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March 28, 2008
Scuba Diving In Cozumel
Early in the morning, Brent, Eric, Suzanne, and I hopped in a cab and raced over to the ferry dock to catch a boat from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel for some scuba diving. I had actually been to Cozumel before with my family, but I didn't remember much of it except that my mom's sandwich she ordered for our first lunch there had a cockroach in it and we left immediately. No, not the restaurant, the island.
We went scuba diving with Scuba Staff Divers, which apparently has a live webcam at their building that we all must have been on at some point. I'm sure that any footage involves me picking my wet suit out of my butt. Our wet suits were just that, wet, when we got them, making them nearly impossible to manage. We still got some cute pictures before our dive, though.
Brent, Me, Suzanne, and Eric:
We had a half hour to wait for our dive, so we wandered around town a little bit looking for an ATM to get cash for the boat ride home. Cozumel was cute, but I'm definitely glad we were staying in Playa del Carmen instead.
Brent and Me:
Brent:
Eric:
A nearly empty street in Cozumel:
Suzanne and Eric:
While having Eric and Suzanne take our picture, this little guy came running over to get in the shot. I have no idea who he is or where he came from, but he'll forever be in our photo albums. I feel like we're giants!
Don't you love Brent's face in that picture?
At this point, we locked all our things in a locker and only took our disposable underwater cameras with us as we were driven out to the part of the island where we would be diving from. The pictures came out terribly. They were all completely gray and red for some reason, had no contrast whatsoever, and were too dark to see pretty much anything. Luckily I have Photoshop and was able to fix them up.
The docks near our dive location (this is the only picture I didn't have to touch-up):
We met our instructor by the water and had a brief scuba lesson before going down. It really wasn't all that confusing, but I was still terrified. The whole idea of breathing underwater just doesn't seem right to me. It took me a while to get down under with everyone else, and finally our instructor took me by the hand and pulled me down, which was actually pretty cool because he showed me a lot of stuff that other people might have missed. For example, he led me down to this tiny cavern in the reef that had a giant blue lobster in it! I've never seen a lobster so big before! Unfortunately, Brent was holding the camera when I saw the lobster and when I gestured for him to come look too, he didn't understand me. Oh well.
Our pictures aren't great, but here's what we got. I think that orange thing is one of those flat fish that skim the sand all day:
Tropical fish everywhere:
Cozumel has one of the best coral reefs in the world and we were so lucky to have gotten to see it. The pictures will never do it any justice, but it was absolutely amazing down there. It's an entirely different world from anything I've ever seen and I already can't wait to get back.
One of the coolest things, to me, was that the tropical fish aren't the least bit afraid of people. They'll come and swim right in your face. I love this picture of Eric with a fish swimming right in front of his camera:
When you look at the pictures, make sure you're not just looking at the foreground, but look in the back too where there are just endless underwater mountains and valleys of reef.
Look at all those fish!
Brent:
A school of yellow fish:
Our dive instructor brought us over to a little tunnel in the coral that we could swim through. As I plunged underneath the coral, into the tunnel, at first I was completely terrified. Not only was I still a bit uneasy about the whole "breathing underwater" thing, but I'm also a little claustrophobic. I paused for a second to look around me and saw this huge school of those yellow fish looking right at me, confused. They looked so funny, huddled together, staring at us swimming through their little hiding spot, that I had to laugh, and then I felt better about the whole thing.
More coral and a striped fish:
Eric in front, and our instructor pulling my pasty-white arm down to the bottom to see the giant lobster:
I wish the quality on these pictures were a little better because the water was so unbelievably clear that we could see as if we were on the very surface. Unfortunately, pictures like this make it look like it was dark and murky, which it definitely was not:
Brent:
Suzanne:
Gorgeous coral reef:
Brent:
Brent and Me:
Eric and Suzanne, exploring:
Looking down 30 feet at Eric and Suzanne:
Brent:
Me (where are all those bubbles coming from?):
Well, that was the end of our dive. If I go again, which I hope I do, I'm definitely going to rent a really good underwater digital camera to take better pictures.
On our ferry back to Playa del Carmen, Brent got Doritos as a snack and we were both entertained to find Pokémon pogs in it. Remember pogs?
Getting off the boat:
Back in Playa del Carmen:
I think that about sums up our scuba diving trip. It comes highly recommended to anyone traveling in Mexico.
-Lauren
Posted by lauren at March 28, 2008 08:30 AM
Comments
When I think of all your adventures in Mexico (the good ones!), I think the scuba diving might be my favorite. Even though the pictures didn't turn out the way you wanted, they were still great.
Posted by: M at March 28, 2008 09:36 AM
pogs are the best. and yeah, i totally nailed my tank and leg on the roof of that tunnel and thought that my leg would be cut open and attract sharks and that my tank would explode. fortuitously, neither of those things happened. i did miss out on that lobster, though.
Posted by: brent at March 28, 2008 01:36 PM
It looks like you had a lot of fun but I am still never going to do it. I'm positive I would get claustrophobic, starting panicking, have an asthma attack.....and then drown. If not killed by a shark or some other wild sea creature.
I will however, save you all seats on the beach and have beer and/or margaritas waiting for you when you get back!
Posted by: Jocelyn at March 28, 2008 01:55 PM
Aww..I like that cute lil' guy in your picture. He is so mini.
I stayed in the Mayan Riveria at the Bahia Principe Coba. I think it took us about 20 minutes to get to Playa del Carmen from our resort. Where did you guys stay? Maybe you already posted the name, but I can't remember. It looks beautiful there. Glad you had a fun trip!
Posted by: Christine at March 28, 2008 09:17 PM
Hey Christine, we stayed at the Royal Playa del Carmen. The Mayan Riviera sounds familiar though... maybe we passed it on our way to Coba or something? Did you ever go to the Coba ruins?
Posted by: Lauren at March 29, 2008 12:09 AM
I think Playa might be in the Mayan Riviera too..? I didn't get to the Coba ruins, but we did go to Tulum, which were really interesting. If you ever go again, I definitely recommend Tulum, there is also the most amazing beach ever below the ruin site.
We also went to Delphinus and went swimming with dolphins, which was really fun!
Posted by: Christine at March 30, 2008 07:14 PM