19 Apr, Sat

MARATHON SNORKEL -- DAY 2

Katie and i got a early start this morning ... well, ... early for us  :)

today's plan ... took a taxi to the Roatan Backpackers Hostel, where Katie knows the owner (she knows everyone:), and we stashed our 'stuff' there, and walked across the road and up the beach again .... past the point where we got out yesterday ... and got in the water a little after 11am ....

same scenario as yesterday .... 15-20min over the sand and grasses ....

Cushion Sea Star

Cushion Sea Stars

then through some really pretty Coral Gardens ...

Pretty healthy Coral 

Coral Garden

and continued along inside the reef ...

HogFish swimming over coral

HogFish

the plan was to snorkel until we came across 'Spooky Channel' ... which is a Dive Site along here somewhere .... they call it 'Spooky'  ... and i thought the other channel was 'spooky' .... so i was anxious to see the one they actually call 'Spooky'  ...
but, we saw an opportunity to get through to the outside of the reef and decided to go, even though we didn't find Spooky Channel  ....

i have never seen this many Blue Tang schooling together ..... incredible !

Blue Tangs, lots and lots of Blue Tangs

in the same area were 3 Scrawled FileFish ... and one was very large ... :)

Scrawled FileFish

i followed it for awhile and watched while it changed color right in front of my eyes ...

Scrawled FileFish -- changing color

then they started swimming with the Blue Tangs ...

2 Scrawled FileFish Swimming with Blue Tangs

Katie was ahead of me, when i caught up, she was pointing to this turtle down below that was looking up, as if he was trying to find a way out ....

Turtle, looking up

we moved away and gave him some room to surface ....

Turtle

and off he went ...

Turtle

we snorkeled a bit further ... and we were there .... it was the Spooky Channel ...

Spooky Channel 

and yes, it was the same kind of 'spooky' as the other one ...

Spooky Channel

with this pretty healthy coral on the ledge ...

Coral at Spooky Channel

aerial view of the Spooky Channel ...it's very narrow and very deep ... and dark ...

Spooky Channel - Aerial View

we took the easy way back inside the reef through the Channel and continued along the inside of the reef ...

4-Eye ButterFly Fish

it rained a couple times while we were snorkeling, ...but i didn't care  :)

Rain on the water

DoctorFish and Blue Tang

Blue Tang

Blue Tang - Juvenile

i thought this looked like a hand ... High Five !

High Five+ Coral

let's snorkel

i love snorkeling

and 'duck diving'

our Marathan Snorkel started at the red dot at the top ... and finished at the green dot in the bottom left corner ... we figure about 2 miles ... ???       ...the black dot is Spooky Channel   ... the green dot at the top is the other 'scary channel'  ...

Map of our Marathon Snorkel

we got out of the water after 2pm ... that's 3 hours today ... add the 2 hours from yesterday ... our Marathon snorkel was 5hours ...

it was great fun !

we walked back to the hostel, took fresh-water showers, and i climbed up the ladder to take this photo ....

View from Roatan BackPackers Hostel

back home and ready for dinner .... Suzanne and i went to Lily Pond for dinner and i told her i would go diving with her tomorrow morning