Michael Rock (Part 3) Guanaja Honduras Bay Islands

The top of the drop-off

Going down……

We had planned to do another 2 dives on Tuesday 11 February, the first of which was on Diane’s Reef.  This was another wall dive, with the drop off just to the east of the mooring buoy.  We descended to around 15m and set off along the wall.

‘Our’ nurse shark makes his/her first appearance

Almost as soon as we had got settled things became interesting with the arrival of an inquisitive nurse shark.  Nurse sharks are normally nocturnal and we have more usually found them snoozing the day away under a rock.  If we have seen one on the move, it’s generally because they have been disturbed by our presence and are swimming off to find another ‘sleep pod’.

This one, however, showed no signs of wanting to find somewhere to get some shut-eye.  Quite the contrary, in fact.

Wherever we went our new dive buddy came with us.  And (s)he wasn’t scared of us, making numerous passes within just a few feet of us.

Clockwise from top left: Indigo hamlet (another new fish for us); ‘our’ nurse shark; blue tang with queen angelfish behind

There were lots of colourful fish to look at but in the periphery the nurse shark was always there.

One advantage of the close swim-pasts was that we saw that the shark had a remora which we could get a good look at.

The nurse shark’s remora

Queen angelfish

The remora seemed to find it difficult to stay attached to the shark skin.  It seemed to us that it kept slipping off and rapidly reattaching elsewhere.  Perhaps, though, it was deliberate and it was just moving around.

Is this my better side?

Blue chromis and brain coral

I did manage to get a few pictures of some other fish…….

… but it was clear that the nurse shark wanted to be in every photo…..

Nicky and the nurse shark

……at which (s)he was pretty successful.

Barrel sponge…. with nurse shark!

No nurse shark in these pictures……

…..so there’s a grumpy nurse shark swim-past in this one!

And then, just as we were getting used to the constant shadowing by our dive buddy….

… a second nurse shark turned up to follow us.

“You can’t see me.. right!”  (look to the left of Nicky’s bent knee, hidden in the coral)

The 2 sharks kept following us right up until the end of the dive.  We wondered if they were often fed by divers here, which might explain why they were so keen to stay with us.

Back on the top of the reef in about 5m

As the air in our tanks reached the point where we needed to think about returning to the dinghy, we swam up to the top of the wall to spend a bit of time in the brighter light.

And still the sharks followed us (and photo-bombed the pictures)!

Last look at our dive buddy

But as we returned to the dinghy and ascended to the surface, they realised that their fun with us was over and, just as suddenly as they had arrived, they vanished.

Paradise reef

Sheet coral

You could argue that we actually did 3 dives that day as, between our nurse shark extravaganza in the morning and our visit to Paradise Reef in the afternoon, we spent half an hour using the last of the air in the tanks scrubbing BV’s bottom.  But, necessary though it was, it wasn’t exactly a fun dive, so after a bite to eat we headed back out to the reef.

Left: Barrel sponge.  Right: Fire sponge

We had been utterly spoilt in the morning with the 2 nurse sharks but the afternoon’s dive still showed us a huge variety of coral, fish and invertebrates and some glorious colours too.

A tiny shrimp in a barrel sponge

Queen angelfish and cleaning gobies

Bicolour damselfish on a backdrop of cavernous star coral

Sponges

We’re confused here.  This fish has the stripes of a tiger grouper and the colouring of a black grouper.  Either way, it’s a grouper!

And the terrain was interesting too, though not as good as the areas around The Pavilions and Michael’s Rock Key.

Blue lobster

Our third nurse shark of the day

We saw our first lobster in all our dives off Guanaja ….. and remarkably it was a rare blue lobster.  Plus, during our safety stop as we ascended to the dinghy, we spotted another nurse shark, our third in the day!

Michael Rock, Guanaja, Honduras Bay Islands