After starting my scuba certification in earnest at the beginning of 2012 and becoming a certified Open Water Diver in March I finally got to do my first real open water dives this past week in Cozumel!
It's very hard to describe the experience to anybody who isn't certified. Many people have snorkeled - and I used to snorkel a lot and enjoy it. You can see some great sights while snorkeling and I'm not knocking it. But there is a whole different feeling getting under the water and particularly getting relatively deep for the very first time.
Our first dive was at Palancar Caves and the thing I want to remember the most was that as soon as I was in the water I just couldn't fathom how clear it was and how far down I could see. As soon as I put my face in the water I was just blown away by the visibility. Our Divemaster Tony said that it was a calm and clear of a day as you'll ever see in Cozumel. The sea was basically flat and he estimated 120'+ visibility. So I'm in the water and I look down and I can see these massive coral heads and formations under me. The only way I can relate it is sometimes when you see photos from outer space say of the Space Shuttle and the Earth is behind it. The Shuttle looks tiny and the Earth looks stunning and heavenly in the background. That was what it felt like staring down into the water.
As we began to descend the other divers (there were 4 divers + the Divemaster) just looked so stark set off against the blue, blue water. I had more trouble than I expected going down the first time - just clearing my ears mainly. I'm guessing it took about 4-5 minutes to get down to 65'. We joined up and a gentle current began to sweep us along the formations. Very soon we were at our target bottom depth of 80' and clearly it would have been possible to go much, much deeper. I turned over and laid on my back and just stared up at the 8-stories of water above me clear as glass with these huge coral grouping on one side. I have truly never seen anything like it.
One thing I am really digging about diving is that once you get down there you stop thinking about EVERYTHING extraneous. I am still a new enough diver that I spend a fair amount of time thinking about buoyancy, trying to streamline, trying to concentrate on not burning through my air and also checking my gauges. But even all of that stuff becomes part of a more automated routine and I love the feeling of not thinking about work, about money, about music, about family or anything else for that matter. Just enjoying the scenery. Actually being flat out amazed by the scenery and the tranquility. That's definitely the best part.
I did use more air than anticipated getting to depth and then being so low cut into our bottom time as well. Still, I managed 32 minutes and only ended up about 8 minutes short of the more experienced divers. We spent an awesome surface interval on the beach having lunch and I asked the other divers to give me some honest feedback. To a person (including the Divermaster) they said that if I hadn't have told them they would have thought I was a totally experienced diver. It makes me happy to know that I took all the training dead serious and have been very thoughtful about approaching what can be a very safe "extreme" sport if done correctly.
More info on Palancar Caves here: http://reefsofcozumel.com/pages/reefs/palancarcaves.html#/discussion/6/palancar-cave-dive-information-and-reports
Our second dive was Dalila Reef which was a more shallow drift dive with a max depth of about 55' and then intervals up ending at about 25'. My air consumption improved dramatically (I think due to the practice of the first dive and obviously less depth and the intervals upwards). I actually did over 45 minutes on the second dive and we saw tons of great fish, turtles, a small shark and two really huge crabs.
I think the highlight for me at Dalila though was a huge Rainbow Parrotfish. I'm guessing it was at least 3 feet long!
I was wiped out later that day and I started to wonder if I would truly want to dive multiple times on one trip or if one great day would be enough. For now I was totally satisfied with one day. Time will tell if I start looking for multi-day trips in the future.
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