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Today is our last day in St. Louis. We checked out of our AirBNB and went to Gateway Arch. Linda and Annabelle had arrangements for a tram ride up the arch. They went inside while Andy stayed outside with Buster. The girls rode up the tram and saw Andy below the arch in the middle of the lawn below them.

After the arch, we went to Taco Bell for lunch. We left St. Louis with one more stop planned on the way home. We wanted to see Starved Rock State Park in Illinois. Starved Rock seems a lot like Devil’s Lake. It’s not far from Chicago and it’s a very popular park with lots of traffic.

We did two trails at Starved Rock. The first trail went up to the top of Starved Rock. Native Americans from the area were under siege and perished on Starved Rock, which is where the name came from. French Canyon trail was the other trail we hiked. Both trails were short but sweet. The view of the canyon was amazing.

Today we went to the St. Louis Zoo after breakfast at the AirBNB. Luckily we found street parking within a reasonable walk. The zoo here is impressive, especially because it’s free. We only planned to spend a couple hours there. So we did not see everything. We saw two different parts of the zoo. One was River’s Edge with Asian elephants, hippos and hyenas. We were very impressed by the elephant exhibits. The other part we saw was The Wild which had apes, polar bears, grizzly bears and penguins. While we were at the zoo we also happened upon a stingray touch tank. Annabelle and I went inside and Belle got to feed a stingray.

After the zoo, we went back to the AirBNB to let Buster out. Then we drove to the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station. The aquarium had a variety of exhibits which were all pretty solid. It’s a lot smaller the the Shedd in Chicago. One part that punched above it’s weight was the area with touch tanks. They had the typical star fish, stingrays and such. But they also had a tank where you could touch jellyfish. Linda and I also had fun pointing out the fish we saw scuba diving to Annabelle. Annabelle and Linda fed stingrays here too. It was cheaper to feed them at the aquarium than at the zoo.

Our next stop was Gateway Arch. We arrived just in time to get Annnabelle’s passport book stamped as the gift shop closed. We walked through the museum but did not have much time to take in the exhibits before close. I was glad we got to see the place when we did. On our way out we saw another variety of stamps and added another to Belle’s passport book. We went outside and walked around the arch. We went down to the river to see the view from the bottom of the steps.

For dinner we went to Kampai for sushi. Annabelle likes sushi a lot. But she only wanted to eat the California roll. Linda and I had a variety of sushi. We tried their Kampai special roll which had lobster in it. The food was good. Annabelle got to sit next to a sushi roll squishmellow. While she enjoyed her time there she was disappointed she couldn’t take the squishmellow home with her.

Today we went to the City Museum. The whole family walked down there together. Linda bought admission ahead of time. You get a wristband so you can come and go throughout the day. The City Museum has a lot of things to climb on and through. Some of it is tubes like you typically expect. Other times the tubes are made of metal rods space a couple inches apart. They have a lot of slides there too. Some slides go from one floor down to another floor.

The City Museum is several stories high. They have attractions on the roof top too, even a Ferris wheel. Annabelle and Linda climbed around a lot. Most of the tunnels and places to climb are difficult for a large adult to get through. Often times there is an alternative way to get up using stairs without ducking too much. So that’s how I stuck nearby them.

Outside there are tunnels going from the third story down to the ground. The tunnels lead out to two different airplanes which are connected with a tunnel in between them. They have a castle too. Inside there was a dark area as if you’re going through a cave. They have a very large pencil as well as a large pair of underwear which is a little weird.

We walked home and went to The Fountain on Locus for lunch. Linda and I both had a Cuban sandwich. We also had ice cream sundaes. After lunch we spent a half hour at the World Chess Hall of Fame. The first floor had an art exhibit. One room had black lights above and two tables with chess boards. Annabelle and I played a game of chess. The second story had a variety of different chess boards. The top floor had a kid’s area.

After that I dropped Linda and Annabelle off at the City Museum. I parked the car. Buster ate his dinner and I let him out. Then I walked down to meet Linda and AB. We explored some more of the City Museum. We stuck our hands in a fish tank and the fish ate the dead skin cells off our hands. We also saw axolotls in one of their tanks. Another part of the museum was a skate park. I walked home, showered and drove back to pick them up again at 9 pm close.

We drove into St. Louis yesterday night. We got there and basically went to bed. We’re staying in an AirBNB not far from the City Museum and the Aquarium.

