That Was A Tad Unusual

Saw a rather unusual thing during a Blackbeard's night dive.

While on a night dive back on July 8 with Jim and Kevin, we came across a quite large underwater worm.

 Quite a big worm, eh?  It got quite  close to us and our lights and was wiggling along its way through the ocean. 

Things then got weird with what it did next:

 

As you can see, at 36 seconds into the second video, the worm quite simply explodes into multiple pieces right in front of us which then dissipate into the water.

None of us had seen something like that happen before and we all looked at each other like "WTF just happened?".

It turns out, some underwater polychaete worms apparently do this, and they do it on purpose.

They explode like this in order to scatter their gametes (eggs and sperm, whichever they happen to have on board), into the ocean to try and reproduce with other worms.  

You could say the experience blew this worm's mind, and verily the rest of it, all over the place.  

You could say it went out with a bang.

First time seeing it happen and quite neat to catch it on video.  

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan - Dive 311

Dive 311 would take place at Overheat Reef.

I got a close encounter with quite the sea creature of song and legend.

As the song goes: 

"When you swim in the sea and an eel bites your knee...

That's a Moray!"

 That was a rather active moray eel,  he didn't remain hidden for long.

He came out to say hello. 

 

He wasn't hiding at all but was swimming right up to people.  Got a little disconcerting, especially when it swam between people's legs.

No one's knees were bitten in the process.

In addition to the Eel, there were some very large groupers that liked to hang out with the divers.

 

 Both liked to swim right alongside the divers, and would stand their water and you'd have to go around them if they decided to hold their position at times.

And there was another Turtle!

 It was a great dive.

Max depth 50 feet, average depth 25 feet, 52 minute run time. 

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan - Dive 310

My 310th dive would take place at Gibson's Bite.

We geared up and we got in the water. The water was a lovely 83 degrees.

Following the divemaster we headed along to see the sites.

 The reef looked nice and healthy.

We went through a swim through which is always fun.

Turtle!  One of my favorite creatures to see underwater.

Quite a large number of fish were seen.

 It was a great and easy first dive. We then went back to shore for a surface interval and got some refreshments and soon headed out for dive 311.

 Max depth 58 feet, average depth 36 feet, runtime was 35 minutes

Cruise Day 4 - Roatan, Honduras

Got up early on Day 4 and had a good breakfast.

Then I packed up my gear, got off the ship, and headed out on the pier to get to my pickup point. 

A beautiful sunny day it was.

My first time diving in Roatan. 

NCL had selected Anthony's Key Resort to be the operator for this dive and they certainly had chosen well.  Very professionally run operation and they really know what they are doing.

We first did the standard paperwork and one diver couldn't go as they didn't have their C-Card and PADI had no record it had actually been issued. Allegedly she had gotten trained at a resort and it may have been a paperwork issue - or she might not have actually been certified - so she couldn't go. Her boyfriend stayed behind as well (its possible they went off with the Discover Scuba group), bringing the number of divers down to 8.

Met a nice guy there diving who was with his kids, Colby from Louisiana.   I teamed up with the three of them so I technically had a buddy.

I had brought my own gear along, while most of the other divers had not.

We got on board the boat, and I setup my gear on my tank and everyone got ready for the first dive of the day.

These would be cruise ship type dives - guided by a divemaster and well within Open water limits. We got our safety brief, which was well and properly done, and headed off to the first dive site.

 

Someone's First Discover Scuba Diving Adventure

The day after the Cenote experience, was time for another diving experience,

Leah was going to try Scuba diving for the first time.  Abby was not feeling 100% and didn't want to go so it would just be me and Who #2 for the dive.

Prodive offered some excellent professional instruction, and their DSD program was much better and more thorough than the one I had back in 2006.

They even gave her a booklet to read and a quiz to do prior to the day.

At 11 am, I took both kids to check Leah into Prodive.  They got her suited up and all her gear ready.

I had a court hearing at 1:00 so I had to run back to the room and do it by Zoom as they were doing the classroom instruction.  Abby got to sit in on the class portion and there were two other divers, a father and son going for their DSD as well.

They then headed to the pool to practice before heading out to the ocean.

The hearing went well and I ran back to Prodive with my gear and got things ready.  I was coming along to dive it as well, and the instructor figured since this would be dive #280 for me he wouldn't have to worry about me all that much.

