We arrived at Fiesta Americana just after 1:00 pm on Friday and were given a pleasantly surprising packet at the front desk when we got there. It was a short note from Joewr wishing us a good trip and it included a couple of photos of some reef fish and a stingray that he had taken just prior to our arriving. He and Barbara had left just two days before we arrived. It was a nice surprise. They didn't have our room ready yet and we were sheduled to go out on the afternoon boat that left at 1:30 pm. They showed us to a room where we could change and then stored our luggage until we came back from our dive. We quickly changed, ran across the street to the Dive House dive shop, filled out the paperwork and jumped on the boat, which was loaded and waiting on us. We barely made it in time.
Our first dive on Friday was at San Francisco reef. Francisco was the name of our DM and he was really good. He was vey friendly and attentive without being bossy or to protective. This was sort of a check out dive so he could evaluate our skills. On the following dives, he pretty much let us dive our computer so long as we didn't go below his max depth or stray too far away. There was a current, but it didn't seem too bad. Those drift dives are relaxing. You just drift along and enjoy. No muss no fuss and very little effort. There were 6 people on the boat. We saw some really big lobsters and crabs and of course lots of really cool and colorful fish. I had a little trouble getting down the first 15 feet. Francisco tugged on me a little until I guess my suit compressed and then I was ok. I added 2 lbs to my weight pouch for the rest of my dives and that solved the problem.
The second dive of the afternoon was at Chankanab. Very cool! we saw a green moray, one of those white eels with the black speckles, two huge crabs and the biggest lobster I have ever seen. That thing had to be over 2 ft long! There was a greater variety of coral here than there was in Belize. After we returned to the dock, we had just enough time to run across the street to the hotel, get our luggage, check in, and get our stuff into our room. Then it was time to head back over to the dive shop for first ever night dive.
Our night dive was at Paradise Reef. It was a very interesting experience. Our DM was named Pirate. There were about 8 or 9 people on this dive, a bit crowded for a night dive if you ask me. We "merged" with another dive group underwater which created a little confusion and added to the crowded feeling, but it wasn't really that big of a deal. We saw lots of huge lobsters, a few sea cucumbers, a really big orange starfish, and about a half dozen of those white eels with the black speckles. One of which, I assume, was a juvenile because he was only about 18" long and almost all white except for black spots that were much bigger and fewer in number than the speckles we saw on the others. The best thing we saw were the 2 octopii. One was about the size of my hand and the other was about 2 ft in diameter if you were to spread him out. They were a sort of glowing a pinkish purple color, and then as we would gather around them and shine the light on them, they would turn to a sort of reddish brown color. Cool!! After the dive we headed back to the room, rinsed our gear really good in the tub with warm water, got showered and dressed and headed out for dinner.
We went to Capi Navegante for dinner. We had conch ceviche for an appetizer, grouper fillets cooked with mushrooms and artichokes for our entree, and I also had a lobster tail. The food was muy delicioso!..and I had the best margarita I believe I have ever tasted!..Actually I had a couple of them. :boozer: We finished the meal with the bananas flambae. What a show that was!...and so tasty too. You could sell tickets for that.
The next day we did two morning dives and two afternoon dives. The first dive was at Palancar Caves. These wall dives are very cool! The Palancar Reef and the Santa Rosa Wall (which we dove the next day) reminded me very much of Belize. Palancar Caves had several swim throughs. Francisco was our DM on the two morning dives. I had my new reefmaster camera on the dives on Saturday. I used Kodak Royal Gold 100 asa. I bought the film before realizing that I probably should have gotten 200 asa...oh well.. we'll just have to cross our fingers and wait for the pictures to come back. It was pretty light down there so I'm hoping it works out ok. We saw lots of different corals including different fan corals, brain coral, and black corals and several of those yellow tube sponges and those huge bowl shaped sponges.
