Today, we were docking at Isla Roatan in Honduras. We were arriving a little bit later so we had the opportunity to have a bigger breakfast this morning. We had brunch at the platinum restaurant (same place we eat for dinner) at 8am - I had French toast and hash browns. Alicia had a waffle and a sausage. We were seated next to (older, but interesting and resourceful) people, similar spot at back of ship. Our brunch mates discussed their previous cruise experiences, upcoming and prior excursions, and past vacation experiences. One recently retired couple took their 2 cats (hilarious) all the way up to Alaska and back in an 89-day adventure.

There was a passing squall (sudden wind storm) that delayed us just a few minutes docking and leaving the ship . The captain ended up backing in the 110,000-gross ton ship to the port. We docked this time so didn't have to use tender ships thank god.

Fun fact: Isla Roatan was home to 5000 pirates and has the world's second largest coral reef (the best in the Caribbean our guide implored).

We finally made it off the ship just after 10:00am (right on schedule). The island was much different than Cayman - more rainforest, more lush. Less sand. We found our scuba excursion people and waited for everyone to get off the ship to the side by the shops

An important thing for us to note was that the time is central standard time, which is hour behind ship time. Because my phone was set to change time zones automatically, I had to change my phone from automatic time setting to manual so I could have the correct time.

Driving through the rainforest in our old van was pretty neat . There were only about 10 people in our group, which was nice. Few observations on the way to our dive shop: this place has tons of trees and colorful vegetation. There is a lot of red clay in soil. Minimal road rules, poor roads. Some of the speed bumps were just ropes tied across the road. We passed a super tiny international airport. We passed by a small mall private school that's $400-500 per month per child and a public school. Very impoverish area, houses often on stilts. The gas at gas stations gets poured from gas cans, no pumps. Saw cats, dogs, and chicken like thing that borrows in the ground. $2300 average income per year. Their currency is worth $.05 per 1 USD.

Allejandre was our diving school instructor. He and the other instructors were PADI professionals, which means they can dive with uncertified divers. Bob from Alabama dove with us in our small group of 3 (excluding the PADI pro). He was an older man, but has been scuba diving a few times before so he was great to dive with . He said that his wife was seeing the monkey exhibit and shopping, so it was just him here to dive. Justin was our PADI-certified diver that was going to take us down in the water. We spent about 30 minutes in the classroom learning the basics, the hand signals, and other safety measures, 45 minutes in shallow open water practicing the skills, 15 minutes boating to our dive spot in the reefs, and about another 45 minutes or so in the open water above the heart reef.

The classroom taught us all of the basics including the procedures and the hand gestures. After taking a small group test, we all loaded on to a boat for our open water practice. They had gear and flippers waiting for us in specialized stands on the boat. What I wasn't expecting was how heavy the steel tank and the rest of the scuba gear was - I couldn't stand up from my spot without some help. Once you had all of your gear on, they showed us how to jump off the back of the boat. You simply put your toes on the edge of the ship, hold your goggles with one hand and with your other hand hold the BCD's (buoyancy compensator device) controls, and simply walk into the water . Once you hit the water, you hit the button to inflate your BCD which makes you float effortlessly on the surface of the water.

We practiced in shallow water (3 feet) at first right near the diving resort, but still genuine salt water. I was fully expecting our practice sessions to be in a pool of sorts. It was super nerve-racking at first; definitely not for the claustrophobic or panicky. In the shallow water, there were definitely a few times where Alicia and I had to poke our head out of the water to re-adjust or drain our mouth of salt water. The hardest part at first was practicing losing the regulator and reinserting it into your mouth and expelling the water with the air in your lungs or the button on the regular that expels the water. And if you pointed the regulator up, it would burst out oxygen from the tank which you obviously want to prevent. Alicia and I both had troubles with placing the regulator back in our mouth due to the uncomfortableness with the water in the mouth while your underwater . Remember, you have to breath with your mouth so right when you insert the regular again you instinctively want to breathe again, but you first have to expel the water with what's remaining in your lungs or hit the button. Luckily, during our real dive neither of us ever lost our regulator so that wasn't a problem. Additionally, practicing getting water into our mask and expelling it by pushing at the top and exhaling through the nose was a little challenging. I also found it more difficult to try to stand or float still under the water. I found it much more easy to by swimming under the water and kicking with the flippers.

