Back to Home Page

 

 
Trip to Mexico

Last Updated: 12/30/06

 
 

Joost and I took a trip to the island of Cozumel in Mexico from October 8th to the 15th, 2005.  It was arranged by Underwater Sports of Kirkland and about 60 people went on the trip, 40 of them Scuba divers.

It was a fantastic trip with lots of excellent diving and we met some great people too.  I participated in 12 dives and Joost did 13.  Since I was only newly certified (August) I had a whole bunch of firsts on this trip: first tropical water dive, first night dive, personal max depth (101 ft), first shark sighting, first sea turtle, first wreck dive... the list goes on.  It was awesome! 

I didn't take any underwater photos but a lot of other people did, and then we all pooled them together so everybody in the group ended up with everybody else's photos.  I took a lot of above-water (hotel, beach, dock, etc.) photos and also lots of photos of the people who went on the trip, which everybody later thanked me for because nobody else had really done that.

We have hundreds of photos so I'm taking a few good samples of the sea life and goofy diver types and trying not to go overboard (so to speak) here.

 
My organization of these photos is by photographer.  The first bunch were taken by Brian Duthie, one of our local divemasters (and my instructor for my Scuba course).

A barracuda:
A moray eel:
A cool-looking crab on the underside of a coral formation:
A big grouper:
A turtle:
Some random fish and we don't remember what they're called.
An anemone:
The next few photos were taken by Dave King, another one of our local divemasters (affectionately known as Divemaster Dave).

Here is our first goofy diver, Dave Rintoul, aka "Canada Dave" (guess where he's from - check out the iron ring on the pinkie finger...)
And another goofy diver we all know!
These two aren't so goofy; they're Brian and Patty and they're in their 60s and they always hold hands when diving.  It's very sweet.
A yellow fish, again we don't remember the type.
The next couple were taken by Eric (we don't remember his last name).

Here's an angelfish.
Here's a parrotfish.  This was taken on our night dive.
This is an octopus wrapped around a rock.  This was also taken on the night dive.
The next few were taken by Eric Behling. 

This first one is his wife, Christine:
Another angelfish.
And Eric himself (taken by Christine?):
A boxfish (or maybe a cowfish?) - I think these are very cute, especially when they're babies.
We think this is a spider shrimp.
The next few were taken by Joost.

Here's a lobster.
Here's another parrotfish.  It's a bit out of focus but the colours are great.  Joost had purchased the camera immediately before this trip so he was still figuring out the camera.  There was also a wicked current on some of the dives, which made it difficult to hold still for taking photos.
This is a squirrelfish.  Don't know why it's called that.
Here's another goofy diver you know.

This is my own 3-mil wetsuit and it was the right suit for me for tropical water.  No yucky rented suits!
And another: this is Steve Hornsby, the manager of Underwater Sports and the organizer of the trip.  A very fun guy.
Here is a seahorse.  They were hard to photograph.  There weren't very many of them, and they were small and very good at hiding.
And our last couple of goofy divers.  On the right is Erica and the left is Lidia.  I think Erica is laughing here. 

Here we were all holding onto a rope that leads down from a buoy to a shipwreck.  The current was very strong so we used the rope to guide us back up to our boat after exploring the wreck.
This ugly guy is called a scorpion fish.
 

We saw lots of other fish, coral, crustaceans, etc. but I can't put photos of all of them here!  We did see some sharks and some rays but they were camera-shy and so the photos of them are not great.  We didn't see any dolphins or whales.

 
And a few above-water shots just for fun.

Me with Lidia:
Christine, Erica and Divemaster Dave:
Eric & Christine:
Steve and Heike:
Canada Dave:
The two of us at the Tequila museum.  We got pretty blitzed on this day (we drank out of real cups rather than those little tourist memento things).  It was quite fun.  It was a really fun trip all around.  I'd like to go back again some day.

Back to Home Page