It’s time to break out your underwater cameras: the Roatan Marine Park is holding its Third Annual Marine Photography Contest!

Winning images will be printed in the 2011 Roatan Marine Park Calendar in order to showcase the natural beauty of Roatan’s coral reefs and highlight threats to their future survival.

Entries accepted for six categories:

• macro
• reef inhabitants
• black and white
• divers
• reefs at risk
• invertebrates

Deadline for submission:
31 July 2010

Details:

• All images must be from Roatan
• Images should be in .jpg format. Please include your full name, entry category, where image was taken, and a title
• Photos may be under or above water, but must maintain a marine context
• 1st and 2nd place in each category will be featured in the calendar with small images for runners-up
• Submission of images constitutes your permission for the Roatan Marine Park (RMP) to use these images free of charge for the 2011 RMP Calendar and other RMP publications. All images will be credited to their owners when used.

For more details of the competition, visit www.roatanmarinepark.com.

Email images to: info@roatanmarinepark.net

Luca Pagliaro, an Italian native, has disappeared in Roatan, Honduras last week, probably on 16th March 2010, with Mauriliuo Mirabella, owner of a diveshop who has also disappeared. Everybody who has useful news about him please contact me and my mother without hesitation.

Please let me know also when is the last time you have seen him. Thanks.

Licia and Francesca

liciapagliaro@hotmail.com
francesca.vcr@libero.it

The goal of TiR is to promote tourism and support local businesses on the Caribbean island of Roatan in the Bay Islands of Honduras through online marketing. TiR aims to be Roatan’s premier information service for travel, living, and island news. The site combines a clean modern design, advanced web technologies, and the power of Google Maps to present the beauty of Roatan to the outside world as never before seen.

The Story of TiR

Steve was sick of computer programming.

After wrapping up his Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Steve sold most of his belongings, packed his bags, and moved to the small Caribbean island of Roatan to teach scuba diving, drink rum, and live the beach bum lifestyle. He fell in love with the island’s jaw-dropping coral reef, friendly locals, sweeping white sand beaches, and laid-back attitude. His original plan to stay for three months was postponed… and postponed again… and again… until a year and a half of living the good life had passed by.

Steve returned to the so-called ‘real world’ to program professionally for a video game company in North Carolina. The job was good, the pay was fine, but something was missing. Staring at the photo of scuba divers on Roatan’s reef adorning the background of his computer, he knew he had to go back.

Meanwhile, a few websites Steve had made for Roatan businesses were starting to generate real results. A crazy little idea crept into his head: he could make a genuine impact on local businesses by driving tourism to the island through online marketing. Once again, he sold his stuff, packed his bags, and returned to the island he loved.

Real Time Development On Island Time

Upon returning, Steve began researching how he could make the biggest impact on the local market. Being relatively undeveloped, the island presented some unique challenges. As roads did not have names, local businesses did not have mailing addresses. There was hardly any news media on the island. Internet access was limited and quite slow by first-world standards.

Steve wanted a website that would do more than just act as a business directory. He saw a website that would show visitors exactly where everything was located on Roatan. He believed that media transparency was essential to promoting good business practices in the developing world. He envisioned a site architecture that would offset the slow internet speeds by incrementally streaming data in such a way that the website would never have to be reloaded. He dreamed of a website that would be sleek, modern, and beautiful—a place where local businesses would be proud to appear.

Steve was as naïve as he was ambitious. He thought the website would take six months to build. Unreliable electricity, crashed computers, political turmoil and personal hardships perpetually delayed the project. Progress was steady but aggravatingly slow. He poured his heart, soul, and personal finances into the project, bankrupting himself in the process.

The Dream Becomes Reality

Two years later, Steve finally published the first live version of TiR.

TiR remains the project of which Steve is the most proud. The website is proof that hard work, determination, and a fair bit of insanity can unite to create something incredible. Steve continues to refine TiR to fit the ever-changing needs of local businesses with emerging web technologies, allowing business owners to reach their online customers.

