Wednesday, May 9. When I arose this morning, the sky was blue and the wind was ~10 kts ESE, enough to sail to West End. Shortly after the morning net, however, George & Pixie on Silver Sea decided they wanted to see the local dentist and Craig on Salida had issues with his batteries to sort out so neither was ready to leave today, although Craig was pretty sure he would be ready tomorrow. About that time I noticed that the wind had dropped and it was near calm. OK, we'll stay here another day and do another dive. Craig was busy and Liz wasn't interested. Pixie was not supposed to get her nose wet after having the biopsy, but George wanted to come so I set the hookah up for 3 and off we went. We picked a different ball from last time, but the dive was very similar – fantastic! We started in canyons of coral sand between coral masses that at times were so narrow we had to go single file (or sometimes Deb swam above the canyon). And then the edge. As may times as I've done it, crossing the edge of a wall like this never fails to catch me. It is truly awesome in the original meaning of the word. Dave, you would have loved this dive. At one point I had the hose stretched straight down – 60' with at least another 60' below me. I think part of what makes wall dives special is all the sponges and soft coral growing on it. There were barrel sponges 2' in diameter, delicate vase sponges that looked like the finest translucent jade, brilliant purple tube sponges, and fans of every shape and size. And lots of fish. We saw a whole school of Atlantic spade fish, all at least 12' in diameter. I have to get a new cheapo dive watch. My old one died and I really should time our deep time on dives like this. I know we were well under 30 minutes at depth (and most of that 40-50' instead of 60'), but timing it would allow me to stay down longer as I always err on the side of safety. Anyway, after our down time, we came back up to ~30' and followed the canyons chasing fish back and forth, up and down. Gradually we came up to 15-20' and finished our dive at that depth before returning to the dink. George was amazed at how beautiful it all was, and Deb & I both loved it as well. After lunch we went to the iguana farm. This local guy had taken it upon himself to protect and preserve native iguana, so he has 30 or 40 of them wandering around his property and it is open to the public – free. They also have some parrots, macaws, and a couple monkeys, all in cages, but the iguana roamed free. We brought mango peels and radishes to feed them (They liked radish better.) and eventually Craig got one to take a piece from his hand. About that time another iguana licked Liz's leg, much to her shock. Deb, who had the radishes, was surrounded and not sure how to “escape.” Two of the larger males (most were 3-4' long) started fighting and one of the women who worked there had to grab one by the scruff of his neck and pull him off and then cuff him when he went back after the other. We had a great time and then bought several items at the souvenir shop. Then it was time for another dive. Deb & I went alone this time and as all the other balls were taken by dive boats, we sued the same one again. This time, however, we turned right at the wall instead of left so it was really a totally different dive. And just as fantastic. We did have one miscommunication. Deb had said that she wasn't sure how long she would be good for and after we had been deep for only about 10 minutes she tapped her wrist, flashed 15 fingers at me and pointed up. I wasn't sure about the 15, but I assumed she meant that she felt we had been deep long enough and wanted to go up. So we did. Actually she was trying to get me to LOOK up and see the big (at least 15) school of Atlantic spade fish swimming above us. She thought I was cutting the dive short for some reason. Oh well, we had a great time anyway. As we were coming over the edge, there was a small damsel fish “defending” his patch of coral. I always like to play with them as they are so tiny and yet so aggressive. They always drive off fish many times their size. This one was even more so and bit my finger two or three times as I got too close to “his” coral. The reef top on this side did not have the canyons of the other side. It was mostly at 30' and had very beautiful coral formations including lots of big elkhorn stands. A big school of tangs let us swim right in their midst and a large school of good sized chub clearly expected to be fed as the swam right up to us. I was actually able to touch one. By the time we made it back to dink, we were both ready to call it a day – a very good day. Shortly after we returned to Always, we got a call from Salida inviting us over for drinks in the water so we grabbed our life jackets and did another official life jacket drill with beer in hand. Then we returned and had lobster tails, summer squash, and fried plantains (the sweet ones) for dinner. A brandy in the tramp was the perfect cap to a great day. Tomorrow maybe we'll sail to West End.