Category: Scuba

I ran across this post on Divester:

Divester contributor Eric Brodeur has a dive buddy who rode out Hurricane Wilma in Cozumel. Locked in his hotel’s main dining room for three days, his friend nailed pieces of furniture to the walls to reinforce the shutters, “stacked credenzas and other furniture against one doorway to the outside as a barricade to keep it from collapsing,” and generally went without sleep for the duration. What a terrible, exhausting experience. What’s more: when it was all over, his escape from Mexico was equally stressful and chaotic. Check out this, uh, “trip report” on Eric’s blog and be happy you weren’t there.Or, as Eric writes, “if you suffer from ADD, skip the words and go straight to the photos.”

 

What makes this important to me is that the resort in the pictures is my favorite resort in Cozumel: Fiesta Americana. Having stayed there before many times, I’m saddened by the devastation. I am, however, glad to hear of the co-operative nature of not only the staff but also of the residents/tourists when the chips are down.

I encourage you to read the entire post – it’s quite moving.

This year, there will be no officially sanctioned “Dive Turkey”. Next year, however, will be time enough to get ready for our trip to Curaçao. By next year, there will be a Continental flight to Curaçao which will make getting there much easier for most of the parties involved.

I suppose it’s a good thing: we can’t really afford to go diving this year due to our costs that have come from the move. It may have been an “all-expense-paid” move, but upon arrival, there are many things we need and do not have – and the cost of living here is more. We’ll have to save up a little longer to make sure we have enough money to cover the trip. Not to mention a better underwater camera and strobe…

We have just arrived back from our underwater adventures in the Flower Gardens. It was difficult to sleep on board, but we got the hang of it on the second day. Of course, once we got the hang of living on board it was time to go.

I’m in the middle of downloading the pictures from the camera so soon we’ll have the pictures posted on the web.

And I’m tired now. Good night.

After one abortive attempt several years ago, I had not for a long time tried to go diving in the nearest salt water diving spot from Houston: the Flower Gardens Banks National Marine Sanctuary. This place is difficult to get to since trips are usually canceled when the seas get above 5 or 6 ft. However, the weather report for today says that all is well: the water is “like glass” they said. So, Laura and I will be getting our first experience at true offshore diving. In addition to the Flower Gardens dive sites, the boat is supposed to stop at a rig on the way back for a rig dive. That will be an experience like I’ve never had before.

For Laura and I, this trip is a replacement for the usual Dive Turkey. However, this year we had to opt out with concern for our finances. Our first quarter trip to Hawaii ate the Dive Turkey budget. But, at a much lower cost per person, one can make about 8 dives in the Gulf over two days with all expenses paid. [They let you sleep on the boat…] So we don’t have to go without diving for the rest of the year.

So, off we go tonight and we’ll be back on Sunday with pictures to post.

I only hope I don’t run out of memory on my digital camera…

Sometimes, things don’t turn out quite like you expect. Like with Dive Turkey IV: there were some hiccups – like Laura’s regulator falling apart because of bad service by Oceanic Ventures in Houston. I don’t recommend them for servicing your regulator. Luckilly, the Mares representative for all of Latin America is in Cozumel and was able to help reassemble the regulator for a small fee. And he gave us a piece of his mind about some US dive shop servicing practices. It gave me quite a scare – this is her LIFE we’re talking about. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to not continue the dive when she felt something had gone wrong. Once on the surface, the pieces fell out. Not good. Next day, though, she was back in the water with much more confidence and a properly functioning regulator. I will use a real authorized dealer/repair center next time: not one that claims it is when it is not. Not only will I never go back to them for service, I will never purchase another item from them. Ever. There is no excuse for such poor quality control. Not only did they mess up the first stage of the regulator, they incorrectly serviced both second stages, moved the hoses to a different configuration and didn’t tighten them all the way. I was most upset to find on receiving my regulator back that the computer was loose! They of course overcharged me – I could have bought a new regulator for what it cost to get it serviced.

Well, Dive Turkey IV has completed: a success! We enjoyed a week’s worth of diving (myself, I had 17 dives I think…) but not a strenuous schedule. We had plenty of time to enjoy the local cuisine and beverages. Habaneros are yummy! If you don’t know what a habanero pepper is, DON’T EAT IT! – it’s the world’s hottest pepper. I rather like them… in moderation, of course!

The weather was wonderful, except there were a few issues at the begining (including Laura’s regulator incident – I’ll talk about that later). The day we got there, we all wanted to do a check-out dive. It was a bit windy and the waves were up, so it was looking rather dificult. Laura decided she wasn’t up to it so she sat this one out. The rest of us insane people went ahead with the dive.

By the time we got into the water, it was dark. The current, it turned out, was really bad, too. So: dark, windy, lots of waves and current… hmm… didn’t stay in very long. I think I had a max depth of 11 feet for 7 minutes. One of my shortest dives ever.

The next day, the weather got better but was still choppy. [this is where Laura had her regulator incident.] Second dive day was finally calm. It stayed this way for the duration of the trip. We went to reefs I’ve never been to and had a wonderful night dive.