Back home from Cozumel... boo

[Darol]

Just got home late saturday, head colds can be a bitch.... hope it don't last..
Saw this guy a few years back, biggest I've seen there.
Checkout the barnacles on his back.... One old turtle....
Gotta work 17 days, then wheels up again..... Life is GOOD....

 

[Mossman]

Wow, that Loggerhead encounter sounds awesome!! We have seen them before, but only in Bahamas/Florida area, and they are always very calm and unaffected by divers. It is such a treat to see one. I hope this means that they are moving into the Cozumel area!!!

Yeah, the cold sucks... but at least it makes sense why I was so tired the last 2 days of the trip. I wanted to night dive those last two nights, but skipped it due to fatigue. I guess the cold was creeping up on me at that time.

Keep posting for everyone Chris! And take that darned camera with you!!!

I hope they're moving in too since I'm definitely bringing my camera this trip and my number one goal is turtle pics as that's where my collection is deficient. We saw a giant loggerhead on a dive a few years back off the Belize Atolls. I shot video, but unfortunately forgot to label the tape so it's currently lost among way too many unedited tapes that I mean to go through someday, maybe when I retire? That turtle seemed to be as big as me and when I did a parallel swim with it, shooting my lost video, I wished I could continue on in the same manner, tucking my head into my shell in case of danger, surfacing every hour or so for a breath of air, otherwise just cruising the reefs looking for grub. What a wonderful life!

Sucks about the cold. I've had a few trips affected by topside bugs. On our first real "dive trip", a great bargain we scored to Yap, the guy sitting next to me on the plane turned his head to sneeze and he ended up sneezing right into my ear. Sure enough, a couple days later, I had a full-blown ear infection and I only got a handful of dives out of that trip. Likewise, my first trip to the Galapagos, I got a cold or sinus infection that made me miss most of the dives with whale sharks at Darwin Island. And on our last trip to Coz, I got a norovirus-like "stomach flu" that laid me up for two diving days. For the next trip I'm almost considering wearing a mask topside the entire time, and especially on the way there, to avoid getting sick and missing out on dives. At the least, I plan to be ever vigilant about touching my hands anywhere near my face and will supplement my normally OCD handwashing with liberal squirts of sanitizer. Liberal "squirts" of tequila too, to kill any stomach bugs, and I hope I'll prevail.

(Ya gotta wonder, when you were sneezing on the plane, how many passengers ending up catching your bug. Not pointing fingers, since you don't have much of a choice once you're enroute and I've never heard of anyone voluntarily missing a flight because they were contagious, least of all me, but air travel is unfortunately a pernicious incubator of infection that unfortunately affects lots of divers as well as other travelers.)

 

[ggunn]

I For the next trip I'm almost considering wearing a mask topside the entire time, and especially on the way there, to avoid getting sick and missing out on dives.

What I read during the swine flu scare a few years ago is that masks are far more effective at keeping you from spreading disease if you are contagious than they are are protecting you from picking up airborne microbes from others. When you cough or sneeze a mask will stop most of the droplets from escaping, but when the germs are free floating they are much smaller than the gaps in the fabric of the mask and go right through.

 

[blue steal]

Hey Mossman I actually fashioned a nonrebreathing mask with the reservoir bag removed and replaced with a hepa-filter. Removes 99.9% of stuff. Looks weird, but I throw a blanket over my head and sleep all the way to the Philippines. I'll post a picture on it soon.

 

[Sideways]

Thank the stars that you got the head cold when going home. When we went to Coz in December, the cold hit me when I was on the frikken plane on the way down I mean...really??? I managed through it and was able to dive, but........ My better half caught it a couple days later, rolled the dice to dive...and ended up perfforating her eardrum 5 months later and she's still not totally healed Hope you're feeling better and can't wait to see some pics!!!

 

[azscubadude]

Just got home late saturday, head colds can be a bitch.... hope it don't last..
Saw this guy a few years back, biggest I've seen there.
Checkout the barnacles on his back.... One old turtle....
Gotta work 17 days, then wheels up again..... Life is GOOD....

Great shots guys.. Yes, the one we saw was covered with barnacles too.. Amazing !

Watching it try to crack that shell was cool especially getting the whole thing in it mouth to even try.

We did a night dive last night on Paradise Reef, great dive, lots of critters and lots of squid.

What has surprised me this trip is the number of huge Green Moray's out during the daytime. At least 4 to 5 times this week we've had encounters with them swimming right into the group. The other day on Palancar Caves I was in back of the group when a huge GM came out of a hole and swam right between a young divers legs. When we got on the boat I told him and he freaked (calmly) cause he never saw it (and he didn't know it passed within inches of his waving hands). Then further on the same dive another one came swimming by us (still in a swim thru) tucked right up against a giant grouper.. I mean like they were holding hands on a stroll through the park. They couldn't have gotten any closer togrther, jusy swimming in unison.

Then on Punta Tunich a giant (GIANT) GM was out in broad daylight and swan right through our group within inches of the divers. This one had a head as big as the Loggerhead I mentioned. It was our 2nd dive so it was close to noontime.

Then.... (honest) I was sitting on the dock in the afternoon the other day and saw a huge fish breach just a ways out (like in the lane the dive boats use) and sure enough it did it again, totally out of the water.. It was a huge Sailfish, and it came totally out of the water just like you see on TV when they are hooked by a deep sea fisherman.

Great memories this trip.. With a few days left to go.

Well, it's 6am and almost time for breakfast.

 

[deeper thoughts]

Trip sounds great

 

[robint]

Chris --- that sounds awesome! I would love to have seen the sailfish. A friend over in Playa posted a short video of one they saw diving one day, it went right through the group of divers underwater. Pretty freakin' scary but amazing at the same time..

As far as my sneezing on the plane - it started as we landed in Dallas and I thought it was just allergies at the time. I sneezed the whole 3+ hour layover and the nose started running then. The good news is everyone was heading home from vacation, so hopefully they won't hate me if they caught it. :blush:


I feel better today... .much better, so I will try to start on the videos and topside photos. The underwater photos are Ron's and he is back to work so they will have to wait until the weekend.

robin

 

[Spazcat]

Hi Robin, Sorry you caught a cold but on the upside at least it happened when you got home, not when leaving for your trip.

Hate to add to your blues.. but today at the end of our second dive at Tormentos with a strong current and a small group we ran into another Loggerhead. To say it was HUGE is an understatment. The cool thing was it stayed with us (from less than three feet away) for at least 5 minutes while it tried to crack a Hermit Crab shell but finally gave up and swam away. It was an amazing creature with a head as big as a log and truely something I will remember for many years to come.

Biggest turtle i've ever seen underwater, the shell had to be 4 feet tip to tail and I didn't take my camera.

Hope you feel better soon !

Chris

On our last dayof diving at SCC, we dropped in on top of this turtle feasting on the coral....he's featured in the first part of this video:

[video=youtube_share;DK7siBDL_kM]http://youtu.be/DK7siBDL_kM[/video]

Cheers,

SC