Dive #1 - Tuesday, Sept. 30
Location: Palancar Caves
Depth: 90 feet
Bottom Time: 1 hour 5 min.
This was going to be our first dive for the week, and a twilight dive at that. Memo met
me and my sister Cindy, at the dock of the Diamond Resort promptly at 3:45pm. Upon
entering the boat, John Appel, whom I had met via correspondence over the Internet,
introduced himself to me and my sister. Memo asked us where we would like to go and
someone mentioned Palancar Caves, maybe
it was Memo; I was just to excited to take my first plunge.
After we all agreed, which was not hard to do, Memo gave us a detailed briefing of what
our dive profile is going to be. Since this was Cindy's first dive since her
certification, Memo spent a great deal of time explaining to her everything that we
learned in our open water certification course. Memo was so helpful to her that it boosted
her confidence level and wasn't as intimidated as she first was when we got there. We
finally got to the site and we geared up. Memo led the way and Cindy was very comfortable.
We headed for some caverns and the swim thru's was incredible.
We spotted a turtle as it was
slowly moving through the reefs and glided past in front of us gracefully and beautiful.
We also saw some large parrot fish which was about 3-4 foot in length, the biggest ones
I've seen so far from all the trips I took to Coz. In one of the swim thru's I swam face
up and looked at all the holes where the beams of lights were coming through, they were so
blue and beautiful. After the dive, we went back to the Diamond Resort to pick up my other
sister for the night dive. We spent our surface interval docked at the resort and I was
able to check up on my wife and kids to see how they were doing. It didn't take them to
long to get accustomed to the pool, the bar, and the restaurant. I chowed down a hamburger
and went back to the boat with Jackie to do our night dive.
Dive #2 - Tuesday, Sept. 30
Location: Columbia Shallow
Depth: 31 feet
Bottom Time: 1 hour 15 min.
We were trying to decide on where to go to do the night dive. Most operator usually do
Paradise Reef, Chankanab, Chankanab Bolonese, or San Francisco. I was hoping it wasn't
going to be one of those. I suggested we do Columbia Shallows, and it was a few minutes
when we finally got there. As with Cindy, Memo gave us a detailed briefing on our dive and
helped Jacquie quite a lot. Since this was her first night dive, she was a little scared,
but Memo put her at ease and off we went. I buddied with John while Jacquie buddied with
Memo. Once we got to the bottom, Jacquie started to get a little scared because it was
really dark down there.
Our eyes hadn't adjusted yet, so Memo held Jacquie's hand during the entire dive which
made her feel really comfortable. The first thing we spotted was an octopus, and a playful
one at that. We sat on the bottom just watching it whisk from one spot to the next. I was
anxiously searching for a toadfish which happens to be my favorite and came up upon a
large giant spiny lobster. John was right besides me and we sat there for a moment and
gazed at how huge this creature was.
Throughout our dive we spotted several other octopus and also saw a sharp-tail eel. It
slithered across the ocean floor in search of food. We then gathered in a circle and shut
our lights off. I started to swish my hands back forth to see the bio-luminescence and
when it was time to turn our lights back on, I had lost the flashlight. I started to panic
because it belonged to Memo and I was thinking, "oh great, my first day in Cozumel
and I loose Memo's dive light." I hurried and swam over to John making signs to him
that I had dropped my light during our bio-luminescence encounter. We swam back and
luckily for me, he found it...wheewwww...besides all the worms that get attracted to the
light, this was too awesome to begin this week.
Dive #3 - Wednesday, Oct. 1
Location: Palancar Gardens
Depth: 81 feet
Bottom Time: 55 min.
This morning was very beautiful, like my wife Lisa. We both had breakfast and after
making arrangements with my mom, she went to out villa to watch the kids while we went for
our morning dives. The best part about this resort is that the time to get to Palancar
from the dock is about 5 minutes. Memo gave us a ran down on our dive and told us that we
are going to see the biggest brain coral here on the island. Upon our decent, we saw a
hawksbill turtle and it was spectacular to start our dive with.
We saw lots of sponges, gorgonians, and black corals. About a half-hour into the dive,
I felt something pulling on my fins, I freaked out because I thought I may have ran into a
creature or something, but it was Antonio, my first Divemaster when I dove with Aldora
last year. He said hello to me on his slate and I shook his hand. I am sure that the other
divers in his group were thinking, wow, this guy knows everyone. It was really cool that
he remembered me and recognized me from behind. I gave him a salute and he did the same
and we went on our way. We finally got to the brain coral and it was magnificent beyond
belief. It was probably 13 feet in diameter, then again I may be wrong, but that was my
approximated guess. We hovered over the coral for a few minutes and went on with our dive.
We then began our safety stop and instead of looking at a sandy bottom, we swam over
coral heads. We went back to the Diamond Resort to check up on our kids and did about a
two-hour surface interval. Memo and John walked over to Playa Sol to relax and get ready
for our second dive.
Dive #4 - Wednesday, Oct. 1
Location: El Paso Del Cedral ( Cedar Pass)
Depth: 56 feet
Bottom Time: 1 hour 08 min.
On the way to our second dive, I asked Memo if he was using Nitrox and he told me that
he was certifying John in EAN. I asked him what were the requirements and how much it
would cost and after talking about it for a few minutes I told him that I would like to be
certified for NITROX and also at the same time Advanced Open Water, he said no problem.
Since he gave me a great deal on the certification, there was no way I could say no. I
would like to say how much it cost, but then again you guys might not believe me and if
you decide to get certified by Memo, I think it is better that you ask him.
Let's put it this way, it would cost about $150 for Advance Open Water and another $150
for NITROX. He pretty much gave me over an 95% discount on both certification..
Woooohooo...I luv it. Then again I've known him for over a year, so I am sure that played
a key role. Our next dive was lots of fun. Memo had a fanny sack with him where he kept
all the fish food and upon our decent into the water, the groupers immediately became our
dive buddies. Lots of gray angels and large sized groupers, maybe 4-5 feet in length swam
all around us, including all the chubs and grunts. This was probably my seventh or eighth
time to dive this reef and it was this particular dive that I saw lots of spotted morays.
I haven't seen this many spotted morays in all the dives I've taken here at this reef.
During one of our swim thru's, we had to be very careful because at the exit of the
tunnel lurked a spotted moray right in the middle, a very close call. Memo then took his
knapsack off to finish the rest of the food when another spotted moray came out of his
hole and started to swim towards Memo. The moray then poked his head into the knapsack and
all of a sudden it went ballistic. Memo let the knapsack go and chunks of fish were
everywhere. The groupers, angels, chubs, and everything else were trying to get their fill
and when the spotted moray was done, he swam back to its home. Memo then picked up his
fannypack and showed us the destruction the moray did to it. Wow, talk about razor sharp
teeth, I was thinking "what a way to end our dive".
During our safety stop, Memo seemed to be gazing into the deep blue when a huge
barracuda snuck up behind him. I was trying to signal to him and when he finally saw me
waving at him, the barracuda must have been about 7 feet away from him, talk about a close
call. Seems like all the creatures in Cozumel are very close to him. What an ending to a
beautiful day of diving. Memo gave me the workbook and I started work on my Nitrox
certification.