Now that we had covered the basics in shallow water, the boat drove to a spot to start our real dive. Descending into seemingly endless depths, we put one hand in front of the other and slowly made our way down an anchored rope. Every few feet we had to be sure that we would put our fingers to our nose and blow out through the ears similar to if you wanted to pop your ears on an airplane . During the dive, I wish I would have adjusted my mask to tighten it up because as I exhaled it felt like my bubbles were going to break the seal and let in water. I did end up getting water in my mask a few times and was able to successfully expel it based on our instruction. Similar, I didn't have to take off my regulator but it did get water in it somehow and I was able to exhale to get rid of it. Once you have the basics and safety measures mastered, the trickiest part of the drive is simply regulating your buoyancy. You wanted to take in deep, calm, and full breaths and exhale slowly making tiny little bubbles with your mouth. The calmer you were, the easiest it is to maintain your depth and position in the waters. An additional trick was playing with the BCD. For example, right away when diving in the water our instructor wanted us to stay on top of the water so we could all go down slowly and together via the rope. Therefore, you wanted to pound that red button when hitting the water to inflate the BCD to keep you afloat . Conversely, when we started to make our decent we wanted to deflate our BCD by pointing the outflow device up (it didn't work if it was pointed down). That let air out and you would sink, but you didn't want to do that too quickly as you would sink too fast. Similarly, while down at the floor of the sea we would pump our red button a bit to inflate the BCD a bit to aid us in floating a bit off the floor. Alicia and I both ended up needing weights in our pouches to help us from continuously floating up. As instructed, the best way to swim when diving is horizontal, parallel to the ocean floor. Taking everything into account, simply swimming through the depths of the water was so effortless, enjoyable, and sort of calming.

We ended up diving to down to 39 (officially logged as 40) feet at the deepest point - wow, crazy, especially considering the max for beginner’s scuba was 40 ft. The views though, the views though were spectacular. We saw a bat fish, blue tangs (the dory-type fish from finding Nemo), and countless other multi-colored tropical fish of all shapes and sizes . We also saw many more underwater brain things (which are actually just called Brain Coral), many more schools of fish, more established coral reefs and we were able to swim through the rift they created, reefs with more columns on top (more city like), and a lot of really pretty, smooth white sand. We swam through a canyon of coral so we were surrounded by coral on either side - that was pretty cool. Kneeling down on the ocean floor was an experience in of itself too, just gazing into the blue horizon and literally soaking up all of the breathtaking (sometimes literally) sights. Watching the fish swim through the rocky coral reefs in their natural habitat and nibbling on the plants was a sight I'll never forget. Under the sea is an entirely new world; I'm glad I got to explore just a bit of it.

As we made our ascent, I was sad to say goodbye. We proceeded up the same way we did down - one hand at a time holding the rope and clearing the pressure in our nose/ears every few feet. As we approached the boat and made it back on the ship, I'm not sure I realized I was actually a little bit cold in the water . Looking back, I remember seeing Alicia having goosebumps while on the bottom of the sea. You don't realize but the sun isn't able to penetrate that deep. It wasn't freezing, just a mild cold that you would expect from 40 ft depths. We were both shaking a bit as we trudged back to our spot in the ship with all of our gear and sat down. I'm sure the adrenaline pumping through our veins had something to do with it.

Justin was awesome; he enjoyed us as no one messed up majorly and we enjoyed him as a teacher. Now that the dive is over, we have the taste of salt engrained in our mouth's. After the dive, it was 2:30pm and we still had a half hour bus ride back to the ship. We were starving. The time just flew by on us!