The Discover Scuba Diving by Prodive instructor, Andy, did an excellent dive brief and was excellent. We then went down to the beach and got on a boat and headed out to the reef. The boat has two other groups of divers as well. A short 15-minute boat ride and we were there.

Leah got to do a backroll off a boat for the first time. 

Basic instruction was roll in with hand on mask and reg in mouth, and then after surfacing go grab the down-line and wait for the instructor and other two DSD divers.

We then descended on the downline to visit the reef.

The instructor then had all three of them move together with him, typically holding hands as a group to stick together.

Certainly a high workload for that instructor, but he did a fantastic job keeping them together.

I would swim around them taking pictures and having fun.

Good amount of surge on the reef, you could not kick and just let the current push you back and forth.

 

Lots of cool fish to see.

We saw a stingray:

 A flounder:

A puffer fish:

Quite a few pipefish:

Leah had a great time.

With the current down there, we were not heading back to the boat.

Instead, the instructor launched a surface marker buoy. We then surfaced,  and the boat came to us to pick us up, and we climbed up the ladder to get back on board.

We then took the boat back to the beach and hopped out of the boat into the surf. 

Leah had a great time for her first dive experience, and is seriously thinking of getting certified as a diver.

Blackbeard's The Last Diving Day

The Thursday of the trip was to be the last diving day.  Thursday offers two morning dives so that people can off-gas and fly out on Friday afternoon.

While the weather had been rough and waves were still rocking the boat, we had breakfast and maneuvered to calmer dive sites.

The first site was the Blue Hole. As it sounds, its indeed a hole in the seabed that drops down from 20 feet to a lot deeper, in this case to 220 feet. Not always a lot to see in there but ti would be a fun dive.

Here's Jeff looking down into the blue hole before heading over the edge to descend:

 We dropped down and started exploring, maxing out at a dept of 91 feet. Jeff had an earlier flight on Friday, so we didn't want to load him up too much on nitrogen.

There was a neat cave in the wall at about 70 feet.

 Some fish in it. At other times a shark is known to be in there but it wasn't there that time.

We then headed back up and swam around the hole for a while.

Around the hole, stingrays hid in the sand.

A turtle also cruised around, and turtles are always chill dudes:

It was a nice 30 minute dive.

After the Blue hole, we headed to Periwinkle Reef for a nice shallow dive at 25 feet for 40 minutes to see some fish and enjoy our last dive in the Bahamas.

We then sailed back into port at Nassau.

 When then got our suitcases and larger items we had stored at the dock back, and started packing things up.  We also all headed to the marina tio use the showers, which were much appreciated.

As night fell, we had dinner on the boat and then headed into town to the very appropriately named Pirate Republic Brew Pub and had a great time quaffing drinks and having fun on land.

A great time as a group playing games, drinking rum and beer, and having a fun time.

We then headed back to the boat and a bunch of us had an after-party party in the galley, and then everyone finally hit their bunks.

Friday morning we all awoke, had breakfast, finished packing up, tipped the crew of the Morningstar and then went on our separate ways.

It had been one heckuva great vacation and a fantastic first live-aboard diving experience.

Blackbeard's - Of Wind, Waves, And North House Reef

After the Shark Dive we then did 3 dives on North House Reef due to waves and weather getting a tad rougher.

North House reef was a fun series of shallow dives in the 20 foot range with nice long bottom times.

First dive was 57 minutes, the second 41 minutes, and the third 33 minutes as it was at night, and after seeing all there was to see we headed back to the boat.

There were some nice schools of fish to see.

 

The water was so clear you could sea the bottom from the deck of the boat, and the boat from the bottom. Made navigation a cinch.

 

Getting back on with the wave action took a bit more effort than when the water was calm, but it was no problem. It did make it a bit more challenging getting back on the boat for the night dive but no major issues. Watching out for the movement of the ladder became a concern and hitting it feet first was required.

That evening however, the wind really picked up and the boat started seriously a rockin' back and forth.  Those that were prone to seasickness were not happy with the rolling motion of the ocean.

The rest of us hung out on the deck, watching the mast dip back and forth,  chatting with the captain, and listening to  sea shanties through the evening then headed below decks to get rocked to sleep while managing to not get rolled out of our bunks.  Still one heckuva great day.

Blackbeard's - The Shark Dive

The next dive started with an extensive safety brief.

We were all to enter the water and rapidly descend to the wreck of the Bahamian ship Henry Smith and gather around a spot on the railing.

As we descended, sharks could be seen circling.

