08^th March – 06^th March 2025

Roatan, Utila and the Bay Islands

Our Conditions

• Average Air Temperatures: 80F-84F
• Average Water Temperatures: 82F-84F
• Visibility: 45ft – 100ft+

Our Crew

• Captain Willie
• Wine Master Alan
• Cruise Director Emily
• Video Pro Kevin
• Chef Jana
• Steward Jannell
• Engineer German
• Safety Officer Brandon

Our Dive Sites

Sunday: (Roatan) Taviana’s Place, Half Moon Bay, Black Rock
Monday: (Roatan) Cara a Cara, Mary’s Place, 40ft Point
Tuesday: (Roatan) Calvin’s Crack, Pirates Point, Mr. Buds
Wednesday: (Cayos Cochinos & Utila) Coco Grande and Jack Neals
Thursday: (Utila) Cannery Bank and The Pinnacle
Friday: (Roatan) Captain Gs.

Saturday, March 8th:

Welcome to Wine Week! This week, not only do we all get to enjoy the wonderful diving and beautiful reef walls and critters of the Bay Islands, we also get to indulge and learn a little on the pleasures of drinking good wines. Each evening after the day’s diving, we gather in the dining salon to sample some of the world’s finest wines and learn a little about the history and production of these fine wines. This week we sampled wines from Chile, South Africa, Italy, Argentina, France & California. What a wonderful way to finish a fantastic day of diving with a lovely glass of wine, Cin Cin…With many familiar faces, long-time friends, and several new faces, we begin our wine week with some amazing jerk chicken and pork ribs with all the sides prepared by Chef Jana and Kevin on the grill.

Sunday, March 9th

We have an early start to the day, leaving the dock at 430am to head to Taviana’s Place on the SW side of the island.. Our first 2 dives are nice, relaxing, easy check out dive,s getting divers used to being in the water once again.  We find many of the usual suspects, including indigo hamlets, a scorpion fish, yellow-headed jawfish, ocean trigger fish, a spaghetti worm, pipe fish, a very hungry mantis shrimp, and a very friendly Nassau grouper. A pretty amazing start to the week. Next, we head to Half Moon Bay. We spend two dives exploring the multiple swim-throughs and finding several queen and grey angel fish, banded coral shrimp, lion fish, snappers, and one bat fish. For the final dive of the day, we explore the walls and the shallow passages at Black Rock. The topography of this dive is one of the most unique that Roatan has to offer, as you get to swim right along the iron wall at the shore. After this amazing dusk dive, we get cleaned up for dinner and our first wine tasting. The red served was Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona Brunello di Montalcino 2017 from Montalcino, Tuscany, Italy. This red is famous for its bold, layered, and long-lived flavors from Sangiovese grapes. The white was Yellow Tail Sauvignon Blanc 2022 from Australia. This wine has aromas of light citrus and lemongrass notes. With undertones of gooseberry, lime, and hints of passionfruit make this inexpensive bottle a refreshing end to the day. 

Monday, March 10th

Another early start, we make our way to the famous Cara a Cara shark dive. In the water at 7, we meet at least 15 female local reef sharks, several of which are pregnant! Our sharks must have been extra hungry today since they got to the snack a bit earlier than scheduled, but this change in plan allowed divers to explore more of the site and find extra teeth. From here we head to Mary’s place for 2 dives. We see 2 seahorses!! One red and one yellow. We also found the beautiful rainbow squid, which we haven’t seen in a while, and every version of rainbow fish species, a huge barracuda, a huge school of sergeant majors, a small school of senate barracuda, spotted tongues, and a huge school of Atlantic spade fish hanging out underneath the boat. For the last 2 dives of the day, we head to 40ft Point. This site, teeming with life with every color and fish species, is almost like swimming in an aquarium. From the matured drummer fish, Atlantic spade fish, trumpet fish, yellow tail damsel fish, cowfish, to the flamingo tongues and flame scallops, divers kept busy keeping track of all they encountered. The 2nd dive here, at dusk, got dark so quickly, some considered it our first night dive, and divers got to witness the changeover of life from day to night life. After our last dive, we enjoyed our 2nd wine tasting. For the white, we enjoyed Kung Fu Girl, a Riesling, which has become a classic in a short time. This Riesling, from Washington state, seduces its fans with its lemony, honeyed, and floral profile, counterbalanced by a strong acidity. For the red, was the delightful Kanonkop Pinotage. South Africa’s Pinotage is a chameleon, offering a spectrum of styles from youthful, fruit-forward notes to robust, age-worthy expressions. Despite its initial reputation for rubber-like aromas, top-tier examples truly shine, showcasing the grape’s potential for finesse and complexity. Kanonkop is the most renowned producer of Pinotage, a grape that is unique to South Africa. 

Tuesday March 11th

We start the day at 8 am today at Calvin’s Crack. This site has a big “crack” that we swim through plus a deep wall and shallows. A nice home for all types of animals. We find our first bearded toadfish! We also see a juvenile spotted drum fish, a glass squid, bullet worms, a pipe fish, and a bright yellow juvenile trunkfish. From here we go to Pirates Point for one dive. Moored up to a sunken crane, we encounter the infamous “Psycho,” a local green moray who likes to come out and visit visitors to his area. We also found a spotted moray, a lined sole, and a rockfish that was literally strolling around. Not too often do you see a rock fish walking around. For our next site, we go to Mr. Buds. On our last day dive, divers get to explore the sunken boat, finding a huge channel crab, a giant anemone, a tiny drummer, and lots of sergeant majors. For our single night dive of the week, this site came alive with the same channel crab, a bearded sea cucumber, FOUR OCTOPUS!!, some reef squid, a slipper lobster, a scorpion rock fish, tons of lobsters, and several sleeping parrot fish.