Steve hopes you enjoy the unique experience of TiR almost as much as you enjoy your stay on Roatan. If you find this website useful, please consider making a donation through PayPal; every buck goes a long way towards keeping the dream alive.

I’ve been away from Roatan for just over three weeks and my head is still spinning! I’ve taken very little time to write about my ridiculous misadventures in the meantime… I’ll do my best to hammer out some of the more amusing episodes from my trip in the next days, but for now I think my tired eyes are about squirt blood all over my Mac.

Why? Because I’ve also been busy cranking out three new websites for Roatan:

Roatan Marine Park

URL: http://www.roatanmarinepark.com
Version: 2.0
Created: August 2009
Last Version: October 2009
Engine: WordPress 2.8 and TIREngine 0.80
Features: graphic design, layout design, PHP/mySQL backend, content management system, Google Maps, photo galleries, RSS news feed, online reporting system, PayPal donations

The new Roatan Marine Park website is be the premier showcase for my web design. My first full site other than TheScubaGeek.com to run on the merged WordPress-TIREngine code base, Roatan Marine Park set the new standard for my web development. Featuring an interactive Google Map of every dive site on Roatan, real-time reporting for lionfish sightings and damanged moorings, PDF newsletters, multiple news feeds, and fantastic underwater photography, this collaborative project aims to promote awareness and raise donations for this worthy non-profit organization.

Bite on the Beach

URL: http://www.biteonthebeach.com
Version: 2.0
Created: October 2009
Last Version: October 2009
Engine: WordPress 2.8 and TIREngine 0.80
Features: graphic design, layout design, PHP/mySQL backend, content management system, photo galleries

Bite on the Beach is a cool bar and restaurant located on the northernmost tip of Roatan’s beautiful West Bay beach. Unfortunately, their old website didn’t capture their fun and funky atmosphere, so I worked with them to create a new graphic layout and port their content into a content management system. The moray eel in the logo isn’t there just by chance; several massive green morays live around the restaurant’s rocky shore where they feast on leftover fish scraps.

Roatan Meridian at Lighthouse Point

URL: http://www.roatanmeridian.com
Version: 2.0
Created: September 2009
Last Version: October 2009
Engine: WordPress 2.8 and TIREngine 0.80
Features: graphic design, layout design, PHP/mySQL backend, content management system, photo galleries, custom Flash design

Roatan Meridian at Lighthouse Point features some of the most beautiful villas and condos on Roatan and the only place where you can watch both the sunrise and sunset from your property. Their website was in need some some graphical upgrades and a content management system. I worked with Treasure Island Reality to update their look and migrate their site content over to the CMS system.

My trip to Utila has worn me out. A quick three-day, two-night jaunt over to The Other Island turned into a completely mental six-day whirlwind of scuba diving, Sambuca, fried pork, urinated bunk beds, beautiful women, and very, very late nights. But more on that in a later update.

Still exhausted from the previous wild week, I decide to call it an early night. I try to finish my Utila trip report for the website, but the words aren’t coming. My battered brain and droopy eyelids prevent me from writing anything remotely coherent. (Not that much was coherent about the trip). My sophisticated, intelligent descriptions of my immature, depraved misadventures will have to wait.

Rum and toothpaste is a bad idea. I spit the foul concoction in the sink, strip naked, and climb into bed. I gradually drift in and out of sleep as Pixar’s WALL-E quietly plays on my laptop. Rest, it seems, will finally come.

I am jarred awake by a clatter far too loud to come from the feral cats that frequently fight and fornicate around my house. I lay quietly in the humid stillness of the jungle air, slow my breathing, and stare at the ceiling fan, listening. The sound of footsteps falling on my wooden patio. I call out but receive no response. Is it my imagination?

Rattling at my front door.

I spin out of bed, grab a butcher knife from the kitchen counter, flick it back along my forearm, and spin towards a dark figure outside my screen door. Vacant red eyes stare at me from puffy dark sockets buried in her brown face. Her untamed hair protrudes from her skull like a black gorgonian dangling above the ocean abyss. Bathed in the yellow glow of my porch light, she looks like a smacked-out Honduran cherub.