The second morning dive was called "The Wreck." This was a really cool dive. It's a new site, less than 2 years old so the coral is only beginning to grow on it. I was told it was a US Navy ship purchased by the Mexican government and sunk. It's hard to tell underwater, but it had to be over 200' long. There were two floors above the main deck that you could swim through. It was very well lit with sunlight and there were several escape routes through the large windows so you didn't need any lights or reels or anything. It consisted of a long hallway with rooms on each side. We would swim down the hallway and when we passed a door to a room and looked in, we would see bunches of silver fish about the size of the palm of my hand. I took some pictures. I hope they come out. Below the main deck it was dark and there weren't many openings like above, so we stayed out of that area. The ship rests upright on the sandy floor at about 80ft and the top of the crows nest is at about 40ft. It has lots of hallways and windows and railings to swim through and we saw a stingray in the distance. This site is very cool!
When we got back to the dock, I ran back to the room to change the roll of film in my camera and then we had a box lunch outside the dive shop. The lunch was provided by the hotel. $12 per box lunch...ouch!! This lunch and the breakfast on the day we flew home were the only times we ate at the hotel.
The first afternoon dive was at Palancar Gardens. Manuel and Jose were our DMs. They were both really good. There were 8 divers on this trip. This dive was more impressive than Palancar Caves. Lots of valleys in the coral to swim though. Manuel pointed out a big grouper and I swam under him, rolled onto my back and took a picture from underneath him. This whole area around Palancar really reminds me of Belize, but with a better variety of coral and fish, although we didn't see the numbers of larger fish like in Belize. Belize seemed to have larger grouper and more nurse sharks and stingrays, and they would come up close to you. I did notice that when I had my camera, I tended to burn my air more quickly. Between not concentrating on my breathing as much, and doing more inhaling and exhaling to position myself for different shots, there was a noticable increase in my air consumption.
Our 2nd afternoon dive was back at Sanfrancisco Reef. I did better with my air consumption on this dive because I left my camera on the boat due to the fact that I had already used up the film. I shot a whole roll of 36 exposure film on the previous dive and I could have shot another roll, too. That's how cool the diving is. After the last dive of the afternoon we took our gear back to the room and rinsed it good in the tub, showered and dressed, and went to dinner.
We had dinner at the French Quarter. Our appetizer was crab stuffed mushrooms, Kathleen's entree was shrimp and I had the all you can eat ribs and cerveza! The meal was excellent and Mike, the owner, was very friendly. He told us we had just missed Joewr by a couple of days..go figure.
Sunday morning we got up to do the two morning dives. Our first dive was at Santa Rosa Wall. This was my favorite dive of the whole trip. Very impressive. This was also the largest group we dove with. It had 11 divers and our DMs, Albino and Manuel. I liked them both. It didn't seem that crowded, though, because we were pretty spread out with one DM in front and one DM in back. We just drifted along. There were lots of coral swim throughs on this dive.. such an impressive dive site!
Our last dive of the trip was at Tormentos. I took the camera and shot off the rest of my film, but focused more on my air consumption instead of pictures. I wanted to savor this last dive. I did really well on consumption and we (along with the DMs) were with the last ones to come up. I know I'm doing good when I surface with the same amount of air as Kathleen. She doesn't burn the air as quickly as I do. These last two dives, I just cradled my camera bent my legs a little and tried to get into that "Zen Diver" mode that our DMs seemed to have, and it really conserved the air. It's so easy to just kick back, relax, and drift along on these dives...and I think I got some pretty good photos on this dive as well. There were so many different corals and colorful fish. I love this place!! I think I could dive this place forever, but we had to stop there to get in at least a 24 hour surface interval before our flight out.
Again, when we got back to the dock, we took our gear back to the room cleaned it really good, showered, dressed, and went to town for lunch with a retired gentleman and his daughter that we met on the boat. They were incredibly nice people. They are from Belton, Texas (near Temple) and he is the president of a dive club down there called Down Under Divers. I told him of the Scubaboard and the Texas Swampdivers. He invited us to come down and dive the quarry near Belton this Spring when the water warms up a little.
We had lunch at the Diamond DC Bakery. It was a nice little place and had great food. It struck me as a place where the locals ate. It was at the far end of town. After lunch we visited and walked around town a little. I picked up a couple of souvenirs. We walked around until dinner time and then went to Pancho's Backyard for fajitas and Margaritas. Again, the food was excellent. We then headed back to the hotel.
