havecarryonwilltravel

Today is day 5 for diving and the new guys, R and B, are improving by leaps and bounds. It is amazing how fast things come with each dive. Debbie and I are also getting better with each dive. Our comfort level is rising geometrically every day.

As I swim around I notice there are not many good divers. Most are ‘intermediate’ at best. Like any sport, people’s skill level seems to plateau after learning a vast amount the first few times out. It is very difficult to be really good at a sport and diving is not any different.

First, the participant has to be somewhat of a jock. You have to have an awareness of your body and where it is in space. This is particularly important diving. The space within which you are suspended is truly 3-D. You also have to know what action is required to make your body do certain things in that environment. If I bend my body this way and kick, what reaction will it have?

The next important aspect of being better at diving is awareness of the environment within which it takes place. How to move about.  How to minimize movement.  How to conserve air.  It took Debbie and me a long time and a lot of dives to learn this stuff. We learned from watching other divers we admired. We learned from dive masters that were as much instructors as group leaders. We learned from trial and error. So after about 150 dives we had acquired enough skills to dive comfortably and stay under water for more than 1 hour.

Our novice friends are learning at a very quick rate. Before each dive, Debbie or I will impart one or two tidbits of knowledge we have gained over our diving escapades and on the next dive they try what we had mentioned and their diving climbs a notch. After 3 days, R and B’s comments after a dive are positive. After 4 days, the comments are somewhat joyous. After 5 days of consecutive diving they have very big smiles and are ecstatic about what they had just done.

If you are about to embark on a journey of learning a new sport it is a good idea to hitch up with someone that is already involved in that sport to help guide you along a steepened learning curve. Make sure that the ‘helper’ is knowledgeable and preferably has some sort of teaching experience. Your enjoyment of the sport will increase leaps and bounds in a shortened time.

The weather is better and the water is calmer today so our dives are farther afield, today we learn why Cozumel is famous for drift diving.

The first dive is at Palancar Gardens. The current is not too strong but it is a current and we drift nicely along. I have the camera today and it is easy to stop for a shot. Kicking lightly into the current I can hold my place and take several photos of the same subject hoping to get a good one. We float along letting the ‘movie’ entertain and see what we can pick out on the way by.

A Swim – Through

The terrain is quite spectacular, the wall is not high, maybe 50 ft or so, but there is lots of deviation and it is covered in coral. We cruise through a couple of swim-throughs which makes for an interesting dive. We have a couple of critter highlights, early in the dive the dive master points out a crab that would make dinner for four, a big fella but not something for the record books. Near the end of our dive, when there were only B, Debbie and me left, Debbie starts to wave like crazy and scream into her reg. She obviously sees something worth looking at. She points around the corner of a coral outcropping and heads me in that direction. There sitting up inside a shallow cave is a lobster the size of which I have never seen. I am not exaggerating at all when I say it is Debbie size. She is 5’1” tall and this lobster is at least as long as she is tall. I could not get her to move beside it so I could get a comparison picture so the pictures I have do not have anything in them that shows the lobster’s relative size. I still cannot believe how big it is, it looked like something from a sci-fi film. All in all a nice dive and if you are in Cozumel try to get out to the Palancar area.

Giant “Debbie sized” Lobster

The second dive of the day turns out to be a ripper. Pumba, the dive master, says ‘the current could be a bit faster here so beware.’ We are not going deep because it is dive 2 and we need to be a bit more conservative, 65 ft is our planned depth. We’ll swim along the top of the wall and see what we see. The current is so fast we feel like we are flying. R, who was worried that drift diving would be difficult, has a smile that can be made out even though he has reg in his mouth.

WE ARE MOVING! If you miss something, you miss it. The amount of air and effort needed to get back up stream would not be worth missing a good portion of the end of the dive.  I try to take pics and it is “decide now and click the shutter” because I do not get a second chance. Digital imaging is a blessing. You can always erase a mistake or two but if I was shooting film I would want to take more time because every exposure costs.

The current slows every once in a while and life becomes more leisurely. Then it picks up again and the amusement park ride begins anew. On the dive briefing Pumba says at the end of the dive he will try to point out a couple of sea horses and to his word he finds 2. I don’t know what is in the water here but both the sea horses are of the big variety. The other sea horses I have seen have been 6 cm max. both of these guys are 12 to 15 cm. Everyone has a good dive. R says it is the best dive he has had, it is amazing what a day or two and a dive or two will do for the confidence and level of skill acquired.

Seahorse

The last dive is what drift diving is about. We felt like the turtle in the movie Nemo that catches the ‘stream’ off Australia and rides it as if he is flying through space. Man it is fun and the divers here in Cozumel have learned to go with it and not put up a fight, so in fact the diving is easier here than other places where the dive route requires that you fight your way back to the boat rather than the boat following the divers’ bubbles and picking us up upstream.

Oh boy!  Debbie and I go again in the morning!

Wandering the roads and sidewalks of Cozumel, we notice how friendly the people of Cozumel are. Sure, the sales people want you to come into their shops and spend money, and the maître ‘ds want you to dine in their restaurants. But the old gent sitting in his front yard doesn’t want anything except a “good afternoon” and maybe a bit of conversation.

The people of Cozumel know that tourism is their business and without tourists, where would they be, what would they be doing? Tourists have been coming to this Caribbean island for decades. Memo Lopez, one of the owners of the Mi Casa en Cozumel, says that there used to be farming of pineapple, peppers and other vegetables on the island but there is no longer any farming. Tourism has taken over the island completely.

It’s our first dive day. R, B, Murray and I all have different sized butterflies fluttering around inside. Our first dive is laden with issues. Foggy masks, falling weight belts, trouble descending, regulators that won’t stay in mouths, hard to deal with currents. Once we get all those out of the way, the second dive is relaxing and enjoyable.

Banded Coral Shrimp

Along with friendly people, Cozumel has friendly sealife. The fish are used to people and they must know we are not a threat. They check us out as much as we check them out. We have a couple of humungous groupers swim by. I get very close to a French Angelfish. Murray has a close encounter with a Damsel Fish.

Smooth Trunkfish

We are all adjusting to life on the island and are enjoying the wonderful people and sealife Cozumel is showing us.

B and Debbie at our safety stop