part 1 PART 2 - The Kid`s Open Water Certification and some fun dives Monday, January 21st (2 dives: 0:51, 1:11) Everybody is happy that the weather turned around; we have a nice sunny day with little waves. It`s JP and Stephanie`s first open water dive and Louis` first ocean dive. We decided to start with Palancar Horse Shoe. This is one of my favorite and a great dive to start the week. JP, Steph and Nath dove with Alison for the kids first training dive while JF and Louis dove with Torro, a Marine Park Ranger that works as a divemaster with Alison. Stephanie got her reg knocked out by JP and she did not panic and simply put it back in... Louis and I saw 2 turtles, several barraccudas and a cross underwater. Everybody was thrilled. Nathalie was happy to be back in the water. I was so happy to share this time and diving adventure with my loved ones. We took several pics, but my favorite is the family one during the surface interval.
Columbia Shallow - we saw much less marine life than during our first dive, but it was still good. We saw a couple of turtles and a baby spotted moray that tried to scare us by showing her teeth.
Tuesday, January 22nd (2 dives: 1:12, 1:13) This morning, we were eight on the boat. Beside us, the Huard family, were Al from Philly, Paul from Long Island and Gary from New Brunswick, Canada. Paul is an author and regular in Cozumel. You can learn about him by visiting
Paul`s website. Al is also a regular who has been coming here for the last 10-15 years. Finally it`s Greg first time in Cozumel, but he`s here taking a 7 week break from the cold Canadian weather.... Lucky him!
Palancar Garden - We saw more turtles this morning and a large barracudda with sharp teeth. Nice drift dive among the canyon and tunels.
La Francesa - Lots of marine life: large green moray eel swimming in the open, saw a couple of turtles (one small and one large). The current was strong and for some reason, the water felt cold this morning...
Wednesday, January 23rd (2 dives: 0:56, 1:04) Today is our first fun dive.... the whole family is now certified. We decided to go back to Palancar reef, but this time at Palancar Caves. We saw a large green moray eel swimming, 3 turtles and many large groupers. Stephanie did a deep dive ~60ft. I went fishing JP a couple times down at 70ft.
It was an interesting dive... Nathalie forgot to put weights in her BCD weight pockets.... She only had 4 pounds, 2 in each the BC back pockets... Alison pull her down and tuck a 5 lbs on her tank. Safety stop was kind of awkard as Nathalie was head down holding Alison and myself. She was having a blast though and couldn`t stop laughing...
Our second dive was at Delila. We saw 3 sharks (one very, VERY large, followed by 7 large groupers), 2 barraccudas (one very large), 2 turtles, a small stingray, and plenty of other fish. Nathalie also found a stone fish and JP a toad fish, but I didn`t see those. Stephanie got to pet the back of a turtle in motion. This was a great dive with the kids. Louis has mastered his buoyancy control on this dive. I am very proud of him. I feel he will be a great buddy when we go to Utila, Honduras in March.
part 3