So this dive trip was my first with the local dive shop, SeaVentures. Although I was going to also get my nitrox certification, this was mostly jsut diving for fun. And it was amazing fun. The dives in Cozumel were all "easy" drift dives with specatular views and lots of wildlife. You couldn't ask for a more fun dive outing, and all the people from SeaVentures were fun.

There was an amazing array of swim-thrus, deep dives, sea turtles, eels, fish, huge lobster, crabs, squid, octopus, barracuda... the list goes on and on.

There were two main goals for this dive trip (other than the obvious: go on vacation and go diving). One was to try out my complete set of gear: Nothing would be rented on this trip. The second was to get my Advanced Open Water dive certification. So yes, I would be reading a textbook while on vacation... oh well. For my AOW, I did: Navigation, Deep, Peak Performance Bouyancy, Night, and Drift.

#26 - My First Night Dive

My first night dive. What a thrill! I was expecting to go into the water when it was already dark and that was throwing me a bit.

But we gear up and hit the water at sunset, so there was actually enough light to see... but then it gradually turned pitch black during the dive.

The spooky part was since I was doing my tests, I also had to do underwater navigation. Which meant swimming away from the instructor, following compass directions, then returning... while my instructor had his light covered. So it really was swimming in pitch black (outside my light beam)... spooky!

But man, the dive was great. Tons of inverts out. I found my first lobster. We saw a huge hermit crab moving across the sand. Tons of small spider crabs and cleaner shrimp, lots of sleeping fish, very cool!

#28 - Second Best Dive Ever: El Peņon

Now this was a once-in-a-blue-moon dive! I can't even express how amazing this dive was. During the dive itself we were fist bumping each other and shouting (underwater), as soon as we surfaced there were high-fives and laughing.

So here's the build up: so far the diving in the DR has been fun, but not great. Visibility was okay, wildlife was okay, but nothing mind-blowing... Add to that that some of my dives were essentially skill checks. So, I was still having great fun, but it would be hard to explain the enjoyment to a non-diver. So I was expecting the same from this dive.

The nice part was this was my last dive to get my Advanced Open Water cert, so after this I could pay more attention to the dive itself. I was joking with Dave and Jeff that I wondered why I even had to have a "cutting implement" to get my advanced open water cert. Nothing in the skill tests required it, and I never had any intention of using it... but on the advice of some other dive guides, I bough SeaSnips (think trauma scissors) instead of a dive knife. Not as cool, but to me they seem more practical. So anyway, we geared up, waved to the open-water divers taking their certification dives, and hit the water...

About 5 minutes into the dive, Nick starts banging on his tank like crazy. Normally, a guide will tap a few times and wave, so something was definitely up. Then Nick TAKES OFF. Now, when your guide does that, it either means there's something bad behind us, or something good in front of us: in both cases, it makes sense to keep up. So I took off after Nick. This is one of the few times I'm glad I was using my Twin Jet fins. I don't really like them; they're heavy, a little awkward, but one thing they do is propel like a bat out of hell.

So I catch up with Nick, we're starting to come off the reef onto a sandbar (full of cute garden eels) and there they are: a pod of 7-8 dolphins. They do a few loops and cut-backs as we're trying like hell to keep/catch up. We probably had them in sight for a minute at most, but it was incredible! After they disappear, we regroup and Nick is throwing punches in the air (water) and yelling. Nick later told us that in over a thousand dives, this is only the 3rd time he's been underwater with dolphins.

We continue the dive, coming off the adrenaline rush, I figured the rest of the dive would be anti-climatic. But the dive just kept delivering: I saw large crabs, arrow crabs, some small stingrays, box fishes, some big puffer fish, and even a web burrfish. A really good mix of big and small.

As we are returning back to the boat pickup site, I'm actually stopped to examine the burrfish (first I've ever seen, a little smaller than a football). I look up to call Nick so maybe he can ID it for me, but he's over by what looks to be a box sitting on the sand, which is odd.

So I start swimming over, and Nick's got his dive knife out: I realize it's a fish trap (FYI: we're in a national park and it's illegal). Apparently it's wire netting (like thick chicken wire) and he can't cut it with a knife... but we were JUST joking about this on the boat! He signals to me and I yank out my dive scissors. Even with them it wasn't easy, but mission accomplished.... (I later realized there has got to be a door we could have opened; FYI: it's also illegal to destroy property... oops.)

We surface and were all laughing and fist-bumping. What an amazing dive!

Back on the boat, our videographer realized I just got my advanced open water, so I was made to put on a mask with an old school snorkel.... which was then filled with rum. Let me tell you: a snorkel-full of rum is a lot. :)

(In case you're wondering: my shark dives are still #1.)

