Dive 12

Curtis, Kristen, Nick and I boarded the boat for our first dive at 9 am. Accompanying us were the four South Africans from a previous dive (white people with British accents), and another lady who was staying at our hotel. Nick and I would be diving with Sylvin for our last required advanced dive course, while everyone else would be going with Felipe.

I got in the water before Nick and quickly descended. Nick came in shortly after and we waited for Sylvin. We planned on going to 90′ for 10 minutes, then to 60′ for 30 minutes before ascending. I had the stopwatch, but due to some miscommunication we stayed at 85′ (couldn’t quite find 90′) for 14 minutes before ascending to 50′ for the remainder of the dive. There isn’t anything new to report from any previous dives. The reef looked the same, we saw the same fish, sharks and a turtle which is a bit more rare. We criss crossed with the other group a few times. At one point we saw a large spotted eagle ray and our two groups were in hot pursuit. It was above us and we all peaked over the reef to see it. I wonder what kind of perspective it had of the situation. Here it is swimming around, minding it’s own business and all of a sudden all these faces start peeking over the reef. Sylvin summoned for Nick and I to follow and we headed away from the other group again. When the three of us were alone we spotted a barracuda below us, then Sylvin was having some sort of problem. He motioned for us to stay put and he ascended. There we were, just me, Nick and the barracuda somewhere in the near distance. Sylvin came back after a few minutes and we continued the dive. The 15′ safety stop at the end wasn’t too bad. We were swimming instead of just hanging there, so the waves weren’t too troublesome.

Nick and I were the first on the boat again. The other group surfaced a few minutes later. They boarded the boat and we headed back to the dive shop to drop off the South Africans, who were only doing a one tank dive, then headed to the main dive shop closer to town. Once there we got some fresh fruit and Sylvin did our paperwork for the completion of the course!!