Let’s get a couple of things
straight right now. Since being elected Communications Director for my dive
club Bay Area Divers, I’ve been
writing a blog for the club as well as maintaining this personal blog. The only
minor issue is that I write the BAD blog under my own account name, so it will
appear alongside my personal essays. What I want to get straight is that I’m
not going senile (at least not yet). Yes, those who read both blogs will see
similar material, but I’m repeating some things here because not everyone reads
the BAD blog. So, I’m repeating myself for a reason.
I knew back in 2012 that 2013
would be a good diving year for Cindy and me. Due to the way we like to plan in
advance, I could see how, if everything worked out, we would be doing some way
cool diving. Now, I’m sure some of y’all are thinking: “What about 2012? Why
wasn’t that a great diving year?” Good question….
We didn't do much diving in 2012. I think perhaps this had to do with
taking an Alaskan cruise in May and having a new house built. First of
all, I’m not interested in cold water diving, so that ruled out any diving in
Juneau, Sitka or Ketchikan. With our house being built, all of our extra time
went into that. So yes, we dove a little in 2012, but nothing of real significance. I did manage to squeeze in a first,
though. I did my first night dive at Athens Scuba Park in May.
Our 2013 diving started off with
a bang for us. We were originally booked on the Carnival Triumph for a 5 day
cruise to Cozumel and Progresso in April. We booked a two tank dive in Cozumel
with our favorite dive op Alison. In
February, the Triumph had that engine
room fire, which caused our cruise, and many others, to be cancelled.
Fortunately, we were able to rebook on the Carnival Magic for almost the same
time period. This was a 7 day cruise, though, and with the itinerary now being Grand
Cayman, Cozumel and Montego Bay (Jamaica), we now had two places to dive! Due
to the way the scheduling worked out, this would put us in Cozumel one day
later than originally planned.
This normally wouldn’t be a big
deal, unless you are booked with such a popular dive op as Alison. I e-mailed
her about the change, but she was already fully booked the next day. No
surprise there, really. A fellow member of BAD suggested contacting Chucho Divers. I’m glad he did, as
Chucho turned out to be another fantastic dive operator. Now we have two
trusted dive operators in Cozumel we can use. More on Chucho a bit later…
Our first port call was Grand
Cayman. After doing a little research, I booked with Cayman Turtle Divers, and am
glad I did! They are another top notch dive op, and one that I’ll gladly book
with any time we are in Grand Cayman. I had originally booked a dive on the USS Kittiwake with them, but when we
arrived, they told us the sea state would make this a poor dive. They took us
to two other sites, though, that were fantastic. When we got to the marina, we
found out we would be the only ones on the boat! Yes, it’s true! Instead of
cancelling the dive trip due to a low booking, they took us out anyway. So,
basically, Cindy and I had our own private dive boat for the day. Wow! Now you
can see why I’m so quick to recommend Cayman Turtle Divers (“CTD”) to my
friends or anyone who is looking for a quality dive op in Cayman.
The next we were in Cozumel.
After a brief taxi ride to Caleta Marina, we arrived at the dock to find…..you
guessed it…..we were the only divers booked that day with Chucho! Whoa, another day of having our own, private
dive boat? How cool is that? These kinds of dive trips are as completely
opposite of “cattle boat” trips as they can be. Since we had the boat to
ourselves, Chucho asked us what we wanted to do, what we wanted to see, etc. My
immediate answer was to dive the C-53!
This wreck is one I’ve wanted to do since I first heard about it. It’s very “diver
friendly” and we had a lot of fun diving it. A YouTube
search will show you tons of cool videos to watch. Our second dive that day was the classic
Cozumel drift dive, which was fun.
So, I got to do a cool wreck dive
in Cozumel that I’ve wanted to do. What’s next?
At the end of 2012, fellow BADdie
Mei-Hwa Ferguson and I started planning a road trip to Florida to dive some
caverns (NOT caves!) and the USS
Oriskany. The Oriskany is definitely an “ambitious” dive, and nitrox is highly recommended. I
arranged to have a friend of mine, and PADI Instructor, give a nitrox class to
Cindy, myself and a couple of others. Dave Romano was gracious enough to
schedule this one evening in our house, so not only was it convenient, but
comfortable as well.
Anyway, in June several of us
BADdies set out for Florida. The weather was really crappy the first few days,
with torrential thunderstorms. This made us have to juggle our itinerary
around. Even with the rough start, though, the trip overall was a smashing
success! We got to dive the Blue Grotto,
Ginnie Springs, a shore
dive in Panama City and of course the Oriskany as a grand finale.
Now I get to add nitrox diving,
cavern diving, another wreck dive and diving in another state to my list.
CTD was kind enough to sign off
one of our dives as a “boat dive.” This is important to satisfy a PADI requirement for having a certain number of
“adventure dives” to qualify for their Advanced
Open Water (“AOW”) certification. The nitrox certification and a few other
dives I did were also part of this requirement, so I was in good shape for
getting my AOW soon.
About a month after our Florida
trip, Cindy and I took PADI’s Underwater
Navigator class from Bill
Jones. Not only did we get the training to learn how to navigate under
water more efficiently, this also finally qualified both of us for our AOW.
And a month after that….
We headed up to Clear Springs Scuba Park in
Terrell for a BAD group dive. Terrell is just southeast of Dallas. So, here it
is in August, near Dallas. Ummm, yeah, I don’t think we’ll be camping out for
that one. Most of us elected to stay in a nearby hotel. Ironically, though, it
was unseasonably cool that Friday and Saturday night, so those that did camp said it was most comfortable. We
dove at Athens Scuba Park before, which is another hour southeast of Terrell
from Dallas, but this was my first experience at CSSP.
