The island of Roatán -
a spectacular marine park
in the wild-blue waters of the Caribbean Sea,
north of mainland Honduras.
Bounded by the world's second-largest barrier reef -
Roatán is a must for divers
and undersea explorers
mingling with dazzling marine creatures:
graceful predators,
masters of disguise,
and venomous reef invaders.
A night-time journey of unworldly discovery.
Magnificent underwater vistas.
And ghostly relics, claimed by the power of the sea.
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The island of Roatán.
A haven of unbridled natural beauty,
forty miles off the north coast of Honduras.
In the warm-blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.
The largest of the bay islands
Roatán is ringed by the Mesoamerican reef system:
a spectacular and diverse coral atoll,
second in size only to Australia's great barrier reef.
Mesoamerica comes from the Latin,
meaning 'Middle America'.
Vibrant blue waters, far-reaching visibility,
and stunning undersea caverns
have made Roatán an underwater mecca
for divers and explorers.
&gt;&gt; The main attraction for scuba divers in Roatán
is the fact that we're still diving
very pristine reef conditions.
Many parts of the world,
they're heavily inundated with scuba divers
and the reef system starts to take a little bit of a beating.
But because we're fairly isolated and fairly remote,
our reef system is still in very, very good condition.
We have caves, we have crevices,
we have some beautiful, beautiful sloping walls
and we also have some very exciting vertical walls.
&gt;&gt; Currents colliding with the reef surge upward,
carrying cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface.
These nutrients fertilize the sunlit waters
creating a bloom of plankton:
the microscopic marine plants and creatures
that support the entire oceanic food chain.
Roatán's vivid coral forests gleam with tropical fish
feasting on billions of plankton.
More than 90 percent of all species in the Caribbean
can be found here in the bay islands:
from deep blue tang, and poisonous puffer fish -
to powerful ocean predators: like the Caribbean reef shark.
But beyond the flourishing marine life,
and magnificent drowned cliffs,
one of Roatán's most mysterious sites
lies beneath its deep-blue waters.
A ghost ship, 145 feet long,
rests in a sandy Caribbean grave
50 feet below the surface.
The wreck of the Prince Albert.
&gt;&gt; Within 10 minutes of your dive,
you're right next to a huge wreck
that's only in 65 feet of water.
&gt;&gt; Now people say in a lot of places,
you know, wrecks you have to go so deep
but this is one of the most pristine,
shallowest wrecks you'll find on the island.
&gt;&gt; In the early 1980s,
the Prince Albert arrived in Roatán from Nicaragua,
carrying war refugees.
The ship was abandoned and fell into disrepair.
The founder of a local dive shop saw an opportunity
to attract more dive tourists to Roatán -
and the ship was intentionally sunk
as an artificial reef more than 30 years ago.
The Prince Albert was the first of many ships
in the bay islands to be used as a man-made reef.
&gt;&gt; A properly prepared shipwreck,
or a properly prepared item that's sunk in the water,
can really become a habitat for many species.
The wreck of the Prince Albert is a perfect example,
a beautiful, vibrant, healthy reef system
growing on a wreck in shallow waters.
What was once an island freighter
has been claimed by the sea.
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Sprouting with lush sea fans,
the Prince Albert has morphed into its own ecosystem:
a vibrant habitat for an abundance of marine life.
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An estimated 30 species of fish inhabit the iron wreck.
A small shoal of cardinal fish
whip through the belly of the ship.
Reconditioned by three decades of corrosion,
currents, and tropical storms,
the Prince Albert is an undersea garden -
as much a part of the lifeblood of Roatán
as the natural reef systems and rock channels
that provide shelter for a myriad of fish.
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Off the bow of the Prince Albert
lies another ghostly relic:
the empty shell of a sunken Second World War DC-3 aircraft.
In 1990 the plane was wrecked,
after skidding off the runway at Roatán airport.
Like the Prince Albert,
the plane was sunk intentionally,
as an artificial reef.
Willowy sea fans, anchored to the wreck,
spread out their tentacles
to snare plankton floating in the current.
Like the Prince Albert,
this pallid and skeletal aircraft
harbors a wide range of marine creatures.
Striped sergeant majors lay their eggs,
as many as 200,000, inside the wreck,
and forcefully protect them from potential predators.
