So, now that I was certified, its time to get some real dives in. My girlfriend and I went on a western carribean cruise out of Galveston, TX. Getting there through the heavy rains and flooding was scary, but we made it. I thought she was going to lose it when the Celine Dion`s Titanic theme came on the radio, but that was the worst part of the trip. The first stop the ship made was in Costa Maya. Rather than dive, we did a dolphin swim with dolphino. It exceeded our expecations. they really care for the animals and it showed. The ratio of people to dolphins wasn`t nearly as bad as I have seen. The next stop was at Roatan, Honduras. I did two dives with Anthony`s Key resort. These were my first real dives, and I was fortunate enough to hook up on the ship with Mike. He was an experienced diver from SF. He helped me through the dives, which in some ways were a challenge with 28 divers and 3 masters. Saw a sea cucumber and had a grouper following me looking for a handout. First dive was a wall dive, the 2nd a drift dive. Then it was off to Belize. But rather than diving, we did a zip line tour through the jungle. The drive out of belize city was long and rough (90 minutes), but it was worth it, as we were flying through the trees. Lots of fun. Our last stop was in Cozumel. Dove with Dive House. These were drift dives. Much smaller groups this time, about 8 divers. First dive was in Santa Rita which had lots of swim throughs. The 2nd dive was in Torrementos where we saw a ray, shark, barracuda and I got up close with sea turtle. Dolphins followed us out jumping on the wake of the boat. It was a fantastic day. Diving off a cruise ship is pretty cool in that you get to hit a number of different places in a short period of time. But they are definite samplers and you can have large groups and as such can create problems. We will do more of these in the future though as the overall cruise experience is fantastic.