Air: 200bar – 80 bar
Mix: air
Tank: 12L/80cu
Weight: 6lbs

Visibility: 50-130ft/15-40m
Water: 88F/31C surface, 84F/29C bottom
Exposure: Rash Guard

Comments:

Beautiful deep drift along the bottom of Lighthouse Reef wall. Noticeable thermocline at 40ft; water in top layer was turbid with a moderate current running north, while water in bottom layer was extremely clear with a mild current running north. Sandy sloped bottom starts at 90ft and drops into the abyss, brightly illuminating the deep wall with reflected sunlight. Several oceanic triggerfish and a free-swimming scorpionfish spotted along the wall.

Welcome back to surreality!

This is just a quick update to explain my lack of updates over the last week. It’s not that I haven’t had material to write about. I have, and that is the problem. For those eager for the next update in the adventures of TheScubaGeek, I offer this list of events in my life. Each of these items warrants a proper follow-up article (and I swear I’ll get them done), but for now, this is the best I can manage at 1am on Honduran highspeed….

• Pete found a juvenile lionfish at 38ft near Dixie’s Place. We captured the bugger and brought him to the surface, where he survived for three days on a diet of rum and Funions.
• A poisoned dog dropped dead on the Coconut Tree Divers dock. Submarine Karl said he didn’t need the carcass to feed the six-gill sharks, so we took Lassie for her last walk… rope, cinderblock, boat, and abyss.
• I was dive-bombed by an eight-foot manta ray in an incredibly rare encounter with the living leviathan (my first on Roatan). My Open Water students (on only their second dive!) have no idea how spoiled they are…
• I crossed paths with an enormous loggerhead turtle at 50ft on White Hole. It had approximately a four foot carapace and a wicked prehistoric tail.

And last but not least,

• I spent three and a half hours in Karl Stanley’s submarine Idabel shooting video of the crazy inhabitants of the deep sea. This expedition (my third with Karl) certainly deserves its own article… how else can I descibe the mindblowing experience of cruising 1300ft underwater in a homemade submarine. Story, pictures, and movies coming soon……..

Right, more updates coming when my eyes can focus… until then…

I love my life!!!

Darting across the dirt road towards Half Moon Bay beach, I scan the dock, the beach, and the water for the source of the shouts of distress. A handful of people stand on the dock, pointing excitedly at two figures struggling on the surface some two hundred meters offshore, their bodies bobbing in and out of sight amidst the rolling waves. My coworkers are charging down the dock.

This is the real deal.

I’ve been here before. With forty-seven PADI Rescue Diver certifications under my belt, I’ve simulated this situation at least as many times, but the level-headedness with which I execute my training scenarios is quickly usurped by the shot of raw adrenaline coursing through my veins. Perceptual narrowing kicks in. Time dilates.

The salty spray scalds my eyes as I stampede through the breaking surf. The sandy bottom gives out from beneath my feet. I crawl through the swells head-up with my vision fixed on the victims, nervously anticipating which rescue skills will be required of me in a mere matter of seconds. Two of my fellow Coconut Tree Divers Instructors dive off the dock, scrambling with equal intensity towards the scene.

I stress realism when I teach my PADI Rescue Diver courses. With every course I conduct, I strive to stress two key points:

1. Murphy’s Law is in effect. Emergencies are never convenient.
2. The only way to fail a rescue is to give up. Never, ever give up.

From vomiting ketchup in my students’ faces to spontaneously enacting missing diver searches at grossly inconvenient times, I aim to drive home these principles to each and every one of my students. With every simulation I teach, my overarching goal is to ensure that my students can and will fall back upon their training when faced with a real emergency. Before I scribble my signature upon any certification card, I must have confidence that my students are capable of providing adequate care in the face of novel and potentially terrifying circumstances. But no amount of simulation can prepare you for the sheer terror of touching cold, pale skin as you turn a victim’s unresponsive body face-up in the water.

