I Saw It, and It Was Glorious!

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The Stanley Cup... (Maybe)

So I'm going to be that guy. That sports guy. The guy who watches every game. The guy who gets to the rink 2 hours before the game starts just to be there, to be close. The guy who remembers listening to Bob Miller while skating around my living room with my yellow plastic Los Angeles Kings hockey stick. The guy who used to play roller hockey blasting Gary Glitter's goal song overlaid with Bob Miller's call ("Oh, what a great pass by McSorley...Kings take over...).

Tomorrow I'm traveling about 60 miles (about 1:20-1:45 depending on traffic) to the Redondo Beach Cafe. There is a "limited amount" of opportunities to take a picture with Lord Stanley's Cup for a $10 donation to the Kings Care Foundation.

I would easily pay [a lot more] to spend just a few minutes with this amazing piece of hardware. No other trophy in professional sports comes within 4,828,032 meters (that's for my Canadian friends) of the tradition and folklore that the Stanley Cup possesses.

I am a proud Los Angeles Kings fan. Always have been, always will.

In closing I'd like to say, in all confidence; Effe you Anaheim, we've got a cup; Vancouver is an extremely classy City full of, well...Canuck fans unfortunately; and finally, we're coming for you Detroit.

P.S. Click on the Stanley Cup link, seriously.

Útila - Day 6

Ah, the last day of diving!

Today started a little later than usual so I got an extra 15 mins of much needed sleep. After breakfast we loaded up the Miss U and headed to our first dive site called "Halliburton" which was an old cargo ship that was sunk in 1995. The wreck was in about 100 feet of water which meant we would only have about 30 mins of bottom time. Unfortunately there were already two other dive boats there which meant it was going to be crowded. We descended as a group and reached the wheel house at about 80 feet. We were greeted with a good sized lion fish guarding the door. We then headed to the captains quarters directly below the wheel house where we saw a huge snapper. We took the staircase down into the cargo hold which by now was full of silt kicked up by the close to 30 other divers in the water. After that we took a trip around the outside of the boat and found a huge moray eel under the starboard bow. By this then it was time to head back to the surface.

Since we were so close to town we headed to the dock and took a walk up the street to a place called the Jade Seahorse. What we found was something unbelievable. The "backyard" of this place was FULL of pathways, bridges and sculptures created with recycled material. Everything you can think of. Glass bottles, wine bottles, shells, driftwood, tile, glass, plates...it was amazing. And of course I didn't have my camera. a couple of the other folks in our group had cameras and I'm hoping to be able to share some of their images. We spent about 45 mins walking around the grounds and then headed back to the boat.

Once on board we headed to our final dive spot called "Ted's Point". There were other boats on the mooring so we had to use another buoy a little ways away. We geared up and jumped into the 85 degree water and headed for our submerged destination for the last time.

The initial part of the dive had me wondering if this was how it would end. There were some fish and coral, but it was the same old stuff we had seen all week. I really wanted to see the elusive spotted eagle ray and this was my last chance. It wasn't looking good. After a long kick we finally reached and area where things started to pick up. We spotted a file fish (which looks kind of like a halibut), a barracuda and another large tarpon. But I had a problem. Because it took us so long to get there I only had about 500 psi of air left in my tank. Normally at that point I would head to the surface. Through hand signals I let my guy Reuben know that I was low on air. He was kind enough to offer his extra regulator to me to extend the dive and allow me to still have some emergency air. And good thing he did. After about 5 mins we heard someone banging on their tank. Sound travels very well underwater so the 30 or so divers all headed toward one of our group that was kicking pretty hard toward the deep.

At first I didn't see anything, then there they were. Three spotted eagle rays had graced us with their presence. The divers all lined up and and jockeyed for position to see the show. I tried to get a video but divers underneath me were sending bubbles in front of my camera. Then I noticed one of the rays was doing a fly by in front of the crowd, I quickly took off in the same direction behind the crowd. My hope was that once she passed the grandstand she would hang a right back toward the reef. I was right. She came in right underneath me and I held the shutter lever on the camera down. The best of the few images I got is below. After chasing down the ray I took glance at my gauge and saw a whopping 200 psi of precious air remaining. I quickly headed back the boat extremely happy with the dive that started out so poorly.

We climbed aboard the Miss U for the last time and headed back toward Utopia for a well deserved beer and a delicious lunch of fish tacos. As we've done every day we are hanging out in the Dive Bar and sharing stories and pictures of the day. Tonight is party night, however I have a feeling that most of the group will be in bed before 9:30. We get to sleep in tomorrow till 8, woohoo! A bittersweet end to diving but by the end of tomorrow I will be very ready to get home, sleep in my own bed and be with those I love.

The Miss U

The lion fish guarding the wheel house

Huge snapper

The wreck

My gauge at 95 feet

5-6 foot moray surrounded by kicked up sand from the cluster of divers

File fish

Spotted eagle ray

Útila - Day 5

Wow, what a day!

I'd love to show you some pictures of our night dive from last night, but alas I had camera problems again. My strobe wouldn't fire and on a night dive that just won't do. Silver lining though: since every dive I've been on without my camera has been great I knew we were in for a treat.

