Suzanne gets certified in Mexico

March 15, 2009, Cozumel, Mexico

[All the pics in this entry were taken by me except the ones OF me, of course]

Signed up to do my open water referral dives. You can’t spit and miss a dive shop in Cozumel, so I went with the one I could see from the window of the condo. (Why not?) Love the nice guy who ran it—Juan Carlos. This pic is from the balcony of our condo at El Cid la Ceiba. The little hut looking thing behind me is the dive shop.

On Friday and Saturday I had tasted what was in store with a lovely bit of snorkeling outside of Hotel Fontan (our first hotel). It was amazing—at least half a dozen different kinds of fish wandering around right next to you. Someone threw some bread in the water near Nancy and I and we got a lovely swarm to take pictures of. Drawbacks? Stuck at the surface and accidently sucked in water when a wave hit my snorkel wrong. EEE—yuck!! Time for SCUBA, Baby! Showed up at the dive shop Sunday morning and waited. And waited. After an hour Ricardo showed up. He couldn’t have been more of a stereotype. Shorter than me, longish wavy hair, unnecessarily tight boy short speedo, and slick. He was all business and very serious.

I wasn’t the only student. An 19-ish year old islander was there, too, and she had never dived before—not even in the pool. I had to listen to the whole spiel again—in Spanish this time—but I’ve heard the first dive stuff so much I knew exactly what he was saying.

We strapped on our equipment, and Ricky DOUBLED the weights (“Salt water make you float, senorita”). Then we had to lug the stuff on our backs across the beach past the sunbathers so we could take the easy steps into the water. Gee, that’s not embarrassing or anything.

Not 3 minutes into the dive Ricky stopped us and pointed to what looked like an orange tag attached to a little bit of plant. I figured it was for teaching purposes—like a “notice this plant… do not touch” kind of thing, but when I got closer I realized it was….[drum roll]… a sea horse!! It was SO cool!!

A roped off area in front of the resort—El Cid la Ceiba—held all sorts of fascinating critters. Between the two shore dives and a LOT of snorkeling with Nancy I must have seen several dozens kinds of fish and things.

We ventured deeper—I had to repeat all the skills. I have decided that scuba class is like taking driver’s ed—if in driver’s ed they made you be the crash test dummy. 8 times.

Eventually we wandered past a plane wreck that’s somewhat famous… it’s in parts now with all the hurricanes and things. Ricky pointed out an eel hiding underneath the wings. Cool! Too bad he didn’t show up on the photo… maybe he’s a vampire eel. If you aren’t jealous yet, wait ‘til I tell you about Palancar and Yucab!!