travel

We got up early today, and with a purpose… We were diving this morning, with two dives — one to Canyones and one to another very close dive site. Grabbed breakfast at the buffet (fruit, bread, yogurt, cereal, and some meats & cheeses) and then headed to the dive shop where we met Jochen, our divemaster, and Majo our videographer.

Our gear was quickly loaded on the boat and we got all hooked up to check our pressures. My tank was a little bit low, so Jochen called for a replacement and we waited a few minutes for the new tank to be brought. I checked the pressure and it was fine, but in my haste, I forgot to connect my inflator hose the second time. This would come back to be embarassing in a few moments at the dive site. Because we were a very small group of customers, we were taken to a first dive site very close to the shore — probably less than 10 minutes out. We Jacques Cousteau’d off the side of the boat and were into the water in no time. Expecting a less-than-satisfactory dive based on the placement, we were pleasantly surprised at how clear and vibrant the site was as we started our descent. By the time we got to depth, I tried to inflate my hose and found that it wasn’t hooked up. Staring at it dumbly for a moment, Jochen came over and with a look of “dumbass” in his eye, calmly hooked me up and I was good to go.

Our dive was fairly uneventful after my inflator hose issue, though Wendy had a brief moment of her own. We saw a Hawksbill Turtle, 2 spotted Eagle Rays, one Green Turtle, black durgan, parrotfish, queen angels, squid, barracuda, and pufferfish on this dive, which lasted 49 minutes.

After a decent surface interval (we actually came back to the shore, got dried off, had lunch, and reported back to the boat), we went back out to Cuevitas/Angelitas for the second dive. Mikey, the manager of the dive shop, decided to be our divemaster this time. The shop was very slow, so they were ’sharing the wealth’ of two self-sufficient divers. We dove with a guy called Bill who was pretty random underwater, sort of fun to watch him flail around as Wendy & I were calm, collected divers. He got cut pretty early, which was no surprise since he was all over the place, and Mikey, Wendy, and I enjoyed a full 50-minute dive. In Bill’s defense, he was a quarry diver enjoying his first-ever ocean dive.

After the dives, we came back to get cleaned up and hung out at the pool and the bar with Jon & Dawn. Dinner was Asian-themed at the buffet, and the sushi was actually pretty good — especially one that was wrapped around the outside with cream cheese.

Today, we rose early — about 7:30 — since the sun comes up and is ferociously bright by 7:00am. We made our way down to the buffet for breakfast, which, to Wendy’s delight, included fresh fried doughnuts. Breakfast was yogurt, scrambled eggs, cereal with milk, fresh fruit, sausage, and of course a fried doughnut.

After breakfast, we made our way back to the room to get changed, then went swimming by the dock for a while, enjoying the fish that live nearby. Soon, one of the small boats — either the dive boat or the snorkel boat — pulled up nearby and told everyone assembled that there was a nurse shark just over there, within snorkeling distance. Wendy and a few others went off in search of it while Drew stayed by the dock.

The nurse shark was never found, but we also learned that there was a barricuda near the pink bouy just over the other way, and most of the water crew snorkeled over to see it, which they did. Wendy reports that it’s a big sucker — about 5 feet long, and “fat as a sausage”. He guards the pink bouy, it seems.

We ate lunch at the beach cantina with Jon & Dawn, and sat and talked with them for a few hours, enjoying the breeze, the beautiful scenery, and the occasional beer or two. The four of us then went to the pool for a while before heading to the resort’s hot tub where we sat for a bit longer.

Cleaned up and hungry again (though we have no right to be), we went to the Seafood buffet for dinner, which is written up here.