Monday morning we just had breakfast at the resort, said goodbye to the friends we made from Belton, packed, and headed back to the airport. We got in just about everything we wanted to do with the exception of stopping by to say hello to Achu and getting the bottle of Chilean wine that I wanted to pick up. Oh well... I guess we'll just have to go back...
Our first dive on Friday was at San Francisco reef. Francisco was the name of our DM and he was really good. He was vey friendly and attentive without being bossy or to protective. This was sort of a check out dive so he could evaluate our skills. On the following dives, he pretty much let us dive our computer so long as we didn't go below his max depth or stray too far away. There was a current, but it didn't seem too bad. Those drift dives are relaxing. You just drift along and enjoy. No muss no fuss and very little effort. There were 6 people on the boat. We saw some really big lobsters and crabs and of course lots of really cool and colorful fish. I had a little trouble getting down the first 15 feet. Francisco tugged on me a little until I guess my suit compressed and then I was ok. I added 2 lbs to my weight pouch for the rest of my dives and that solved the problem.
The second dive of the afternoon was at Chankanab. Very cool! we saw a green moray, one of those white eels with the black speckles, two huge crabs and the biggest lobster I have ever seen. That thing had to be over 2 ft long! There was a greater variety of coral here than there was in Belize. After we returned to the dock, we had just enough time to run across the street to the hotel, get our luggage, check in, and get our stuff into our room. Then it was time to head back over to the dive shop for first ever night dive.
Our night dive was at Paradise Reef. It was a very interesting experience. Our DM was named Pirate. There were about 8 or 9 people on this dive, a bit crowded for a night dive if you ask me. We "merged" with another dive group underwater which created a little confusion and added to the crowded feeling, but it wasn't really that big of a deal. We saw lots of huge lobsters, a few sea cucumbers, a really big orange starfish, and about a half dozen of those white eels with the black speckles. One of which, I assume, was a juvenile because he was only about 18" long and almost all white except for black spots that were much bigger and fewer in number than the speckles we saw on the others. The best thing we saw were the 2 octopii. One was about the size of my hand and the other was about 2 ft in diameter if you were to spread him out. They were a sort of glowing a pinkish purple color, and then as we would gather around them and shine the light on them, they would turn to a sort of reddish brown color. Cool!! After the dive we headed back to the room, rinsed our gear really good in the tub with warm water, got showered and dressed and headed out for dinner.
We went to Capi Navegante for dinner. We had conch ceviche for an appetizer, grouper fillets cooked with mushrooms and artichokes for our entree, and I also had a lobster tail. The food was muy delicioso!..and I had the best margarita I believe I have ever tasted!..Actually I had a couple of them. :boozer: We finished the meal with the bananas flambae. What a show that was!...and so tasty too. You could sell tickets for that.
The next day we did two morning dives and two afternoon dives. The first dive was at Palancar Caves. These wall dives are very cool! The Palancar Reef and the Santa Rosa Wall (which we dove the next day) reminded me very much of Belize. Palancar Caves had several swim throughs. Francisco was our DM on the two morning dives. I had my new reefmaster camera on the dives on Saturday. I used Kodak Royal Gold 100 asa. I bought the film before realizing that I probably should have gotten 200 asa...oh well.. we'll just have to cross our fingers and wait for the pictures to come back. It was pretty light down there so I'm hoping it works out ok. We saw lots of different corals including different fan corals, brain coral, and black corals and several of those yellow tube sponges and those huge bowl shaped sponges.
The second morning dive was called "The Wreck." This was a really cool dive. It's a new site, less than 2 years old so the coral is only beginning to grow on it. I was told it was a US Navy ship purchased by the Mexican government and sunk. It's hard to tell underwater, but it had to be over 200' long. There were two floors above the main deck that you could swim through. It was very well lit with sunlight and there were several escape routes through the large windows so you didn't need any lights or reels or anything. It consisted of a long hallway with rooms on each side. We would swim down the hallway and when we passed a door to a room and looked in, we would see bunches of silver fish about the size of the palm of my hand. I took some pictures. I hope they come out. Below the main deck it was dark and there weren't many openings like above, so we stayed out of that area. The ship rests upright on the sandy floor at about 80ft and the top of the crows nest is at about 40ft. It has lots of hallways and windows and railings to swim through and we saw a stingray in the distance. This site is very cool!
