Wayward Rambling

The girls let me sleep in until 9:15 am for my birthday today. When I woke up, they sang “Happy Birthday” to me. Today we paddled North on Kelso. The first campsite we saw was vacant. We decided to stop and check out all the vacant campsites we came across. I would argue that while there is not a single bad campsite in the boundary waters, some are certainly better than others. The second campsite further North was also vacant. Both of those sites were pretty awesome but we liked ours a bit better.

We had a hell of a time paddling back due to the wind. We tried to stay on the calmest side of the lake. Kelso itself is a very small lake that is not wide at all. We came up to a choke point in the lake. The lake gets narrow between a slightly wider section both before and after this choke point.

The wind was funneling into this choke point. We tried to paddle through it but we couldn’t. Our canoe had a tendency to stay out of the eye of the wind. So we seemed to tack back and forth between starboard and port fighting our way windward. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. We pulled the canoe to the shore on one side to assess.

I debated trying to walk the canoe along the shore but it wasn’t my first choice. We made another attempt. Everyone was paddling with all their might. Annabelle normally doesn’t paddle all the time. But when she knows we need every bit of help we can get, she is happy lend her efforts. On our second attempt after our brief rest, I am glad to say we made it past that choke point.

We came home and swam for a bit. Dinner tonight was a bit earlier than usual. We ate spam and ramen. We split an astronaut mint ice cream sandwich for dessert. Our weather radio forecasted a storm. So we pumped water and had a brief fire before the storm. During the storm we played cards in the tent as it rained. The weather radio actually warned there was a possibility of tornadoes. Luckily they did not come to fruition. After the storm we had a second dinner. We ate cold rice and beans along with smoked salmon and granola.

For breakfast this morning Linda had yogurt. Annabelle and I had pop tarts. We portaged to Alton and planned on finding a campsite for lunch. We wanted to swim there. As we paddled around the lake, all the campsites were full. We stopped to snack for lunch and pump water on an island on the south end of the lake. I made a game time decision to stop when I saw the island. My butt had been killing me from sitting in the canoe and paddling for so long. Alton is a large lake.

There was a bit of wind on Alton so we stayed along the shoreline to avoid it as best we could. When we came back to camp, we ate noodles with chicken and stuffing for dinner. We celebrated my birthday a day early today with cinnamon apple crisp. Linda and Annabelle tried to start eating until I reminded them to sing “Happy Birthday” to me.

We saw a ton of dragonflies around the campfire around sunset tonight. It was much warmer tonight compared to other nights. They must have been feeding on the mosquitoes. Every other night we were here, it was much colder. The mosquitoes aren’t out when its cool at night. We did get a bit of rain too.

For breakfast today we rehydrated freeze dried baby yogurt. We crushed the yogurt before we left and packed it in ziplock bags with dehydrated fruit and granola. Today we did a day trip from Kelso. We brought our smaller food bag containing snacks for lunch along with one portage bag.

We canoed through the Kelso River and portaged to Sawbill. We swam from a campsite on Sawbill. We ate lunch at the campsite. We initially planned on portaging to Smoke Lake which is further east. We were pretty sure we found the portage. Linda headed down the portage. This one is 100 rods. The other three portages – between Sawbill, Alton and Kelso were all much shorter, between 10-30 rods.

Linda didn’t make it all the way to Smoke and turned back. Annabelle and I were waiting in the canoe for her to assess the situation. We looked at the time and decided against Smoke because we were concerned about how much daylight we had left. We went back to Kelso through the river portage.

For dinner we had rice and beans with salmon. We also had a backpackers pantry meal of jerk chicken, rice and beans. Annabelle and I pumped water while Linda cooked and cleaned the dishes. Of all the backpacking chores, Linda’s least favorite is pumping water. So AB and I always did that before and after dinner.

Our last dive of the trip was today. We did a boat dive at Forty Foot Point. We looked around the mooring line and saw a shrimp. He was in a shell. We also saw a lobster that was carrying eggs. The lobster was hiding on a wall of coral. After we came over the wall, we were at a point where the current brings a lot of food into the reef. This attracted tons of fish that swam around us.

For the drop dive we dropped at CoCo View Wall. Andy spotted a lobster all on his own. I was very proud of finding it. We burned up more air than we intended because I took my time looking for things and taking pictures. Linda moved on towards the Prince Albert wreck and I followed after her.

