Day Four

Well, I have had an interesting day so far. Woke up a little later than usual, I finally made it out of my room by just after 8am. Walked down to the dive shop... same walk I have every morning... Got there at the same time as most people, grabbed some coffee and wondered what to eat for breakfast. There is a lady that walks down the strip every morning and sells baked goods like bagels, muffins, scones and breakfast wrap type things. I wanted to get the breakfast wrap but somebody else got the last one. The lady felt bad so she gave me one of the scones for free – I tried to pay her but she wouldn’t let me, she is very nice – will be purchasing from her again for sure. We finished up our breakfast, got the dive equipment ready and headed out to the boat.

Shot of Half Moon Bay, right out front of my hotel - Sun was in a bad position, but water was calm. You can see the sailboat in the middle - There is a rope swing off the large beam that we were swinging off of the other night.

Today was the first day I used the GoPro camera while diving. For those of you who don’t know how to dive – it is actually harder than it looks, there are many things that are going through your head and many things you need to be aware of while diving. The biggest one is your buoyancy – this is controlled by an inflatable jacket, called your BCD – as well as your breathing. Taking a deep breath of air can cause you to rise, and then fall when you breathe out. So while filming with the GoPro, I would sometimes rise up quite a bit, and have to descend and re-equalize my ears and whatnot. The footage I shot wasn’t that great today – pretty shaky, but I now know that I have to be extremely smooth while filming – hopefully Ill get some better footage in the next few dives.

Main street, right past the traffic circle on the way to the dive shop. Not the busiest of afternoons, but still a lot of people walking around. 

This morning we went to “Mandy’s Eel Garden” – It has that name because on the sand patch at the bottom of the reef – there are hundreds of long skinny eels that live in the sand, when you swim overtop of them they will all quickly jet back into their holes. Kind of funny to watch. Today we went down to 18m (60ft) and lasted for 42 minutes before running out of air. This is as deep as my certification will allow me to go. We saw an Eagle Ray, it was a fair distance below us – these are rare to see and it was huge – very cool to watch it gracefully glide along the sand bank. We also saw the Garden Eels, a Porcupine Fish (1.5ft long) some Smooth Trunkfish, a Porkfish and a Large Black Grouper. I got some video of a Barracuda as well. We came back in and chilled for a little bit, and then went back out an hour later for the second dive of the day (final dive of my certification). This time we went to “Sunquest Deep” and dove to 18m for 43 minutes. Some of the noteables were Banded Coral Shrimp, Sailfin Blenny, baby Lionfish, Pederson Cleaner Shrimp, Yellowline Arrow Crab, Neck Crab, Nassau Grouper and a cool Blue Parrotfish that followed us around for a few minutes. Another good day of diving. I then got back to the diveshop, studied (for about 5 mins) and then I told her I wanted to write the final. Once I started writing, I realized that I didn’t know many of the questions.... was actually quite worried I wouldn’t pass. That would have been embarrassing. I passed, got 42/50 – not great, but a pass nonetheless. I am now officially a PADI Certified Open Water Diver, that certifies me to dive to 60 feet with a buddy, anywhere in the world. I’m going to start working on my Advanced Open Water Diver, which gives you more depth, can’t remember the exact amount right now.

After leaving the dive shop I came back home and chilled for 30 mins or so, and did some writing and cleaning up. Ended up going out for a walk with the camera and trying to get some pictures – unfortunately the sun was in a horrible position for taking pictures, so I didn’t get many. I will have to go out in the morning, the morning is the best time of day on this island anyways.

View of Half Moon Bay - from the far side - My hotel would be to the left of the white building, on the other side of the road. Beautiful day - It has been minimum 32 degrees here most of the week. 

Headed back towards my hotel and went to Sundowners. Met my dive buddy Jamie there, and also saw my neighbors and met a new guy called “Sunny” there. I think he is from LA, seemed like a nice guy however pretty cocky and I’m sure he had a lot of money. Chatted with Jamie for a while about random things like hockey, women, drinking and travelling, and also ordered a snack. Had a basket of plantains, which are like banana’s and I believe they were deep fried. Tasted just like French fries – very good, although Jamie wasn’t a fan.

View of the sunset from Sundowners

Beautiful shot of the sunset. It is HUGE and bright red - this is literally steps off the bar on the beach. (Zoomed in, but this is how big it looks in reality.)

We ended up going out for dinner with a couple from our dive shop who were leaving the Island tomorrow for good. Had a nice dinner, we had Lionfish Cakes, and deep fried shrimp for an appy, and then I had 2 Jumbo seafood skewers for dinner with rice, plantains and veggies. I love the food here, there is something about eating local food that just makes me excited. Especially when it is seafood. I came back to my room, around 9:30pm after saying our goodbyes to our friends Giles and Anika from the dive shop. I have to go fishing at 5:30am. I’m very excited for the fishing, not so excited to hear my alarm at 5am. Good Night. 

A quick teaser of my dive photo's. Ill have some better ones in the next couple of days. This is the sun at about 50ft down.