Back at the gift shop, they gave us a deal on the video because we weren't in it as much but it was still really neat. I really wanted to purchase the video because while underwater, I'd say we were focusing more on breathing and our buoyancy and not of all the gorgeous sights . I negotiated for them to throw in one photo of Alicia and I that I liked, an action shot of us under the sea.

Want to see a little bit of what we saw? Check out our video! https://youtu.be/Z06wQpCzKyk

After we made it back to the port where the ship was docked, we sampled some chocolate and perused the stores and searched for food. We soon found Fat Tuesday's and ordered loaded nachos and 2 pineapple juice drinks.

This port was pretty neat in that it had a semi private beach just for us cruise shippers for the day. We were the only ship docked so it wasn't overcrowded or anything. The island and beach were beautiful. The water felt nice to wade in. It was a warm, humid mid 80's. The sun was very strong and bright and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. This is definitely the warmest we've been on the trip.

Also on the island was a little nature trail that traced the island's edge . We ended up seeing a lizard on the path we were walking on. We also found a chair swing and a tree tunnel / canopy. Very tranquil; very pretty island.

All of the "shops" area of the port were secured; outside of the security cruise area is the true island people. There was a market area, though, which had more of the locals selling items. Sometimes, you would see them doing wood carving right there in front of you. Sometimes a little refreshing from all of the diamond stores.  

From the last bit of the dive in the ascent, water filled my ear and it was still stuck there. I finally was able to get it to drain later on when we got back on the ship. It helped when I bent over to change the pressure a bit.

Still on the island, the piercing sun was very thirst-inspiring so Alicia bought an orange pineapple juice. I, of course, bought a coconut water served in a fresh coconut . It was a gigantic coconut and the guy hacked off with a machete the top. The basin of the coconut had more water than the coconut I had in Grand Cayman. It was ice cold and tasted so good with the afternoon sun.

Back to the ship - smooth process boarding this time yay no tenders! We walked up 11 flights of stairs to the top deck to admire the island from up top. We were still so thirsty so we drank two more lemonades, each. We watched the ship depart the island - crazy how quick the island and port die down once the ship leaves. We admired the island from both sides - they were both incredibly beautiful. On one side, you could see the port with the beach, the nature trails, and gorgeous sandy and rocky water. On the other side, you could see more of the true island and even a seemingly-ancient pirate ship wreck just off the coast (remember, Isla Roatan / Mahogany Bay was home to over 5000 pirates back in its day).

After watching the island disappear at ~5pm, we came back to the room and I showered . Afterwards, I was feeling particularly ambitious so I went to the gym and biked for 8 miles. After another quick shower, it was time for dinner.

Dinner- I had peach soup, spinach and mozzarella stuffed cannoli, chicken tortellini’s, sword fish (accidently ordered, but still good even though it was fishier than the first night’s), a Roatan / Mexican style haddock dish, and s'mores parfait. Alicia had peach soup, shared the tortellini, salmon cake, and a mango pie.

Tonight's featured entertainment was the Love and Marriage show. There, Eric our cruise director picked three unsuspecting couples. The oldest he could find, the youngest he could find, and the rowdiest he could find. The purpose of the show was to see which couple knew each other the best, and as you can expect, several were embarrassing and totally inappropriate questions were asked.

After a day like today, I would say we were totally ready for sleeps . Fun fact, I broke my Apple Watch record from yesterday of 132 minutes of exercise with 137. This didn't even count the time we were scuba-diving too, which definitely would have contributed as we were surprisingly exhausted when we were done. I would have loved to know our heart rate while we were under the sea but I don't think I wanted to trust the waterproof watch at those depths (nor does Apple recommend scuba diving with the Apple Watch, even though it says it's water resistant up to 50 meters). I had 1010 calories burned today, excluding the scuba time. This does include the 69 (!) flights of stairs climbed, though. This equated to 17,000 steps for the day.
 
Our towel animal for tonight was a hanging monkey – we didn’t see it at first and were a little terrified when we turned around and saw it just hanging from the molding in the ceiling! 

Excursion link: https://www.carnival.com/shore-excursions/mahogany-bay-isla-roatan/beginners-scuba-518059#