His face is white and blue. Look, listen, feel. Weak breathing. His oxygen window is ticking away. The next few minutes are a matter of life or death.

Jose and I hook him under the arm, towing with all our might towards the shore. Matt attends to the other girl who, though obviously panicked, has decidedly less cyanosis than her partner. The strain of pulling a completely inert body is exhausting. We are still a fair distance from the shore. Time is ticking.

Marco tosses a yellow throw-rope from the dock. It’s a perfect throw, landing just inches away. I hook the line around my right arm. Marco runs down the deck, dragging our trio of rescuers and victim towards shore at a speed far faster than our tired legs could possibly kick. Our feet strike the sandy bottom. We’re running chest-deep in the surf. We drag his unresponsive body onto the beach, carefully cradling his head and rolling him on his side into the recovery position.

He vomits a noxious mixture of seawater and half-digested sandwich. He is breathing, thank God; CPR isn’t necessary for now. The oxygen kit is brought down from the shop. He’s not breathing strong enough for the nonresuscitator demand valve. We throw together the nonrebreather continuous flow mask, opened to 15 liters per minute. He’s over-breathing the bag. 25 liters per minute. Breathing becomes a bit more stable.

The crowd gathers in a circle. Delegation is now critical. You, gather information from his friend. You, call a taxi. You, keep these pricks with video cameras away from us.

We haul his limp, sand-coated body into the cab. The oxygen kit, still delivering a continuous flow of that life-giving gas to his lungs, rests in the front seat. His head lays on my lap. As the taxi careens towards Anthony’s Key Resort, I have flashbacks of how my childhood cat passed away in my mother’s lap en route to the vet. God, please don’t let him pass his death stool on me.

We’re here. The taxi driver runs into the clinic to summon the doctors. I gently remove the oxygen mask from his face. He is a bit more responsive now, and already his skin has taken on the reddish hues indicative of a normally functioning human. We struggle to shuffle him on the stretcher. Three, two, one, vaminos!

The doctors carry him inside the clinic. After seemingly endless minutes of chaos, I am suddenly alone, coated in sand and spittle, standing barefoot on the rough gravel of the Anthony’s Key parking lot. I breathe deeply, resisting the waves of nausea from the volatile concoction of adrenaline and lactic acid accumulating in my body.

Resistance proves futile. I vomit in the bush.

As my vile upchuck settles into the soil, I recall how, a year prior, I stood in the same spot staring down upon the lifeless corpse of a freshly murdered taxi driver as liters of his congealed blood stained the earth. I remember frantically dashing into a meeting of some forty-odd PADI professionals demanding barriers with which to take the stabbed cabby’s final pulse check. I recall the sensation of touching my warm fingers against his cold skin, his flesh rigid with early rigamortis, the metallic tinge of bodily fluid tainting the night air. Emergencies are truly never convenient. I puke again.

But the training works—this I know for certain. Whatever the outcome of my present predicament, the training from the Emergency First Response and PADI Rescue Diver courses works. As my queasiness subsides, the blur of the last hours comes into focus. Minor mistakes were made—why didn’t I take off my wetsuit before the swim? how the hell could I forget to grab my fins?—but I remind myself that imperfect care delivered is better than perfect care withheld. The training works. The team worked. Whatever happens, we did all that we could to give him a fighting chance at survival.

And then he’s laughing.

I have witnessed a miracle. He’s standing, laughing, and weakly smiling. As an IV drips essential nutrients directly into his bloodstream, I am finally able to introduce myself to the man who, less than two hours ago, was floating cataleptic amidst the sea swells. He’s alive and well. The cruise ship leaves in an hour, and he will be sailing away from my little island of Roatan with one helluva story to share over the all-you-can-eat lobster dinners.

I sit on the dock as the sun descends beyond the horizon, a half-finished rum and pineapple in hand, as the aquamarine waters of Half Moon Bay become an oil-like smear of reds, violets, and greens. My body aches. My head heaves with the dull doldrums of mild dehydration. My heart rejoices. I raise my glass alongside those of my coworkers. With the clink of glasses, we tacitly salute the same thought: the training works.

