Hidden Treasures

Even marine park fish are wary of divers but, as Charles Hood discovers on a trip to Honduras, slowing down will help you make a few friends....

Given the chance, most marine critters can be curious. If you remain motionless underwater in one spot, the reef will slowly unveil itself. The majority of divers miss seeing creatures because they are reef-runners, conforming to the notion that the faster you fin, the more you see. When, through some miracle, they actually spot an animal, they chase it, giving everyone on the reef the firm impression that they are a predator, albeit a crap one.

If you chase something, who can blame it for swimming away? I put the ‘choose your spot and stick to it’ theory into practice while diving Little Coco, a sea mount just north of Cayos Cochinos in the Honduran Bay Islands. About 2m up from the sea bed and dancing in unison, were half a dozen or more unusual and transparent ‘bits of plastic’. Usually when I observe strange occurrences underwater, I immediately freeze – and that’s exactly what happened.

The idea is to observe, try to work out what’s going on, and plan a strategy before you frighten the creatures away. The opaque plastic turned out to be squid. Perfectly camouflaged against the background of open water, they orientated themselves like an old-school RAF fighter squadron. Chocks away, chaps!

It’s well known that squid are attracted to light – I have known fishermen who only use underwater torches or luminous baits to attract them to a boat at night. So, I fired off a couple of shots to see what they would make of my flashguns. The squid immediately changed colour, pulsing their way through the spectrum in what was probably cephalopod talk for ‘What the hell’s going on?’. At this point, I decided to test the theory and remained as still as possible, shooting away with my camera.

Sure enough, the squid edged closer, curiosity getting the better of them. Eventually, I had three of them almost touching my camera, still performing colour changes that would make a chameleon crawl under a rock in shame. Sadly, I also attracted the curiosity of my diving group who, in sadly predictable fashion, swarmed around my delicately-fostered squid friendship. My new friends promptly exited stage left as the divers moved in.

I was diving from the Bay Island Aggressor IV, which is based at Isla de Roatán just off Honduras. Although a few years old, she is a stable and luxurious liveaboard. She sleeps up to 20 passengers, and is well fitted out with a number of diver-friendly features, most impressive of which is the air-conditioned digital photo suite. Here you can download your images onto the vessel’s PC, view your shots and save them onto CD.

Columbus discovered the Bay Islands on his final voyage across the Atlantic, landing first on Guanaja on 30 July 1502, then moving on to Barbareta, originally called St Francis Island. He reported that he was ‘met by dark-coloured men in a large gondola-like canoe containing passenger quarters and various goods such as cotton cloth’.

The Bay Islands lie 69km off the north coast of mainland Honduras. They consist of five main Islands: Roatán (by far the largest), Utila to the southwest, Barbareta and Guanaja to the northeast and Cayos Cochinos to the south. They support a diverse range of marine life: common species include hawksbill turtles, moray eels, many different grouper, barracuda, sea horses, frogfish, nudibranchs and of course, squid, which I found to be fun and frustrating in equal measure. The water temperature was in the high twenties and visibility up to 30m.

These islands are remote. They are also incredibly poor. Tourism is a huge source of income so service is usually well-meaning if a tad rustic. There is evidence of cheap property being snapped up by holiday-makers, so my advice is to go now before the islands become spoiled. Who would the Bay Islands appeal to? My guess is someone who has done the Med, Red Sea or Maldives and is looking for something a bit different, a bit more remote.

Wild though this place is, the dive guide always knows exactly where to find the sea horses and what you get is relatively sheltered diving with good visibility, warm water and little or no currents to contend with. Because Honduras is a way off diving’s beaten track, you are hardly likely to see another dive vessel all week. Fish life is abundant on most dives, but it is the macro life that is most spectacular. There are rare species of cone shell and nudibranchs as well as jawfish, delicate tubeworms and octopus. Night dives are the best time to see the octopus. As there is no ambient light, they eschew their daytime camouflage, making them easier to spot by torchlight. Out in the open, they unfurl their tentacles, ghosting the sands for suitable morsels. When confronted by divers, they appear torn between their natural curiosity and the impulse to flee a large, unknown creature.

One of the reasons these sites are in such good condition is that many areas have been set aside and protected as official marine parks. We all know the rules: no spear-fishing, angling or collecting any sort of animal, living or dead.

Film-maker Peter Scoones once said that fish are more intelligent than many of us imagine. He believes that if fish are killed or harassed on a reef, and divers are present, the sound of fish fleeing is equated with the cacophonous growl of scuba cylinders and lives on in a sort of collective memory. It would be nigh-on impossible to prove or disprove his theory, but in my experience fish are always that bit friendlier on reefs where they have been protected. Go figure.

• Thanks to Jim Breakell of Scuba Safaris for organising the trip. Seven nights on the Aggressor cost from £995 plus flights. To book call Scuba Safaris on 01342 851196.

Bay Island Aggressor IV
• Ten state rooms, each en-suite with air conditioning, TV and VCR
• Plenty of food – beer, soft drinks and wine also included
• Hot tub which holds six guests
• Photo centre: E6 processing and PC
• 110V AC electricity supply – 24 hours
• 32 per cent nitrox compressor
• Underwater scooters, underwater photo equipment, rebreather and kayaks for hire