I recognize her. It’s one of the crazy twins. Two poor girls irreparably wrecked by years of sexual abuse, pregnancy and severe hard drug abuse. Their perpetually vapid expressions convey their disintegrated minds. Their pouting lips are the only remnant of their formerly beautiful selves; what lies beneath is a turbulence of primitive emotions and unimaginable demons—demons that manifest in violent and bizarre outbursts. It’s a tragic story hecho en Honduras.

As she continues to vigorously shake my front door, the tragedy of her plight is lost on me. “What are you doing here?”

“Please… help… help me…”

“What do you need?”

“Don’t call the police.”

“I’m not calling the police. What are you doing here?”

She leans her head against the door and it slides open. I hold the door shut against her weight. “Help me… help…”

“How can I help you?”

She stares vacantly. “Cigarette.”

“Cigarette? Are you kidding me? No! Why are you on my porch at freakin’ midnight?”

“Mi hermana… hermana… sister… understand?”

“Your sister.” Ah yes, the other nutter. Where is she? “Donde esta su hermana?”

She mumbles something unintelligible.

“Where do you live?”

“…Colonial…”

“You live in La Colonial? That’s four miles away. Why are you in Gibson Bight?”

She’s quiet. Her eyes are fixed in a downward trance. Then I realize she’s staring at my penis.

I slam the heavy door shut, stop, and catch my breath to assess the situation. Right, what are the facts? There’s a local crazy on my porch. It’s midnight. I’m naked and holding a butcher knife. Aside from her mumbling outside, the valley is completely silent. Damn my life is weird. I throw on some boxers and swing the door open. She’s still there.

“Okay, you need to tell me what you want or you need to get off my porch.”

“Mi hermana… five babies. Five babies. Comprendes?”

“You sister has five babies.” Maybe she wants money. Not that I have any.

“Five… ten babies. Ten.”

“Ten babies?”

“Ten babies. I give you….” and she points at me.

Crap, I’d heard of this before. A couple weeks ago, I heard that one of the girls was wandering around town trying to hand out a malnourished infant they ‘found in a creek.’ I had thought it was rumor. God, I prayed it was a rumor.

“Babies. I give you. Comprendes?”

Apparently not.

“No. No babies. Please leave.”

“Help… fifteen babies… twenty babies.”

Apparently she can do her five times tables.

“Thirty babies.”

Apparently not.

“Mi hermana, thirty babies.”

“Your sister has thirty babies.”

She drifts off again. She stares at me with wide, empty eyes that have seen several lifetimes of horrors. Only an empty shell remains. She points her finger at me again. “Cigarette… cigarette… help…”

“No.” I put the knife down. I’m not going to hurt her. But she is going to leave. “Now get off my property.”

She moans like a blue whale and slams her head against my door. Her fingernails rake down the screen. She shakes the door violently and bangs her head again. “Noooooooo…”

I force the door open against her weight. She barely reacts. I tower a foot above her. “Stop this. Get out. Now.”

She snarls and grumbles at me, not budging from position against my door. Then her spit smacks my bare chest.

“OUT! NOW!” My throat tears with the volume of my scream. “GET OFF MY PORCH! NOW!”

My shouts arouse the dogs in the valley. As their collective howls crescendo, she becomes alarmed. “Drive me home,” she stammers, pointing towards my scooter.

“NO! GET OUT OF HERE!” The dogs howl louder.

She glares at me.

“GET THE HELL OFF MY PROPERTY!”

The valley is alive with the cries of canines. She stumbles out my gate and down the driveway towards the main road. Finally.

I slide back inside my house, covered in sweat and shaking a bit. My adrenaline is still firing. No way I can sleep right now. I gotta talk to someone.

I lock the house and walk over to a neighbor’s apartment, thankful to find her awake. For ten frantic minutes I agitatedly recount my rude awakening. As I lament how this whole island has gone insane, my heart rate finally lowers. A cup of water later, I am ready to head back to bed.

As I walk towards my front porch, the door to the apartment above me slams open. “Get out of my house!” my neighbor shouts. I watch as he tosses the figure of the same crazy girl out his front door and down the stairs.

