Cozumel diving

Hey all!

Long time, no blog.  Stacy and I just got back from a week of diving in Cozumel, Mexico.  Beautiful blue waters with great visibility and tons of life made for a great week of diving.  We stayed in a 2 bedroom condo at Villa Mayaluum that had a full kitchen to boot.  We made almost all of our breakfasts and lunches there and went out for dinner.  The place was about 2 miles out of town, but the walk to town was on a boardwalk along the water so the sunsets and breezes made up for the hikes.  On top of that, the outfit we dove with, Scuba Mau (shout out!) was right next door to the condos.

We dove every morning except...Monday, I think.  There was a strong wind and chop so the port was closed to small craft like our dive boat.  When we did dive, it was a 2 dive trip leaving around 9 and getting back around 1:30 or so.  We also did a twilight and night dive on Wednesday so that was a 4 dive packed day.  We slept well that night.  We saw all kinds of goodness throughout the week: spotted eagle rays, nurse sharks, turtles out the ying yang, an octopus on the night dive along with a sea snake out slithering around, crabs, shrimp and tons of fish.

I also got an external strobe for my underwater camera.  It's pretty sweet, but I am having to learn how to actually work my camera now with shutter speeds and fstops and ISO adjustments to make the pictures look good.  I took a TON of photos and most of them were washed out blasts of white light due to the strobe and me not knowing how to work my camera properly.  I got better as the week went on but I really need to take a class on how to fully use my camera to get better.  Luckily, Portland Community College has classes on that so I plan on signing up for one.

Crazy food of the trip was lingua tacos...or taco since I only had one.  We went to this divey taco place the last night in town and they had that on the menu.  So along with 3 tacos al pastor (pork tacos marinaded with pineapple) I did a lingua taco...lingua = cow tongue.  It was okay...sort of rich beef flavor, but not much more.  We (meaning Stacy since she rules) also found a micro brewery in town: Cervezaria Punta Sur.  Decent beer, but they had great pizza.  Yes...I had pizza in Mexico...we were there 8 days.  I had plenty of Mexican too.

Blah blah blah..get to the pictures already.  Tons of thanks to Stacy for helping me ID all the critters below.  We took hours googling and pouring through fish ID books so you don't have to.  Also her critical eye helped me make the photos that much better.  Yay Stacy!  Okay..tons of photos so here we go.  Remember, click to embiggen!

4 juvenile drum fish here...you almost never see more than 2 together.  We didn't ID the other fish, but give you a hint of how small the drum fish are.  

This is an anemone shrimp.  I really like these critters, but they are small, mostly see through and hard as heck to get in focus.  This is the best photo I got of one

This is an arrow crab.  I had never seen one...that I can recall...until we went to Roatan last year.  On this trip, they were everywhere.  Hard to get a good photo cause they have this long nose that is always out of focus.  Stupid nose.

This is a baby (or just really small) spotted moray eel.  maybe an inch in diameter.  Yeah...I like this photo

We were looking for a seahorse in this seaweed area sort of hovering close to the bottom when this guy came out of nowhere and scared the crap out of me.  It's a Balloon fish.  Check out the eyes...or eye.

Thus furry critter is a banded clinging crab...clinging to an anemone.  Its sort of looking to the lower left corner so you can see the eyes down there.  Stacy spotted this one and pointed it out to me.  Took me a minute to even realize it wasn't a part of the coral...it moved and gave itself away.

Banded coral shrimp I saw on the night dive.  Not the best photo of one, but the best I got on this dive

Stacy and the dive master we were with, Rafael, pointed towards this sponge...I thought they were pointing to this super tiny hermit crab and I was taking pictures of it...or trying to, when this crawled past.  This, a bristle worm, is what they were trying to point out.

This nightmare looking thing is a channel crab we saw on the night dive.

Hermit crab.  I am super happy about this photo.  It has the coolest blue eyes!

Me dorking around with the ISO settings to get the light playing through this pass through.  Some really cool topology on the dives.

Anyone hungry?  This is a protected marine park so there were large lobsters everywhere...but this gang is getting a little ridiculous

Side shot of a peacock flounder.  How freaky is this thing?  Pretty cool shot if I do say so myself.

This is a queen triggerfish.  I wish I had a little bit better lighting but you can get a feel for the color.

Saw this guy, a scrawled filefish, just as we were descending on a dive.  Got this one shot off before he bailed out of there.

Another, larger spotted moray eel we saw on the night dive. 

These little dudes are squat shrimp and hide inside anemones.  Super tiny...like a couple grains of rice sized....but fun to try to get a good picture of

Stacy and I were thinking the same thing.  "Get a photo of that cool barracuda!"

Stripebelly puffer fish...interesting bumpy skin. 

Was going for the photo of the three spot damselfish and got her to pose perfectly.  Didn't realize there was a hermit crab and a brittle starfish in the background until I looked at the picture later.

This is a toad fish.  They hide under shelves like this and are hard to get a picture of.  I didn't realize they had yellow fins until I got this picture.  Crazy how the eyes even have the striping.

I wish I had a bit better lighting on this but I think it's pretty cool that I got this turtle and the rainbow wrasse in the same shot....pure luck, btw.

Stacy checking out a turtle on one of our dives.

Another turtle with a couple of black angelfish photobombing.

A little washed out (too much flash or not enough something else) but you can see this spotted moray's teeth...obviously not happy with the big dude in it's grill.

Finally, a yellow headed jawfish in the middle.  They drop down into holes when threatened but I got this one before he did.  Saw these in Roatan too...they keep their eggs in their mouths to protect them.  Saw that in Roatan...not this trip though.

Okay...we are done.  Hope you enjoy and always remember: it's our time, the people's time!

Love to all!
Jim