Monday, May 7. Today was going to be a slow day. Deb had some cleaning she needed to do, but not much else. I decided to take dink over to the marine park that was right next to the boat and check it out. The area was only about waist deep over sand, but there was a ball there and we had seen dive boats take groups of snorkelers there, so I had to check it out. At first I couldn''t figure out what the big deal was. Sand, turtle grass, and rather boring coral – mostly that frilly leaf like coral that is so common in the shoals. And then I saw the lobster. At first just one or two, but then I found ledges with 10-12 under it. All sizes, up to 5 #. At one point I floated in one spot and counted 15 lobster in sight, and probably more back under the ledges further. They were also fairly bold, coming out of their ledge and waving their antennae about when I approached. (Lobsters can only see poorly so they depend on their antennae as their primary means of sensory input. As long as you avoid the antennae, you and get close enough to grab them.) since it was a park (with a big sign in Spanish and English announcing the 5000L fine) I couldn't take any, but I mentally grabbed them working my hand back over their carapace while avoiding the antennae. Then I'd give one antenna a tweak and watch them snap backwards, often crashing into the other lobster in the hole. I had never seen so many lobster in one place and never congregated like that. It was a fun snorkel and now I know why the boats go there. On the way back to the boat, I took dink out through the breakwater that creates the entrance channel for Coco Beach Resort and Fantasy Island, two up scale dive resorts. There were balls marked with dive flags in the deep water by the entrance. Back at the boat, I inquired over VHF about being able to use the balls and was told it was fine as long as a dive boat wasn't on it, but I should wait until the dive boats went out, either at 9:00 or 2:30. At 2:30 we took the hookah to the empty ball. It was a deep dive. Right off the ball, the wall dropped to ~100'. We could see the bottom directly below us, but looking at any angle all you could see was the deep blue of infinity. We dropped to about 40' and worked our way out the wall going up and down as the topography (or fish) suggested. The wall was covered with an amazing array of soft coral and sponges. Strangely, most of the fish we saw were tiny – inhabiting the sponges mostly. A few big chub, but very few pelagic fish. After following the wall out a ways, we rose to the top of the wall (10-15' mostly with occasional breakers) to swim back. I had not really planned a dive profile, but below 30' out and above 15' back should be fine. It is hard (but NOT impossible) to get in trouble with the hookah as you are limited to 60' and really anything much more than 50' puts an awkward pull on the hose. When we got back to the dink, Deb wanted to go see the lobster, so we zoomed over to the park and went from 100' to 3', just snorkeling this time. By the time we got done playing with the lobster, it was 5:00 and Salida was having a happy hour in the water floating behind their boat to fight the hot day (temp in the 90's today). We stopped at Always to get some wine and then joined them along with Silver Sea and Wet Bar. Tomorrow Craig & Liz want to go with us on a deep dive so I'll hook up the extra hoses. Back at our boat, I made blackened grouper for dinner from the filets I had bought from a local fisherman who stopped by that morning. Nothing like fresh grouper, especially since I couldn't get my own lobster or conch. Tomorrow Pixie is taking the ferry to La Ceiba on the mainland to see a dermatologist about a lesion on her nose (I recommended she do it.) and we said we would wait here and then probably the three boats will sail together down to West End. As long as this mild weather holds, we can use the hookah on the outside of the reef. Great.