by Mike Walsh,
Cozumel is one of the most popular Caribbean dive destinations. In April of
2005, I made my first visit with Cathie Guiheen, Al Sacco and Mary Rogan
(whom we had met on our 2004 Solomon Islands trip).
Diving in Cozumel is predominantly land based boat diving. Each day, the
dive boat would pick us up at the hotel dock and the continue on to pick up
a few other divers. We made our diving arrangements with Blue XT Sea Diving
(
www.bluextseadiving.com).
During a week of diving with Cathie, Al and Mary, I managed to log 20 open
water dives. I then stuck around for an extra 3 days to pursue a diving
niche that I enjoy... cave diving and I logged 5 more dives. I had arranged
to dive with Diego Roma who is well known on the island as a cave diver and
the discoverer and primary explorer of Sistema Cocodrilo. So, he was
qualified.
In cave diving, task loading can be deadly and so I made the first 4 dives
without my camera. After the comfort level build, I brought my camera in on
the last dive and captured some interesting photographs in the cavern
portion of the dive. I also dove La Quebrada which if now famous for being
the subject of a Deep Sea Detectives episode.
Mike Walsh Bio
Mike Walsh is an avid scuba diver with over 700 logged dives ranging from
the lobster infested New England coast line to the crystal clear cenotes of
the Yucatan to the warm/exotic waters of the south pacific.
Among a wide variety of diving experiences, Mike has searched for 25 million
year old shark teeth fossils in the deep/dark rivers of the southeastern US,
recovered artifacts from a sunken World War II German UBoat off Rhode Island
and explored shipwrecks in Massachusetts Bay.
His most memorable dives include encountering sabre toothed tiger remains on
the floor of an underwater cave in Mexico, coming eye to eye with a humpback
whale just off the Rockport shore and swimming with the worlds largest Manta
Rays around a remote Pacific island.
Mike received his open water certification in 1980 and has since earned
trimix and cave certifications. Mike took up underwater photography in 2001
and now spends his warm water dive time hunting down the most exotic
photographic subjects as passionately as he spends his cold water dive time
hunting down good old New England lobsters and scallops.
