They came and picked me up at my hotel for the morning dive. The only equipment I need from them was a tank full of air and a weight belt. Now, diving in the northeast with 7mil suit, hood, boots and all that requires 34 lbs to get me to the bottom. What a surprise it was to find that, in the tropical relm, I needed only 12 POUNDS!!
The trip to the dive sight was fast; about 5 minutes. The boat stopped to drop off the deep divers who were doing "The Canyons" (80-100 feet). My destination was a group of reefs just north. Once the boat stopped, we all finished gearing up and dropped over the side.
The first incredible sight was the bottom of the ocean; 50 feet down. I pulled my dump valve to start the descent. After a couple of trips back up to relieve the ear squeeze, I made the bottom. Such a sight I have never before seen! I just kneeled on the bottom and looked all over. With at least 50 feet visibility, it was breathtaking.
This was to be a drift dive so all I had to do (with an occasional fin flutter for control) was to watch my bouyancy. The reefs were lateral groupings with sand areas inbetween. We would ride over one reef, move along the sand to the other, up over that one, and so on. Maintaining bouyancy was really no problem at all. Much easier than my Northeast aquasuit. There was much sea life; I really had a hard time budgeting my 36 exposures in my Reefmaster camera.
Very interesting sea life. Nothing very big. I think you have to go over to Cozumel for that. We did manage to see parrot fish, squirrel fish, a big spiny lobster, a turtle, and lots of interesting coral plants.
Equipment wise, the Reefmaster external strobe worked like a champ (it had leaked on my last NE dive @20 feet). Hats off to the people at SeaLife. I sent it in for repair and 3 weeks later I got a new one; free! Now there's a company that stands behind their product. My new Hyper Aqualand dive watch worked great except the sensitive ascent alarm was abit annoying.
Before I knew it, my tank was hitting the dreaded 500lb limit and it was time to head up. Everybody in my group did a fine job on air consumption. There were only a couple of divers who could afford to stay down for a few minutes longer. On the way to the surface, we did the 3 minute saftey stop at 15 feet. There was one diver who was obviously anxious about what she was doing but our dive master stayed right with her to make sure panic did not set in. After the saftey stop, we bobbed to the surface and waited for our ride back to the dive shop.
THE STATS:
Air Temp: 85 F
Weather: Pt. Cloudy; light wind
Sea Condition: Calm
Dive Time: 47 minutes
Max. Depth: 52 feet
Avg. Depth: 43 feet
Water Temp: 81'F
Dive Profile
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