She stands, stares, and holds out her hand towards me. “Cigarettes?”

“What are you doing here? I told you to leave!”

She wails, charges towards my front door, and begins violently pulling on the frame. Great, so there’s a crazy lady blocking the entrance to my apartment. Just another night on Roatan. “GET OUT OF HERE!”

She looses her balance and falls backward. Cat food flies everywhere. “Mi hermano… kill you! Kill you!” she screams and spits. “Quemo su casa!”

Death threats have this funny way of pissing me off.

It takes mere seconds for her to hightail it down the driveway again, accompanied by the 7.1 earthquake of my furious voice. I stagger back into my house, double-lock the doors, and slide into the comfort of my bed, my butcher knife resting at arms-reach on my bedside table.

Needless to say, I’m still sleep-deprived.

EPILOGUE

I would like to remind everyone that crazy people are everywhere in this world. Roatan is just a safe haven for a handful of nutters, many of them no more insane than the guy driving the car next to you during rush hour. So please, don’t let this weird story deter you from visiting the Bay Islands; chances are you’re more likely to get killed by that guy in the car next to you anyway.

I would also like to remind everyone that crazy people are like cats: they hate water. I forgot this lesson and it could have been disastrous, for crazies have no fear of knife or nudity and I have excessive fear of Honduran prison. Tonight, I’m sleeping with a gallon of water by my bedside. Judging by the way that guy in the car is staring at you, I suggest you do the same.

He points over my shoulder. I turn, following his black finger towards the white dress sauntering down the dock below. Crackhead Craig is right. It is the crazy lady.

Craig leans closer and props his sunglasses haphazardly on his head. “That bitch crazy, man,” he mumbles, looking at me with glazed eyes. For a brief second I catch a glimpse of the teenage boy who helped his dad raise the pigs as I watched from my neighboring hammock. Then the image withers into the emaciated figure extending his open palm towards me. “Gimme a cigarette.”

“I don’t smoke, dude. I tell you that every time you ask.”

“Oh,” he sniffs, head weaving.

The crazy lady slides up the stairs to the second storey of the dock. “Look at all these beautiful people,” she giggles childishly. Her eyes roll up towards the sky. She spins twice in a slow circle, her loose fitting dress rippling around her skeletal frame. “All so beautiful, all so nice…”

“You want some crack?” Craig blurts.

“No man.”

“Oh.” His neck bobs like a chicken. “Coke?”

“No.”

He sniffs again, leans in close, and whispers. “She’s crazy, man.”

She’s glaring at me from the opposite corner of the dock, her beady black eyes buried between the folds of leathery skin adorning her scowling skull. There’s no accounting for what goes on in the chemically imbalanced mind. Her face muscles tense into a snarl exposing the canines in her mouth. I avert my gaze.

Crackhead Craig shuffles away. A new group of tourists have climbed the stairs to our viewing platform, and he’s eager to bum and hustle again. I still feel the lady staring at me. When Crackhead Craig calls someone crazy, you know there’s something really wrong.

He’s right. A few days earlier she painfully serenaded my co-workers with nonsensical songs. Act Two: she stripped naked in the bay and waltzed down the dock. For the Grand Finale, she squatted on the deck at work, pulled down her panties, and urinated all over the place. She even saved some energy for an Encore: after slapping a few tourists, she was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by two of West End’s finest. The audience raised their glasses in standing ovation as officers shoved her into the police car.

Just another day on Roatan, I think.

I glance to my right. She’s still staring. Damn that’s creepy. This kills the sunset.

I slide down the ladder and duck away before Craig can ask me for another cigarette. The warm white sand sieves through my toes. The sun bathes the bays in gold. Tan islands dogs chase one another down the beach, their scarlet tongues flapping in tow.

On Roatan the dogs have at least as much personality as the people—and in some cases, more. I can think of at least a handful of dogs I’d rather hang out with than any of the crazy crackheads on this rock.

“Hey mista Steve, gotta minute?”

Speak of the Devil.

