I just spent 10 days in Playa del Carmen, and while I was less than happy with the town, (not crazy about carnivals), I enjoyed my diving very much indeed.
Being a multitasker at heart, (cheap too), I maximized he return on my dive dollars by taking the AOW course with Tank Ha. I arrived on Friday, got the paperwork sorted out on Saturday, then did my first dives Sunday, Drift dive, and Peak perf Buoyancy.
I had never scuba'd in current before, though as a young foolish teenager I did some freediving in some rapids in a river off Georgian Bay. What a hoot to drop down and let the current do the work! The Tortugas reef was about 65' and as we drifted by I saw about a dozen turtles, (surprise, surprise!), a green moray, a nurse shark snoozing under a ledge and quite a few fish. There was nothing too exciting about the bottom. As a matter of fact I was a little disappointed with the coral colours.
The trick with the buoyancy instruction dive was to find a spot sheltered from the current on the Sabalos reef. I was able to satisfy Steve that I had good buoyancy control, could pirouette upside down around my finger poked in the sand, and stopped waving my hands around .as much
, so we ascended a few feet, caught the current and swooped along over the coral. He took me down over the side to the sand a few times, ostensibly to check out overhangs, but I think he was testing my improved skills.
Monday was to be the deep dive and the navigation dive, but heavy surf closed the harbour. Cenote diving was an option, so off I went to Chac Mool with dive master William and Yves, a surgeon from Quebec, who was to be my buddy. I hadn't been entirely convinced about cenotes, since it looked like cave diving, and possibly pretty spooky. WRONG! It was beautiful. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to go down there alone, but I was awestruck. The water was so clear; you could forget you were under water. There were beautiful rock formations, colours from the light coming down through the holes. The weird change when you dropped down into the salt water levels and your vision went "funny". I thought there was something wrong with my mask or my eyes for a moment. Muy estupendo!
We had an incident just before the second dive. An older fellow, about my age, hurt himself climbing up out of the entrance, ( it can be a bit strenuous for us old farts ), but having a doctor with us helped and the injuries weren't serious, just a little bloody.
My improved buoyancy skills served me very well indeed on these dives.
The next day we went out to Moc Che deep for my deep dive where I was able to count my fingers ten times to Steve's satisfaction. Otherwise quite uneventful, no narcing, a relaxing time at the safety stop sucking air from the spare tank hung there. Not as much too see down there, but ok.
I was so pleased with my navigation dive, especially after a lackluster performance doing the land exercises. After having no problems with compass work out on the sand, we did the natural navigation exercise, where Steve took me off on a trip over to the reef, wandered along up current for a while then had me cover my mask while he played sillybuggers, twisting me every which way but loose. He tapped me to uncover, and when my eyes stopped rolling around I was supposed to retrace our path. Not terribly difficult, but the best part was striking out across the featureless sand, with good quartering current, and nailing the marker dead on, no compass, or anything! I don't know who was more surprised, he or me.
Thursday was to be a night dive, but they needed 4 divers and it wasn't to be. Friday was a travel day, and no one was interested in night diving on Saturday, so I went to Coz, supposedly to do a night shore dive I had arranged with Studio Blue. I arrived at the Studio Blue office and nobody knows nuttin' about nuttin'. After a few choice words to the hapless clerk about being unprofessional I stomped off with wifey and friends to go on a glass bottom boat tour/snorkel trip. Enjoyable, but man, Coz is a mess!!
My last chance to dive was Sunday since we were flying out Monday, so I opted for the Underwater Naturalist dive, no real skills I needed here, but there wasn't anything better available in the time left. I took 2 dives, one back at the Tortugas reef and one on the Barracuda reef. These turned out to be excellent. More turtles than you could shake a stick at plus lots and lots of fish. The best was Barracuda reef, where the bottom was really pretty with all kinds of fish, including a couple of scorpion fish I never would have spotted without Steve's help. I even saw a few barracuda. Best of all I had told the videographer that I wanted a video, so he made sure I was in some of the footage and I brought back a DVD full of memories.
I was very pleased with the way Tank Ha took care of my needs, in spite of not getting the night dive I wanted. Steve was very patient, even when I lost the screw out of his reel while trying to untangle it. (guess who tangled it)
The less said about Studio Blue the better. They were very difficult to contact, and I should have known when I was on the phone with these people, that they were flaky.
Playa del Carmen...great if you are a party person who doesn't mind very aggressive sales people everywhere. I found it unpleasant to walk down 5th ave to the dive shop every day, being harrassed by every shop owner on the 3/4 mile walk. Thank goodness our hotel was up at the North end out of the worst of it.
There! That's the end of my long missive. I have lots of stories from the trip, but the rest have nothing to do with diving.