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A spotted moray eel,
seeking refuge from the dangers of the open ocean -
pokes out of the fuselage.
The eel's flattened body
is specifically designed to retreat into tight spaces.
&gt;&gt;Morays are always moving their mouth,
always opening and shutting their mouth.
They do that constantly
because they need to oxygenate their bodies
and that's how they do it.
If they're not free swimming
then they still need the saltwater
circulating through their gills
so they can oxygenate their bodies.
&gt;&gt; The spotted moray feeds primarily
on small fish and crustaceans.
Like the deadly creature in the alien films,
morays have two sets of jaws.
The first closes on unwary prey,
snaring them with sharp, backward-pointing teeth.
A second set of toothy jaws
then drags the kill down its throat.
With no food in sight,
the spotted moray recedes inside the aircraft.
The ashen wreckage of the DC-3
is home to even stranger predators.
A giant plant-like anemone,
its mouth surrounded by dozens of tentacles,
hunkers down on the debris
in wait of passing fish.
Prey is paralyzed by toxins
in the anemone's tentacles,
then swiftly carried to the mouth,
where it is swallowed whole.
Farther along the wreck, another ocean predator
cruises slowly through the shallow water:
the grouper.
Among the largest fish in the sea -
Atlantic goliath groupers
can reach weights of 790 pounds -
the same body mass as a Kodiak bear.
But this grouper is not here to eat.
Instead, it touches down on the wreck
and waits to be cleaned.
A small remora, or suckerfish,
nibbles away at troublesome parasites on the grouper's skin.
Cleaner fish are essential to the health of the grouper,
removing, then eating, not just parasites,
but dead tissue that has formed on the skin.
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Beyond Roatán's dream-like wrecks,
a powerful predator, more imposing than the grouper,
lurks in the clear-blue water.
&gt;&gt; A lot of people mistakenly think
that the bay islands of Honduras
does not have an active shark population.
We actually have a significant number
of sharks around the island.
&gt;&gt; Divers are drawn here intent on getting close
to one of the ocean's most intimidating predators:
the Caribbean reef shark.
As the name suggests,
Caribbean reef sharks are largely found
near the edges of coral reefs,
in coastal waters no deeper than 100 feet.
Sleek and graceful, they are the reef's enforcers.
Acute eyesight, a keen sense of smell,
and specialized organs
that detect electrical currents created by prey
make the Caribbean reef shark
one of the ocean's most-potent predators.
These sharks feed mainly on reef-dwelling bony fish
and larger creatures such as the eagle ray.
Prey is seized by a quick snap of the shark's crushing jaw,
then finished off by sharp, serrated teeth.
Low-frequency sounds, indicative of struggling fish
attract these reef sharks,
as does the presence of fishing boats.
Local fishermen know for a fact
that the sharks have been here forever
because you rarely catch a fish and get it back on board
because a shark will eat it.
Though dangerous predators,
reef sharks rarely attack humans.
When threatened or cornered, the shark dips its pectoral fins
and makes short, sharp turns in the water -
an archetypal display of aggression.
Neither threatened, nor provoked,
these sharks cruise serenely over the reef -
a thrilling yet potentially nerve-wracking experience
for divers who must remain vigilant
when swimming with a shoal of hungry sharks.
&gt;&gt; We've entered into their environment.
The sharks have always been in this location.
We're watching 20 very docile, beautiful big sharks
swim around us,
we have to remember that these are animals
that are the apex predators in these waters.
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&gt;&gt; But even an apex predator
is not immune to the shark sucker, or remora.
Attached to the shark by a suction cup on top of its head,
the remora appears to be a parasite -
though it actually picks parasites from the shark -
and feeds on scraps of food left behind by the host.
&gt;&gt;What they're doing
is they're literally saving their energy by hooking on
and taking a little ride with the shark.
Any then any little piece of food
that falls out of the shark's mouth,
the remora run over there
and they eat it up as fast as they can
and then they hook back on.
&gt;&gt; Ancient creatures that predate even the dinosaurs,
sharks evolved about 450 million years ago.
Yet their survival has become threatened
in just a matter of decades.
