And my favorite part of every trip, the dive. I only did one day of diving on this vacation, two dives.

Dive boat

There were four divers and we were led by Pepe, the dive master from Dive Aventuras, in Puerto Aventuras. We took a small dive boat and did drift dives. The current was very slight, but they called them drift dives anyway. Our first dive was a multilevel dive at a location called "Veros Garden." . We hit 81 feet, but then began ascending slowly to a depth of about 55 feet. Total bottom time was 31 minutes with a safety stop at 15 feet. There were three computers on the dive, and all showed clear for both dives. The water was beautiful and warm. None of the divers wore any suits and Pepe only had a shorty.

Pepe

I only took the camera on the second dive. That dive was more shallow, only hitting 42 feet, but we had a nice 44 minutes of bottom time. Of course, there was the requisite safety stop. The second dive was just off-shore from Xpu-Ha at a site called "Cuevitas." I am unable to find a translation, but I believe Pepe told us it meant Caverns. There were a number of swim throughs, so that may be it.

Well, I got quite a bit of help from a "fellow Pole" who is a self-proclaimed fish-geek. She identified fish I didn't even realize were in some of the pictures. Hopefully with some practice I'll be able to identify the fish by their common names at least. Any errors are most likely due to bad photography or my typing.

The sea life was incredible. The coral was thriving and there were fish everywhere.
Chromis cyaneus
Bodianus rufus, Halichores garnoti, Chromis cyaneus,  Acanthurus bahianus

Blue chromis

Young Spanish hogfish, adult male yellowhead wrasse, blue chromis, ocean surgeon

Chromis cyaneus
Chromis cyaneus & Scarus vetula
Chromis cyaneus, Thalassoma bifasciatum, Scarus taeniopterus
Blue chromis

Blue chromis , juvenile queen parrotfish

Blue chromis, bluehead wrasse, juvenile princess parrotfish
Thalassoma bifasciatum
The smaller fish were great, with fabulous colors. They swarmed over the reef.
Bluehead wrasse (female)

 

Some of my pictures are very washed out. The flash on the camera just doesn't have the "umpf" to get anything more than a few feet away. Someday I'll have a strobe.
You can see the backscatter on this shot. I was the third person through and the first couple kicked up a lot of silt.
You can make out the young green turtle in this shot. He was swimming away, moving out of range. Just like a UFO, you can sort-of make it out.

 

Fish identification time.

Good ID book. Hint - Hint

Lactophrys triqueter
Pomacentrus planifrons
Smooth trunkfish
Damselfish
Holocentrus ascensionis
Sparisoma viride
Sparisoma aurofrenatum
Squirrelfish
Adult stoplight parrotfish
Redband parrotfish
Pomacanthus paru
Ocyurus chrysurus
I got quite an education with the IDs. Hopefully I will be able to dive with the expert and get further enlightened.
French Angel
Yellow Tail Snapper

I've already identified the floating ham.

Until next time....

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