gangrel441
Contributor
Ok...taken me a while to collect my thoughts and put this together, and this is probably a work in progress, so here goes...
BA III - 6/4 - 6-11
Gangrel and Mrs. Gangrel were 2 of 10 passengers from Chicago. 5 additional passengers from around the country and 2 from France were also on the boat.
Crew was as follows: Jay, Captain; Dan, Engineer; Caroline, Photographer; Raul, Dive Instructor; Anna, Housekeeper; Lourdes, Chef.
Day 1
Flight was uneventful, airport was about what I would expect from other trips to the Carribean.
We arrived at the dock at around 3 pm. All but two passengers had already arrived, the last two scheduled to land around 4. Two passengers had baggage misdirected, and a few tense hours passed waiting for it to arrive. When the final two passengers arrived at the dock, so did the missing bags. Catastrophe avoided!
The boat, as many of you already know, is beautiful! This was the first liveaboard trip for the Mrs. and myself. If the experience was bad for Michelle (Mrs. Gangrel), this would also be the last.
Dinner served as we leave Belize City for Lighthouse Reef. The journey took about 5 hours, and we were rocking and rolling the whole way. No one on board got seasick (that we know of), but lots of Dramamine used by all.
Day 2
I love waking up early in the Carribean and reminding myself that I am really here.
First site was Dos Cocos. Two morning dives. It's been almost a year since we dove in the tropics, and that was on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. Entering the water here, it is a delight to once again have 100 - 150 ft vis. Copuous amounts of hard and soft corals and sponges are also a welcome change. Took some pics of giant stovepipe and azure vase sponges, and tried my hand at shooting some neon gobies on coral heads. We have shot with our Coolpix 4300 before, but since our last trip, we have upgraded our strobe from a Sea & Sea YS-25 to a YS-90. Difference was pretty clear.
Second site was Cathedral. Two afternoon dives. For anyone who hasn't dove Cathedral, it is named because the coral heads form some enormous chambers before the wall which make you feel like you have entered a church. It is amazing to come back over the crest of the wall only to find yourself in a room surrounded with coral, sponges, and tons of critters. Note: The dusk dive was one of the most fun dives we have had to date. Throughout the week, we kept joking about "rush hour", as Blue Tangs passed us by the hundreds swimming down the wall in unison, and equal numbers of squirrel fish and bigeyes swam past us towards the reef. Having never dove a liveaboard before, we have done plenty of morning and afternoon dives, and a good share of night dives, but dusk was something new for us...
Cathedral night dive. Michelle and I have specialties in Reef Fish ID and Reef Creature ID, so we generally know what critters are when we see them, but there are so many that we have never seen before! Giant Hermit Crabs and Flamingo Tongues come to mind... Good chance for us to play with the camera at night and to test our ID abilities.
Day 3
Morning dives: Half Moon Wall. The wall was pretty, and we took a few pictures which looked like they were from Sleepy Hollow, but most of the fun at this site lay on the sand flats and turtle grass. We had our first experience with Tile Fish here, saw some of the largest hermit crabs we have ever seen, and got some first hand observation time with shadowing behavior. It seemed every hogfish on this site had a jack shadowing him. Read about it, understand the concept, but this was the first time we observed it.
Afternoon Dives: Painted Wall. We were informed that Painted Tunicates are abundant on this site in the 50-80 ft range. We didn't see any on the first dive, but we were cruising the wall on our own and probably didn't know how to find them. Wall was quite beautiful, and teeming with life. Our second dive was our certification dive for Underwater Photographer, and our instructor took us to 75 ft and pointed out some tunicates. Michelle had the camera rig at this point, and took a great shot. Several other shots on this dive also payed off. Rush hour occurred on this dive once again, and keept us laughing for a good while.
Night Dive: Painted Wall. Tarpon were out in force. Captain Jay found us a squadron of Carribean Reef Squid. Knew what they were, once again first time seeing them. One of our fellow passengers, another instructor and videographer, spotted a baby squid, about an inch long, behaving pretty oddly, "bouncing" head to foot on the sand. This behavior stumped all of us, so someday maybe we will find out what that was all about.
(to be continued...)
BA III - 6/4 - 6-11
Gangrel and Mrs. Gangrel were 2 of 10 passengers from Chicago. 5 additional passengers from around the country and 2 from France were also on the boat.
