identification, marco took pictures of fish, corals, any marine life and i tried to identify them as we went along.  my first time writing underwater (i thought my writing was awful sitting at a desk...).  i didn't find my seahorse but almost as cool i saw a peacock flounder (look for it here, it looks like a patch of sand).

now that my dive class is over i really need to figure out where i'm going next.  maybe panama city.  i've been telling everyone that i'm leaving on friday but i have yet to check for buses, flights, anything.  roatan makes me lazy.  no wonder people come here for a month and stay for 8 years.

sunset over the dolphin pen