Well this is pretty crazy…

The thought floats to the surface of my consciousness as my bubbles cascade against the gnarled ceiling just inches above my head, slipping through invisible porous slivers in the ironshore and cascading through a impossibly interwoven stream of eons-old coral fossils to escape, unnoticed, on the surface twenty feet above my head.

Twenty vertical feet, I remind myself.

I am wedged forty feet inside a tiny fissure in the fore reef at Hole in the Wall dive site near West End, Roatan, Honduras. An ominous hallway of unexplored darkness looms before me, beckoning me to shed my dive light deeper into the cave. The last inklings of Caribbean sunlight illuminate my hands as I loop my line around an outcropping on the prickly cave wall—in the event that silt from the cave floor obscures my sight, this tie-off may be all that helps me escape from a subterranean drowning.

I draw a slow circle around the next chamber in the cave, memorizing the contours of the craggy walls. I inspect the intermittent puffs of silt tumbling as my bubbles strike the ceiling. I extend a finger into the cave floor. Slime. The organic ooze of congealed decomposition. A chamber of things long deceased. This chamber sees very little tidal movement. Visibility could be an issue on the way out.

Pretty damn crazy.

The tie-off is secure. My elbows push against the walls, gently propelling my forward in the room. I sweep the light to the right. The floor slopes slightly into an impenetrable taper in the wall. Hovering motionless as to not perturb the glob of decay on the floor, I slowly sweep my light across the room.

What is that?

Swollen, slippery, and prickly, a fully exposed Deer Cowery inches along the rocky edifice. A flash of fluorescent red. A copper lobster retreats tail-first into a crevice, startled by the sudden intrusion of illumination in its impenetrable abode. Eyes glow in the darkness.

To the left, the cave slopes slightly upward and into another room. I pull my fins behind me head, give a subtle flick of the ankle, and glide forward. My line pulls taught. Eighty-five feet inside. It’s the end of the line for both my reel and the cave, as my light discloses no further penetrable passageways. The silt is bad in here. Time to turn.

And what is THAT?!

It’s motionless. Hovering, just inches from my light, is an alien. No, wait, it’s a fish. But what the hell is it?! Never in my four-plus years of scuba diving on Roatan have I seen this creature! It doesn’t react to the light. It’s a four-inch-long obsidian rippling tail with an obscenely upturned mouth.

Wait, is that another? And another! Holy crap!

I swing my light around the room, revealing at least twenty Black Brotulas lingering along the cave walls, wiggling like tadpoles from Mars. And then they disappear.

The silt wells up in front of my light, instantaneously reducing my visibility to nil. My light penetrates only inches into the globs of aquatic goo. My fingers lock around my line—my lifeline— and feel the fibers guiding me to safety. I remember my days of Divemaster training frigid murk of a North Carolina rock quarry.

I’ve been here before.

I inch forward, relying on the pressure of the line and my memory of the cave to lead the way. My right hand traces the wall. The light penetrates a little further. This must be the entrance the room. My left hand reaches out.

And then the wall moves. A pair of antennas rake my mask.

Damn lobsters.

I wiggle through the entrance on my elbows. This room is silted too. It’s shadow diving at it’s finest—analyzing the indistinguishable smear of soil and light to discern shapes, walls, ceilings, direction, and ultimately the way out. The reel turns one click at a time in my hand. Regulate the breathing. Focus. One click at a time.

And there’s the light. The cloud of silt dissipates. A quick loop of the reel unhooks my last tie off. Hand spinning quickly, I reel my way toward the cave mouth, undoing the tie-offs from earlier.

And there she is: that blue, that endless blue, the Caribbean blue that sears my soul with my love of life, living, and thankfully staying alive.

And here I am: a hovering cloud of cave dust, metal, neoprene, and smiles.

I love my life.