This was a fun series of dives. The visibility wasn't the greatest, but still plenty to see. Lots of soft and hard corals, fish, and eels. And all the wreck dives were very cool, especially the Jane C. I'm kind of bummed that we didn't get to dive the Antilla.

So after over an hour under on the first dive, we came up, waited a little bit, swapped tanks, and got right back in. And even MORE sharks were showing up. A few more Tigers showed up (we had a total of 6 cruising around when we finally left), a few sleek little reef sharks, and I'd guess two dozen Lemons. It was an amazing and awe-inspiring dive. The Lemons would cruise between me and the guy next to me, so close you could easily reach out and touch them (you're not allowed to though). And when Emma went after the bait-box, it was a fantastic display of just raw power. It made you think "All that's between me and these sharks is the 3-foot PVC pipe I'm holding". We were given these little pipes just to nudge sharks away if they got too close. But it was an absolutely mind-blowing dive.

This was the highlight, and reason, for my trip to the Bahamas. Otherwise I would have gone to Nassau instead of Freeport. We cruised out from West End to a shallow dive site called Tiger Beach. At first everything was going slow, and even with chumming the waters no sharks were coming in. And then suddenly a couple of 6' Lemon sharks showed up with a small (5') Tiger shark. So after an hour of roasting above water, we strapped on the gear and went in. This was my first back-roll off a boat. The water was shallow, only about 20', and we were weighted down (20# and I was still a bit light) to basically just sit on the bottom. Then the action started happening: our initial sharks were joined by lots more Lemons, and then a total of 3 Tigers, including the local celebrity: Emma. Emma was a 15' female Tiger shark. I was excited about seeing the initial sharks, but when Emma came cruising out of hazy blue backdrop, there was a "Now THAT is a HUGE shark" moment.

The dive centers around the sunken decompression chamber surrounded by coral outcroppings. This is the same location where UNEXSO does their shark encounter dives. A number of small (5-7') Caribbean reef sharks were cruising around and some would come pretty close, within a couple yards. I thought Picasso's Gallery was good, but this dive was even better. We found a lot of hog fish and a few stingrays. A small nurse shark was actually camping out under the chamber itself. The chamber was surrounded by sand which was teeming with little garden eels.

An easy 50' dive around some great coral formations with lots of wildlife to be seen. Turtles, eels, and the best part were the Caribbean reef sharks cruising in the distance. There was no current which made for a nice leisurely swim up and down the islands of corals with short stretches of sand between each.

This was an amazing dive, and the best one I've done to date. The reef was teeming with life: squid, eels, turtles, barracuda, and huge angel and parrotfish. We basically dove to 40' and then drifted down the reef, rounded the peak and then swam back up through the valley (with only a slight current to fight against).

Okay, I never expected to be back in USVI any time soon, but a friend was going and asked if I wanted to tag along. Umm.. yes! I told her I was going to ditch her at least one day when we were there so I could do a couple dives. I'm so glad I did.

This was my first wreck dive. And what a first it was! The LST467 was a World War 2 transport vessel. The dive bottomed out at about 80', but the con-tower on the ship was at about 30'. Looking up, all around the con-tower were schools of large jacks circling. It was an amazing sight. The ship itself had tons of swim-thru's.

This was a series of wall dives that were just amazing. The diversity of the wildlife and just cruising along the wall with the current made it relaxing and exciting at the same time.

A fantastic dive. There were only three divers (including myself) on the dive, but the other two canceled, so it ended up just being me and the dive master. We took some leisurely dives. Christmas island had some nice reefs and wildlife. Nothing spectacular, but a nice easy, relaxing dive.

Swimming with the whale sharks. But frankly, my draw was the manta rays and the hammerheads. Swimming 10' away from 6-8' hammerheads was just amazing, and seeing the mantas glide around above was just breathtaking. Worth every penny.

After Trinity Caves, this wasn't as exiting, but still a great dive.

My first real dive! This was a shore-excursion from a cruise and the dive boat was packed. Little did I know that's not normally how it was (e.g. my next outing to St. Thomas couldn't be more different). Some deep swim through caves at 80' were amazing.

Cert dive in a quarry

Cert dive in a quarry

During this one we were sitting on a platform at 40'. And my "dive partner", a 12 year old girl, was having issue equalizing, so she and Diane had to re-surface. Diane signaled that I should wait... but I was the only person down there. The water was murky. The water was cold at my head and freezing at my feet with a distinct thermocline right at my waist. I remember watching Diane vanish into the cloudy water heading up and then thinking "Wow, I'm ALL by myself". It was kind of spooky. So I started practicing bouancy skills.

And then it's like someone flicked me in the back of the head HARD! I swear I almost jumped out of my wet suit. I turn around to see this big bass just staring at me like "What? What are you going to do about it?" Who knew quarry fish could get so aggressive?

As my instructor Diane said: This will be the worst dive of your life. Basic exercises and skills.