An estimated 70 million sharks are killed each year:
caught accidentally in fishing lines,
killed illegally to meet the demand for shark fins,
and hunted senselessly as trophies.
One-third of shark species are threatened with extinction.
Towering at the top of the oceanic food chain,
sharks help to control the population
of their prey species.
Without sharks, too many prey would survive:
competing for food and upsetting the delicate ocean ecosystem.
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Here in Roatán a single, voracious predator
has already disrupted the fragile balance
of life on the reef.
A venomous lionfish,
its ornate pectoral fins rippling in the current,
clings to the coral-encrusted reef.
Lionfish are native to the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Here, in the tropical Atlantic,
they are an invasive species -
accidentally introduced to these waters more than 20 years ago.
With few natural predators - and high reproductive rates -
lionfish populations have exploded
in the clear waters off Honduras.
&gt;&gt; Lionfish are everywhere:
we see them in shallow areas,
we see them as deep as 100, 200 feet of water
and I think they're here to stay.
They're known for their voracious appetite.
They don't stop eating.
They're constantly eating down there.
&gt;&gt; Non-selective eaters - lionfish have been known
to consume as many as 50 different species of fish:
ambushing, and cornering prey with their long pectoral fins.
As their population grows exponentially,
lionfish threaten the survival of native species,
like grouper, and snapper,
as well as the small grazing fish
that prevent algae and seaweed from overrunning the reef.
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Slow-moving, easy to spot,
lionfish fend off would-be hunters with the venomous sting
of their needle-like dorsal fins.
Predators, however, are scarce
and the ongoing lionfish invasion
leaves the ecological health of the reef hanging in the balance.
It is the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere:
the Mesoamerican reef,
stretching nearly 700 miles
from the northern tip of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula
south, to the Honduran Bay Islands.
The reef is home to rippling sea fans
and more than 60 species of coral,
including large brain corals
that can live as long as 900 years.
The reef provides shelter for more than 500 species of fish:
including some of the Caribbean Sea's
most strange and surprising creatures:
such as the scrawled filefish.
Feeding mainly on algae and coral,
the filefish is able to protect itself from predators
by diving quickly into a crevice,
then erecting spines on its head and belly
that lock the fish into the tight space,
making it difficult for predators
to pluck it from the reef.
With a whip of its broom-like tail
the filefish is gone.
An inflatable porcupinefish,
able to more than double its size
by taking in air and water, maneuvers over the coral bed.
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In the distance, past a field of branch coral,
an ultramarine cloud glides over the reef:
blue tang.
In search of algae,
which is ripped from the coral by sharp teeth,
blue tang are essential to the health of the reef:
eating algae and preventing it from overgrowing,
and suffocating the coral.
The tang, named for their dangerous,
razor-sharp tail spines -
swim in schools as another defense against predators.
A thick and compact school, swimming in unison,
will appear as a single large creature
to a poor-sighted hunter.
The more fish in the school, the more eyes there are
to scan the reef for algae.
And where there are blue tang, there are often trumpetfish.
Shrewd hunters, trumpetfish follow the tang,
seizing on the small fish startled out of the reef
by the swarming schools of tang.
Hovering among the sea rods,
the trumpetfish swims vertically, with its head down,
to blend in with coral on the reef.
Unsuspecting fish that venture too close
are sucked into its waiting mouth.
When the powerful mouth is fully extended,
it resembles the bell of a trumpet.
Closer to the surface
floats an even craftier master of disguise:
the Caribbean reef squid.
In a single heartbeat,
reef squid are able to change color and pattern
to stalk prey, avoid predators, and warn off competitors.
Thousands of color-changing cells
just below the surface of the skin
are controlled by muscles, that generate distinct colors
to communicate specific messages:
a male reef squid is able to turn red on one side,
to attract females,
and blue on the other, to fend off a rival male.
On the south shore of Roatán,
a pristine sun-mottled reef stretches near the surface.
This is Tulio's reef,
named for a popular dive master well known in these parts -
and home to a bounty of marine creatures:
a tiny cavern offers refuge
to a Caribbean spiny lobster,
its shell lined with hard, protective spines.
Though it lacks the crushing pincers of its clawed cousins,
it waves menacing barbed antennae,
longer than its entire body, to ward off potential predators.
