I saved the above shot for our “underwater” blog entry because I like the angle and you can see that at any second we ARE going to be under the water. There’s just nothing but water out there beyond us. And, this is the dive spot where the big black deep dark aybss is under us. Now did he say we should stay on the right or the left? Surprisingly, I wasn’t panicked or nervous on the second dive. I was finally starting to get the hang of being underwater. I wouldn’t say I was “comfortable” but at least I was DOWN THERE! I could have easily just stayed up on the boat.

Can you believe that we don’t have ANY underwater pictures from our first dive? We didn’t remember to take the underwater cameras down with us that time and it’s probably just as well. We were still getting our bearings on the first dive. I’m sure Antonio and Gustavo would not have wanted us distracted by picture taking while they were making sure we were SAFE in the water.
On the second dive, however, a couple of us did strap the underwater cameras onto our wrists. I think the guys must have basically just dove straight to the bottom…. because it sure seemed like they were down there FOREVER while Emily and I walking our way down the rope ladder. It was taking FOREVER to clear my ears. I would go down a few feet and go back up a foot, down a few feet and back up a foot, etc. Holding on to the rope really helped because I had a visual of how far a foot really was.

After the guys all made it to the bottom and Antonio gave them instructions, he came over to help me get my ears equalized. On the first dive I forgot about wiggling my jaw. That really helped me on the second dive. Gustavo and Antonion kept going back and forth between Emily and I trying to help us get our ears equalized. After we got past a certain depth I was doing ok and hoped Emily would, too. We were going quite a bit deeper this time so it was more difficult to equalize, for us girls anyway. She just couldn’t get her ears to equalize and you can NOT go on down without equalizing. Finally, she had to call it a day and go back up to the boat.

I *finally* made it to the bottom. If I remember right we were right around 60′ under. You can see the big black (dark blue in this picture) deep dark abyss on the right side of the picture below. We stayed along the edge of it.
There was a pretty good current down there so we really didn’t have to do much “swimming” we just floated along. We were actually going pretty fast, imo, since I’m one who likes to really look at something in depth, take a few minutes to decide if I want to take a picture or not, etc. No time for that ! I was definitely not going to take a chance on the others getting too far away from me. There isn’t much light down there as you can see from these pictures and it wouldn’t take long at all for someone to be out of sight.

Speaking of those hand signals. You really do find ways to communicate without speaking. We studied a couple dozen general hand signals in the book, but there weren’t any hand signals for the questions I wanted to ask (LOL). Here is Troy giving a hand signal.

It’s AWESOME down there. Quiet yet noisy. Different kinds of noises. We saw one big fish off in the distance. Although we had hoped to see a shark, we didn’t. It was so very peaceful.
We discovered on the first dive that we REALLY have to watch Tim’s air. He ran pretty low on the first dive and had to use Gustavo’s alternate air. I ended up having the most air left over for whatever that piece of info is worth. On the second dive I kept pointing at my guage to remind Tim to look at HIS gauge! I didn’t really want to have to actually perform the emergency assent before we even practiced it. That would not be good. Now we know. Tim uses a lot of air and the basic rule is when the first person runs low everyone goes up. So, next time he’ll have to wait up above the water for the extra 10 minutes or so that it takes me to equalize my ears and get to the bottom… that way he won’t use up air waiting for me to get to the bottom. Notice the yellow cord going from Gustavo to Tim – it’s the alternate air source!

I really do have to thank Antonio and Gustavo for being so patient with me. It would not have taken much for me to stay on the boat. I never once felt like I was slowing them down, taking too much of their time, or being a pain. If not for their patience, I would probably have thought that diving wasn’t for me. After I made it all the way to the bottom I STILL kept hanging on to the rope. Then, Gustavo came over and grabbed my arm and swam along side me for quite awhile. At one point Antonio signaled for me to COME and so I let go of Gustavo’s arm and followed Antonio. I really can’t believe that I was actually swimming alone down there. Now, the guys will read this blog and say “what’s the big deal.” But, to me it WAS a big deal. And, here’s proof that I did finally manage to swim without having to hang onto someone or something.
Here’s our friend, Mike! This was the “kewlest” thing to be doing with good friends. We hope to have many future dives together! Now we just need to convince Amanda and Melissa that they need to get certified. Josh would like to take the Jr. Certification course this summer and we have some other friends that would like to get certified as well. I can hardly wait to plan future dive trips!
There’s Troy hanging out at the bottom of the ocean. We took these pictures with a disposable underwater camera and they turned out pretty good, I think. When I look at these pictures I still can’t believe we were actually on the bottom.. on the ocean floor!
This is the proper position for a scuba diver. Parallel to the ocean floor. Going slightly up and down when breathing in and breathing out. Arms relaxed at your side. Gracefully moving through the water. Mike, shown below, and the other guys have the hang of it.
Then there’s me (LOL). For some reason I kept wanting to walk through the water instead of swim through the water. No wonder I was always having to equalize my ears. First my head is up then the guide reminds me to be parallel to the ground.. so then I get parallel and then I have to equalize my ears again. Here’s the position one should *not* be in (LOL), unless you’re going up, of course. And, here I’m finally getting the hang of it. Right about the time we’re ready to go up.

We loved EVERY minute of being under water. It’s an experience other people can tell you all about and try to prepare you for what it will be like, but it’s really indescribable. I feel truly blessed to have been able to give this a try even if just once in my life, but of course, we all hope to get to go again many times in the years ahead!

While we were 60′ under the snorkelers were having a great time of their own with their guide, Said. Can you believe he brought this Sea Cucumber up for them to hold? I’m pretty certain neither Amanda nor Melissa would have held this if they thought it was something other than a vegetable. It’s *NOT*… it’s a scavenger that feeds on debris from the ocean floor. When it is startled by a predator it practices defensive vomiting. YUCK and DOUBLE YUCK! It actually vomits it’s internal organs and then regrows new ones. Ok… so what can I say! Amanda and Melissa are braver than I. Aren’t you guys glad I looked up that info for you? They got to swim amongst these really cool schools of fish.
I’m not sure what Melissa is holding here.. if I knew I’d look it up and give her all of the facts about it as well.
This was Melissa’s first time to snorkel and we’re so glad she had a great time. Here’s what she said about this excurion: “I was scared from the beginning about snorkeling and no matter what anybody told me about their experiences I still needed to experience snorkeling for myself scared or not. I was taken back by how much I enjoyed myself and how calm I felt. The guide was patient and intentional with each of us so that we would be able to relax and have a good time. What I saw was beautiful and I can now agree with those who had told me how much fun it is. My experience was awesome.” Since I wasn’t there I’m not sure what Amanda was diving down for, but it looks like she’s headed to down to pick up or look at something interesting. She has always LOVED the water.

It looks like they were swimming around a shipwreck.


They same time passes quickly when you’re having fun. We were having a GREAT time and our day ended long before we were ready to leave. We could have stayed down there a few more hours! Here’s one last picture of the boat.