Cozumel dive trip, Post 3: Dive House and El Cedral

On Monday, April 25th (ANZAC Day), we dove with Dive House. This was a larger operation than Felipe's, with bigger boats and more people on them. Dive House was the company that Peter and Marissa had won their dives with, so the rest of us had booked three days with them so that we could all dive together. (As it turned out, Monday ended up being the only day we actually did dive together, due to various people feeling sick the next two days!)

After a buffet breakfast in the restaurant at Casa del Mar, we were picked up by the Dive House boat on the jetty across the road from the hotel. They took us to the Dive House jetty, where we paid up, got our rental equipment, and collected some more divers, and then we were off to our first dive site: Santa Rosa Wall. Here's a group photo taken on the boat...


Santa Rosa Wall was a drift dive, which means we were dropped off at one spot, borne along by the current while underwater, and picked up by the boat when we surfaced (who knows how far from our starting point!). There had been a strong drift during the last part of our final dive with Felipe, but Santa Rosa Wall was the real thing.

This was the first time I had dived where we couldn't see the ocean floor below us, which was a very awesome sensation! The reef is presumably called a "wall" because that's kind of what it's shaped like: the side of it sloped steeply down, disappearing into the murky depths below us with no sign of how deep it went (although something I read later said 200 feet).

After going through a couple of swim-throughs, our aim (as decided by the Divemaster, David, before we jumped off the boat) was to stay around 80 feet, drifting along beside the wall a little way down from the top of it. This was my deepest dive ever, getting down to 85 feet - and likewise for Ben, who got down to 105 feet for a minute or so.




Marissa and me...


I felt very distracted during much of this dive, as my buoyancy wasn't great. I was a bit too heavy, which meant I tended to drift down onto the coral instead of staying a few feet away. This was undesirable both for me and the coral! One of the Divemasters noticed this problem, and motioned for me to kneel in a flat spot so he could remove some of the weight from my belt. (Did I mention that the way you stay down while scuba diving is by having weights attached to you?!) So I started the dive with 12 pounds and ended it with 9 pounds.

This helped a lot, although I think the damage was already done. After the dive I had a series of what looked like mosquito bites (but stung rather more) on the inside of my right forearm: apparently it was a black coral sting.


Hanging out on the boat during our surface interval (Marissa's photos)...



During our surface interval, we shouted and waved enthusiastically to Felipe, who happened to have his boatload of divers at the same site as our second dive of the day: Tormentos Reef, another drift dive. I felt confident enough during this dive to take the camera for a while, so you'll see some photos of Ben for a change!


Spotted moray eel...


Divemaster with a school of fish...


Ben...





Queen angelfish...


At one stage during this dive, I started drifting upwards and was unable to stop myself, despite tugging wildly on my jacket release valve to empty out any air that may have been causing my unplanned ascent (which may have also been helped by the fact that I had only 7 pounds on my weight belt this time). Felipe happened to be nearby, noticed my issue, got the attention of our Divemaster, and headed over to help me himself!!

As you can imagine, this impressed us a greal deal - since we were diving with one of his competitors, after all - and that evening we carried through on our plan to book a night dive for later in the week... with Felipe, not Dive House!


This is a barracuda! I think it was after this dive that the others started telling stories about barracuda biting people's fingers/ hands off. Thankfully I didn't ignorantly wiggle my fingers in front of this bloke's nose!



During this dive, the Divemaster speared a couple of small lionfish and tried to feed them to a large fish. Lionfish are apparently a pest; it's not usual practice to kill the marine life during a dive!




Under Dive House's rules, we had to start ascending as soon as we or our dive buddy got down to 700 psi. Here are a few photos taken during our safety stop, including the view of the others still at the bottom, gathered around the Divemaster to see an interesting fish...





And here's a video compilation of a few clips Ben took during Monday's dives! It's a fairly accurate indication of what we hear while diving - our own breathing, lots of bubbles, and the occasional metallic "tap tap tap" of our Divemaster hitting his air tank to get our attention. The video does make it look a lot more blue than it did in real life though. That's me going through the swim-through in front of Ben from about 0:40 onwards. Enjoy!

Back on the boat, here's a picture of Ben's eye - this happened during a dive two days earlier, presumably from the pressure inside his mask. It didn't hurt and it cleared up after a few days, don't worry!


Once back at Casa del Mar, we still had an hour or two before the rental car needed to be returned, so all of us except Ben (who stayed behind to work on his assignment) jumped in the car and headed south to the El Cedral ruins. This was free to visit, which we were quite glad of when we saw it!

The "ruins" consisted of a single building - about the size of a kitchen - surrounded by souvenir stalls. We couldn't go inside the ruin, and didn't even see any signs telling us what is known about it! The surrounding shops were mostly empty... perhaps the vendors only show up when there's a cruise ship in town, or a tour scheduled?






There was a church right next to the ruin, with large flower arrangements lying on the floor and seats, and a few people milling about. We heard later that there was to be an annual party at the site a few days later, so I guess that's what they were preparing for.




Peter, Marissa, Liesl and Ken...



Before we left El Cedral, we indulged in some cold coconut juice. I enjoyed this a lot more than the room temperature version we'd tried a few days earlier! When we finished drinking, the seller split the coconuts open and loosened up the flesh for us to eat.








Back at the hotel, we headed to our favourite neighbourhod shop for a late lunch of $1.50 sopes, and then to OXXO for some ice cream...








That evening the other four did a night dive with Dive House at Chankanaab Reef. We stayed behind and took it easy, and I did some sisterly catching up on Skype. The others came back raving about how amazing their night dive was... which was the other thing that cemented our decision to book one for ourselves! We all hung out in Ken and Liesl's room for a while, wacthing videos from the day's dives and hearing all about the night dive, before turning in.

To be continued...

PS. Click here to see lots more photos from our Cozumel trip.