This fourth of July was like no other fourth of July I've ever experienced. There were no fireworks, barbeques, or a trace of red, white, and blue to be found. Instead I spent two days snorkeling with Darien and Paul and Diane, who are English. : ) On the fourth of July, the weather was extremely hot so when we got a call from Paul asking if we wanted to go out on the boat and search for wrecks, we couldn't say no. It was a fantastic day. We set off towards the Point and tried to find a wreck that was supposedly out there, which is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We gave up finally and anchored close to some reefs and did some snorkeling. One of the reefs we went to had extremely deep sides and would be an awesome dive site for Paul and Diane to bring tourists. I even saw a jelly fish! I actually think it was a comb jelly though. It was about the length of my finger. Here's a glimpse of the fantastic clear sailing we had.
The next day we started off around 8 in the morning, picked up a day's supply of empanadas, and got a moto ride from Paul to Ceyba Park. We watched Deep Sea, a documentary on the deep ocean, until Frank arrived, who was the fisherman who knows where the wrecks are. He's also the fisherman who is likely going to help us with the lobster houses. The plan is to give him 20 lobster houses in exchange for the collection of data on the number, size, and sex of the lobsters that are attracted to the house. He will also get to keep the legally harvestable lobsters. On the way to the wreck, we stopped and checked Frank's nasas to see if he had caught anything. Here is a photo of us pulling up one of his nasas. It was a lot bigger than what I expected and made me wonder how they are able to fit them in their tiny boats.
He has 12 nasas that are located in an area that he thinks would be good to keep the lobster houses. However, Paul dove down the the nasas and found that nothing was in most of them. This probably means that someone has been checking his nasas. Although Frank is one of the most respected members in the fishing community, since many of the fishermen rent their equipment from him, fishermen still steal from his nasas. Vigilance is going to be a major problem, especially since many of the lobster fishermen fish at night. I don't know if it is a good site to have lobster houses because the water is over 30 feet deep, the seagrass beds are not of the highest quality, and there are no coral reefs. Frank suggested that a compressor could be used to reach the lobster houses but that's illegal... I was thinking that maybe we could employ Paul to check the lobster houses instead because he wants to practice his free diving and is in need of employment. : ) Some of Frank's nasas did contain a number of lobsters and I got to see my first live lobster! I think they are really cute... much cuter than American lobsters.
The problem with Frank's fishing method is that he is planning to leave the lobsters in the nasas until the veda is over, which is also illegal. Although the lobsters might have enough food to live off of since the nasas are baited with beef and there are other fish that get trapped in there too, they might start eating each other. Frank said that the lobsters would survive off of the algae that grows on the side of the nasa, which I think is very unlikely. Also, how are the females with eggs supposed to migrate to deep reefs to release their eggs or the lobsters mate with the rest of the population? Hopefully we can get this project started so that Frank will use lobster houses instead of nasas so that the lobsters would be free to come and go as they please.
Then we went to the wreck, which is by the twin tanks, where I went snorkeling before with Adam and Paco. The wreck was about 35 feet deep so it was hard to see from the surface but you could see an outline of the ship and what looked like two cannons. There was also a cave in the coral right next to the wreck. I can't wait to go diving there and explore some more! While we were there, we also saw shark! It was a nurse shark though, which according to the reef fish guidebook only bite when provoked. It was still over five feet long and was Paul's first shark ever, which I found hard to believe since he has been diving for eight years. I was also excited to see a barracuda that was at least two and a half feet long. It was in the cave next to the twin tanks and I only got a glimpse of it though. Like always, we also sawplenty of brightly colored fish.
On the way back, we stopped at a beautiful sand bar that you could actually stand up on to your waist. It was covered with cushion stars and white sea urchins. I even saw two queen conches mating! Well, I guess it's the season because there is a veda on them right now.
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