A scrawny and severely weathered man shuffles beside me, a beaten rake slung over his shoulder. He removes his baseball cap and slicks back his matted gray hair. He softens the squinty dark eyes hiding beneath his Osama bin Laden beard, willing crocodile tears of pathos to well from their corners. It’s the same thing every time.

“Okay.”

“Hey man ja know I’m a good man and I ain’t never ask for nuttin’ but I come into hard time ja know and I need some help man cause dis morning  dis fuckin’ Spaniard says to me, he says ‘Dorado, I has four barracuda and nows I have three, you fuckin’ take my fuckin’ barracuda,’ an’ I says ‘I ain’t touch no damn barracuda, I ain’t no fuckin’ thief,’ an he’s thinkin’ just cus I down here everyday, ja know man, down here everyday cleaning da beach dat I be takin’ his barracuda, but I tells him ‘I ain’t no fuckin’ thief, I work, I ain’t need to steal, I WORK, I’m a man, so he keep goin’ ‘bout dis fuckin’ barracuda, and I says ‘You best stop callin’ me a fuckin’ thief cus I cut you wif my fuckin’ machete’, ja know.  I’m a fuckin’ MAN, dammit.”

“Okay.”

“I works hard to sweep dat beach, clean it real good you know, the best fuckin’ clean beach on island, I’m da rakemaster.  So hey, I gots to ask ya man ya gots some limps I can borrow today cus I can’t wait to weekend, ja know, I have important things to do, gotta go to town…”

“Sorry dude, I’m broke,” I truthfully reply.

“Okay man dats okay.” He put his cap back on. Eyes narrowed, he turns and walks away muttering, “damn fuckin’ gringo…”

Car horns blare. Four vehicles: it’s total gridlock on West End High Street.

Haywood is directing traffic. He staggers in the intersection, pointing in random directions with one arm as the other raises an unlabeled bottle to his polio-gnarled lips. The cheap rum spills down his shirt as he growls.

Moses stands on the corner preaching hellfire and damnation to the white man. Gray dreadlocks spill from an oversized white turban down to the small of his back. Wads of spittle fly from holes in the massive beard as he howls of death to whitey. He raises a piece of spiraled bleached driftwood above his head. His wild eyes betray the delusion within: he is Moses before Pharaoh, demanding his people be set free, lest God change his staff into a serpent.

Man, this place attracts the crazies. Just one giant mental asylum basking in the Caribbean sun.

“But I’m sane, I’m still sane, I’m sane…” I mutter to myself as I shuffle down the street.

The tears stream uncontrollably. The same sad words— “he’s dead”— reiterate through convulsive sobs of sorrow.

The rescuer thrusts violently against his chest, the movement of her lips a verbal metronome against which the compressions are delivered. “One-and-two-and-three-and…”

“You’re doing it wrong! He’s turning blue!”

“Take care of this guy!” she shouts. “You, calm him down. Keep him away and watch him for shock.” Her count reaches thirty and she seals the victims nose for two more breaths. The chest rises, falls, and repeats. She traces his ribcage with her hand, places two fingers on his sternum, and strikes the heel of her palm in place. The count resumes as she channels 130 pounds of force through her locked arms, her body becoming the artificial lungs and heart of artificial life.

“No, not Chucky,” the bystander cries. “Not again. No, no… he’s my best friend.” His words are drown by his mournful hiccups.

“Is the O-2 ready? Good. Open it, continuous flow, fifteen liters per minute. Hook it on the pocket mask right… now. Alright, two breaths.”

“Dammit he’s dead! No, no, no…”

“Lay him down, turn him over! …and fourteen and fifiteen and sixteen… Get him out of his wetsuit! …and nineteen and twenty and…”

“That’s not how they do it on House! You’re killing him!”

She laughs briefly before administering two more rescue breaths.

“And cut!” I shout.

We collapse on the deck, chuckling between our gasps of air. The blue mannequin is covered in sand-encrusted handprints compressed into the foam from cardiovascular resuscitation. Dive gear is scattered across the boat deck. A freakish doll, eyes blacked from rust and body orbited by an obscenely over-weighted belt, rests upsidedown on the stern, seawater streaming from its plastic dreadlocks.