All of this brings us through
August, and there is still much more to come.
Cindy and I have wanted to do a
back to back cruise (“B2B”) since we started cruising in 2007. We figured with
2013 being our 5th wedding anniversary, why not go for it and just
do one. We actually booked this B2B while we were on the Carnival Magic in
April. This time, though, we would be leaving out of Miami so we could get to
some ports that we can’t get to when cruising from Galveston.
Our first week was on the Carnival
Liberty, and we stopped in Cozumel, Belize, Roatan and Grand Cayman. Some of y’all
are already thinking that the Carnival Magic, out of Galveston, does that same
itinerary (sans Cayman). Yes, it does, but we still wanted to do a B2B with
different ports. We could’ve easily done both weeks on the Carnival Breeze,
which was our second week. Doing this, though, would’ve meant repeating some
ports, and we just didn’t want to do that.
On the Liberty, we planned on
diving in Cozumel, Belize and Roatan. We would use Cayman as a “rest day.” Once
again, we booked our Cozumel dives with Alison and as usual had a great time
with her. In Belize, we booked with Sea
Sports Belize and wouldn’t you know it, we were…..….wait for it…..….the
only divers booked that day! Wow, we keep getting trips like this and soon a
boat with just 8 divers will feel like a cattle boat. We had a fantastic time
diving with them, and the lunch they provided was delicious. Our divemaster
Juan was most professional and friendly and gave us an extensive history of the
area, as well as a thorough description of the area. I’m glad to now have a
trusted dive op in Belize, and will use them anytime we are there.
The next day we were in Roatan,
and dove with Subway Watersports.
We had fun with them and the second dive site, “Sponge Wall,” was perhaps, my
favorite site of the entire trip.
After a week on the Liberty, we
then boarded the Carnival Breeze, which is much like the Magic, except newer.
This was an 8 day “exotic eastern Caribbean” cruise, with stops in Grand Turk,
San Juan (Puerto Rico), St. Maarten and St. Thomas. We booked dives in Grand
Turk and St. Thomas for this trip. I could write a whole blog on just the B2B itself,
which I may do if I can motivate myself to do it. Anyway, back to the topic at
hand….
We used Grand Turk Diving Company and had a good
time with them. An interesting side note here. For all of our diving on the
Liberty, and with St. Thomas on the Breeze, we booked our dives using nitrox.
Apparently in Grand Turk, nitrox isn’t available when doing single day dives.
This is common throughout the island, and only those booking multiple day dives
will have nitrox as an option. Obviously it wasn’t a deal breaker for us, as we
still went diving, but it would’ve been nice to have it available. Now, why am
I making an issue of this? I’m really not making an “issue” of this, so much as
I am making an observation. PADI teaches in the nitrox course that the main
benefit of diving nitrox is to reduce the nitrogen loading in your tissues and
extend your bottom time. Many who dive nitrox, though, myself included, feel
much better after a dive than when diving on just air. Even Alison, who’s a very
experienced diver (and a PADI Master Instructor) swears by this. Is this just
psychological? Who cares if it is or not? I feel much better when diving nitrox
so if it’s available, I’m gonna dive it.
So, all this mumbo jumbo about
nitrox aside, I’ll continue with our cruise diving. St. Thomas was our last
stop on the Breeze, and our last diving spot as well. We booked with St. Thomas Diving Club and due to
a miscommunication about the time, actually missed the morning dive we were
booked on. Throughout both cruises, we based everything on ship’s time, which
was Eastern Time. Even during the booking process with each dive operator, I
was clear to state our port times based on leaving from Miami. Somehow, this
detail wasn’t fully clear to STDC, as they are one hour different from ship’s
time. Long story short, we missed the boat. When I called them, looking for our
ride, they explained that we missed our pickup. They offered us an afternoon
dive, though, and since we had the time we opted for that.
We got picked up near the cruise
terminal by the boat captain and the two divemasters. Once again, and this is
starting to sound pleasantly familiar, we would be the only ones on the dive
boat for the afternoon. Oh, yes! What started out as a miscommunication and
missed morning dive turned into another private dive in the afternoon.
We had two fun dives, including
the wreck of the Cartanza. Cindy took over the camera for the second dive, so
there are actually some pictures of me diving. I added STDC to my list of
preferred dive operators, and now have one for St. Thomas.
If it seems like I sort of
glossed over the details of all the different dive ops and locations, it’s
because I did. I’m intending this to be more of an overview of the year. I do have detailed reviews of these dive
ops on Trip Advisor, though.
What an amazing year it’s been
for diving!
Both Cindy and I got new nitrox
compatible dive
computers, and the data generated from them is incredible!
We obtained not only our nitrox
certifications, but also Underwater Navigator and AOW as well.
We added Florida as another state
to dive in, as well as logging some cavern dives, some really cool wreck dives
four more Caribbean locations: Belize, Roatan, Grand Turk and St. Thomas.
What will 2014 bring?
We originally planned on diving
the Texas Clipper
in September during “Dive
Week,” but a tropical storm cancelled those plans. I still want to dive the
Clipper, so maybe doing this outside of hurricane season will be the best way
to go.
I’m hoping to get my PADI Rescue
Diver and then Master
Scuba Diver certifications, just for the personal challenge of it…..probably
around June or so.
In April, we are planning a
cruise on the Carnival Sunshine. This itinerary will take us to Mo Bay, Aruba,
Curacao and St. Thomas. Hopefully I can add Aruba and Curacao to my list of
Caribbean dive sites. At least I know who I can book in St. Thomas, right?
Who knows after that?
Until next time…
carpe cerevisi
