Diving yesterday was awesome. But of course it was.
For the first dive we hit the Bricks again. This is the place I had seen a juvenile reef shark swimming below us on the safety stop last week. Well Palancar was about to one-up itself. After doing a few swimthroughs we came out to the cliff edge and Holy Smokin' Toledo's, there were NINE juvenile black tip reef sharks swimming around us. They came WAY closer than the ones I had seen in the Gardens the other day, and it just felt like a swarm of them. As we were enjoying the show, a green turtle came along and swam through the whole mess of us, sharks and all! It was GLORIOUS. I haven't had a wildlife-sighting high like that in a really long time.
As we were enjoying the end of the shark parade, another group of divers came up and who should it be - Sergio leading a group of Aldora divers, several of which I'd dived with a few days ago. I think he recognized me, and we waved at each other. Fun! We'd had our time with the sharks so we left them to enjoy the next viewing.
For the second dive of the morning Martin chose Paso del Cedral, and it turned out to be an excellent choice. The pass was teeming with cool stuff for us this time. A grand total of 3 nurse sharks appeared throughout the dive, two of them swimming around freely, and one of those gave us a super close pass through a small coral canyon. It's always epic when you get one that isn't afraid to come up to you.
A couple of turtles graced us with their presence throughout the dive, which is always pleasant. We did not see Mr. T this time (the huge loggerhead that lives around here) but I'd seen him last week so that's ok. We bagged another rockfish sighting, and Martin even found a pulpo snoozing away in a hole in the ground while teeny little hermit crabs walked around in the hole with him.
A little later we saw a pretty large hermit crab in a conch shell digging himself a hole to China on the sandy bottom, which was neat to watch for a little while. Just past him there was a goby also digging himself a new home! He was not shy either. Even with three divers hanging around his little hole, masks inches away from him, he kept popping out and barfing up some sand before giving us a little stink-eye and going back down to do it all again. We watched the construction for a minute and then left him to his work. The rest of the dive was uneventful save for a couple of southern stingrays we spotted right near the end.
Today's diving started at what Martin called Columbia Pinnacles. I don't have that name in my logbook so, hey, new site!
Only three of us made it down to 50 feet because the fourth diver's quick connect line on their regulator detonated itself at 40 feet, and the air started going fast! That was a fun little emergency but the diver and Martin both handled it perfectly, and they did an air sharing ascent and got her back on the boat.
I can't say there was anything too memorable on the rest of this dive other than a very large green moray we found napping under a ledge towards the end. But the formations were awe inspiring and swimthroughs were fun as always. Martin doesn't like swimthroughs as much as Sergio (thank god) but he does like TIGHT swimthroughs. I swear he's just picking smaller and smaller ones until one of us gets stuck. I take it as a compliment that he feels we're all good enough to get through them without beating the crap out of the walls. And it IS really nice to dive with a solid group. The practice at this tight maneuvering is helping me become a better diver, too.
Captain Carlos got the other diver's equipment fixed while the rest of us were sucking up nitrogen, and she was able to join us for the second dive, yay! It turned out to be a faulty or possibly improperly sized o-ring. He replaced it and she was good to go. We suited up and dropped into Cedral Mountains.
This is not my favorite dive because there are a lot of depth changes as you go up, over, and down the rolling hills of coral. My ears are not the greatest so I have to treat the mountains the same as I would on foot and do switchbacks to ease the depth changes! But the Mountains were kind to us today with a slow current and some very nice sightings. We saw two nurse sharks, one of which was absolutely massive. I know I can't trust my eyes underwater, but I swear it was 7 or 8 feet long. Unfortunately we came upon it right after my computer started screaming at me because I had been flirting with the deco limit, so I had to enjoy the sight floating by at 30 feet while everyone else got a great view down at 55 or so.
We also bagged three turtle sightings throughout the dive, and the biggest parrotfish I can remember seeing. That mad lad was a deep red with blue accents, and looked like he'd recently eaten a small minivan. He was chomping away at the coral with a ferocity that would have gotten me an OSHA violation if I'd swam any closer. Just past him was another parrotfish (I think) but with an unusual color scheme - he was almost completely midnight blue, with a few teal accents. It was a beautiful combination that I don't think I've ever seen before. He had the same body shape as a parrotfish, but I could be wrong. I just know he was beautiful and I enjoyed watching him graze after his big brother.
That's it for the dive reports, I'm all caught up. Hope you enjoyed!
Quick edit: I saw my first trumpetfish this trip (not counting my from-the-pier sighting) on the second dive today. He wasn't very big, maybe 6-8 inches long, but he was there, hanging out in some soft corals. Huzzah!