The bell rings. My arms pump in rapid yet rhythmic alternation, delivering haymakers and uppercuts to the facial region of my foe. He ducks, weaves, and wallops a low kidney-shot to my torso, simultaneously crumbling my defenses and body with a single emphatic blow. I twitch on the ground in agony. Despite the fervent shaking of my arms, I remain unconscious on the floor. The time ticks away—eight, nine, ten—and it’s finished. I’ve lost.

And yet another fourth grader has kicked my butt at Wii Boxing.

Tonight was the Coconut Tree Carnival for the Kids, a fundraiser supporting the SOL International Foundation. Whether it be ring tosses, football throws, darts and balloons, coconut throws, or the aforementioned Wii Boxing, games abounded as kids of all ages turned out to win prizes of candy and inflatable baseball bats. Hot dogs off the grill and freshly-popped popcorn rounded the carnival affair.

And fun was indeed had by all ages.

Personally, I lost 100 lempiras in challenging a fourteen-year-old in a stupid parlor trip— and yes, I must admit to being outsmarted (or at least out-shenaniganned). Then I lost successive rounds in Wii Boxing to kids half my age and a third my body-weight. Hey, it’s for the kids, eh?

(I truly am a few years away from being obsolete. A three-year-old— yes, three years of age— corrected me on how to unpause the Wii Sports menu. I might as well retire now while I’m still ahead.)

At the end of the day, the Coconut Tree Carnival was a rousing success. It was such a genuine pleasure to see kids of all social background playing together in lighthearted competition. I am proud of our contribution to the local community and particularly SOL International Foundation— Dave and Brandon, you guys are doing a fantastic job with these children!

My feet have big, deep, and possibly infected cuts from walking barefoot several miles a day. The antibiotics do their best, but the constant tearing of the scabs from scuba diving coupled with the far-from-sterile humid environment of West End makes recovery a month-long process.

I would be wearing shoes if I could find a single sandel in size 13 in Central America. My Chacos— supposedly indestructible—fell apart after nine months. (Not bad, actually: the average lifespan of my sandels down here is three months). So while I wait for the next RAS shipment to arrive, I am officially shoeless.

Shoes wouldn’t be such a problem if my scooter worked. Things come in threes, I guess. I’ve plunked down over $100 with Captain Van’s to get the Nitroxmobile repaired, but their fixes have only lasted a few days before she sputters out again. So now my beloved yellow-and-green POS sits, useless, in my driveway a mile outside of town— which, by the way, happens to be a very long way to walk on busted bare feet.

No, living in paradise ain’t easy. Living is still, after all, living. Like the lapping waves, it is a cycle of bittersweet ups and downs. I have sacrificed so much in the last four-plus years to pursue this dream— careers, relationships, financial security, mental sanity, etc— that I find myself exhausted. So I sit here at my office and ponder, “Is it all worth it?”

Then I look around.

Oh, wait, that’s right, I live on a Caribbean island. My office is my MacBook opened on a picnic table at Sundowners Beach Bar. My cubicle is the white sands of Half Moon Bay. My window view is the turquoise waters of the Caribbean sea, where, at the present moment, a class of beginner scuba divers are practicing their first breaths underwater.

My co-workers are a small group of island children playing futbol on the beach and doing backflips into the bay. I’m dressed in business casual today: no shirt, no shoes, just my board shorts, turtle necklace, and Roatan Marine Park bracelet. My customers often wear even less.

My commute was a barefoot stroll down the beach. My only stop-and-go traffic was waiting in line for Keith’s Beachside Barbecue to make me a fresh-off-the-grill sausage baleada. My only red light: when I sat beneath a coconut tree to eat it.

No, living in paradise ain’t easy. But man, it’s worth it.

Evelyn, a professional Madonna impersonator, gives the performance of a lifetime on the Coconut Tree Divers deck. Amazingly, the voice really is her singing “Like a Prayer,” and she didn’t know that her prop would be a three-foot-long sparkling schlong until seconds prior to performance.

