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Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Barefoot Cay Marina
Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras |
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Yesterday we got company in the marina, a
47-foot Nordhavn, that Ole was dying to get aboard. Looking
more like a little ship than a pleasure boat, it’s a real
ocean-going trawler as opposed to our DeFever, which is
billed as a coastal offshore cruiser. They’ve got dogged
doors, lexan windows, bolt-down hatches, no loose furniture
or knick-knacks, an engine room that looks like an operating
theater, and a range of 3000 nautical miles. We’ve got
comfortable sliding doors and windows, a real couch and
chairs, all kinds of stuff that can fly around our salon and
engine room in a real good blow, and maybe a 750-mile range.
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Ole discovered that this Nordhavn, “Strickly
for Fun”, had been one of the boats involved in a
trans-Atlantic rally that Nordhavn sponsored a couple of
years ago, written up in Passagemaker Magazine in 2004. She
spent three seasons in the Mediterranean, returning
trans-Atlantic to their home in Florida. He met the owner,
Scott, and invited him, his wife Terri, and their friend
Janet over for cocktails and a chat, after they graciously
gave us a tour of their boat. So we spent yesterday
cleaning and vacumming, but truthfully, there’s no way this
boat compares to theirs. Definitely apples and oranges.
They’re also heading south toward Panama, with the end goal
of the Galapagos. We discussed the possibility of cruising
together toward the Vivorillos Cays when the weather opens
up.
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After a couple of days of clouds, wind, and
passing squalls, today turned out to be one of those
Caribbean days we thought about when we first started
talking about this trip. A brief chat with Vincenzo next
door got me a one-on-one scuba refresher course, and a
once-in-a-lifetime dive off the wall on the south side of
the island with just one other person.
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As a water child by nature, I always
thought I’d be a natural for scuba, and last year when I got
certified, I was surprised at how uncomfortable it made me.
Twice during the pool portion of my class, I inadvertently
found out how much water human lungs can hold. The first set
of my checkout dives were in a freshwater lake with a mud
bottom, on a day when the air temperature was 68°,
the water temperature was 63°,
it was raining and so murky under water I couldn’t see my
hand in front of my face. The second checkout dives were
off Pompano Beach, in 3-5 foot seas and 20 knots of wind,
when getting on and off the boat was downright scary with 75
pounds of gear on. And in retrospect, I wasn’t properly
weighted: the instructor, a bit flighty for my taste, had to
pull on me to get me to descend, and on the ascent I just
shot upward and failed to make a safety stop I never dove
again after last December, and didn’t know if I wanted to.
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I explained to Vincenzo my concerns about
lack of confidence and difficulty with descent and buoyancy,
and fear about the “remove and replace the mask” exercise.
Working one-on-one with me, he was the very soul of focus
and patience, and I performed all of the necessary skills
just fine – even taking off the mask and putting it back on
with my eyes open. (I know you divers reading this will
probably think I’m a weenie –just call me Oscar Meyer). For
the dive we were joined by a young Honduran doctor named
Sunny – all 85 pounds of her – who was also a beginner.
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Vince took us just a few hundred yards out
from the marina to a place where the shelf drops from 40 to
about 2000 feet deep, and in a spectacular 47 minutes of
bottom time, Vince led us at an easy glide, showing us three
distinct ecological zones. First was a garden of what he
called “laminate” coral, which almost reminded me of the
basalt flows of the Columbia basin, but in living color,
with the coral forming literal waves, one growth upon
other. Then we dropped down and drifted along the wall,
where fire coral, sea fans, sponges, the odd crab and
lobster, parrotfish, damselfish, angelfish, wrasses,
snappers, and just about everything else in my “Snorkeler’s
Guide to Reef Fishes of the Caribbean” showed up. The
visibility wasn’t terrific – maybe just 50 to 60 feet – but
just enough to get vertigo looking down at the blackness of
2000 feet then get comfort from the screaming oranges,
purples, blues, greens and yellows of the wall. The last
part of the dive was through a forest of colorful sea fans
close enough to the surface to be affected by the wave
action, hundreds of them bowing and rising in rhythm. The
sea fan garden also had sponges impossible in size – three
feet in diameter at least – many of them sheltering lobsters
and crabs.
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I declared the dive a success, and my
confidence level raised by at least 100%. It just didn’t
seem right to be in Roatan, one of the finest dive sites in
the world, moored next to a boatful of scuba instructors,
and not take advantage. I’m so thankful Ole encouraged me
to do it! And if you’re ever in Roatan, look up Barefoot
Divers and ask for Vincenzo!
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We decided our weather window for the
185-mile crossing to the Vivorillos is tomorrow, so we’ll be
taking off, joined by Strickly for Fun and a big
Beneteau sailboat called Ketel Up, at 6:00 in the
morning.
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Jan the Webmeister
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