We had friends come down to Cozumel over the Christmas week with family. My friend and his daughter, who were certified earlier this year in Cozumel, dove 3 days. They chose to do a refresher at the beginning and then were fine after that. We did get them to take off their snorkels and have their family stop calling fins, flippers. Their buoyancy and trim are getting better.
We dove southern sites. There were a lot of boats out especially around the Palancars which we only dove Horseshoe one day.
We were diving with Raul Platas of Bottom Time Divers.
Christmas Eve day was a bit cold as some colder weather was leaving. The 24th was warmer and the 26th had some wind kicking up spray on the boat ride.
Water temps were mostly 79-80 F on the last days but the first day had a min of 75F and max 80F. We did notice some cold spots which we attributed to fresh water coming in on the first day. Cold boat rides.
Visibility was not great the second day and made for a lot of backscatter. Unfortunately that day I had a wide angle lens but switched to a 12-50mm on my 4/3 camera the last day. Close photos with the wide angle were good. I was trying out some close focus wide angle but know I need to work on exposures, strobe power and positioning to be better with it.
We saw the usual suspects diving. We saw only single eagle rays and by report they were not schooling in the north. If they had we probably would not have dived there due to newer divers. We saw quite a lot of fresh broken shells on the reefs as evidence something large was eating them, presumably eagle rays.
We did see octopus out during the day and the photo of the two was unusual as there were two but one fully out. We did see quite a few green moray eels and quite few turtles including what we think was a large loggerhead in the distance. All other turtles were hawksbill.
Quite a few nurse sharks both swimming and under ledges.
I did not see any drums this time.
I did get nipped a few times by blue sergeant majors (male) near reefs and for whatever reason the chubs were schooling under the boat when we came up on a few occasions and two of them decided to bite my shins.
Due to high season we had a lot of large groups of divers pass through our group during dives. We tried to pick sites we thought would have less divers hence the Tunich and Cedral walls but Cedral pass had so many that so much sand was stirred up it caused poor vis and so much backscatter that at times I gave up trying to get photos.
We did find one separated diver from another group higher in the water column but for the life of us, we could not decipher his hand signals. We checked his air and computer and he seemed ok with no complaints. Probably lost but Raul said he thought he saw him earlier having ear problems. We are not sure why his group was not looking for him. After a bit, he surfaced as we watched.
A few photos from the week.
We dove southern sites. There were a lot of boats out especially around the Palancars which we only dove Horseshoe one day.
We were diving with Raul Platas of Bottom Time Divers.
Christmas Eve day was a bit cold as some colder weather was leaving. The 24th was warmer and the 26th had some wind kicking up spray on the boat ride.
Water temps were mostly 79-80 F on the last days but the first day had a min of 75F and max 80F. We did notice some cold spots which we attributed to fresh water coming in on the first day. Cold boat rides.
Visibility was not great the second day and made for a lot of backscatter. Unfortunately that day I had a wide angle lens but switched to a 12-50mm on my 4/3 camera the last day. Close photos with the wide angle were good. I was trying out some close focus wide angle but know I need to work on exposures, strobe power and positioning to be better with it.
We saw the usual suspects diving. We saw only single eagle rays and by report they were not schooling in the north. If they had we probably would not have dived there due to newer divers. We saw quite a lot of fresh broken shells on the reefs as evidence something large was eating them, presumably eagle rays.
We did see octopus out during the day and the photo of the two was unusual as there were two but one fully out. We did see quite a few green moray eels and quite few turtles including what we think was a large loggerhead in the distance. All other turtles were hawksbill.
Quite a few nurse sharks both swimming and under ledges.
I did not see any drums this time.
I did get nipped a few times by blue sergeant majors (male) near reefs and for whatever reason the chubs were schooling under the boat when we came up on a few occasions and two of them decided to bite my shins.
Due to high season we had a lot of large groups of divers pass through our group during dives. We tried to pick sites we thought would have less divers hence the Tunich and Cedral walls but Cedral pass had so many that so much sand was stirred up it caused poor vis and so much backscatter that at times I gave up trying to get photos.
We did find one separated diver from another group higher in the water column but for the life of us, we could not decipher his hand signals. We checked his air and computer and he seemed ok with no complaints. Probably lost but Raul said he thought he saw him earlier having ear problems. We are not sure why his group was not looking for him. After a bit, he surfaced as we watched.
A few photos from the week.