With 20 divers in pitch black water, things can become a cluster. Everywhere you look light beams cut through the water. Flashing lights and glow sticks marked the divers. We immediately spotted tons of lobster and lots of sleeping parrot fish. Some of the group saw some huge crabs and even tarpon. The highlight for me was seeing 4/5 hermit crabs fighting for one damn nice looking shell. After close to an hour we headed back to where we thought the boat was and were very lucky to see an octopus. I'd show you a picture, but, yeah. I did reach another milestone, a new longest dive: 101 minutes!

Got back for dinner late and had another GIANT piece of tuna that was delicious. Had a couple nightcaps and headed to bed hoping my camera issues would be resolved in the morning.

After breakfast I switched out the batteries in everything, we loaded up into shuttle and headed to the Miss U. Since the wind had really died down we headed toward the east side of the island for the first time. Our first site was "Little Bight". The main draw of this site was a sea horse about 5" long. After the seas horse we headed across a large sandy area that was full of Garden Eels. These little guys look like grass but when you get close they zip into the sand. About halfway through across the sandy area we ran into a bunch of squid. This encounter was one of the coolest experiences I've had diving to date. These things were so interested in us, as much as we were in them. There was two lines of creatures, one of squid, one of human, staring at each other. Very cool.

After about 10 minutes with the squid we continued on and found a good size eel having lunch. We turned around and made the trek back to the boat for some water, fruit and muffins and a bit of a rest before our 2nd dive, "Madeline's".

The first part of the dive was pretty non-eventful which made sense because my camera was working. Bit as soon as we made our turn things changed rapidly. So many fish about 30 feet. Cow fish, giant angel fish, ocean trigger fish and needlefish. About halfway back to the boat my dive buddy Ted and guide Reuben got my attention. They were swimming fast so I quickly caught up. What I saw was the tail of a large fish that looked a lot like a shark. I couldn't tell as it was moving fast and effortlessly away from us. Reuben cut him off and the fish headed right toward me. At this point I think a 5' shark is headed right toward me. He made a turn right in front of me and I instantly recognized it as a tarpon who apparently was posing for a great shot! After that excitement we kicked back to the boat and completed the dive.

For lunch we headed to a small island called "Parrot Key". The restaurant is owned by our boat captains family. I had barracuda fish and chips which was pretty good. After lunch we took a stroll down main street which was actually a path way. The island has 400-700 locals (depending on the season). It's amazing to me that people actually live here for their whole lives. Everyone was very nice and welcomed us to see where and how they live. Definitely put some perspective on how different things can be.

After our tour we jumped on the Miss U and headed back to Utopia where we cleaned up and headed to the bar for an afternoon of showing pictures and reliving the days awesome dives. Our trip is half over and tomorrow will be our last day of diving. It will be sad to leave the this place but I am missing the kiddos and loved ones back home.

Enjoy the photos!

Sunset on the way to the night dive

Sea horsey!

Squid

Squid looking at us looking at them

Jim the squid whisperer

Green eel having lunch

Cow fish

My new desktop

Ocean trigger fish

Flamingo tongue

Tarpon! (not a shark)

Trunk fish

Útila - Day 4

Hola para Utopia Resort.

Closed down the "Dive Bar" again last night and had my first full night of sleep. The boat just needed a battery and the rain never came so after breakfast we headed out to our first dive site of the day called "Duppy Waters" (Duppy means ghost apparently). Neat site that was another wall but it had tons of little chutes and canyons. We quickly descended to 80 feet and were on our way.

About 5 mins into the dive I noticed two large angel fish were hovering above our dive guide Reuben. As I watched them i realized that one of them was "eating" his exhaust bubbles as they floated to the surface. Reuben said he has never seen that before. After about 30 mins along the wall we cruised up a chute to shallower waters where Reuben and I spotted a sea slug (or maybe a worm) that was rolling and contorting across a sandy patch or ocean floor. It was so weird to see this thing scoot along. It got to the other side and did a few more barrel rolls before finally stopping at the base of a small rock formation. Since I am still new to diving and i use way toomkuch air by this time I had to head back to the boat.

We then motored to our next dive site called "West End" (where we were headed yesterday before the boat died). After an hour on the surface we geared up and got back in the water. This site had much better visibility than the last. We only went down to about 60 feet for this dive which was another wall that bottomed out about 90 feet. We quickly found a couple lobster under some rocks and and tons of brightly colored fish were everywhere. After grabbing a few pictures of coral and the little fish we see everywhere Reuben grabbed my attention to point out a baby turtle. I grabbed my camera and was greeted with a "change battery pack" message. We followed the turtle for at least 15 mins. I could've snapped some amazing photos as I was less than 5 feet from the little bugger. Oh well, im sure that will happen many kore times before we leave. Shortly after the turtle we headed to shallower water and finished off a great 57 minute dive, My longest dive to date!

We loaded up and headed back to the resort for lunch. I'm writing this from a hammock and plan on doing a bunch of nothing until tonight's nighttime boat dive. I'm hoping to get some awesome pictures tonight, as long as my battery holds up that is. Until tomorrow...

Bubble-eating fishies

More fan coral

Don't know what this is, but I'm calling it the venus flytrap sponge

Purty colors

These little fish are EVERYWHERE. And not afraid to get all up in your face.

Last photo before my battery died. Meh.