And my favorite part of every trip, the dive. I only did one day of diving on this vacation, two dives.
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.
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.
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Blue chromis |
Young Spanish hogfish, adult male yellowhead wrasse, blue chromis, ocean surgeon |
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Blue chromis
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Blue chromis , juvenile queen parrotfish |
Blue chromis, bluehead wrasse, juvenile
princess parrotfish
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The smaller fish were great, with fabulous colors.
They swarmed over the reef.
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Bluehead wrasse (female)
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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 |
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Smooth trunkfish
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Damselfish
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Squirrelfish
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Adult stoplight parrotfish
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Redband parrotfish
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I got quite an education with the IDs. Hopefully I
will be able to dive with the expert and get further enlightened.
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French Angel
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Yellow Tail Snapper
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I've already identified the floating ham.
Until next time....
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