However i have been able to catch some fish, not much compared to what i did last season, or at least not from what i recall. So this year, it will change, as i decided to start “logging” all my spearfishing trips, with what fish i catch, where, their measurements, water temperature and wind conditions. It should all add up into a nice spreadsheet at the end of the season :)

Here below are some photos from my past month of spearfishing.

Here below are some pictures from the education, which have been very evolving for me personally as well. I got to overcome things i was more or less scared of before. For instance i think i have been cured of my claustrophobia. I have also fallen even more in love with diving, which i found hard to belive at first was possible, but it is :

Running around, literally, on the sea bed with a helmet working your ass of is just so fantastic a feeling. Must be the closest thing you can come to feel like the astronauts on the moon felt when running around partially weightless!

Monday im starting on my self paid education as a commercial diver. The divers traning is a IDSA standardized course, and when im done with my initial package, i will be certified to work as surface suplied diver to 100 feet with nitrox.

I also got to do a lot of spear-gun fishing, which i enjoy alot. Theres a few pictures from below. I plan to start making a camera mount for my spear-gun during autum, so i can start making some film of the hunt.

(Updated 4th June with video ( look just above the pictures further down))

As for the whole planning of the trip, were more than a year back, so the anticipation was certainly big enough. We all three had high hopes for this trip, as we had done our research in good time, and booked the rooms almost a year ahead ( you have to do that at CoCoView, its THAT popular!).

We started off in Copenhagen airport, discovering our plane was delayed for three hours. No big deal, since Thomas H got us in the business lounge so we could grab breakfast, beer & cognac! When it was time we stepped to the gate waiting for the boarding to begin, we just had a tiny “ritual” that needed to happen first .. which off course is, me (Thomas M ) being called by security to show them whats in my bag ( #¤%¤%”” dive lamp! ) and so i did, causing another slight delay.

I think around 10 hours later we touched down in Atlanta, Georgia in the US. Hot weather but we liked it, after a few security checks we got our bags and headed to the hotel we booked, as we had to spend roughly 19 hours in Atlanta before takeoff towards Roatan, Honduras. We “inspected” the local Hooters, and we were happy about what we found :) Too bad for Henrik, he forgot hes picture ID at the hotel, so no beer for him!

The next morning, we boarded the plane without any hassle, and headed to Roatan island in Honduras. 2 hours and 45 minutes later we touched down on Roatan, we had a nice in flight with a clear sky so we could see the whole island as we approached, beautiful little island. We got of the plane, and the first thing we saw was every single staff in the airport wore masks! We laughed a bit, it was off course panic over the Influenza A ( formerly know as swine flu) so we had to sign a form before entering the country that we had not been near any with any symptoms .. etc.

Then we came in, and were greeted by CCV staff, who handled our bags, and told us to grab the CCV bus and the bags would follow us a bit later. Awesome, no more dragging around that 50 pound backpack! We drove for, i think, 20 minutes at we were at the CoCoView landing. We got on a small boat, that took us the last 5 minutes to the resort. The weather was perfect, clear sky, lots of sun and a little wind. We checked in, around 12.00 local time, and 1 hour later we were gearing up for a checkout dive, first timers to CCV have to do this, repeat visitors don’t have to, if they can recall the location of the chains etc. on the reef.

We had a nice checkout dive, due to US Customs hard handling of my bag, i brought a empty underwater housing for my camera with me, to make sure there were no leaks. We had a fine dive, got to see the Prince Albert ( 140 foot wreck right in front of CCV ). After that we manged a few more dives that day before enjoying the nice buffet for supper. All food is served buffet style and theres plenty, and we found it very nice. Theres also a nice bar where you run a tab for the week, and they have a great local beer called “Salva Vida”, we have a few of those and headed off to bed because some of us wanted to get up early! Earlier that evening, we came to talk to two from Houston, Texas and he wanted to go on a night dive, and also he normally did a 5.30 morning dive. I was in for it, as i wanted as many dives as my dive computer would let me =)

Next morning i went in for the 0530 dive, came up around 1 hour later, and had a nice breakfast 0730 and 0830 we were sitting on our dive boat, where the DiveMaster and the Captain ( Kirk & Dave ) had already setup our gear! So we just had to jump in our wetsuit and we were good to go, first a boat dive out on the reef, then we got back on the boat, and gassed of for around 45 minutes, before switching tanks, and being dropped of on Newmans Wall on the way back. We surfaced from the drop off dive around 1145, just in time for lunch. After lunch, we relaxed for 1 hour, before heading to the boat again, which took off 1330 for another boat dive on another reef, 60 minutes later we surfaced and degassed for 45 minutes and got dropped of on our way back on the CoCoView Wall and again, 60 minutes later we surfaced around 1630 dropped off and rinsed our gear and headed for the bar. We would sit in the bar till 1830 where we grabbed supper, and the back to the bar till around 1950 then i would gear up for a night dive from 2000 till 2100, id be back at the bar around 2130 for a last few beers as the bar closed 2200 and then head to bed, because the next morning we jumped in at 0530 again.