Exhausted from completing the final scenario of the PADI Rescue Diver course, we exchange congratulatory smiles. “The worst is over,” I say, suppressing my smirk betraying the truth. “Great job. Catch you breath and break down your gear. We’ll debrief in a few minutes.”

Based on over a decade’s experience as a professional lifeguard and scuba diving instructor, I can personally assure you that emergencies are never convenient.

Every PADI Rescue Diver course I teach begins with two rules:

1. Never give up: that is the only way to fail.
2. Murphy’s Law is in effect: anything and everything can and will happen.

The rest, I assure my students, is up to practice, good judgment, and determination. The practice I will supply. The judgment I can help refine. The determination, however, comes from within.

Of course, a healthy dose of paranoia helps too.

The flashlight shimmers in my right eye, diverting my attention to the figure illuminated at the watchman’s feet. He’s curled in the fetal position, left side down, motionless. Not another drunk, I think. Get him in the recovery position and monitor his breathing.

Another glimmer of light. White light reflected from black pools on the soft earth. And there’s lots of black pools. All from one source. Him.

“Muerte?” I ask the watchman.

“Si, muerte.”

“Dame la luz.”

I scan the watchman’s flashlight over the corpse and count six puncture wounds peppered across the back of his flannel shirt. His eyes are locked open, his pupils permanently fixed slightly upward, his dark Honduran skin already waning taut over his slender face. His throat, neatly slit from ear to ear, lays exposed to the humid night air as sticky pools of bodily fluid coagulate beneath his lifeless corpse.

A white taxi coated in bloody handprints is crashed on the sidewalk. A crimson trail extending from the ajar car door marks the path along which he took his final steps. The Anthony’s Key Resort medical clinic lies a cruel one hundred meters from his body.

It exactly looks like a scene from a slasher film. What Hollywood omits is the acrid metallic aroma of a fresh slaughter.

A fellow Coconut Tree Divers Instructor stands beside me. “Shit, this is bad,” he understates. “We need some barriers.”

This is one helluva bathroom break, I think. Bloody Murphy’s Law.

I stick my head in the Anthony’s Key Resort classroom. Forty PADI Instructors turn to face me. The PADI Regional Director stands in front of the projector. A Powerpoint slide displaying tips for teaching effective PADI Rescue Diver courses is projected on the canvas screen.

“Excuse me guys, but I need some barriers fast,” I feebly state. My words fall on vacant stares. “Can I get some barriers? Gloves? Something? Hello?!” No movement. They must think I’m kidding!

“What’s going on?” the Director asks.

“There’s been an accident. I just need some gloves.” And I don’t need forty instructors running out to see a dead guy.

My coworker bursts in the classroom. “Where are the barriers?” he asks me. Our bewildered audience sits silently, staring at our blanched faces. “Where are the fucking gloves?” he growls. “There are forty fucking instructors in this room and none of them know where to find some fucking gloves?! We need some gloves right fucking now! NOW! MOVE!”

Minutes later, I touch my first dead body. Mere millimeters of latex separate my warm fingers from the sticky cold of his severed carotid artery. There’s no need for CPR: he doesn’t have enough blood left in his body.

An avalanche of Honduran onlookers spills from the hills of neighboring colonial. They congregate around the corpse. Hysterical shouts in Spanish declare the victim to be one of their own. Anthony’s Key Resort management shepherds the bystanders away.

We safely strip the bloody latex gloves away from our trembling hands. The adrenaline crash is nauseating. “Screw the PADI meeting,” I say, “let’s find some tequila.”

Based on nearly five years of living on Roatan, I can personally assure you that emergencies cannot be anticipated.

The current Honduran Constitutional Crisis has served a severely ill-timed blow to tourism on my beloved island. As international condemnation of the Honduran coup has mounted through the misinformation perpetuated by the international media, the Bay Islands— despite having operating semi-autonomously for centuries— have felt the sudden backlash of canceled flights, cruises, and vacation reservations. Tourism-based bars, restaurants, and nightlight suffer under the current curfews.