We started our first day with a trip to Grant’s Farm. The first thing we saw were the Clydesdales. Then we took the tram tour. We got to feed baby goats a bottle of milk. We did two bottles between Linda, Annabelle and I. The goats drank the milk pretty quick. After that we hung around and Annabelle brushed the goats for a while. The next attraction was a building full of parakeets. The birds would land on us and some bit us.

Then we ate lunch. I had a brat with German potato salad. I thought it was pretty good for a tourist attraction. Budweiser gives everyone two free beers when they visit. So I had two Michelob Ultra NA beers. After lunch we saw the national historic attraction for Grant’s life. Grant was a general in the civil war. Later he was president. While he owned a slave he had an important role in ending slavery. He did set his slave free.

After Grant’s Farm we drove through the Lone Elk Park. We chose to drive through rather than doing a hike. We did drive everywhere we possibly could. We saw a couple lone whitetail deer. We also saw several elk. A couple times we saw two elk together and another time we saw a big group, probably six or eight of them. A lot of raccoons greet the cars as they drive through. People must be feeding them. There were supposedly bison in the park. Unfortunately we did not see any.

We ate Chinese takeout from Corner 17. Linda actually went to this restaurant when she was in town for a work trip. After dinner we went to see the Cardinals game. We got a picture with the mascot. Annabelle spent time climbing through the play structure in the children’s area. Unfortunately that was the only free kid’s attraction. You could also pay to throw pitches. They had an arcade too, but we didn’t go there to play those games.

The Cardinals won their game which was nice to see. After that, we came home and called it a night.

Today we only did two dives in the morning. We did a boat dive and a drop dive. That’s it, because you can’t dive for 18 hours before flying. Our boat dive this morning was at Mineagerhea’s Reef. Once again Linda took photos so that I could focus on my breathing. We saw a large puffer fish and schools of many blue fish. I did pretty well with my air consumption. I actually managed to be the second last person on the boat. Second only to Linda of course.

Our boat has a two divers sitting across from us. They are a bit older, I’m not sure if they’re married, but they’ve certainly known each other many years. They were giving me tips yesterday between dives. Today when I came back onto the boat, the guy asked if I wanted to see something really wild. He swapped out his regulator with the rental I had. The regulator is over ten years old but it is a high end model. I took a video breathing on it. I am curious to see what it sounds like.

I burned up a bit more air on the drop dive. We dropped at Newman’s Wall. Linda said I was swimming pretty fast. We saw the turtle with remoras attached to it as soon as we dropped in. It was shallow on top of the reef. Once we got to the wreck, we saw a large stingray partially buried in the sand behind the stern. Some others reported back to us that they did see the squid to the right coming in, but we missed them. I also saw a white shrimp crawling in the sea grass on my way in. I pointed it out to Linda. He ran and hid in his hole, so I think she didn’t get a picture of it.

After our dives we paid our bill in the office. We settled up with Mickey for the camera rental after Lunch. At Dockside divers, Linda wanted some postcards of dive sites. Andy purchased a rash guard with the dive shop’s name on it, and we paid for our gear rental. We left a tip for the resort staff. We tipped the boat crew and dive masters separately in person. We also went out to a Roatan Island Brewing Co, a local brew pub. We enjoyed a flight of beers and had a tour. They offered three non-alcoholic options so I had something to drink, too. I enjoyed the tour the owner gave. The brewery has a unique set of challenges due to energy costs on the island, taxes on imports, and waste water disposal. The tour was different than others because of these aspects, which I enjoyed hearing about.

Tonight we had lobster and steak for dinner. After dinner the staff announced people who completed dive certifications. Linda and I were recognized for completing nitrox. The bartender Willie served his rum punch at 7:30 pm. I grabbed a glass for Linda. I bought myself a coke. The coke down here comes in returnable bottles. It’s made from cane sugar.

We made it an early night. We went back to our cabana. I went out to look for Edgar to give him a tip. Edgar was our dive master for two dives one day. I wasn’t able to find him. We will leave an envelope with his name in the office. I also wanted to grab our sand socks, Linda’s hairband and my wet suit off of the line in front of the dive lockers. When I was about to walk over there it started raining.

We had to wake up a half hour earlier today because the boat left at 8:00 instead of 8:30. Our dive site, Mary’s Place was further away. It’s also a popular site, so we wanted to get there before it got crowded. Something special about Mary’s Place is that there are two swim throughs. You are surrounded by coral on either side as you go through these areas.

