Skittles's Trip Review- December 2013

[TSandM]

I really enjoyed this story! As boulderjohn says, it's been fun to watch you work your way up to this.

As far as night diving goes . . . you're right, it isn't THAT much different. But it's worth practicing light failures and backup light deployment, and lost buddy searches in the dark, and navigaton at night (which you didn't have to do, but can be very disorienting). Doing ascents in clear water in the dark can be very challenging, too. A night diving specialty can work you through quite a few skills like that.

One more comment . . . if you had problems with mask clearing and regulator removal in your class, you should be doing one or the other of these skills on just about every single dive. These things don't get easier with time, if you don't practice them -- they get HARDER. Anything you are not comfortable doing is what I call a "rattle", and the ocean loves to shake your rattles when you are least prepared for it to do so. Do practice the things you hate the most. It's actually quite important.

 

[bradells]

...
One more comment . . . if you had problems with mask clearing and regulator removal in your class, you should be doing one or the other of these skills on just about every single dive. These things don't get easier with time, if you don't practice them -- they get HARDER. Anything you are not comfortable doing is what I call a "rattle", and the ocean loves to shake your rattles when you are least prepared for it to do so. Do practice the things you hate the most. It's actually quite important.

+1. Every one of my dives, I take my mask off, recover regs, and reach back to make sure I can reach the tank, usually near the beginning of the dive. I'm starting to deploy a SMB on all dives now (unless it's too crowded on an up line in a current ....) for the practice (Haven't actually needed to use it .... yet)


BRad

 

[Skittl1321]

As far as night diving goes . . . you're right, it isn't THAT much different. But it's worth practicing light failures and backup light deployment, and lost buddy searches in the dark, and navigaton at night (which you didn't have to do, but can be very disorienting). Doing ascents in clear water in the dark can be very challenging, too. A night diving specialty can work you through quite a few skills like that.

Navigation in general is not my strong suit- so I can see how it would be harder at night. I think a lost buddy search at night would be about the same as in the conditions I checked out in- which was like 5 feet of visibility (couldn't see my own fins), that might be why night diving didn't seem like much to me though. I can see how if something went wrong at night or low vis it could go very wrong though.

One more comment . . . if you had problems with mask clearing and regulator removal in your class, you should be doing one or the other of these skills on just about every single dive. These things don't get easier with time, if you don't practice them -- they get HARDER. Anything you are not comfortable doing is what I call a "rattle", and the ocean loves to shake your rattles when you are least prepared for it to do so. Do practice the things you hate the most. It's actually quite important.

I did practice regulator skills during my safety stop (as much as I'm sure the lake water was grosser, man salt water tastes disgusting) but didn't really have the chance to do anything with my mask (I cleared it a few times when it flooded because I was laughing). I probably could have if I asked, but most safety stops I was either focusing on not kicking the person holding the SMB line below me, or finning as hard as I could to not get too far from the group below us. Too much distraction to also run a mask drill.

 

[Skittl1321]

Top side: Eating Out
This is going to be a pretty short section because we didn't go out much. In general, when not diving, I was sleeping- an afternoon nap and then early to bed. I'm just really exciting like that. But we did make it out twice.

The first time out we went to Parrilla Mission This was the night El Jefe and his group had caught some great fish, and invited all of us to go out to eat. (Thanks CVChief! It was a highlight.) There was a group of 8 of us, including 2 divers CVChief hadn't actually met yet (but would be diving the next day). We met up at the restaurant, they gave them the fish and asked them to cook it. They made us a feast. I don't eat fish- so this will be my general view based on what I saw on others: everyone was really happy with how it was prepared. The tuna was prepared as sashimi and the wahoo 3 ways. There was also a chicken soup, a rice and vegetable plate, chips and salsa and guacamole, and flan for dessert. I had chicken tacos, and everyone had 2 drinks (beer or soda mostly it seemed) and it was one of the most affordable meals ever. I'm sure part of that was providing the main fish, but it seems like they could still really mark up the 'cooking' part of it- so I thought it was a great value.


The second time we went out was to Money Bar
Money Bar actually gets credit for us wanting to return to Cozumel. We stopped there on a cruise and it was just wonderful. I was glad we went back. After a dive at Paradise Reef, Taxi CVChief offered to take us back to Sabor. We stopped to eat on the way. Their Chicken Nacho plate is huge and was enough that the four of us shared it for a decent snack. We like Money Bar because it has a great view, great snorkeling (though we didn't take advantage of it that day), and fairly affordable: we had the huge plate of nachos, 3 margaritas, 1 smoothie drink, 2 cappuccinos and with tip it came out to just over $50. This was also the stop where I got in my scubaboard "buy CVChief a drink obligation" Since he was my taxi for the week, the margaritas were well earned. If you don't drink alcohol, this is also a great stop because there are so many good non-alcoholic smoothies available- YUM.

That's it for eating out... we might need to stay in town next time. I just worry that I'll be too asleep to ever go seek out food.

 

[cvchief]

or finning as hard as I could to not get too far from the group below us.

Sorry about that. In fairness, my missus does that to me on SS. As SOON as I go up, she stops dead in the water to look at something or goes backward and there I am kicking and kicking. So I use alot of air on SS.....

---------- Post added December 22nd, 2013 at 11:21 AM ----------

Top side: Eating Out
The first time out we went to Parrilla Mission This was the night El Jefe and his group had caught some great fish, and invited all of us to go out to eat.

