Then this morning I woke up sick. Once I got back from breakfast (only could stomach a little bit of an orange smoothie) I checked my temp. It was almost 101. Within a number of hours it was back down to normal though. I still feel pretty awful, so maybe it's not so bad we can't go diving right now.
Supposedly it may rain tomorrow, then that could help things. Maybe we'll get to dive Friday.
-Miranda
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Yesterday morning we had a scheduled dive at 9am. It was two dives with an hour between. The first spot was called Palancar Caves. The formations there were pretty neat. We went through some archways and through a cave where we saw a couple King Crabs. The second dive was more for seeing marine life as opposed to as much coral and other formations. We did see a couple Nurse Sharks. One had to be around 2 meters long. Another dive master just happened to be coming with a group. He had a camera and took some photos. I gave him my email. Hopefully he'll send me a few, but who knows.
The rest of the day was mostly spent relaxing. Joe keeps getting burnt no matter how careful he is, so he's pretty warn out by the afternoon. He's doing a bit better getting down for diving, but it still takes him awhile and he has some blood in his mask everytime after the dive. The dive masters have said that's normal, or not bad anyway.
This morning, we woke up at our 'normal' 7am. We decided another dive today would be fun, so he popped over to the dive shop to see if there was still room on a boat this morning. There was, so we went for another 2 dives this morning. They were relatively uneventful. It was gorgeous, but not as much for neat formations. We did see a number of Hawksbill Turtles and even a small octopus.
We were hoping to go on another dive tomorrow morning, but they're pretty full already. Two of the guys we dove with went on the Twilight and Night dive the previous night and said it was amazing. So, since the morning dive was full we decided we would give a night dive a try again.
-Miranda
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Bus to Playa del carmen, Quick and nice. Found a nice lunch place next to a forested area, the cafe had nicely built around some large tree trunks, so that they could continue growing above the roof. Miranda spotted an unknown large rodent of some kind.. grackles wandering around.
Ferry to Cozumel was fast and easy, $13 each. Cozumel has been a little less "Annoying" than Cancun. We struggle every meal to find something More to eat than greasy Cheesy stuff, but will survive
There are several Giant 12 story cruise ships that stop by and dock here each day.. . . that's a bit much. ..
We stayed our fist night $35 at hostelito, it was adaquate, but wifi was weak, no filtered water, and no breakfast. So, we've now moved to a economic hotel Hotel Plaza Cozumel ~$50/night where we get solid wifi/water refills/ and a good solid healthy breakfast buffet.
We went scuba diving today, 2 dives. I paid for a dedicated Dive master so I could take my time with my ears. I managed to get down but it took longer than I hoped. Both times surfacing I also had bloody noses.. and I'm still recovering from head-pressure pains several hours later, so we'll take tomorrow off diving. Hopefully It gets better again.
-Joe
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In the morning we got up and headed out for a dive. The goal was Manta Point and Crystal Bay if the conditions were good. We got to Crystal Bay and went in. There were fish everywhere. The water was pretty chilly, but it was still pretty neat. We were looking for Mula Mula (Sunfish) which are huge and apparently hang out in that area. We didn't get to see any. :( Oh well.
Next we headed to Manta Point. They spotted mantas from the boat, so we hopped in. It was very cool. We weren't in very deep water, so we could have brought the camera, but we didn't know that before going in. Oh well. We saw around 6 manta rays. Two were almost completely black. It turned out to be a great last dive.
The rest of the day was mostly spent relaxing. We had yummy pizza at a restaurant near our place. It was cracker thin crust. They even had popcorn as an appetizer. :D Right before our pizza came out the power went out. We got to eat in the dark, well, to candle light. Very fun.
Today we head to Kuta, which is near the airport so we can fly to Bangkok tomorrow.
-Miranda
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We decided to head to the Gili Islands to check them out. Sandra had heard a lot of good things about them. There are three. The 'main' one is Gili Trawangan. We took the boat over in the afternoon and found a place to stay at Bubble Dive. There are no cars or motor vehicles here. Transport is by walking, bicycle or covered pony carts. While here, Joe and I decided to get our Advanced Water certification. It just consists of doing 5 dives, so pretty easy.
The day after we arrived, Joe and I did our first deep dive down to 30 meters. It was also a drift dive, meaning the dive is in a strong current. It was pretty nuts. I was busy watching Joe since he takes a bit longer to get down (especially on his first dive), then I looked at the bottom and realize I was zipping along! I had to watch where I was going or possibly run into some coral.
The first dive went well. To complete it in two days, we decided to do a night dive. A few of the things you are supposed to avoid during a night dive is strong currents, high surge and surf and diving in an area that has things you can get entangled in. This area had both strong current (not as strong as the afternoon dive, but still a significant current) and we were dodging boat anchor lines... It was super creepy. I would be watching for Joe to come down, then look over and see a rope coming at me that I had to dodge. Once we were down, it wasn't too bad. There were also cages that were built down there that have a current running through them in order to help the coral grow faster. We had to dodge those as well, but the really neat fish were under those. We even saw an octopus! We watched it hunting. I think we both could enjoy night dives, but that one was pretty freaky.
The next morning we dove off the shore. On our way back in, the jellyfish were everywhere. They just feel like pinpricks. They're not dangerous, just annoying. The next dive was at Shark Point. We went down to 30m, saw some turtles and 4 White Tipped Reef Sharks. The last dive was a pretty easy one. We were pretty tired after two days of diving.
Sandra met up with a friend of hers from Switzerland while we were diving. She had enjoyed being able to take a break from speaking English all the time. She and her friend even rented bikes and went around the island. One cute thing is they have a turtle sanctuary. It's basically three large tanks with a bunch of baby turtles in them. They keep the turtles for a year, allowing them to get bigger, before releasing them to help up their chances of survival.
Saturday we went on a snorkel trip around the three Gili Islands. It was neat and fun, though the small boat was a bit crowded. We felt a bit naked in the water after doing all that diving.
The internet hasn't been great, hence the lack of updates. Hopefully it will get better later.
-Miranda
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