Predators, like the green moray eel.
A band of muscle - thicker than a human arm,
the eel slinks into the darkened reef.
More than seven feet long,
the moray can stretch from floor to ceiling.
A long, flapping dorsal fin - its only mechanism for swimming.
The eel spend its days hiding between rocks
to seize unsuspecting fish and crustaceans
in its devilish teeth.
&gt;&gt;Green morays have a lot of teeth
and their teeth are facing inwards
so when they grab something,
it's gonna be very hard for that prey
to get or to set free from their mouth.
Once they catch a little fish, that little fish is done.
&gt;&gt; Life on the reef is a constant search for food.
A longsnout seahorse, no larger than a human thumb,
grips a gorgonian with its monkey-like tail.
The slender body of the seahorse
allows it to wriggle into small crevices in the reef,
where it survives on larval shrimp,
and small crustaceans.
But food is not the only key to survival.
For a species to flourish,
its genes must be passed onto the next generation.
A puddingwife wrasse releases her eggs into the current,
and a frantic race ensues.
Males release a cloud of sperm
in an attempt to fertilize the eggs.
It is a spawning frenzy that lasts just seconds.
Only the fastest and strongest fish prevail.
Drifting along Roatán's warm currents
is an ancient creature
that has prevailed for more than 500 million years:
even though it has no brain, no bones, and no heart.
The moon jellyfish.
Contracting its umbrella-like body
to move up and down the water column,
the moon jelly, like all jellyfish,
has long, thin tentacles
capable of firing thousands of stinging cells to paralyze prey.
The tentacles carry the stunned prey,
mainly small fish and shrimp, to the moon jelly's mouth
located inside the smooth, bag-like body.
Though deadly to small marine creatures,
the sting of the moon jelly has little effect on humans.
Gently pulsing, casting a faint luminescent glow,
the moon jelly floats serenely with the currents,
as its ancestors have since before the age of the dinosaurs.
The Mesoamerican reef off the south shore of Honduras
teems with life.
But there is more to the reef
than the hundreds of marine creatures
that have made it their home.
Over thousands of years, cycles of glaciation,
and the rising and falling of sea levels,
have forged a stunning underwater world
of caves, tunnels, and crevices:
natural cathedrals, knitted with coral,
near the bottom of the ocean.
At Roatán, a spectacular geological formation
has become a must for advanced divers
seeking to explore the remnants of an ancient world:
Calvin's Crack.
Divers must enter vertically, head down -
through a crevice no wider than a car door,
and into an underwater chamber 100 feet deep.
The crack is just 10 feet wide -
and those that dive here must have good buoyancy control
to avoid bumping into, and damaging the fragile reef.
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Divers kick through the shadowy undersea channel.
Over thousands of years, the coral structure
has continued to grow over the opening,
creating an overhang of soft corals.
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Over time, the coral will grow over the top
sealing in the crevice system.
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For now light from the surface penetrates the chasm,
a perfect harmony of sea and sky.
&gt;&gt; I just love the play of light.
I love seeing new divers
doing their first crevice or crack dive
because their eyes are bugged out,
they're all excited about this.
They've done it,
they've succeeded in diving Calvin's Crack.
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&gt;&gt; Fissures in the reef,
caused by erosion from rainwater thousands of years ago,
when these limestone cliffs were above sea level
harbor a number of undersea creatures.
Here, in the labyrinthine chambers of Mary's Spot,
100 feet below the surface,
a channel clinging crab fastens
to a technicolor maze of coral,
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Bristle-like hairs on the shell
catch bits of algae, sponge and coral
allowing the crab to blend in almost seamlessly with the reef.
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During the day,
the channel clinging crab hides out in tiny caves,
and under ledges.
But soon it will be night,
and the crab will emerge to forage for food.
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At the exit of Mary's Spot,
divers return to a pure blue ocean.
But as the sun descends on Roatán,
a profound transformation unfolds
in these crystal-clear waters.
Night-time on the reef is a different world.
In the darkened depths,
new and unusual creatures appear.
&gt;&gt; As we go deeper and deeper and deeper,
we start seeing other residents of the night.
&gt;&gt; A striped burrfish,
its rounded body covered in short, sharp spines,
uses its large, bulbous eyes
to keep watch over the grassy seabed.