After the night dive, we get our next two wines. Bodega Norton Collection from Los Andes Mendoza, Argentina, for our red, and Liyen from Single Vineyard, Carmenère Maipo Valley Central Chile, for our red. Very interesting about Bodega, wine production begins with planting high-quality grapes in the vineyards used to produce the wines. Once cultivated, the team harvests the grapes with the utmost care between January and April. The grapes are transferred to the winery, placed on a conveyor belt, and selected by hand to separate damaged grapes and leaves. A destemming machine is used to carefully remove the stems from the grapes. The grapes used for red wines are fermented at 28°C and 30°C (82° to 86° F) for 8 to 10 days (and pressed after fermentation). They can be aged in oak barrels or concrete eggs to give the wines more complex flavors. The grapes used for white grapes are pressed, leaving the skin, seeds, and pulp behind. The juice is fermented between 15°C and 20°C (59° to 68° F) for almost 15 days. White wines undergo a second malolactic fermentation to confer the wine with a creamier mouthfeel. All their wines undergo the final filtering, clarification, and stabilization before bottling. Liven too has a fascinating history in that before the 1870s, Carménère was a prevalent blending grape in Bordeaux, found mostly in Graves and the Pessac-Léognan appellations. However, due to the phylloxera infestation, nearly all the Carménère vines – along with most of the vineyards in Bordeaux – were wiped out. When vignerons in Bordeaux replanted however, they opted to plant the easier-to-grow Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot instead, and Carménère was thought to be on the verge of extinction. Brought to Chile in the mid-1800s, it’s now found an adopted home there and is thought of by many to be Chile’s flagship variety. Brought to China in the late 19th century and known as Cabernet Gernischt, China now has the largest plantings of Carménère in the world. This wine has an expressive, complex, fresh aroma characterized by spicy notes such as clove and pepper, as well as subtle vegetal notes such as red pepper.

Wednesday March 12th

Today, the Roatan Aggressor travelled out to the beautiful, remote Cayos Cochinos! These glorious underwater sea mounts rise from the deep and are covered in sea fans, sea whips, giant barrel sponges, and hard corals. Our first site is Coco Grande, which is an explosion of colorful fish life, with schools of horse-eye jacks, oceanic triggerfish, lizardfish, smooth trunkfish, creole wrasse, indigo hamlet, cleaner wrasse, great barracuda, bar jacks, and chubs. Our second dive is a live drop where we swim to the smaller nearby sea mount across the “bridge” that connects the two. Here we find lion fish, which we cooked for dinner and a nurse shark. This beautiful, relaxing dive took us with the current as close to a drift as possible. Next stop, Utila!

Our afternoon dives are at Jack Neals. Lots of fun on this muck dive where we saw the resident bearded toadfish join us for a snack, blennies, goatfish, and a small yellow seahorse. After we clean up, it’s time for our wine! With a just-caught wahoo, provided by a local Utila fisherman, the Pinot Grigio and Zinfandel are the perfect pairings for tonight’s meal. Tonight’s Pinot, Arduini from Lombardy Provincia Di Pavia, Italy, provides a round, medium-bodied and mouthwatering, with more ripe peach, honeysuckle notes, and a hint of lemon pith and savory mineralogy on the finish. Our Zinfandel has a dark ruby red/ garnet core. The nose enthralls the senses with aromas of ripe berries, including cherry, wild raspberry,y and floral aromas of rose petals and the forest floor. The palpable energy and thriving aromatic life motivate sip after satisfying sip. 

Thursday March 13th

Today begins with a local breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, and fritters. Then divers get ready for 2 dives at Cannery Bank. This site, famous for its blue bell tunicates, has tons of sea plumes, sea fans, and waves of creole wrasse cascading down on the divers, while 2 of the resident nurse sharks snack on the leftover wahoo from dinner. For our final dives in Utila, we go to the Pinnacle. We enjoyed two amazing dives finding at least 2 huge green morays (maybe 3!), 2!! juvenile trunk fish, a harlequin pipefish, a baby moray eel, and lots of black durgeon grouping right under the boat. Utila was a pleasure visiting you once again.

As we return to Roatan, our final dinner of filet mignon, shrimp, mashed potatoes and green beans is paired wonderfully with our final wines of the wine tasting week. Stags Leap Cabernet Sauvignon 2022 from Napa Valley features darker currants, black cherries, leather, flowery incense, and spicy notes, all defining the aromatics. It’s medium to full-bodied, with a ripe, concentrated mouthfeel, sweet, integrated tannins, and an excellent finish. This is our red. Our white, the William Hill Estate Winery, also from Napa Valley Chardonnay, captures a sense of place from California’s famed wine growing region. Full-bodied and creamy, our Chardonnay opens with aromas of green apple, ripe pear, and fresh-baked brioche. Wonderful finish to a wonderful week.

Friday March 14th

For our final two dives of the week, we go to Captain G’s and the Valley of the Kings. We see all the local regulars, rainbow fish, neck crabs, arrow crabs, corkscrew anemones, trigger fish, and one final seahorse. The final goodbye from the ocean critters we all love to see. 

(Original Post is here: https://www.aggressor.com/captains-logs-view.php?id=4189)