Becoming A Fish

Today's topic was all about ecosystems. We have a visiting professor who has frequented the area throughout his career and is very familiar with the local ecosystem.

We started our day at Akumal with a snorkel trip. The workers gave us a hard time about entering the public area for free (they were trying to claim we were entering private property) but eventually let us through. The water was warm and as soon as we entered, we were greeted by a munching sea turtle! The turtle was enjoying a breakfast of turtle grass before heading off. We swam the reef area and I ended up seeing another smaller Hawksbill turtle and a sting ray!

Next up on the list was Yalku. The river bed leads out to the Caribbean sea and is a mixture of fresh and salt water. The rocks looked really cool and there were tons of fish, crabs, and even a few shrimp hanging around. There was a sign at the shower station the asked visitors to not use shampoo or soup when showering. Lost in translation?

The third place we went was called Grand Cenote. A cenote is "a deep natural well or sinkhole of the Yucatán Peninsula, formed by the collapse of surface limestone." That's a pretty all-inclusive definition. They are actually pretty cool (literally as well as figuratively), but I definitely felt a little bit claustrophobic just snorkeling around. Even in my wetsuit, I was freezing! The cenote was all fresh water, which was a pleasant change from all the salty water. It was dark in the cavernous out-pouchings and stalactites hung low from the ceiling. There was a dive party enjoying themselves on the bottom, but I never ever want to dive one. Dark, cold, tight and not my style. Give me a warm tropical reef with tons of pretty animals please!

The forth place we went was a bioreserve. I'm not entirely sure what the original plan was for this site or what the goal was, but we basically just stood at the entrance and talked history for a few minutes. One of the park people offered to take us out to the cenote briefly so we accepted and got eaten alive by mosquitoes.

The last place we stopped at briefly was Casa Cenote. We simply stepped out of the vans to view the cenote and ocean sinkhole before calling it quits for the day. The cenote also has a nickname of cenote manati for supposed manatee sightings occasionally. There was a big sinkhole not far off shore under water in the ocean that we could see from the beach. It would have been interesting to take a peek over the top with a snorkel, but we were definitely tired and ready to call it quits.

Tonight I got to do a night dive! I was so excited at the prospect of getting a good dive here. My camera flash stopped working today (I'm so bummed!) so I didn't get to take it with me. It has to be sent to Olympus for service. I know the dive shop people were trying very hard to make sure everything was wonderful and perfect for us and they did an excellent job.

We collected our gear and headed down to the boat. The first thing we did when we got on the boat was assemble our tanks. Surprise! When I plugged a hose on my regulator into my BCD and turned my tank on, it began to inflate uncontrollably! The inflate button was stuck so they had to switch it out. I almost started crying when that happened because I was so worried about something else going wrong. Between the camera and the BCD and then all of our other ocean adventures or lack of, I just felt like something bad was  for sure going to happen. They brought me back an extra small BCD which isn't what I'm used to so I was a little nervous about that.

Once we had descended I was totally fine. I immediately saw a trigger fish, an eel, and some shrimp, and then we saw an octopus! He was so cool! We watched him climb along the corals and change colors to better blend in. In total I saw 2 eels, 4 stingrays, 7 baby basket stars, 2 flounder, tons of huge fish, a bunch of peppermint shrimp, the largest filefish I’ve ever seen (largest fish I’ve ever seen period) sleeping in a cave, and lots and lots of crabs. I even saw a crab dragging around some sort of carcass for dinner!

I love diving at night. A lot of people feel creeped out by it, but I love how vibrant the colors are. I love how peaceful the ocean looks while fish are sleeping (I saw lots of sleeping parrotfish and surgeonfish). There is an entirely different set of critters to be looked at at night, and it feels so special to find them. I don’t feel like something is going to come out of the dark and eat me, that’s not how the ocean works. If you startle a fish or shark, then sure you might get nibbled, but you’ll see that and nothing intentionally comes up to pick a fight. Nature would rather not try and fight. I love that when you have to use a flashlight, you can only see a small snapshot of the reef at one time. You get to pick apart a small area with your eyes and really see everything it has to offer. I love that.

We finally ascended after 63 minutes because my flashlight died. Not at all scary, the group was right next to me and I could see them with their lights (they just couldn’t see me!). That’s by far the longest dive I’ve ever done and I am so excited by it! We did a three minute safety stop before breaking the surface and when we did, the boat was right there waiting for us. Bobbing in the black waters next to the boat, I could see a Cozumel lit up on one side of me, and Playa Del Carmen lit up on the other. It was truly beautiful and so peaceful. I could have stayed there for a while admiring the beauty. Perhaps not floating at sea without the boat though haha.

We headed back to shore quickly and took care of all our dive gear. It was a phenomenal dive and by far my favorite. Not saying too much since I’ve only logged 12, but I loved every second of it! A quick shower and pizza for dinner and it’s time for bed – I’m exhausted!