I hope this was helpful if not entertaining.
James
Being a multitasker at heart, (cheap too), I maximized he return on my dive dollars by taking the AOW course with Tank Ha. I arrived on Friday, got the paperwork sorted out on Saturday, then did my first dives Sunday, Drift dive, and Peak perf Buoyancy.
I had never scuba'd in current before, though as a young foolish teenager I did some freediving in some rapids in a river off Georgian Bay. What a hoot to drop down and let the current do the work! The Tortugas reef was about 65' and as we drifted by I saw about a dozen turtles, (surprise, surprise!), a green moray, a nurse shark snoozing under a ledge and quite a few fish. There was nothing too exciting about the bottom. As a matter of fact I was a little disappointed with the coral colours.
The trick with the buoyancy instruction dive was to find a spot sheltered from the current on the Sabalos reef. I was able to satisfy Steve that I had good buoyancy control, could pirouette upside down around my finger poked in the sand, and stopped waving my hands around .as much
, so we ascended a few feet, caught the current and swooped along over the coral. He took me down over the side to the sand a few times, ostensibly to check out overhangs, but I think he was testing my improved skills.Monday was to be the deep dive and the navigation dive, but heavy surf closed the harbour. Cenote diving was an option, so off I went to Chac Mool with dive master William and Yves, a surgeon from Quebec, who was to be my buddy. I hadn't been entirely convinced about cenotes, since it looked like cave diving, and possibly pretty spooky. WRONG! It was beautiful. I'm not sure I'd have wanted to go down there alone, but I was awestruck. The water was so clear; you could forget you were under water. There were beautiful rock formations, colours from the light coming down through the holes. The weird change when you dropped down into the salt water levels and your vision went "funny". I thought there was something wrong with my mask or my eyes for a moment. Muy estupendo!
We had an incident just before the second dive. An older fellow, about my age, hurt himself climbing up out of the entrance, ( it can be a bit strenuous for us old farts ), but having a doctor with us helped and the injuries weren't serious, just a little bloody.
My improved buoyancy skills served me very well indeed on these dives.
The next day we went out to Moc Che deep for my deep dive where I was able to count my fingers ten times to Steve's satisfaction. Otherwise quite uneventful, no narcing, a relaxing time at the safety stop sucking air from the spare tank hung there. Not as much too see down there, but ok.
I was so pleased with my navigation dive, especially after a lackluster performance doing the land exercises. After having no problems with compass work out on the sand, we did the natural navigation exercise, where Steve took me off on a trip over to the reef, wandered along up current for a while then had me cover my mask while he played sillybuggers, twisting me every which way but loose. He tapped me to uncover, and when my eyes stopped rolling around I was supposed to retrace our path. Not terribly difficult, but the best part was striking out across the featureless sand, with good quartering current, and nailing the marker dead on, no compass, or anything! I don't know who was more surprised, he or me.
Thursday was to be a night dive, but they needed 4 divers and it wasn't to be. Friday was a travel day, and no one was interested in night diving on Saturday, so I went to Coz, supposedly to do a night shore dive I had arranged with Studio Blue. I arrived at the Studio Blue office and nobody knows nuttin' about nuttin'. After a few choice words to the hapless clerk about being unprofessional I stomped off with wifey and friends to go on a glass bottom boat tour/snorkel trip. Enjoyable, but man, Coz is a mess!!
My last chance to dive was Sunday since we were flying out Monday, so I opted for the Underwater Naturalist dive, no real skills I needed here, but there wasn't anything better available in the time left. I took 2 dives, one back at the Tortugas reef and one on the Barracuda reef. These turned out to be excellent. More turtles than you could shake a stick at plus lots and lots of fish. The best was Barracuda reef, where the bottom was really pretty with all kinds of fish, including a couple of scorpion fish I never would have spotted without Steve's help. I even saw a few barracuda. Best of all I had told the videographer that I wanted a video, so he made sure I was in some of the footage and I brought back a DVD full of memories.
I was very pleased with the way Tank Ha took care of my needs, in spite of not getting the night dive I wanted. Steve was very patient, even when I lost the screw out of his reel while trying to untangle it. (guess who tangled it)
The less said about Studio Blue the better. They were very difficult to contact, and I should have known when I was on the phone with these people, that they were flaky.
Playa del Carmen...great if you are a party person who doesn't mind very aggressive sales people everywhere. I found it unpleasant to walk down 5th ave to the dive shop every day, being harrassed by every shop owner on the 3/4 mile walk. Thank goodness our hotel was up at the North end out of the worst of it.
There! That's the end of my long missive. I have lots of stories from the trip, but the rest have nothing to do with diving.
I hope this was helpful if not entertaining.
James
