We had an exciting night last night:  our anchor fouled- that is, the chain wrapped around it in high winds, and pulled it loose.  The boat had dragged a few hundred feet, inconveniently toward the fishing boats and the harbor.  Lorenzo has an internal alarm for this kind of thing, so he woke me up, and we figured out we were no longer dragging.   That was good- we slept till dawn, then moved the boat to a shallower part of the anchorage.  Here at least we can keep an eye on our anchor.

feline indifference

Creature of the day:  Caribbean Spiny Lobster


It's great when you see a lobster walking around out of its lair.  These guys are big, and of course clawless- but not as delicious as our lobsters.  We were on a dive a few days ago and the divemaster, Miguel, speared several lionfish.  When we found a lobster poking his feelers out of a crevice, he fed a lionfish to him.  The lobster did a great dissection job.  The others came back with us, presumably for human consumption.  They're supposed to be pretty good.

Creature of the day:  Stoplight Parrotfish

Like some 18th century biologists, I thought these were two different species.  But they're not- the red-tinged parrotfish are the juveniles, the green the adults.  Both are pretty fabulous, and seen all over the place, happily crunching away at the coral.

This morning, we dove with a few other people from the anchorage- we just rented tanks at Fantasy Island, and took our dinghies out to the reef.  We didn't go very deep-  It was lovely and sunny, and we just puttered around at about 40 feet and then came up to an even shallower level.  Last week, we took a Nitrox course so we could use tanks with more oxygen in the mix, and it does seem better- having less nitrogen in the blood should make you less fatigued.  You can stay down longer, too- though you can't go quite as deep.

For those who like ornate fences, this is a yard on the posh Iguana Farm Road in Roatan.  On sunny days, iguanas bask on the lawns here- more or less protected by the wrath of Sherman.  The swan motif is popular- assume lions are not available.  

Creature of the day:  Blue Tang


These guys are so beautiful, and we see them browsing on the reef nearly every time we swim.  A school might have 200 fish in it, in different shades of olive, pale blue, lavender, and silver.  They just shimmer, like the scales of some larger creature.