My First Near-Death Encounter

Usually my near-death-encounters come near the end of my trips, but I decided to go ahead and get it outta the way now.

FYI, The lack of internet access and the exorbitant amount of sweat has discouraged me from using the computer much. For now the only time I have is while I’m in the faculty lounge, but I really should be working on lesson plans. Therefore, I will try to keep this post more about the pictures and less about the words. Nothing too profound today folks.

  

One of my many roomates.  The mothman prophet of my near demise that you'll read of below.

I really want to focus on one thing in this post- WATER. How much of it I drink? No, but it is a whole freaking lot. About how the only water to drink (even for the locals) is bottled water? No, but it’s true. About how awesome the ocean water is? YESS! I have seen some clear water in my day, but this certainly grabbed the number one spot. And the abundance of fish, good golly! I now thoroughly understand why this is a scuba diving mecca. Fish, in fact, are object of my “near death…”

My first snorkeling adventure went down on Thursday. Kelly and I walked down the street to this dock that has a gazebo at the end. We weren’t truly sure if it was a private dock, but it seemed pretty open, so we continued. After admiring the ocean view, we decided to submerge ourselves into the ocean cove. The promise of washing off the stale sweat alone was enough to entice me to swim. Sorry if that was a little TMI, but everyone is seriously in a state of perpetual perspiration. Back home I’ll take a shower in the evening and morning out of routine, whereas I now do them out of unreserved necessity. As Jessica put it, we are like that dirty kid in Charlie Brown. Anyways, I digress…back to the water. This was my first step into Roatan waters and it was incredibly refreshing. It could have been a little cooler honestly, but as soon as water gets deeper, a slight dive down carries with it some cooler water. Right from the get go I was surrounded by fishies and started with the picture taking. I have a waterproof digital camera and it is amazing. The best part is that it costs just as much as your digital camera, if not less.

We found this fellar right off the docks that are a three to five minute walk from the apartment.

Put starfish on their backs and they'll flip back over.  I didn't even mean to focus on the tube feet, just got lucky.

This fish (Banded Butterfly) kept nibbling away at the starfish.

Haven't quite built up the courage to snorkel through the mangroves yet.

I began to chase around this one fish that looked like a cross between a fly, a red snapper, a perch, and a stegosaurus. Turns out that it’s called a Squirrelfish which I can see how they get that too. After chasing it, it nestles under this big rock. Down by where it’s at I notice these bright blue fin-looking things. Turns out that they belong to a beautiful fish. I couldn’t stop taking pictures of it, especially because it stayed very still for the most part. I was a little uneasy because I thought it might be protecting something like its eggs and because it looked intimidating overall. It was crazy difficult to get a clear shot because the water is soooo salty that it makes you super buoyant. This fish was about seven feet down. Even when I blew out all my air, I couldn’t sink. Thankfully I was able to stay still enough. I left the water that day with great satisfaction. When we returned, our neighbor, Santos Cruz (aka Santacruz), a divemaster, was hanging with the other teachers. I showed him the pictures and asked him for the name of the fish…

…

(suspense)

He said that it was a Lionfish. And after my own research, it undoubtedly is a Lionfish. 100%. Santos proceeded to explain to me that this is the most poisonous fish around Honduras. He says that they are usually territorial and aggressive and that I was lucky. If untreated, they can kill a human, but if you don’t die from it, supposedly people ask to have limbs amputated because of the sheer pain it causes. After all the pain hits, the poison attacks your respiratory system and can shut down your breathing. No thanks…. I was lucky; definitely a praise in the prayer request department.

Enjoy the pics below. You can click on them to get the biggie sized version. I already have my next post in the works that have some more water pics….

I was following the red, big-eyed squirrelfish when I noticed this blue thing all fanned out.  I thought it was a crazy looking sea urchin at first...

At closer inspection....a Lionfish!!!

He always kept his back to me for some reason.  Luring me in for his attack??

I swam away for a while and snuck back to catch a glimpse of his face.  I can't decide if he is more ugly or more beautiful.