West Bay & an underwater galaxy

We went on the 9am dive to Turtle Crossing - sadly no turtles. It was a nice dive but nothing special. We went on a catamaran this time and got to lie on the trapeze looking down at the crystal clear water. We went with British DM Andrew who was a bit moody, and Jenny and 3 American guys who all refused to come up at the end and pissed Andrew off even more.

Andrew gave us all a $5 voucher if we promised to write a TripAdvisor review so we had a big free breakfast of pancakes and fruit.

There weren't enough people to do a night dive here so I arranged one with Sun Divers across the road for $50 and they kindly agreed to let Anna come and snorkel for $10. Hannah decided not to come as it's pricey.

Then we got a 10 minute water taxi for 60L each to West Bay, where the rich people stay! It's a beautiful white sand, turquoise water beach with no sand flies. A lot of the beach is reserved with hotel sunbeds for the posh people but us commoners walked to the far end and found some shade under some palm trees. There is a huge reef just off the shore and we took it in turns to snorkel and sunbathe / guard our bags. Anna and Hannah saw a hawksbill turtle. Anna and I couldn't find the turtle again but did see a gigantic parrot fish. There was a nice wind making it the perfect sunbaking temperature.

We came back and Hannah went snorkelling again in Half Moon Bay and saw another turtle.

Anna and I prepared for our dive by eating yesterday's chocolate! Just before sunset we went and got geared up and headed out on the boat and moored up not too far out (site = Deep Channel?). DM Sofia gave us a long briefing and then we went in with 4 others. We saw octopuses, lobsters, a huge crab waving it's claws, long sea cucumber 'snakes', a file fish, dead-looking sleeping fish, a parrot fish in it's sac and various other things. All around you could see little pairs of red eyes and when you shone the torch on them, they were tiny red shrimp. Half-way through the dive we knelt on the bottom and turned our torches off for 10 minutes. Once our eyes adjusted the whole ocean lit up into an underwater galaxy - it was amazing! Bubbles and any movement caused green bioluminescence and all around you could see the 'string of pearls', which is a very rare thing only seen in Roatan and one other place apparently. They are small crustaceans which light up as they move up and down in the water creating the appearance of a row of flashing lights - a mating display (photo is from web to give an idea). The end result was tons of lights all around us - awesome! After over an hour we came up and the sea was flat calm and the sky was lit up above us with masses of stars, absolutely stunning.

The boat had moved to the end of the dive where it was shallower and Anna went snorkelling and saw a huge green moray eel and the bioluminescence - she absolutely loved it.

We got back to shore, showered quickly and headed out to dinner. Creole's was shut as it's Sunday so we ate at the same place as last night. I asked for vegetarian and got chicken-fried rice. Not as good as last night's meal.Read more