That's because it was time for the shark feeding dive.

Once we were arranged along the rail, the chumsicle was lowered from the boat and placed above us on the deck. 

The chumsicle is a bunch of herring parts frozen in a 5-gallon bucket mold and the attached to a chain.

With the chumsicle in the water, a swirling mass of sharks and other fish swirled around and had at it.

A friend I made on the boat, Steve, an English tech diver, took a cool video:

Bahamas - December 2023 from Scubasteve#* on Vimeo.

After the feeding frenzy subsided, and the chumsicle was devoured, quite a few sharks hung around for pictures.

Including this guy, who swam at me for a close-up:

 Also a shark named Finnegan hung around.

You can see why he's named Finnegan.

They think he lost his fin to a boat prop, and he's a readily identifiable regular at the shark feeding events.

The sharks had no issues swimming closely by the divers:

The sharks, oceanic reef sharks, were rather chill and curious about us, but not aggressive.  

That was one of the most thrilling dives I've ever done.

An awesome shark-filled dive of 43 minutes with an average depth of 44 feet, and a max depth of 58 feet.

Blackbeards - Going Deep

The next day on Blackbeards, we began with a dive on Dog rocks.

Max depth we hit at that site was 103 feet, and it came fast as did the air consumption.  The dive lasted 33 minutes.

We then dove the Up Jumped the Devil site and went down to the Devil's rocking chair - at 114 feet.

I believe that is the deepest depth that I've dove to so far now. Kinda cool.

Not a lot of No-Deco time when you're on your second deep dive.

 

The computer showed 7 minutes NDL time and we hit the 5-minute NDL limit rather quickly and then ascended to keep our nitrogen levels recreational and stay out of decompression diving range.

We saw lots of cool different kinds of coral as we were slowly ascending:

Then during our safety stop, we got to watch a  lone tuna swimming under the boat as we hung out.

That dive lasted 30 minutes.

Quite a neat couple of dives.

We then, after a solid surface interval,  dove Crab Mountain at a far more sedate maximum depth of 65 feet, and did a night dive there as well.

The captain asked if we wanted to try and get 5 dives in on Wednesday as the weather was starting to pickup a bit, and he wanted to give us the option of adding another dive in case we had weather issues later. We said "Heck Yes!".

So at 6:20 in the morning, before the sunrise  we jumped into the ocean to dive Crab Mountain again before breakfast (but after a cup of coffee).  Kinda cool to see the site in the afternoon, at night and at the dawn, as different marine life was present at each of these times of day.

That was a dive to 63 feet for 40 minutes and a great way to start the day.

Fun dives, but, after a hearty breakfast, the best dive of the entire trip about to take place.

Tortola Dive #2 - The Wreck Of The RMS Rhone

Dive 2 of the day promised to be even better than the first. We were about to dive what has been ranked as one of the best dives in the Caribbean - the wreck of the RMS Rhone.

The RMS Rhone was an iron-hulled mail and passenger sail-steamer that sank off of Salt Island in a hurricane on 29 October 1867, killing 123 people. 310 feet long with both sails and a steam engine with an 18 foot diameter propeller, she was an impressive ship in her day. Carrying passengers across the Atlantic, to South America and the Caribbean. She's now broken into sections after striking the rock and cold sea water causing her boilers to explode, and was further broken up in 1950 as a hazard to navigation, leaving lots of wreck to explore and many artifacts.

Here's a shot of Black Rock Point, the rock upon which the Rhone was wrecked in the storm:

We descended down the line and met the Rhone.

The wreck is quite broken up, and the rivets of her hull construction are quite visible.

The wreck teems with fish and marine life.

The stern mast, after being taken down in the 1950s.

The gear box and gears that connected the propeller to the engines.

The ship's dance floor:

The Captain's silver spoon now lies embedded in the coral.

The lucky porthole, where legend has it a passenger escaped by slipping out its narrow opening which is most likely a myth. The lucky name is because the glass is mostly intact and divers rub it for luck, keeping it nice and shiny.

The huge propeller and rudder.

It's so big you can easily swim through that opening you see there, and we did.

The wreck of the Rhone is huge, after 45 minutes we had not fully explored all of it, only the stern section. It's a magnificent wreck to dive and explore.

After extensively touring the stern of the wreck of the RMS Rhone, I hung out for a safety stop and then ascended back to the surface.

We then headed back to the pier where the Disney Wonder was waiting.

It was a great dive.