Fortunately for Roatan business owners, the curfews have been relaxed back to 10pm. A 6:30pm sunset curfew was briefly imposed on July 5th in response to the riots at the Tegucigalpa airport in which one person was killed.

Unfortunately, the recent events may deal the deathblow for our typical tourist high season. While the months of July and August are usually jam-packed with visitors, the alarming number of cancellations last week has left many West End scuba diving instructors fearing for the future. We have the tremors of a 7.1 earthquake only recently behind us, an international political crisis currently in the works, and hurricane season looming on the horizon. Uncertainty is in the air.

We never anticipated this emergency.

Laughter rolls through the tropical air.

We stroll along the stone pathway from the dive shop to the beach hoisting our scuba masks and fins in wet mesh bags. The golden Caribbean sun streams over my slender eighteen-year-old swimmer’s body as I stroll along the white sands. An ineradicable ivory smile is plastered across my tan face.

The indelible image of the arching indigo-and-white wings of an eagle ray is etched in my mind. Mere minutes ago I was drifting along in Cozumel’s crazy currents as a slideshow of sea life swept past my mask. Now, with the last of my checkout dives complete, I am officially certified as an Open Water Diver. My life has been forever changed by four unforgettable dives.

Mournful cries float on the wind.

She is hunched over his corpulent corpse, her heart-wrenching sobs of genuine loss juxtaposed against the gentle lapping of the tide as she says weeps her last goodbyes. She kisses his wet forehead as his flesh finally fades to ashen. Two exhausted Mexican paramedics stand behind her. One removes his latex gloves. The other prepares the body bag.

I recognize his face.

He was sitting by the pool bar at 8am this morning. I had just finished breakfast. While I prepared my dive equipment, he was polishing off a beer. While I was breathing freely through my regulator sixty feet underwater, he was suffocating through his snorkel six inches beneath the surface. I had never felt more alive as I drifted along Cozumel’s spectacular reef walls. His last feeling was the bitter blend of salt, beer, and water as he sank to the coral below.

My scuba diving career began as his life ended; my passion for teaching the PADI Rescue Diver course is, in part, a dedication to the memory of this fat and faceless dead snorkler.

Laughter ripples from the bar and across the waves as the sun dissolves in the sea. Island dogs antagonize each other with playful nips. A newlywed couple bobs in the bay, their tight embrace belying their intentions of other undulations in the near future.

I raise my frosty Salva Vida to the setting sun. “To Roatan.” We toast another day of the life worth living.

Life’s uncertainty, like evening thunderclouds, may always loom on the horizon. But as we gather on the shores of Half Moon Bay in ritual sunset worship, I sip my drink in celebration of the little things that make life sweet for certain.

The tremors of Murphy’s Law shake my life and personal emergencies always strike at grossly inconvenient times, but my resolve remains strong: never give up living the dream.

We maxed out at 1300ft and spent 3.5 hours cruising down Lophelia Reef, an amazing ecosystem of lophelia corals, white sponges, squat lobsters, pompom anemones, cat sharks, and sea lillies adorning house-sized boulders of fossilized coral and basalt.

The submarine is the hardest shooting environment I’ve encountered— low light, movement (both the sub and the animals), distorted perspective (the submarine’s convex viewport messes with depth perception), and cramped environment. On this expedition I mostly shot video (currently being editing), but several my still photos turned out decent.

Lia, I have no idea how you did it. I guess talent helps.

Enjoy these shots of alien life!

300ft: The surface fades away.

350ft: Massive elephant ear sponge

400ft: Looking up Half Moon Bay wall

700ft: Sea lilly reaching into the darkness

800ft: Unidentified fish (Karl claims to have never seen it before)

900ft: Polka dot anglerfish

1000ft: The sponge belt

1000ft: White sponges in the sponge belt

1100ft: Brilliant pompom anemone

1100ft: Incredible 30+ft long deep sea siphonophore (yes, this is an animal)

1300ft: Brittle stars along a wire coral

1300ft: Blood red anemone

1300ft: Squat lobster and crinoid

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.