11 Mar--"Fun Dive"

Sun, 11 Mar .... ready to go diving at 7:30 this morning .... my Fun Dives. Greg was our Dive Master for the day. Our first dive was at The Maze Dive Site on the North Side. it's a Wall Dive and we went down 100ft, .... coz i'm an Advanced Diver now :) ... but i didn't have a very good first dive. i had trouble descending, i don't know why. so when i got down there, i was a little stressed. ... and my mask fogged up, .... and for some reason, ... it was leaking, so i constantly had water up my nose. ... i don't like that feeling. ....i dealt with it; but i felt like i was using up my air more quickly than usual. but Greg said that part of that was because we were down so deep, and you do use more air at depths. i had my camera, and it was a good thing, because now i can look at my photos and see what i could NOT see during the dive coz my mask was fogged up , ... Greg kept pointing things out to me/us; and i'd look, but i couldn't see :( as soon as we got down to the bottom, Kelly spotted this Southern Stingray ... although common place in Belize, it's a big deal here ... it's the first one i've seen since i've been here in Utila ... it was large enough i could see it :) but they aren't as 'friendly' as they are in Belize ... it took off right away :( ...bye bye ... i mentioned that i don't like Wreck Dives, ... and now i think i don't really care for Deep Dives either .... it's darker down there ... so more difficult to take photos; ... and because the light doesn't reach that far, there are no colors ... i like COLOR !!!!!! so i 'fixed' this Barrel Sponge with my photo program and made it Red :) ...in reality it is some shade of brown. ...this shows you that you can't believe everything that you see :) ... the other reason i don't like Deep Dives is because there aren't as many fish down there .. you will occasionally see a really big one; but how often does that happen ?????? ..not often enough for me! ..... and i don't think i particularly like Wall Dives either ...... maybe it's because they are usually deeper dives .... you usually start out a Wall Dive deep as you are going away from the boat, ... and then half way, when you turn around, you ascend and then you can see more fishes, and there is more color, ... and by this time, my mask was starting to unfog ... there was color .... even reds ... and fishes .... i saw this TrumpetFish and a Squirrel Fish we also saw a Giant 4ft Goliath Grouper right at the end of our dive as we were doing our 3min safety stop. he was truly HUGE ... i've never seen anything so big since i've been diving ... MASSIVE ! ...accept for Dolphins and Stingrays .... Greg took my picture as we were 'hanging' at 15 feet ... so in the boat and we headed back into calmer waters to the Little Bight Dive Site ... this is where i was for my Buoyancy Skill training ... this was a MUCH better dive ... my mask didn't fog up, nor did it leak .... i'd like to figure out why it leaked during the first dive so i know what not to do in the future. i liked this dive site much better ... it wasn't as deep, only about 60ft, and it had some nice white sand on the bottom, which reflected the light, so it was lighter down there. there was part of a Wall, but we just passed by it on our way to other fun stuff. we were searching for Dwarf Sea Horses that live in the sand, but never found any ..... but i got to practice my 'hovering' skills as we passed close to the sandy bottom, but not touching the sand coz it would stir it up and make visibility poor. we saw these Garden Eels the other day when i didn't have my camera ... i had it today; ...but they proved to be difficult to photograph .... there were hundreds of them ... everywhere you looked across the sand .... they are tiny, about the size of a pencil ... and they come out of the sandy bottom and just sway back and forth, until you disturb them, and they retreat back into the sand. .... this is a not so good close up attempt .... Greg also pointed out this Peacock Founder ... i never would have seen it ... you can hardly see it when you know it's there ! ... you can just barely see it's outline .. and it's two eyes are at the top middle of the photo .... amazing !!!!!! later in the dive he saw a baby one too .... ! it was so cute ... but my battery had run out by then ... cool things in the sandy bottom ... these Magnificent (that's their real name) Feather Dusters ... they are actually worms, that live in that paper cylinder that you see ... when disturbed, they retreat back into their paper tube 'homes' ... i'd seen them before tucked next to some coral, but i've never seen them out in the open like this .... they were striking ... and so .... 'feathery' ... moving back up to the wall and coral, we saw this SaucerEye Porgy ... this is a new fish for me and i had to get the book out when i got back to identify it .... and this Yellow Head Wrasse ... got back, cleaned up, and not much going on in the afternoon ... no Dock Party, and no Chocolate Mousse today :( i got an email from Maya Vista in Tela ... and i can get a room there for US$25 / night ... and i'm going to treat myself as a going-away gift :) ....i'm excited to go somewhere i haven't been before .... so.... at least i have part of a plan for my the remainder of my 'adventure'