SCUBA with Coconut Divers

We had tons of fun on our Mexican vacay. Tons. The photo below was not from one of those fun times. 

Oh what's going on here? That's me, lying on the bottom of a Mexican boat. This was not just-for-funsies. I was full blown, terrible-awful, seasick. Just an hour before, I looked like this:

Much better, right? You see we were greeted in Mexico with questionable weather. The dive company we were diving with (Coconut Divers) canceled our day of diving in Cozumel because of the wind, but said they would still take us out to Isla Mujeres before the weather got too bad. It was actually raining when we took off in the boat, and I was a tiny bit nervous about the choppiness of the water, but I reminded myself that I've done a number of dives in rain and waves. In fact, during one dive in Bora Bora on our honeymoon, the water was so rough and the captain was driving the boat so fast through it that the hard-core French lady on board screamed "I'm scared and I don't like to be scared!" and the American gal from Texas actually started crying. Max and I still use the phrase "I'm scared and I don't like to be scared!" whenever we're discussing frightful things. Anyway, I made it through that, I could definitely make it through whatever Mexico threw at me. Or so I thought.

I got just a bit queasy on our ride out to Isla Mujeres, which has totally happened on other dives, but the sickness always goes away the instant I backflip into the ocean and disappear underwater. I love diving. Looooove diving. I was so excited to be among the fish and corals again!

So happy!



We actually dove in the Cancun National Marine Park at its underwater museum, so in addition to the sea life we saw sculptures like this house.

And figures like these ones.

Unfortunately, about halfway into the dive, I started feeling sick. Really, really, sick. I just couldn't figure out why because I have never, ever been sick underwater before!

I tried to keep enjoying the dive, but all I wanted to do was get out of the water! It was so sad, y'all!

I finally realized that everything in the ocean around me was swaying back and forth. Fish would all move up together, then back, then up, then back. Our dive was pretty shallow, and I'm thinking that because of that the surges were very strong, and were probably the cause of my sickness.

Back and forth, back and forth. I never even got a chance to snag the underwater camera out of Max's hands and snap some pictures of him because I just kept getting more and more sick. 

When it was finally time to get out, I looked up at the bobbing boat and knew that 1. It was going to be tough to grab ahold of the ladder and climb back in and 2. My nausea was not going away. 

I climbed into the boat and I was can't-even-talk, have-to-close-my-eyes seasick. I was shivering and hot at the same time so I peeled off my wetsuit and tried not to vomit. We drove over to the second site for the day and the dive master urged me to get back in the water, saying that it would make me feel better. Normally I'd agree with him, but I had just spent half a dive being sick in the water. Plus, I was feeling so bad I physically couldn't get my equipment on. So (le sad) I stayed on the boat, head on Max's knee, while the other divers (sans Max) went back in. This was our actually anniversary day and Max said he didn't want to leave me (sweet man). Plus, I would have been all alone with the captain who didn't speak any English. Max struck up a convo with him in Spanish of course, which I half-listened to once I migrated to the bottom of the boat where I thought I would feel better. 

I still don't really know what about the whole experience did me in. Had this been my first dive ever, I don't think I would have ever headed back in! Luckily, the was dive twenty-something, so I know it was just a bad day. And I'm even looking forward to heading back underwater. Maybe just not in Mexico ;)

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Dive #5: Trinity Caves

During our Trinity Caves dive, we dove to 112 feet, my deepest to date! Here are some of our favorite photos that Max took...

Lion Fish:

Purple Sponge:

Conch:

Coral Fan:

Squirrel Fish:

Coral Fans:

Coral with Cow Fish:

Sea Turtle:

Anemone:

Going through the tunnels:

Blue Damsels:

Sea Turtle:

Reef and Fish:

Powder Blue Tangs:

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Dive #1: The Kittiwake

Our very first dive in Cayman was a wreck dive. I was a bit nervous as I had never done a wreck dive before and the concept of an "overhead environment" was a little scary. Dive Master Nick of Deep Blue Divers assured us that the wreck was the "Disney World" of wrecks and that I'd be just fine.

True to his word, the Kittiwake offered big open spaces to explore, and was the perfect first wreck for me. A former submarine rescue vessel, the USS Kittiwake was scuttled in just January of this year, making it the newest wreck around the islands. It had a surprising amount of sea life for only being underwater for six months, and was already covered in neat bubble algae.

As soon as I hit the water and started descending, I got that fantastic euphoric rush of everything that is diving. It's an amazing, amazing experience. I tried later to describe it as going to an aquarium squared (and I love aquariums), but really it's like going to an aquarium times infinity.

And I had no reason to be nervous about the overhead environments - the second I saw our first one, I knew that I couldn't wait to go in!

Max liked seeing the lathe:

I thought all the old air tanks were interesting:

We wove in and out of the ship, going down to a depth of 55 feet over our 49 minute dive. 

Yay for my first wreck dive!

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Deep Blue Divers

Max and I chose Deep Blue Divers to dive with for our ten Cayman dives. We wanted a smaller company that took out just a handful of people at a time, as opposed to one of the larger operations with the massive boats. On a small boat, you get to know everyone you're diving with and also get more interaction with the dive masters. Deep Blue was also home to several Brits and I just can't get enough of their accents!

Our days worked like this: we would start with a 7:30AM pickup in one of the island vans (re: semi sketchy with no seat-belts):

We'd head over to the dive shop and hop in one of the two boats that we would take to two back-to-back dive sites:

We were told that the dive shop was actually the first one on the whole island!

On our first day, we met British Dive Master Nick. Max had been emailing with him about our dives, and we had spoken on the phone just once. He seemed a bit surprised when we met in person, then on the way back to the shop after diving that first day he spilled it: he had thought we were a couple in our 60's (yes, more than double our age). Apparently, my husband is super formal and polished in his emails, so Nick automatically expected that he was 65. He said he was shocked to find out that this "young lad" was Max, you know, the "old guy" from the emails! Max had relayed in his emails that I was a "bit nervous" about heading back in the water after more than a year, and that I was just 5'4'' and a buck ten, so Nick had envisioned me hobbling in on a cane, kind of shriveled and tiny. We so got a laugh out of all of this (it was even funnier as Nick was saying all of this in his British accent), but I think Max and I are kind of used to feeling older than we actually are (though never before anywhere close to retirement age ; )

We so enjoyed diving with Deep Blue and thought that all of their dive masters were fantastic. I especially loved bubbly Denise and her darling British accent, but my favorite was trickster Nick. In this photo, he gave me a sea cucumber to hold, then told everyone underwater that it was whale crap! I think it's great that even through my mask you can tell I know he's up to no good.

Cloudy days were still a-okay for diving. We even saw rain hitting the water's surface on one of the dives when we were down below.

This is what we look like post diving. I went with braids on this trip pretty much every time we dove. I've tried everything: buns, high ponytails, low pony tails... and no matter what, my hair is pretty much a disaster after. In Bora Bora, we dove with some French women and I was super envious because they would do nothing to their hair (literally, leave it down) and all during the dives their hair would flow perfectly around them. Then they'd get out of the water and their hair would be perfect again. Ahhh, if only I were French ; )

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