At the wreck, we checked to see if the turtle was on the bow. He was not. We also looked inside the ship a bit. I wanted to get a bit more adventurous with the ship than I was able to. However I was getting low on air. So we just popped in and out of a couple openings and called it good. One was horizontal and the other was vertical.

After our diving was done, we returned our gear and closed out our tabs. We picked up a bracelet with a sea turtle on it for our daughter Annabelle. We tried to get the data for our dives off of the computers. We found that we should have done that after each day of diving. It was too much to expect to do it with the few minutes we had at the time. We met our boat captain and dive master to give them their gratuity. We also left an envelope for the rest of the workers who are in a tip pool.

We did an excursion to see sloths and monkeys. The monkeys would jump on us and climb over us. We were in a large cage with them. The cage was big enough for eight people to be inside of it. We got to hold a sloth and take a picture with it. There was also a very large bird cage with macaw parrots inside it. The parrots would sit on us for a photo/video.

When we did our briefing this morning on the boat this morning, David and Richard said they were giving us a gift. They would take us on two boat dives. The dives we did were Calvin’s Crack and Mary’s Place. Both of these dives had a coral formation where there was a crevasse between two tall walls of coral. I rented a camera before we took off on the boat. So we have some nice photos of these dives. At Calvin’s Crack we saw a bearded toad fish. He didn’t move much at all, he just sat in his hole. At Mary’s place we saw a black striped sea horse.

In the afternoon we did another boat dive. We dove French Cay Cut. For the drop dive we dropped at Nelson’s Wall.

Before dinner there was a hermit crab race. Linda and I each picked out a crab to enter. They cost $1 each and the winner keeps the price. Today there were 30 crabs entered. The crabs are dumped in the middle of a circle. The first three crabs out of the circle enter the final round. The winner of that round takes the prize. Neither of us won but it was fun regardless.

We did another night dive. We discovered that the current is much worse using a snorkel at the surface compared to a regulator. We went to the bow of the Prince Albert where we found a very large sea turtle. We then went down to Nelson’s Wall and turned back.

This morning Andy did a shark dive. It was an extra excursion outside of the resort. We first took a boat off of Coco View island, then a car trip. We were down at 70 feet. The mooring line comes down to a sandy area with the reef surrounding it on a couple sides. The divers sat on their knees with the reef behind them so a shark couldn’t sneak up behind us. We had a dive master and videographer down there with us. The dive master had a bucket with a small amount of food in it to draw the sharks’ attention. Most of the dive, the bucket was kept shut. The sharks circled around us waiting for the bucket to open. At one point a shark swam right over my head.

The dive master opened the bucket. The sharks bumped the bucket, and then one picked it up and got the bucket stuck on his nose for a bit. He broke free of it. The sharks ate all of the bait. Then they swam away. At that point, we searched for shark teeth. One guy found two of them and another found one.

I got a bit concerned and confused because my dive computer told me I was into decompression. It took me a minute to realize I had to be higher up to do the deco. Once I understood that, everything worked out fine.

Linda decided she was up for a boat dive in the afternoon. She did well this time. She found the trick is to take a Dramamine both at night and in the morning daily on trips like this. The boat dive took us to Chimneys. There were a couple coral structures that came high up from below. The dive gets it’s name because the structures look like chimneys. One of them is large enough to swim into. Our dive master David cautioned against ascending. We were only to swim in, look up, turn around and come out the same way. I have an appreciation for both the coral structures and the marine life when diving. Andy saw a ray on the dive.

On our way back we did a drop dive at Coco View Wall. Linda and I opted to drop at the normal length. All the other divers asked for a shorter trip down Coco View. We planned on going this route after dinner for a night dive.

Linda and I had much better success on our night dive today. We realized earlier in the day that the chains start at the platform. So you can follow them straight from the platform and pick up the buoys. We clipped the strobe and our tags onto the safety stop chain and did a celebratory fist bump. We followed our way across Coco View Wall and turned back. We saw two shrimp, a crab, and a ray. The current wasn’t as bad as the prior night. We did come back low on air.

Night dive, two shrimp, crab, ray, current wasn’t too bad, came back low on air

Linda and I woke up early for breakfast. Last night was an early night. There isn’t a ton of nightlife here though. The bar closes at 10 pm. We got on the EZ Diver boat for our dive. Our dive master is David. The first site we dove at was the Valley of Kings. There is a coral formation that is supposed to look like a Sphinx. It has two feet and a head.