While we went through them, I took photos and videos of Linda swimming. When I watched the video after the dive, I realized that I was taking short breaths in and out. Slightly panicked but not quite hyperventilating. Marco would always tell me when I get back into the boat that I’m breathing too quick. He says breathe normal and mimics my rapid breath. After realizing this I made a much better effort to breathe slowly – a four count in and an eight count out, on my afternoon dives.

At Mary’s Place, we saw a turtle swim through our dive group. Now, that was exciting! We also saw a mantis shrimp. Linda saw a large seahorse. After the dive, we drove through the harbor on the way back to avoid the swell of the large waves. The dive crew on board brought the boat up to a couple groups of kids waiting outside their houses. They threw each group of kids a package of cookies. It was heart warming to see that.

For our drop dive, we asked to drop on the Prince Albert wreck. Linda and I swam through many parts of the wreck. We might not have explored all of it. But we easily saw 80% of it, if not more. We saw a trumpet fish on the wreck. Andy saw a lion fish before he went into the wreck the first time.

Before the afternoon boat dive, Andy wanted to stop by the nurse’s station. He explained how he felt foggy after diving. How it was way worse before breathing nitrox. She talked to Andy about breathing slowly, taking a four count in and an eight count out. She said you need to focus on it until it becomes monkey memory. The nurse considered us new divers because we haven’t had over 100-200 dives yet. She also gave a vibrating tool to clear water from ear drums. I need to return that before we leave. Since getting this advice and using it, Andy feels better after diving.

The afternoon dive was at the French Cay Cut. We saw big groupers, schools of fish and a moray eel swimming. We also saw a sting ray. Other fish include a big trumpet fish and a sand flounder. We also started noticing jellyfish, which we haven’t before.

We dropped on Coco View Wall in the afternoon. Andy found a jellyfish and took a video to make a record of his effort to control his breathing. Linda saw a huge lobster on the wall. Andy found a shrimp in a barrel sponge. Linda saw a spider crab along the chains for the safety stop. We saw two lionfish. One was at the pier, and the other was to the right of the safety stop.

Before dinner tonight, they had a hermit crab race. You can buy as many entries into the race as you want. Crabs are $1 each. Top three finishers from the first round advance to the final. Winner takes all. We entered four crabs for the race. I was surprised that we actually won both the first race and the final. Linda took a video of the crab races. But she missed the night dive master, Edgar, saying he would turn the losing crabs into soup.

After the crab races we ate dinner. Then we got to watch the fire dancers. We did both of these events the last time we came to Coco View. But they are still a lot of fun. We came back to our room to discuss how we are going to allocate funds for tipping. Linda and Andy also talked about practicing diving before our next trip.

This morning our boat dive was a repeat from our last trip. The dive site was Valley of the Kings. We saw a trumpet fish. We also saw a few schools of fish. Seems that schooling happens more at shallower depths. We also saw a spider crab, a lobster and a tiny pipe fish.

Our drop dive was Newman’s Wall this morning. When we neared the end of the wall, Andy found a yellow jawfish poke its head out of the sand. One of our dive masters this week gave us a tip after he pointed one out to us. Andy didn’t get a photo of it that time. But the dive master said if you see one, he’ll go back in his hole. Then you can wait a bit. They are curious fish, so they will poke their head out to look at you. When Andy saw the fish at Newman’s Wall, he was able to get a pic with this tip.

When we got to the Prince Albert, Linda spotted a trumpet fish. We practiced taking photos the way Mickey suggested at his lesson earlier in the week. We also saw an eel under a large rock heading up the chains after the safety stop. It was likely a green moray eel. We also took some nice pictures of a large trunkfish.

Our afternoon boat dive was PG & Me. The best part of this dive was the two swim through spots we went through. One was a crack in the reef that we descended through. The other was another hole in the rock we swam through on our way back to the boat. We saw a flounder hiding on top of a barrel sponge. Andy scared it unintentionally so we saw it swim a bit too. There was a deep wall. We saw a sting ray coming back to the boat.

Our afternoon drop dive was at Coco View Wall. Andy saw a king crab. We also saw lobsters and shrimp. They dropped us further back on the wall. So we didn’t have as much air when we got to the wreck.

Tonight we attempted another night dive. The tide is very high. There’s a full moon tonight. The current near the resort is also very hard to swim through. We put our fins on close to the resort where Linda could still stand. Andy led us to the platform. The whole time we struggled to progress. We were able to follow the reflective buoys on the chain. As we struggled with the current, eventually the chain stopped. At that point we couldn’t figure out where the next buoy was. Andy remembered the chain going all the way through the grass until there was sand substrate. Visibility was very poor. We made the decision to abort the dive before we got to the safety stop. Getting back to the resort was a challenge.

