YCGL - Friday, December 2, 2022 - I'll Be Seeing You

On the Beach                                            My nose at five days.  I survived the attack of the deck.  

Today is that always bitter-sweet day.  The last day of diving this trip.   The most remarkable thing about today is that it was unremarkable.  No falls, no almost lost tanks, no lost fins, there was no trauma, no thrills, chills, excitement.  Except for the dives.  

The dive shop did not have a BCD with high pockets like I was hoping for, so they put the weights where they could.  However, I came up with a useful solution, if not 100% the safest option.  I put my weight belt above my stomach on the top of my rib cage.  In a real emergency, it would be possible to get the belt caught in my BCD and not be able to drop the weights.  But that type of emergency is rare, and when I pulled my belt before taking off the BCD, there was no problem with it catching.  I think as long as I show the divemaster what I'm doing and why, they would be ok with it.  

The first dive was to Palencar Small Caves.  Primarily, the caves are formed from two adjacent coral heads growing upward and spreading into each other.  The caves may be anywhere from 2-3 feet in diameter to 15-20 feet in height and/or width so you could drive a bus through them.  You can swim in and out of them, trying to be careful to not hit the coral or sponges or other people.  The great challenge is to not bump into the diver in front of you or kick the diver behind you.  As we were doing our safety stop at 15 feet, Pepe spotted a large manta ray ray about 100 feet away.  By the time I could spin around, I never did see him.  Drat.  Having been through the experience on Wednesday, exiting the water was much easier this time.  

The second dive was to San Francisco shallow and deep.  It could easily start as a shore dive and just swim out a ways.  It was easier from the boat as it drifted away from the beach.  I wrote about my preference for shallow dives a couple of days ago and this dive really brought this out.  It was only 41 feet at the deepest, but the computer gave 79 minutes of bottom time.  

(BTW, dive computers are the bomb and everyone uses them now.  They were brand new technology when I last dove, and priced sky high.  The prices are more reasonable now, they have been tested for safety for 20 years, and they allow greater time underwater because the dive is not based just on your deepest depth, but is integrated over the entire dive.  As you go up, you get more time, which you couldn't do based just on tables.)  

So, what did we see over those extra minutes?  First, because there is less color filtering through the shallow water, all the colors are brighter for the sponges, coral and fish.  Reds and oranges really pop out at you.  The fish become almost irridesent.  And the contrast is greater.  It is just more colorful.  (And that is why many people dive with lights now.  You can shine a light and really see things much better.  And Pepe's light had a laser pointer built in, so when he pointed the light in a specific place, it was exactly where you needed to look.)  

After everyone and everything got straightened out on the surface, we were given the go-ahead to drop down.  As I came down, I was able to adjust my weights and BCD so that I was almost balanced.  How nice!  And it gave me the opportunity to see the ray that I would have landed on.  Instead, I was able to get more up close and personal before he scooted off.  Going past one coral head, I spotted a small black and white spotted eel, maybe eight inches long.  It was the first eel I saw all week.  He was just darting into a small crack, so I really couldn't point him out to anyone.  Of course, Pepe found the big guy, a green moray eel about five feet long that was partially hidden under a ledge.  And another smaller one.  A lot of people saw the octopus swimming into a hole.  I didn't see him out, but Pepe's light into the hole showed an eye and a beak for a positive identification.  He also saw a small Toadfish.  The spelended toadfish is indigenous to Cozumel and is only found there.  I thin this was the only the fifth I've seen in my 87 dives.  I would guess they are a member of the catfish family, because they have a "beard", whiskers that come out of their chin.  The hand signal for them is to wiggle your fingers in front of your chin.   Of course, these are the highlights because you still see schools of fish swimming in formation that instantly spin as a group when they sense danger.  And parrot fish eating the coral, and box fish, and barracudas and all the other tiny to huge fish that you get to swim with.  

These are the come-back-next-year dives.  I wish we did more of them.  All I can say is that it was good to get back into the water again.  Being underwater is so comfortable to me.  I used to spent my summers as a kid in the pools at Pine Forest Country club when I was 3-10 and at the pool at the entrance to our subdivision in Spring Branch when I was older.  I had pretty good lung capacity and could swim the length of the pool underwater on one breath.  And I had no problems equalizing my ears swimming on the bottom at the deep end of the pool.  We used to dive for pennies and things on the bottom.

We ate dinner at Guido's, an Italian/Swiss restaurant that we ate at on Tuesday.  Dinner was very good again, but the Owner/Hostess wasn't there.  I wanted a picture of us in street clothes and looking happy, so I gave our waiter my camera to take a picture.  He set it up, took several, turned it to portrait and took several more.  It seemed a little excessive, but ok, I'm sure there was a good one.  But the waiter said, "I wanted several of you and your friends."  Friends?  I looked at the final picture and the table behind us were photobombing!  Check it out.

Three Wild and Crazy Guys!!!

Meet Miguel, Martha and (unfortunately, you can't see Martha's teenage daughter) Paulina

We talked to them and I was able to AirDrop the picture to Martha.  Miguel lives in Cozumel and Martha and Paulina were visiting from Monterrey.  What a gas!

And then, as we were walking down the main north-south street, Melgar, we walked passed the central square.  There was some partying going on and I wanted to see what was happening.  There was a big circle of people around several dance groups performing what looked like traditional dancing.  But as I looked around, I saw...

...a 15" Dobsonian telescope pointed at Mars.

The local astronomy club was hosting Noche de las Estrellas, the Night of the Stars.  It turns out that there is an observatory and a planetarium in Cozumel, apparently for the public.  They do a sidewalk viewing on a November/December weekend to commemorate the anniversary of Galileo's telescope.  Who Knew???