It felt great to be diving in such a beautiful location. While we were diving I took some pictures with my underwater camera. However it seems the housing let some water in and the camera got fried. Luckily the SD card was not damaged. Linda got sick on the boat. We had to wait and ride out the waves while the others were finishing their dives. If we did the second dive, we would have had to wait even longer for our surface interval.

Instead, we went back to the dock because they were concerned about Linda being sick. David took Linda and I separate for our orientation dive alone. When you dive from shore, you walk out to a platform where you put on your fins. Then you swim following some floats under water towards the safety stop bouy. From there, you can either go left towards Coco View Wall. Or, you can go straight to the Prince Albert.

The Prince Albert is a wreck that they suck in the front yard for divers to enjoy. You can proceed past the wreck, following the markers, and find Numan’s Wall. Linda and I did two dives today on our own after the orientation dive. The first dive we saw the wreck and Numan’s Wall. We used up a fair amount of air by the time we got to the wall. So we didn’t see a ton of it.

I am hoping that Numan’s Wall will be better if we have more air to see it. We turned around a little early. We also used up a decent amount of air at the Prince Albert. The second dive we went to Coco View Wall. That wall was amazing. There were tons of coral formations. The wall goes very deep. Although Linda told me to lead both dives, I wound up following her both times. When we at Coco View Wall, Linda had trouble trying to maintain depth. We had ascended pretty deep. I saw some pretty cool coral far up the wall on our right on the way back. I wanted to go up and check it out.

I should have told Linda to add air to her BC. We have had a lot of learning experiences. At any rate we went back. On our way back Linda started heading towards the Prince Albert. After that, she started going down Numan’s Wall. We talked earlier about not deviating from the plan. I was also concerned about the amount of air we had used. It wasn’t clear to me that Linda knew which way she was going. So at that point I had us turn around and call it a successful dive.

After dinner we attempted a night dive. We bought two under water flashlights for $140 each. We intended to do a few night dives and tonight would be our first. On our way out. we fought the current. The wind had picked up a lot at night. We didn’t realize how much of a factor the current was. The bouys pick up a little bit past the platform. I managed to get to the bouys. At that point I realized Linda was behind me thinking I was going the wrong direction. I went back to her to recollect ourselves. Now we were down current and had to fight to get back to the bouys. The whole experience was pretty nerve wracking. Personally I was fine. However I am taller so I could stand in some of the water we were in. Also, I am a stronger swimmer than Linda.

So I was mainly concerned about her safety. Utimately we aborted the dive and went back in. We will try again another night.

We saw a lot of interesting fish diving today. By Coco View Wall, we saw a large fish that may have been a shark. However we weren’t close enough to get a good look at it. I am pretty sure we saw a berracuda. That fish’s teeth freaked out Linda. We saw a hermit crab under water by the Prince Albert. I saw a trumpet fish in the sea grass on my way back to the platform from the safety stop. That reminded me a lot of AB’s Mr Seahorse book. I also saw a fish that digs into the sand, it’s camoflaged so you can barely see it. Linda saw it earlier on a prior dive and was trying to point it out to me. We must have seen 20-50 squid swimming in a school near the safety stop. That was awesome. They are so intelligent and curious.

We woke up this morning and left our hotel to head to the airport. Today we had hope that we would make it to Roatan. Only once we landed would we actually believe it. When our plane took off, and again when it landed, everyone erupted in cheers.

Chloe met us at the airport. A driver took us to Coco View. We were in a 12 passenger bus of some sort. We drove for some time on the island. Then a boat took us the rest of the way to the resort. The resort is actually on an island of it’s own. Linda and I are staying in Bungalow A. Our accommodation is fairly private. The bungalow is built on stilts above the water. We share a single wall with one neighbor. Other rooms here often have two neighbors.

We have a dive locker for our gear near the boat we would dive on. The boat goes out twice a day. Each boat trip they do two dives. One is at a dive site. The second dive is a drop off dive. Tomorrow we will do a dive at a moored site. Then we will do a drop off dive with the dive master for our orientation dive.

We ate dinner and did a debriefing regarding diving at Coco View. A couple other guests cautioned us that the food isn’t good. I can see why someone would be disappointed in the food for the cost of the resort. But that being said it’s actually pretty good. The resort is a lot smaller than I imagined. I am guessing their capacity may be 50 guests. Although it certainly is less right now. Some people gave up trying to get here due to the two cancelled flights.

Linda and I played pool at the bar. They have a pool table that’s free, which is nice. No one else seemed interested in playing pool.