Crew was as follows: Jay, Captain; Dan, Engineer; Caroline, Photographer; Raul, Dive Instructor; Anna, Housekeeper; Lourdes, Chef.
Day 1
Flight was uneventful, airport was about what I would expect from other trips to the Carribean.
We arrived at the dock at around 3 pm. All but two passengers had already arrived, the last two scheduled to land around 4. Two passengers had baggage misdirected, and a few tense hours passed waiting for it to arrive. When the final two passengers arrived at the dock, so did the missing bags. Catastrophe avoided!
The boat, as many of you already know, is beautiful! This was the first liveaboard trip for the Mrs. and myself. If the experience was bad for Michelle (Mrs. Gangrel), this would also be the last.
Dinner served as we leave Belize City for Lighthouse Reef. The journey took about 5 hours, and we were rocking and rolling the whole way. No one on board got seasick (that we know of), but lots of Dramamine used by all.
Day 2
I love waking up early in the Carribean and reminding myself that I am really here.
First site was Dos Cocos. Two morning dives. It's been almost a year since we dove in the tropics, and that was on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. Entering the water here, it is a delight to once again have 100 - 150 ft vis. Copuous amounts of hard and soft corals and sponges are also a welcome change. Took some pics of giant stovepipe and azure vase sponges, and tried my hand at shooting some neon gobies on coral heads. We have shot with our Coolpix 4300 before, but since our last trip, we have upgraded our strobe from a Sea & Sea YS-25 to a YS-90. Difference was pretty clear.
Second site was Cathedral. Two afternoon dives. For anyone who hasn't dove Cathedral, it is named because the coral heads form some enormous chambers before the wall which make you feel like you have entered a church. It is amazing to come back over the crest of the wall only to find yourself in a room surrounded with coral, sponges, and tons of critters. Note: The dusk dive was one of the most fun dives we have had to date. Throughout the week, we kept joking about "rush hour", as Blue Tangs passed us by the hundreds swimming down the wall in unison, and equal numbers of squirrel fish and bigeyes swam past us towards the reef. Having never dove a liveaboard before, we have done plenty of morning and afternoon dives, and a good share of night dives, but dusk was something new for us...
Cathedral night dive. Michelle and I have specialties in Reef Fish ID and Reef Creature ID, so we generally know what critters are when we see them, but there are so many that we have never seen before! Giant Hermit Crabs and Flamingo Tongues come to mind... Good chance for us to play with the camera at night and to test our ID abilities.
Day 3
Morning dives: Half Moon Wall. The wall was pretty, and we took a few pictures which looked like they were from Sleepy Hollow, but most of the fun at this site lay on the sand flats and turtle grass. We had our first experience with Tile Fish here, saw some of the largest hermit crabs we have ever seen, and got some first hand observation time with shadowing behavior. It seemed every hogfish on this site had a jack shadowing him. Read about it, understand the concept, but this was the first time we observed it.
Afternoon Dives: Painted Wall. We were informed that Painted Tunicates are abundant on this site in the 50-80 ft range. We didn't see any on the first dive, but we were cruising the wall on our own and probably didn't know how to find them. Wall was quite beautiful, and teeming with life. Our second dive was our certification dive for Underwater Photographer, and our instructor took us to 75 ft and pointed out some tunicates. Michelle had the camera rig at this point, and took a great shot. Several other shots on this dive also payed off. Rush hour occurred on this dive once again, and keept us laughing for a good while.
Night Dive: Painted Wall. Tarpon were out in force. Captain Jay found us a squadron of Carribean Reef Squid. Knew what they were, once again first time seeing them. One of our fellow passengers, another instructor and videographer, spotted a baby squid, about an inch long, behaving pretty oddly, "bouncing" head to foot on the sand. This behavior stumped all of us, so someday maybe we will find out what that was all about.
(to be continued...)
). Our first dive at this site was our Compass Navigation dive. While navigating, we encountered a Loggerhead Turtle, but the nav portion of this dive kept us from doing too much exploring and observing on the reef. Dive 2 was our playtime. We once again got to see the rush hour, photographed some Indigo Hamlets, and found a pair of very friendly Gray Angelfish which practically posed for a photo session for Michelle.
