Holy crap is it morning already??? Is it a sign of insanity if you get up earlier on your vacation than you do when you are home and working? Our alarm goes off at 5 AM 'home time' which is 6AM here. Very early indeed! At least we're enjoying every minute of our time here and not wasting it sleeping...right?
Yesterday was a great day of diving. We dove Paso Del Cedral and Chankanaab from the boat. They really grow some big critters down here! We saw HUGE lobster, Angelfish, Snapper, Filefish and Rays on these dives. It is cool to see the contrast between those really big guys and the teeny (so teeny you think they are silt or sand) baby fish that are in clouds in some places there are so many. There are some coral formations in colors that I have never seen before...really beautiful. There are also more Arrow Crabs here than in the other places we've been diving. They freaked me out a bit at the beginning because they really do look quite a bit like spiders but once I got some close up pics of them...they are kinda cute :-).
During our surface interval on the boat between dives Dave had us do a few more of the skills required for our Rescue Diver certification. Brian was once again our victim (boy he sure gets himself into a lot of trouble it seems :-)) and we had to rescue him from the boat. It was a different experience as we had all of our gear off and had to get in to help him with only a mask, snorkel and fins. We learned that we are way faster swimmers at the surface without all of our gear on :-). It was also a bit challenging to get the boat crew to 'not' help us LOL! For one of the exercises I had to throw Brian a rope so I could tow him to the boat instead of getting in the water to save him...apparently I suck at throwing ropes...so the helpful deck hand stepped in and showed me how to do it :-)...now Dave says I have to share my certification with him! I thought we were allowed to use all of the resources at our disposal...I think one of my stronger skills is telling others what to do...so I say play to your strengths right? LOL
After we made our way back to shore and had some lunch (yay TACOS!) some of us decided to head into town to do a bit of shopping. Wade was the shopping chaperone for our group of four girls while the other boys went to nap. I don't think he had any idea what he was in for...LOL...at one point one of the shopkeepers asked him if he had four wives! LOL
On every dive trip we hope to see some sharks before we come home...and on this trip we sure found them...in the shopping plaza! WOW...they are hungry for your business there! Luckily we made it out alive and with a few 'very good deal, almost free, cheaper than Walmart prices'...LOL
After we got back to the resort and woke up the nappers it was time to get ready for a night dive. I must say the night dives here rank among the very top of the list of my favorite dives of all time. You wouldn't think it as there isn't a beautiful reef with stunning corals off the resort...it is more just concrete chunks and rubble on a sandy bottom...but the critters out there are amazing! We saw THREE OCTOPI! Very beautiful...and not too scared of us...they'd scuttle along and hunker down but didn't zoom away like the ones we've seen in other places. There were lots of eels and arrow crabs...small shrimp and a huge hermit crab. There are so many friendly little Rays and Puffers out there it is almost comical how they seem to follow you and are asking to have their pics taken. I had to almost shoo a Puffer away so I could get a shot of something else. I've never seen them so 'friendly'.
By the time we got out and got to dinner it was after 8pm...making for a very late night by the time we looked through the pictures and
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