Trip Report CoCo View 5/26, we am be here

[Doc]

It is now midweek Wednesday and our first 4 days of diving are logged.

That tropical depression exited and went North just as we arrived, dead flat and full moon calm until tonight when the Eastery winds returned.

SB members here include SteveP and Rielen. A new friend was out on the shore dive solo today and snapped images of a big old Hammerhead in 30fsw just this side of the PA Wreck.

Just anothet ho hum week at CoCo View.

 

[drrich2]

Sounds great! I take it the hammerhead was quite unusual to see?

Richard.

 

[Doc]

With water temps there at 88 degrees, you bet thats unusual!

For those of you faniliar with this area, he was right at the “bouyancy diamond” area. Its maybe 200’ off in front of the rooms. I am going to try to get her inages to post.

In the shallows on the way back in from the shore dive water temps were 92 degrees, no joke.

Hammerheads like much cooler zones. The diver relates that She felt awe first and primarily, as she has been on about 700 dives, not doubting that one bit. Then she went into the "get the camera up and running mode", followed later by a little holy shritt.

More later.

Seas now rough, one diver broke his wrist doing the ladder mambo at Mr Bud wreck dive. I sat out the day and did some artwork, repainting the Front Yard map on the table at the bar deck. Photo as above.

I am too old for that challenge and ive seen the Mr Bud once or twice before

Tomorrow we will do French Key Cut which affords a very sheltered mooring and a reef access slot to the outside of the reef break. Easy breezy.

My buddies did Marys Place today and the top of the reef flats presented a trenendous surge that really challenged even the experienced flipper flippers.

Fortune rewards the brave.

 

[Doc]

Today as winds calmed a lot, but still continued with a predictable Easterly trade wind. CCV management decreed that all boat recoveries were to be done not by the rear ladders but instead by the "center moon wells".

We did Big French Key Cut instead, mooring to boat in the dead calm behind the reef and then flippering out thru that "slot" in the reef to do the seldom seen and rarely visited overhead environment that lies in front of BFK. It's quite a hump from the slot, it begins in 45fsw and tunnels down to a blue glowing exit hole at 85'. Only me and my dive buddy had enough air to do it, down and up, before the main group got that far, but they were a bit lower on air so they turned back. Steady the pace.

Lauri Hafvenstein shot these images in CCV's Front Yard and was kind enough to share them...

Anybody who has been to CCV will recognize the PVC buoyancy triangle course in the background and realize how ridiculously close-in on the shore dive that this occurred. The Prince Albert wreck is behind Lauri and she's in about 35fsw, the shark is nosing into the 20' range.

Tim Blanton, noted shooter on Roatan, says it's a female of 10-12 feet.



I'm going to encourage SB travelers @Rilelen and @Steve P to join in here....and get Lauri, a former NatGeo employee, to join SB, she is an accomplished diver that unfortunately has a camera the size of a Honda Motorcycle. She soldered up a hydrophone while here in a first gen attempt at an underwater recording device for detailed sound.

Amazing who (and what) you meet at CCV.

 

[Rilelen]

We’ve had a great week! I’m here with my dad, who’s been working on his buoyancy with the great dive staff here - I think Patti, Joe, and David have all had a go at him, and he’s doing MUCH better than when we got here!

We did Big French Key Cut yesterday morning but skipped the afternoon and this morning, what with the wind and all. Was chatting with David, the night divemaster, and they cancelled last night’s night dives on account of the conditions (and perhaps some caution after the ladder accident that afternoon). But we’ve done every dive up to this point, and a nice long drop-off on CCV wall yesterday morning, so it’s quite all right. I took the opportunity this morning to load up some pictures from the Front Yard on Wednesday. We must have been in the water with the hammerhead but missed him; we even went back to check on the night dive later that night!

The front bow of the Prince Albert:

Part of the patch reef, on the way back up the chain:

Eeeeeeeeeeels!

Doc’s Table has been progressing all week; I saw multiple people today using it to point out where exactly the hammerhead was spotted!

We went out with Tim Blanton on his eco-tour today and that shark was about all we could talk about (as well as an annual upside down jellyfish gathering in the mangroves he’s hoping to film this summer).

 

[tridacna]

M U S T go back to C C V!

 

[laurenceh]

we've had several great hammerhead sightings around Utila in the last 3 weeks as well. good news !!

 

[Doc]

Where was the Hammerhead?

On the sketch: Just beyond the wreck, where the words "chain to CoCoView" are written.

Precisely? At the word "Coco".

I go into this detail only because of the prior posts, and to again amplify our amazement at the proximity to the shore dive, within 100psi of the shore entry. I am still agog.

 

[chillyinCanada]

The Albert is looking so much better than the last time I was there! Maybe it's time for me to go back too.

 

[Doc]

The Albert is looking so much better than the last time I was there! Maybe it's time for me to go back too.

Artistic license, and drawn 20 years ago. There's more stuff growing in it and a few more bits have fallen away. Still looks like a ship to the unknowing, looks like a condo to others.

Full of life.