achu
Guest
Cozumel Paraiso Night Dive:
This night dive was just magical! We dropped to 40 feet at the middle portion of the main Paraiso Reef. We got to the bottom to find little to no current. Also, we had planned a late dive, so no one else was around. We had the reef all to ourselves!
First thing we see is a little octopus. Barely 5 inches across! How adorable!!! It just crawled around not noticing anyone (until the DM poked at it! Tsk tsk!!!). Then we were just slowly finning around the reef, looking at all the little banded shrimp, hermit crabs, star fish of all kinds crawling around the crevices of the coral and sponges.
I moved over to the sandy areas and found little crabs and clear "see through" shrimp crawling around all over the sand. We a stingray who tried to shuffle himself into the sand to hide from us. We examined the different types of hard coral and looked at the tentacles that are all over them at night. We heard croaking (or cooing?) the divemaster looked around under every crevice until he found it! A splendid toadfish singing away in his hole!!! What a cutie!!!
I shone my flashlight up into the darkness and saw glints of a massive schools of fish swiming above and all around us. THEN I came face to face with TWO BIG EYES and TEETH! Sigh, those barracuda really do give me the creeps!!! It was a HUGE barracuda just hovering above the reef formation.
We turned off our flashlight and saw the plankton twinkle like a trail of stars... Sigh, can I say it again? I love night dives!
So, it was a wonderful night dive, however, after I got on the boat my flashlight was no longer with me. DAMN... Where did that flashlight go??? I know I had it during my safety stop! AND it was on! Lesson learned: if you know your flashlight is on and you know it is somewhere down in the dive site, feel FREE to tell the boat captain to hold on for a sec while you go back and get it. I guess our captain was tired or busy, he just sped of. Boo hoo... So, if any of you find a princton tec 400 flashlight with a plastic clip (blue) and "pantara" written on the side of it at Paradise Reef, feel free to give me a call!
Achuuuuuuu!
This night dive was just magical! We dropped to 40 feet at the middle portion of the main Paraiso Reef. We got to the bottom to find little to no current. Also, we had planned a late dive, so no one else was around. We had the reef all to ourselves!
First thing we see is a little octopus. Barely 5 inches across! How adorable!!! It just crawled around not noticing anyone (until the DM poked at it! Tsk tsk!!!). Then we were just slowly finning around the reef, looking at all the little banded shrimp, hermit crabs, star fish of all kinds crawling around the crevices of the coral and sponges.
I moved over to the sandy areas and found little crabs and clear "see through" shrimp crawling around all over the sand. We a stingray who tried to shuffle himself into the sand to hide from us. We examined the different types of hard coral and looked at the tentacles that are all over them at night. We heard croaking (or cooing?) the divemaster looked around under every crevice until he found it! A splendid toadfish singing away in his hole!!! What a cutie!!!
I shone my flashlight up into the darkness and saw glints of a massive schools of fish swiming above and all around us. THEN I came face to face with TWO BIG EYES and TEETH! Sigh, those barracuda really do give me the creeps!!! It was a HUGE barracuda just hovering above the reef formation.
We turned off our flashlight and saw the plankton twinkle like a trail of stars... Sigh, can I say it again? I love night dives!
So, it was a wonderful night dive, however, after I got on the boat my flashlight was no longer with me. DAMN... Where did that flashlight go??? I know I had it during my safety stop! AND it was on! Lesson learned: if you know your flashlight is on and you know it is somewhere down in the dive site, feel FREE to tell the boat captain to hold on for a sec while you go back and get it. I guess our captain was tired or busy, he just sped of. Boo hoo... So, if any of you find a princton tec 400 flashlight with a plastic clip (blue) and "pantara" written on the side of it at Paradise Reef, feel free to give me a call!
Achuuuuuuu!