We made it to shore, but we misjudged our direction. We both thought we would be near the hammocks on the dock the way the waves were pushing us. However we wound up further down the beach near the cabanas. It was a challenge getting back to the entrance to take our fins off. We didn’t want to walk on the sea grass.

Today Edgar was our dive master. Our morning boat dive was at Osman’s Reef. We saw two seahorses and a pipe fish in a rock. Our drop dive was at Newman’s Wall. We stayed shallow, aiming for 20-30 feet deep, to conserve air. We also wanted to see the Prince Albert. Andy found a seahorse on the wreck. We also saw a shrimp next to the seahorse.

Our afternoon boat dive today was at First Bight Wall. We saw puffer fish, lobster and king crab. We also saw a fish that tucked into a hole in the sand. Edgar pointed out a very small fish to us. We talked to him about it later before dinner. He said it was called a red arrow fish, or Arrow Blenny.

Our drop dive in the afternoon was on Coco View Wall. Linda found a king crab on the wall. Andy took a cool photo of some crab remains he found in a barrel sponge. We’re guessing a fish had a tasty treat there. Once again we stayed around 30 feet until we got to the Prince Albert to explore it more. We saw a yellow seahorse on the wreck. Andy made it to the wreck before Linda. Only to realize that she was a ways behind him. She was trying to get his attention because she saw a Manta Ray. Andy saw it before it left. But the picture he took was from far away unfortunately. The ray swam along the sand towards Coco View Wall then we out from there. On our way in from the safety stop, we saw a crab buried in the sand. It was after most people take their fins off. A guy walked right past us, he could have stepped on it. We also saw a barracuda underneath the platform before we took off our fins.

We played cribbage before dinner. After dinner we called Annabelle. We we out for a night dive at 8:30 pm. Before we went out a couple divers that just came in gave us some tips on where to find an octopus. We found it right where they said. Just to the right of the safety stop. Andy realized it was hunting. He ballooned up his body to attack a fish. He took off after that though. We also saw a barracuda swimming around the wreck and near Newman’s wall. We got a nice photo of a sea turtle with some fish hitchhiking on it’s back. We saw another octopus on the stern of the wreck. We had plenty of time to observe this one. We have some great photos and videos from it. We found a lobster inside the wreck too. Andy also found a ragworm there. We saw a hermit crab digging through sand for food after the safety stop. Andy saw a sand flounder on the way back in.

Today our morning boat dive was The Wreck of Mr Bud. We saw two sea horses. One was black striped, the other looked like a regular sea horse. We saw a moray eel swimming around in open water a couple feet up from the reef. Another interesting thing was a tiny crab. We also saw a pipe fish near the mooring line at the end of the dive. Andy liked Mr Bud because it was the first time he and Linda got to swim through a wreck.

Our drop dive was at Newman’s Wall. Linda spotted a lion fish on the coral wall. We also saw some squid near the trail coming in from the safety stop. There were several of them. We also saw a lobster.

Over our lunch break, we took a class on under water photography taught by Mickey. Mickey runs the camera shop at the resort. We rented an Olympus 5A from him. He has it set so we can take decent shots under water at depth without a flash. He talked about two different approaches to photography. One was a photographer who would spend a week taking a single photo. He said you create a photo. The other photographer said “F8 and be there”. His thought was that you want to capture a single moment that happens in an immediate instant.

Mickey said that you want to capture this instant you see a fish so that you get it’s head and eyes facing you in the photo. Too late and often we get photos of fish tails as they swim away. He talked about taking a quick first photo and setting the camera for better settings if you still have time to get a better shot. He said that you’re best under water with the sun at your back, just like on land. He also said that it’s best to be looking up at a fish rather than down.

The boat dive this afternoon was Forty Foot Point. We saw a mantis shrimp at the mooring line here on our last trip. Today he didn’t make an appearance. We saw lobster and a crab on a coral shelf.

Our drop dive was on Coco View Wall. Andy spotted a large lion fish, a puffer fish with spikes, and a shrimp in a barrel sponge. We also saw hermit crabs.

After dinner we had a video call with Annabelle. Then we got ready for a night dive. Our plan was that Andy would lead the dive. We wanted to dive Newman’s Wall, then come back to the Prince Albert. After that we wanted to see the sunken airplane off of the Prince Albert.