And so passed a week .. it was heaven! Friday we stopped diving after 1200 as we had to leave the next day back to Denmark. In the evening there was a rum punch party with 4 gallons ( around 16 liters ) of rum punch, luckily for us, not many participated so after watching a pretty “hot” honduran woman dance with fire in chains, we started hammering down rum punch like we did nothing else, we lasted will around 2330 my guess is .. and headed to bed .. we were, i dare say, pretty damn drunk =)

Next morning, we got up and packed our stuff as we had to leave the resort around 0900. We got our tabs settled in the dive shop, the resort and we tipped our boat crew.

We were good to go home, not that we wanted to really .. i think we could have stayed for several weeks if we had the funding and work and all allowing it :) We had a pretty smooth flight from Roatan, to Atlanta, then 3 hours in transit before headed towards Paris, France just to switch to another plane towards Copenhagen. Again, in Paris, we had to do the Ritual, we were all on the plane, as i was called over the radio and this french security woman insisted i stepped off the plane as there was a issue with my bag … *sigh* (¤%&#%”%¤ dive lamp!!!) I finally explained my self to a stewardess who went and talked to the Captain of the plane. He then came out as asked me about the lamp, shrugged and explained it to security, then asked for my permission for security to inspect my bag and i said “yes off course” 5 minutes later we were ready to head to Denmark, with me causing a 35 minute delay! Back in Denmark we said bye to Henrik ( who lives in Copenhagen ) and Thomas H and I went to ( Denmarks only .. ) Starbucks in the airport, and got a frapuchino to go, and headed for the train. Oh boy, problems with DSB (danish train company ) so we switched trains 4 times before ending up home in Grenaa with a ~3 hour delay .. i went to my daughters room and kissed her goodnight, and then took a shower and jumped to bed with my girlfriend and kissed her goodnight.

What a vacation! I would rate i 6 out of 5 stars to be honest! I’m am defiantly going back to CoCoView, the only real question is:”When?”

Update: We also recorded some video, both above and below. See them here:

Anyways, heres a small selection (60 out of 216) pictures that you can find below this text. The major gallery with all 216 pictures can be found here. (Note: My “#¤”##”¤ gallery in this blog is broken, so it dumps the text i write below the images, so there is no explanation on these, view the full gallery for that, sorry)

Were headed to the island Roatan, which lies in the carribien just north of Honduras mailand. We will be satying at CCV, for a week diving the second larges barrier reef in the world.

Im pretty sure were in for some of the best coral diving in the world.

Should time permit it, we will upload pictures whilst beeing there, otherwise there will come an immense amount of pictures once we get back home, i guarentee it =)

Till we meet again, cheers!

That dosent mean everyone else shouldn’t understand this, so therefor this post, to hope i gets spread a little more.

The video is embedded here:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

It can be watched in High Quality by using this link.

The rented tank had a worn out O-ring though, which almost ended the dive before it began :( Luckily one of the guys had a spare O-ring with him, and after a replacement, we were ready to dive.

The dive was a nice pratice dive in bouyancy control in shallow water, which will be needed when going to Honduras in may.

Again, i reinstalled the Suunto Dive Manager program, so i can pull out the diving data from my Suunto D6 diving computer :)

The dive has been added to my dive log as Dive 0028 :)

My dive buddy got 4 trouts! One of them weighing a stunning 3.66 kg and it was 67 centimeters long, sorry for the bad picture, its taken with my Mobile phone with only my cars headlights on as light.

Anyways, heres a picture of the two nice trouts :)

Anyways, my point is, you should watch Sharkwater, with a open mind off course, some of it is probably more propaganda than facts ( like the quote “Soda pop machines kill more people than sharks”) which i actually think is a shame they write, that made the movie go a bit more un serious than what i think was intended.

The fact that sharks are being hunted solely for their fins (which they are!) is much like elefants being killed soley for they ivory tusks! The difference is though, that people love to hate sharks and therefor don’t give a rats ass about them dying.

So, i was catching my self thinking, if it wasn’t for my 6 months old daughter and my soon to be wife, and the fact that im somewhat a materialist. I need the income for us to uphold our living standards .. What im saying is, god i would have joined the Sea Shephard if i had been single !

This will also be a opportunity for me to finally get reinstalled my Suunto Dive Manager program, so i can pull out the diving data from my Suunto D6 diving computer :)

Once i get that done, you can find the diving log in the Divers log page right here.

Update: The dive has been added to my dive log :)

Anyways, long story short ( since i wrote about this earliere ) i recently re-discovered the website of thoose two other danes. And they made a video frmo their dives in Egypt. I thought id like to share the video with whomever reads my blog :)

So, here is the video made by Tommy, whos website you can find here.

I really need to get in touch with them shortly, as i promised them a demonstrstion of my treble-light.