Watch all the way to the end— it will blow you away.

Note to self: Install web cam on Coconut Tree Divers deck.

Each year, local dive shops compete in a challenge to raise the most money for the SOL International Foundation. The winning dive shop will be honored with the coveted Golden Buoy at Oasis Bar on 16 April during the second annual Dive Shop Olympics.

The SOL International Foundation is working to initiate and support community-based programs designed to promote education and increase the quality of life on Roatan.
Through the support of grants and initiatives they are committed to enhancing the standards of education, arts and athletics in lesser developed areas.

Click the link below to donate to the SOL International Foundation! Make your donation on behalf of Coconut Tree Divers and help us win!

https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=11862

Last week I was bit by a spider. I don’t know what type of spider. If I knew what type of spider bit me, I wouldn’t have let it crawl on my neck in the first place. I just woke up with two lovely incision marks near my left jugular.

In lieu of developing spidey-sense, I got a fever. I can’t sling webs from my wrist nor swoop in unexpectedly on bad guys. I can, however, ooze puss, spread Staph, and sit around looking decidedly unheroic. I can’t even climb into my superhero suit (the wet variety) for the next three days. Aside from a woman named Mary Jane, Peter Parker and I don’t have much in common.

Welcome to the jungle

So I’ve been away from the blogsphere for the last three weeks. A quick update of my life on Roatan is in order. Highlights during this time period include:

• Having my computer battery fry, my 3G adapter go haywire, and my Dell catch a healthy set of viruses— hence my break from the online world. What can I say? Technology hates me. Thankfully all of these issues have since been fixed. Oh, and thanks to Dell’s quality tech support, I’m now a Mac user.
• Going out with DSAT Tec Deep Instructor Monty Graham on a Discover Tec Diving experience. It was my first time donning doubles, routing the long hose, and strapping a stage bottle under each arm. Surprisingly, I found achieving neutral buoyancy in this bukly rig to be far easier than I expected. Getting familiar with the standard rig configuration will take some more practice, but this introduction to tec diving served its purpose— I want more.
• Finishing my PADI IDC Staff Instructor course with PADI Course Director Will Welbourn. I’ve been planning on doing my IDC Staff since November 2006, but unfortunately in the past my plans have been delayed. It was a long time coming, but I’m glad to finally be one step closer to my PADI Master Instructor rating.
• Doing some amazing diving with underwater photographer Vivian Weber-Pagel and using her incredible macro photographer to design a new set of print media for Coconut Tree Divers. I’ve been diving the Roatan reef for over four years, and I still have no idea how she manages to photograph these minuscule critters. It truly is The Little Things That Count.
• Getting to dive with my parents again

Time for more antibiotics… f’in spiders…

Jenna, I’m going out on the town tonight.

Hey, it’s Friday in West End. As as a Coconut Tree Dive Instructor, it’s my professional duty to fraternize with the customers. After all, “I’m only going for one.”

Call it Rumdowners, Sunny D’s, whatever… Sundowners Beach Bar is always the first stop along the “West End Drift Dive”.

As the setting sun casts an rippling cascade of colors over Half Moon Bay, the glasses are filled with ice, piña, and copious amounts of Flor de Caña rum, cheers are raised, and the night begins.

Huddled by a blazing bonfire on the beach under a Venusian glow, plans of impending ridiculousness unfurl amidst frequent bursts of laughter.

French fry chicken nachos will be the grub of choice. Sounds a bit disgusting, but in a deliciously bar food sorta way it’s actually better than most of the overpriced dishes served at nearby restaurants.

[but more on that next week]

I know the Cult of Coconut will get their grubby mitts all over my fries, but hey, when you dive with Coconut Tree Divers, you’re family— including all the times your siblings swiped food from your plate.

BTW: Happy 24th Birthday, Christie!

I’d love to blog more, but the party is getting started. Time to get a refill and get this night started.