On our way out, we saw a bunch of lobster on our way to the safety stop. Andy saw one just past him, then two coming right at him. He went over one in about four feet of water. After the safety stop, Andy spotted a couple squid as we approached the wreck. Linda was struggling to take a photo of them. Eventually we moved on. Andy had used a lot of air at this point. We would have stayed at the wreck and airplane rather than going to Newman’s Wall.

We had come up the bow of the ship after seeing the squid. One mistake here was following the line down to the airplane. What we should have done, if Andy hadn’t used so much air, was go back to the middle of the ship where the compass heading leads you from Newman’s Wall. This would be a known reference point.

At any rate we continued forward thinking we were headed to Newman’s Wall. Andy was worried his air supply was too low, so he turned back. Linda was a bit confused about what was happening. We continued the dive when Linda noticed our dive computer beeped at us.

We are diving nitrox, so you can’t go past a certain depth for safety purposes. The computer beeped because we had reached this depth. At that point Linda got Andy’s attention and we started to surface. On our way up we saw a sea turtle swimming with a few fish hitchhiking on its back.

While we were navigating this disaster, it wasn’t completely clear what each other was doing. We held on to one another as we had difficulty maintaining our buoyancy. At times we would ascend too fast. We intended to do a safety stop. We actually wound up doing two of them because we unintentionally surfaced once, then went down too deep, and had to do another safety stop.

Once we were on the surface, Linda suggested we remain calm. Andy apologized for getting us lost and leading too deep. Linda later admitted we were both at fault because she should have intervened sooner. Andy turned off his flashlight realizing we may be out there for a while. We didn’t need two lights swimming back on the surface holding each other.

We had swum for a bit and poked out heads up to see where we were. Somehow we were turned around, swimming in the wrong direction away from the safety stop and resort. From that point forward, Andy poked his head up periodically and corrected our course. He aimed us for the two story beach accommodation at Coco View. Andy was concerned that the current may prevent us from making progress home. He picked his head up a couple more times. Relieved, he saw the beach residence getting much larger as we were getting closer.

We saw the strobe light flashing at the safety stop. We went down to grab our tags from the safety stop. Then we came back in through the channel like normal. On our way in, we saw a coral reef eel snake.

We were glad we made it out safely. We were also glad we had each other to get through this disaster. After we got our gear put away and back to our Cabana, Linda stated that the diving computers Andy bought before the trip saved our lives.

Today was our first day of diving. We woke up, then went to rent our gear at Dockside Divers, which is the dive shop at Coco View Resort. After that we ate breakfast. Our first dive was at Anka’s Place. We saw a nurse shark, two lobsters, and two moray eels. For our morning drop dive, we dove Newman’s Wall. We saw a seahorse on the shipwreck. We also saw a puffer fish by the safety stop.

After we ate lunch, we stopped into the dive shop to finish our nitrox certification. We did a test then the dive master taught us how to analyze tanks. We need to analyze our nitrox tanks ahead of our boat dives. We also stopped by the camera shop to rent a camera.

The afternoon boat dive was at Two Tall, Two Small. We saw a nurse shark underneath coral. Andy saw a lobster. Actually, this trip we’ve seen so many lobsters and hermit crabs that the novelty is wearing off a bit. The drop dive was at Coco View Wall. Again we saw another lobster in the coral.

We waited a bit to eat dinner. The Super Bowl was on TV in the upstairs of the restaurant and bar area. We watched the game and ate dinner. I talked to another guest who also happened to be an unemployed database administrator. After the halftime show, we set out for a night dive.

We are a bit more prepared for night dives on this trip. We have a spare flashlight to share as a backup. We also each have a beacon light. It doesn’t focus a beam like a flashlight. Instead it’s like a light bulb. So it illuminates the other diver for you. We had some difficulty keeping track of each other without this last trip.

On our night dive, we saw several hermit crabs. We saw a few lobster on our way to the safety stop. Our plan was to dive Coco View Wall first and turn back early. Next we wanted to explore the Prince Albert wreck in the front yard. We saw a couple coral clinging crabs – they have a large round body. On an earlier dive we saw one in a barrel sponge too. When we made it to the wreck, we saw three or four turtles. We saw two separately, then two together. The sea turtles had fish sleeping on their backs. Just along for the ride, like in Finding Nemo. Andy also saw a couple small squid, probably a little bigger than one of his fingers.