Wednesday - Wreck Dive with some underwater pics

Today we dove on a wreck-- a 1920's era American Navy minesweeper that was purchased by the Mexican government after WWII. It was sunk in about 90 feet of water near the Santa Rosa wall. Although Mom and Dad have been on this wreck multiple times over the years, I have never actually been on this site. Pretty cool! We went all throughout the inside of the ship... some rooms were so dark you couldn't see. We finally have some underwater pics to post, although this roll didn't come out that well.

 We ran into a ton of sea turtles today, saw some really big Morey Eels, a nurse shark, and of course... the elusive Great Barracuda. I say elusive, only because every time I get close enough I get just a little nervous. Saw one barracuda about 3.5 feet long today, and then I saw a smaller one (still completely capable of biting me in half)... I got so close to touching this one. 

My Day Off

The whole week is a vacation so its odd to be calling this my day off but it is! Everyday that we dive we have to get up at 7:15 to be on the boat by 8:15. I decided not to dive today in lieu of sleeping, a leisurely breakfast, and some time by the water instead of under the water. Side note: we are out of orange juice so I am currently sipping on some orange fanta as my "juice" with breakfast. Its about the equivalent of drinking tang with carbonation.

I don't have much to contribute to the blog this morning that hasn't already been mentioned so I'll just give you a few points of interest:
-Dad doesn't speak spanish, though he is often mistaken for a local. It does, however, come naturally to him to pronounce english words with a spanish accent when he's conversing with our dive captain, dive master, waiters, etc. Its hard to explain without you actually being able to hear it. Think "cheeps and sall-suh" instead of "chips and salsa." You get the idea.
-Mom purchased a 1000 piece puzzle for us to try and finish before we leave. We currently have 10 pieces put together. It's not looking good.
-The only movie showing in english (with spanish subtitles) at the cinepolis across the street is "No Te Metas Con Zohan." We might break down and go see it one night after dinner.

I'm heading outside to enjoy the sunshine for the rest of the day!

Dinner at La Mission

Mom and Dad at dinner tonight-- they have been coming to Cozumel every year for 25 years.

Dolphin by the dock

This shot is the sunset from the balcony of the condo... Lissa spotted a dolphin swimming right in the middle of this shot. My cameraphone is pathetic, so you can't see it in this picture.

David

Tuesday- Columbia Deep

We dove again today with out long time captain, San Resus and divemaster Geovanni. In addition to our family, we had two brothers from Hilton Head and a woman from Arkansas. Interestingly enough, all were motorcycle riders.

Our first dive was on Columbia deep. The dive was 100 feet deep for a total bottom time of 55 minutes. The second dive was Cedral pass. It was 60 foot deep for 1 hour. We saw a 6 foot nurse shark in a cave and several turtles. The current on the second dive was quite strong.

Melissa was nipped by a 4 inch long sargant major - the man's death will have to wait.

Afterwards we ate at coccina economica and had a wonderful meal in a private residence that served as a restaurant at lunchtime

Diving the Devil's Throat - Monday

Monday morning - we got on the dive boat to head to the Punta Sur Reef System, the southernmost reef off of the Cozumel coast. We planned to dive the Devil's Throat, a world famous cavern/cave system on the Punta Sur Reef. It is in about 120-130 feet of water, and it is arguably one of the nicest dives in Cozumel. You need to have a dive light to go through the caverns... otherwise you are gonna hit your head on something because it is so dark. We forgot our lights, but Giovanni (our divemaster) knew the layout pretty well. The coolest part of the dive is when you are navigating the cavern in the dark, and then all of a sudden you see the opening... a beautiful blue glow of clear water. You come out on a wall that goes down into darkness. It was the nicest Punta Sur dive I can remember. Saw some pretty big barracudas on this dive too. The Barracuda is by far my favorite sight under the water... they are so calm and nonchalant maneuvering through the water, even though with their razor sharp teeth they could most likely shred anything that gets in their way. Every year I get close enough to touch one, but I pull back right when I think it might decide to turn around and cut me in half. This year I have resolved to touch one... Giovanni gave me the ok as long as I don't make any sudden movements. If you don't hear from me again after this week, you'll know I died a man's death.

Dad found a new restaurant inland, which is a big deal because we pretty much know every restaurant there is. It is called HC, and it was some kind of Mexican steakhouse. Man, they had some big fat steaks there! It was pretty good. We like to eat at the local non tourist places... kind of a way to experience the culture here. There is certainly quite a few of the tourist restaurants here... brought about mostly by the cruise ship industry. We kind of roll our eyes at the cruise ship people who are roaming the island... they are usually wearing balloon hats, halfway hammered, and they always eat at the Senor Frogs or Carlos and Charlies or Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, so we try to avoid those places.

We learned this year that Cozumel is the most popular cruise ship stop in the Caribbean. It sure has changed a lot from the virtually unknown diving spot that it was years ago. Change here is inevitable, I guess, because now it is acknowleged as one of the top couple of diving destinations in the world.

First Day Diving - Saturday

Our first dive this morning was pretty interesting. We dove the Palancar Reef, and we saw a Giant Green Morey Eel just a couple of minutes into the dive. We also saw several sea turtles.

Dad and I brought our tennis racquets again this year, because Cozumel has a pretty cool recreation complex just outside of town. Despite how poor most of the people are on the island, the complex is very nice. There are multiple basketball courts, volleyball courts, a big swimming pool, a track and a nice soccer field. There is also an outdoor boxing ring for sparring. It seems like all the locals converge here at the end of the workday to relax and have fun. Dad and I played for a little while on the tennis courts, and then we challenged two of the better players down there to play a little doubles. We played Luis (a taxi driver who is actually as good as most of the players that we run into in Atlanta) and his partner Sergio (who works on a submarine that gives tours to the cruise ship folks that come into town every week). Dad and I beat them 6-2. It was fun-- and they wanted to hit again later in the week.

Arrival in Cozumel, Mexico

Melissa, Mom, Dad and I flew into Cozumel, Mexico on Friday, June 27th for our annual family scuba diving trip. Mom and Dad have been diving here for 25 years, and Melissa and I joined them about 17 years ago... and we have been here for at least a week every single summer since. Needless to say, we feel very fortunate to get to do something like this. Outside of growing up in Atlanta and going to college in Birmingham, I have spent more time on this island than anywhere else in the world... it has kind of become a home away from home.

Coming back here... well, it is almost comical- because I feel like we know everybody. The same divemasters, dive boat drivers, waiters, restaurant owners... we even run into the same people who have traveled here in previous years. Makes it tough to think about going anywhere else. And talk about restaurants... we know every single one on the island. The food is ridiculous good. It is just so familiar here. Wouldn't be suprised if some of the fish recognized us on a dive. Seriously.

So, Day 1-- you have got to be pretty bored to want to read about our family vacation... but I'm sure it will kill some time, cause something funny happens to us every day. Today was just a travel day... I was kind of stressed out from work till the minute I got on the plane... but happy to get away from everything nevertheless.

We got in pretty late in the day, with just enough time to get settled in at the condo. We are staying at the El Cantil Condominiums, on the 6th floor on the water on the leeward side of the island. www.elcantilsur6b.com

That night we went to our favorite restaurant on the whole island, La Choza. The have the best garlic butter shrimp you can find. Angel, who remembers us every single year, waited on us that night. We scheduled our morning dives for Saturday morning, and then retired for the night.