Oh crap. When I woke up, I decided to look at the pics I took on the night dive (I didn’t the night before, leaving the camera in the housing on the other bed).
I went to grab out the camera, and noticed there was a fair amount of water pooling in the lens area of the housing. Luckily, I thought, putting the housing lens down would help it out (had I known there was water in it, I would have taken it out much much sooner!)
Well, I dried it off (the camera was slightly damp), took out the battery and card and stuck in a silica packet in the batter housing and let it sit for a few hours.
I know it didn’t flood while I was using it on the dive, it must have flooded while we were coming back into shore (the wrong way …) and got knocked a bit some how.
Bummed out about the flood, I went off to our dives for the day.
The first dive was to the bigger wreck, the Odyssey. A larger ship sitting on its side.
It was a shorter, deeper dive, like the Aguila, but it was further away from the reef, and the boat was moored in open water.
We did a drift dive on Barry’s Reef afterwards. Near the end, most of the group sped away chasing something leaving me behind a bit on the other side of a coral formation. I deployed my SMB and heard the boat go by to pick up the others.
I only brought 1 SMB on this trip (I normally carry 2). When this one deployed, I put 2 good breaths in it as it’s 2m in length, and I was at 10m, meaning it would take quite a bit of air to fill.
Once I let it go, it felt a little weird as the spool spun. Looking up, I noticed it dumped most of its air and was a little sinkish. Weird as its a closed SMB. Turns out the OPV wasn’t screwed in as tight as it should, and as it went up, it dumped out the air, and sucked in water.
Lesson learned, check your air valves on everything!
We went to Melissa’s Reef in the afternoon, and later onto Pillar Coral for the night dive.
Only 3 of us went out on our boat of 12.
We asked the DM and captain if they minded waiting longer before we splashed in, as on the other night boat dive, we were in the water too early (we came up as things were starting to really get interesting).
They obliged and we splashed in, checking out huge crabs, lobsters, quite a few puffers, rock fish and others.
Near the end, we covered up our lights and floated along lit up by bioluminescence. Very cool.
At the very end, there were lots of Jellies hanging around 4′ below the boat. Everyone else was covered by neoprene, and I still just and my shorts and shirt.
What you do is purge your secondary (like a free flow) so they are pushed away from where you come up.
I got 2 quick stinging hits on my legs while climbing the ladder, but they were very mild stings, and disappeared in a few moments. The other guys, covered in neoprene were not so lucky. Getting stunk between layers, on their hands and a few other spots.
AKR Roatan, Odyssey Wreck
Date: May 1, 2014
Bottom Time: 32 minutes
Max Depth: 34m
Water Temp: 28.3C
Running Time: 62:37
AKR Roatan, Barry’s Reef
Date: May 1, 2014
Bottom Time: 61
Max Depth: 20m
Water Temp: 28.9C
Running Time: 63:38
AKR Roatan, Melissa’s Reef
Date: May 1, 2014
Bottom Time: 54 minutes
Max Depth: 24m
Water Temp: 28.9C
Running Time: 64:32
AKR Roatan, Pillar Coral
Date: May 1, 2014
Bottom Time: 47 minutes
Max Depth: 18m
Water Temp: 28.9C
Running Time: 65:19