Hard, sandpaper-like teeth allow it to crush the shells
of one of its favorite foods:
the hermit crab.
Sea flies - illuminated by the light of the camera -
flit through the water.
Hermit crabs are nocturnal creatures
that emerge from their daytime hideout to forage on the seabed.
Unlike other crabs,
which produce their own calcium-carbonate shells -
the hermit protects its soft and vulnerable abdomen
by squeezing into the empty shell of a marine snail.
As the hermit crab grows,
it will abandon its home for a better fit,
passing the discarded shell down to smaller crabs.
The hermit crab is an omnivorous scavenger:
using its pincers to sift through sand,
as it searches for food.
Longer antennae are used for feeling,
the shorter pair for smelling and tasting.
Hermits are known to form symbiotic relationships
with sea anemones.
The anemone will sit atop the crab
warding off predator fish with it toxic tentacles.
In turn, the anemone gets a free ride
and scraps of food left behind by the crab.
A banded coral shrimp waves its long white antennae,
an invitation to passing fish
looking to be cleaned of parasites
by its three sets of claws.
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At the wreck of the Prince Albert,
lies one of the ocean's most unusual creatures:
the tiger-tail sea cucumber.
Stretching more than six feet -
the tiger-tail is the largest sea cucumber
in the western Atlantic.
All sea cucumbers live in the ocean,
and are related to both sea stars and sea urchins.
With no brain, and no eyes,
the tiger-tail relies on a ring of neural tissue
around its mouth to detect threats.
Like all members of the species,
this furry sea cucumber breathes
by drawing oxygenated water in through the anus
and then expelling it.
Sea cucumbers feed on algae, plankton
and decaying matter found in the sea,
often sifting through sediment on the seabed for food.
The furry sea cucumber is more mobile than most,
and can move swiftly by crawling,
or simply rolling across the ocean floor.
Barely visible on the ocean floor,
a camouflaged hunter lies in wait:
the common octopus,
one of the few creatures on earth
able to alter its appearance in a flash.
Thousands of organs, controlled by nerves,
form patterns, colors and shapes on the skin
that match the surrounding rocks and coral.
&gt;&gt; They can change their color,
their pattern with lightning speed,
so fast that sometimes you can't believe it,
I'm sure there's been 1,000 octopus
that I have swam right over on the reef
but I just simply didn't see them.
&gt;&gt; During the day
the octopus hides out in coral overhangs on the reef.
At night, it comes out to hunt,
using an inventive technique called 'tenting'.
&gt;&gt; They form a tent with their eight legs
and the skin that is between those legs.
They actually form a big tarp over a coral head
and the fish are startled
and they swim up into this net
that the octopus has created.
And then he can pull his prey in and eat it.
And they're usually eating it on the move.
They're voracious feeders, and so while they're eating one,
they've got seven other tentacles
that they're out there hunting with.
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&gt;&gt; When catching prey, such as crabs and molluscs,
the octopus grips them with powerful arms
studded with suckers,
then paralyzes them with nerve poison secreted in its saliva.
Perfectly adapted to its surroundings,
the octopus has three hearts:
two pump blood to the gills,
the third keeps circulation flowing to the organs.
When the octopus swims the third heart stops beating.
By crawling across the coral,
the octopus conserves precious energy.
In the dark of night,
the octopus squeezes, somewhat miraculously,
into a tight crevice in the coral -
finding a hiding place in the depths
of Roatán's magnificent barrier reef,
as its ancestors have for millions of years.
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From ghostly sunken relics,
and stunning underwater vistas,
to powerful predators,
and kaleidoscopes of tropical fish,
Roatán is a portal to another world among the reefs -
and one of the many wonders of the great blue wild.
&gt;&gt; You want to go diving at 2:00 in the morning?
You want to go diving at 10:00 at night?
You want to do a night dive?
All you have to do is walk off the shore,
swim about 100 yards
and you're on two of the most pristine reefs in the Caribbean.
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If you're talking about diving in the bay islands of Honduras,
you're talking about the sort of variety
that you might not find anywhere else in the Caribbean.
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It's one of those pristine, lovely places
that just almost feel mysteriously mythical.
I mean you're in a little slice of heaven.
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