We do like Parrilla. It is ALWAYS good value, I think. My peeps were a little disappointed the hot buffet side bar was missing. They used to put some potatoes, cactus in white sauce, and other goodies on it. Now they have gone to bowls of cold stuff in the center island thing. I didn't check it as I was on a fish eating mission. Thank goodness the other two came. They put a hurting on the tuna. I think I was the only one to eat it at my end, but heck we ate it on the boat too. One caveat to Parrilla, they never seem to make a good margarita, so I always go with cervesa. And that was a BIG wahoo, too!!!

The second time we went out was to Money Bar Taxi CVChief offered to take us back to Sabor.

On'tday entionmay ethay axitay. Ethay axitay afiamay illway
illkay emay inway ymay eepslay!! Seriously...

I do love a trip to money. Too bad it wasn't 2 for 1 on the drinks.....

 

[Mike]

They put a hurting on the tuna.

Did you guys catch a Bonito?

 

[Skittl1321]

On'tday entionmay ethay axitay. Ethay axitay afiamay illway
illkay emay inway ymay eepslay!! Seriously...

It's a good thing they'll never figure out your code.

 

[Skittl1321]

Top Side: Chankanaab Park

For our no fly day of the trip we decided to spend the day at Chankanaab Park. We ended up only spending about 3 hours there because this was the day it rained the hardest (or maybe the day we noticed it rained the hardest because we weren't underwater- but we never noticed it stop raining, whereas all the other days were relatively dry on the boat and just drizzly in the afternoon).

A taxi from Sabor to Chankanaab is $13, and at this point we were out of pesos so we paid the dollar surcharge Entrance to Chankanaab is $21 per person or included with the encounters. Despite being a good person who doesn't pet the wild turtles (still kind of in shock some of the people diving did that), I'm a bad person who participated in the manatee encounter. According to the guide though, 2 of the manatees were born in the park and the third was a medical rescue, so I feel kind of less bad about it. And while I know manatees are intelligent, they are also pretty slow moving, lmore localized in their movement, and mostly just like to eat. I have to imagine they don't mind it as much as the dolphins who are underwater geniuses that travel great distances and are made to perform for the humans. You don't ride on the manatees! Okay, that's my defense. I'm conflicted but it has been a lifelong dream to be in the water with a manatee, so I took it.

So we started the day with a quick walk to the snorkel area of Chankanaab. It was lightly raining and it was histerical watching people in swimsuits dash around with towels and bags over their heads trying to stay dry. We just decided to get wet. Chankanaab has lots of seating covered with umbrellas so there were plenty of dry areas.

There are signs that say life jackets (not snorkel vests) are required, and they will provide one free with an ID as deposit. When we went begrudginly to get one, they said they weren't required, just recommended, so we did not wear them. However, I'm always a little nervous swimming in the ocean with nothing (we weren't wearing fins either) so I compromised and took my SMB and whistle in (For those that don't know part of taking up scuba diving was I hoped it would help me with my snorkeling. Last year I was so bad at snorkeling I couldn't go 5 minutes with my mask on without freaking out. I couldn't even sit on my COUCH for 5 minutes. Scuba diving definitely helped, though I prefer it to snorkeling, where I still find it hard to breathe.)

The snorkeling was excellent and rivaled the fish life on some of the reefs we visited. There were no rays, eels, turtles or sharks though so I give the edge to diving. There was only one really pretty coral feature.

We snorkeled for about an hour, the rain water was really cold on my back and legs- which I can't get to stay underwater even if I try (I need ankle weights or something, just a pound or two to make me slightly less positive), and then we went and wandered the park. They have an alligator exhibit and some beautiful gardens. By this time it was absolutely pouring so we skipped the 'archeological area' though I was curious what that was. After watching the dolphins for a bit, it was time to check in for my manatee encounter.

The encounter was $59, including the admission fee, so a fairly decent deal I thought. Turns out manatees are not very popular, as I was the only one to do the encounter. I got 30 minutes with the 3 manatees, all by myself (Plus the trainer.) The encounter consisted of standing on a platform taking requisite "kiss", "hug", and "handshake" photos and then I got to jump off the platform and free swim while feeding the manatees. They apparently eat all day long, and I was given like 5 heads of lettuce and quite a few handfuls of papaya and pineapple to feed them. The manatees LOVE the papaya and will fight you for it- all three ganged up on me, and they would grab your legs and pull on you. It was really cool, but quite honestly, I was glad for the life jacket!

Everyone get a nice long look at those photos because the photo services at Chankanaab are more of a rip-off than a cab paying in USD. It is $37 for one photo, or $72 (900 pesos, at least they exchange fairly) for a CD with all of them. I wanted 4 photos printed, so I bought the CD. I got 138 images, but since manatees are generally underwater they are mostly picture of me looking goofy petting a gray blob. But still, I'm glad I bought them. Apparently they charge for photos by person in the group, so it's a good thing Kevin decided he didn't want to do the manatee swim

I think the only thing that would have made this better was if I could have put on a scuba tank and just sat below them and watched them. The interaction was great, but getting to dip my head underwater was the best part- really seeing them clearly. Of course, if it was scuba, I couldn't do it on my off day
After the manatee swim we thought about snorkeling more, but it was still a constant pour, not a light drizzle, so we called it a day and headed back to the resort.

 

[cvchief]

Did you guys catch a Bonito?

Skipjack

 

[blue steal]

Thanks again for posting your topside activities. always like to hear them.