When we got back to the dock, I ran back to the room to change the roll of film in my camera and then we had a box lunch outside the dive shop. The lunch was provided by the hotel. $12 per box lunch...ouch!! This lunch and the breakfast on the day we flew home were the only times we ate at the hotel.
The first afternoon dive was at Palancar Gardens. Manuel and Jose were our DMs. They were both really good. There were 8 divers on this trip. This dive was more impressive than Palancar Caves. Lots of valleys in the coral to swim though. Manuel pointed out a big grouper and I swam under him, rolled onto my back and took a picture from underneath him. This whole area around Palancar really reminds me of Belize, but with a better variety of coral and fish, although we didn't see the numbers of larger fish like in Belize. Belize seemed to have larger grouper and more nurse sharks and stingrays, and they would come up close to you. I did notice that when I had my camera, I tended to burn my air more quickly. Between not concentrating on my breathing as much, and doing more inhaling and exhaling to position myself for different shots, there was a noticable increase in my air consumption.
Our 2nd afternoon dive was back at Sanfrancisco Reef. I did better with my air consumption on this dive because I left my camera on the boat due to the fact that I had already used up the film. I shot a whole roll of 36 exposure film on the previous dive and I could have shot another roll, too. That's how cool the diving is. After the last dive of the afternoon we took our gear back to the room and rinsed it good in the tub, showered and dressed, and went to dinner.
We had dinner at the French Quarter. Our appetizer was crab stuffed mushrooms, Kathleen's entree was shrimp and I had the all you can eat ribs and cerveza! The meal was excellent and Mike, the owner, was very friendly. He told us we had just missed Joewr by a couple of days..go figure.
Sunday morning we got up to do the two morning dives. Our first dive was at Santa Rosa Wall. This was my favorite dive of the whole trip. Very impressive. This was also the largest group we dove with. It had 11 divers and our DMs, Albino and Manuel. I liked them both. It didn't seem that crowded, though, because we were pretty spread out with one DM in front and one DM in back. We just drifted along. There were lots of coral swim throughs on this dive.. such an impressive dive site!
Our last dive of the trip was at Tormentos. I took the camera and shot off the rest of my film, but focused more on my air consumption instead of pictures. I wanted to savor this last dive. I did really well on consumption and we (along with the DMs) were with the last ones to come up. I know I'm doing good when I surface with the same amount of air as Kathleen. She doesn't burn the air as quickly as I do. These last two dives, I just cradled my camera bent my legs a little and tried to get into that "Zen Diver" mode that our DMs seemed to have, and it really conserved the air. It's so easy to just kick back, relax, and drift along on these dives...and I think I got some pretty good photos on this dive as well. There were so many different corals and colorful fish. I love this place!! I think I could dive this place forever, but we had to stop there to get in at least a 24 hour surface interval before our flight out.
Again, when we got back to the dock, we took our gear back to the room cleaned it really good, showered, dressed, and went to town for lunch with a retired gentleman and his daughter that we met on the boat. They were incredibly nice people. They are from Belton, Texas (near Temple) and he is the president of a dive club down there called Down Under Divers. I told him of the Scubaboard and the Texas Swampdivers. He invited us to come down and dive the quarry near Belton this Spring when the water warms up a little.
We had lunch at the Diamond DC Bakery. It was a nice little place and had great food. It struck me as a place where the locals ate. It was at the far end of town. After lunch we visited and walked around town a little. I picked up a couple of souvenirs. We walked around until dinner time and then went to Pancho's Backyard for fajitas and Margaritas. Again, the food was excellent. We then headed back to the hotel.
Monday morning we just had breakfast at the resort, said goodbye to the friends we made from Belton, packed, and headed back to the airport. We got in just about everything we wanted to do with the exception of stopping by to say hello to Achu and getting the bottle of Chilean wine that I wanted to pick up. Oh well... I guess we'll just have to go back...
