Belize: Day 4 -- More Rain

Day 4 in Belize, day 3 of diving started with a lot of rain, same as the past couple days, except it was really bad this time.  Eventually the rain started to slow, but more importantly the wind slowed down.  We headed out to Tuffy Canyon for our first dive today.  They said that it is common to see a lot of lion fish around here so they took their spears.  Lion fish are an invasive species that migrated from the Indo-Pacific a couple decades back and have taken over the reefs in the Atlantic.  They have few natural predators and are capable of producing tens of thousands of offspring a month.  Because of this, in the Atlantic and Caribbean it is perfectly acceptable to killed lion fish.  Nurse sharks love lion fish, but only if they're already dead.  On this dive our dive master managed to spear a lion fish and feed it to a nurse shark, who devoured it in about 2 swallows.

On our second dive (I'll have to check on the name) our dive master showed us his shark whispering skills when he lulled two different nurse sharks down.  Other than that, while it was a good dive, nothing huge to note during the dive.  The canyons are still amazing and I would definitely call this the best diving I've ever experienced (not that my experience is huge).

After lunch we came back for one last dive for the day.  We were diving at Esmeralda 2 (yesterday we did Esmeralda 1).  This one started with a huge turtle!  The shell was probably 4 feet from front to back and its head was the size of a bowling ball.  It was beautiful!  No more lion fish even though we were on the look out.  There were a lot more beautiful fish, some lobsters, and even an octopus (though I missed it).  When we got to the surface and were waiting for our boat to pick us up, three dolphins swim under us.  I unfortunately  didn't get a picture, but I swear it happened.  I have other witnesses.  Two were full sized and one was a small one.  They were probably 40 feet below us.  I hope they come back for a visit another day, when I can get some pictures.  We surfaced in another huge rainstorm, so that was fun.

This afternoon and even have been spent reading, socializing, eating, and making a trip up to the Belizean Chocolate Boutique for some more hot chocolate and more chocolate.  Yum. :)