part 1,
part 2 PART 3 - The Kid`s Advanced Open Water Certification Thursday, January 24th (3 dives: 0:54, 1:06, 1:01) Xicotencatl (USS C-53) mine sweeper wreck. This was Stephanie and JP`s first adventure dive for their Advanced Open Water certification. The wreck is 180ft long and sits at about 75ft at the bottom. It was `deja vu` for Nathalie and I as we visited it back in October. Our thrill was to see the excitment in the kids eyes. We saw many spider crabs, star fish, large groupers and school of jacks.
Paradise - seahorse (mommy, daddy, baby) This was an exciting dive. Last time Nathalie was here, we spent about 60 mins searching for the sea horses. This time around, Alison brought us right to the ranch... The adults were about 4in tall and the male was pregnant. Nathalie was looking at a small yellowtail stingray when she found the baby (about 1 in tall). Stephanie and JP did an underwater naturalist training dive. They had to identify 5 vertebrates, 3 invertebrates and 2 plants.
Paradise night - Alison opted for Paradise as we should go somewhere familiar to reduce the stress for the kids` first night dive. We did not see as many creatures as I did in previous night dives (at Chankanaab), but it was really neat to see the kids work as a buddy team. We saw a couple of octopi, many lobsters, crabs and sea cucumbers. We stopped for a few minutes, hiding our lights to see the fluorescence from the plankton. That was really cool. The kids did an underwater night navigation without light. It was JP`s longest dive to date: 61 mins... I guess he couldn`t see too far and was not swimming to catch the fish on camera...
Friday, January 25th (2 dives: 0:50, 1:10) We dove on the Maximus with Al, Guy and Martine, two fellow French Canadians.
This morning we`re going deep. We`ve decided to go to Columbia deep so the kids can do their deep training dive. A few minutes into the water, we saw a large spotted eagle ray at a distance. I went with JP and Louis at 90ft for JP`s first deep dive. We did a math problem to compare how narcosis affects their intellectual and reflex abilities. Well, it took Stephanie 90 sec on the boat and 25 secs down below... Louis took about the same and JP took a little longer at depth. We saw 3 turtles and 2 other eagle spotted rays. As some of the divers started to ascend for their safety stop, we took a few pictures with a large anchor and bricks from a ship that sunk in the 18th century (the wooden boat was long gone). Saw also a couple of southern stingray.
Cedral Wall is like Alison`s backyard garden. We had a nice drift dive where we saw 3 hawksbill sea turtles, one of which was huge.... We also saw a shark, sea cucumber rolling away, octopus, and lots of beautiful marine life along the wall. Alison got a large green moray to get out of her hole and patted her while she swam away... The kids did an underwater navigation training dive as fifth adventure dive toward their advanced.
Saturday, January 26th (2 dives: 1:02, 1:12) This is our last day.... I asked Alison for two different reefs this morning. Our first dive was on Santa Rosa Wall where we saw a large manta ray, a couple of spotted eagle rays swimming together, lobsters and a lesser electric ray. Stephanie practiced her buoyancy skills to complete her sixth training dive and obtain her NAUI Advanced Open Water certification.
Our last dive was at Chankanaab. This was a nice shallow drift dive. Chankanaab is an interesting reef with many islands each with different corals, fish and sponges. We saw two large spotted eagle ray swimming towards us and a huge shark.
Sunday, January 27th It`s time to go back home... During this trip, we did 13 boat dives (13h42 bottom time, seven dives were deep; one below 100ft). The kids got to do 13 wonderful ocean dives and JP and Stephanie completed their advanced open water certification. As for me, I spent the most wonderful family vacation ever. I also managed to log 13 dives, which brings me to a total of 86 logged dives in the last 6 months. Bye bye Cozumel! Thank you Carlos for watching us from above. Thank you Alison for hosting us and being our underwater guide.