Jillapalooza

IM IN UR OCEAN. EATIN UR CARDZ.

Advanced Course Dives, Esmeralda & San Pedro Canyon

Dives 8 and 9

Today marked the beginning of Nick and my journey to become advanced divers. We got to the dive shop a little before 9 am with Curtis and Kristen, who were going to do a two tank local dive.

Our instructor, Sylvan, met us at the dive shop shortly after nine. He told us due to some large swells that we would be joining the diving group going out in the big boat instead of going in his little boat. I think he might have thrown around the term “choppy” a couple of times. We rejoined C & K, as well as some other divers, in the big boat and we were on our way. Now, there are big waves, and then there are big waves, but these were big friggin’ waves. I’m talking waves that were bigger than the boat itself. For the first few waves I thought for sure it would just come right over the top of us and wash us all out.

We got to the first dive site where we would be doing our deep dive. Because of the swells Sylvan told us to enter the water by a backward roll and to descend immediately to calmer waters. I must say I really appreciate the guys who get everything all hooked up and strap it to me, all the while holding me securely into the boat.

First time entering the water backwards and… it worked out well. I descended to find Nick and we waited for Sylvan to come find us. We descended quickly. The ocean water is so clear that I was surprised to look at my depth gauge and see that we were at 80 feet. It doesn’t seem any different than 20, other than the lack of color. Once we got to 100 feet we played tic-tac-toe on a waterproof slate in order to test if we were suffering from any nitrogen narcosis. Nick beat me the first time, but I shut him out for a draw the second. The drawing of the “O” felt a bit sluggish, but I think it was from just being underwater and not necessarily any sort of narcosis kicking in. After 8 minutes at 100′ we ascended to 60′ to lengthen our dive. We just swam around and looked at the reef and all the fishes. During our 15′ safety stop I started feeling a little dizzy. I guess it was from the surface waves, although I didn’t feel like I was moving around any. when we got to the surface the motion sickness started kicking in for Nick and I. Once on the boat the waves were miserable. I kept my eyes on the horizon while Nick laid down. After 10 minutes or so the other group surfaced and we headed to shore for a surface interval.

We stopped at a different dive shop closer to town. Nick and I filled out our dive logs and Sylvan showed us how to use the wheel to find our ending pressure group, since technically our dive was a multilevel dive. After an hour we boarded the boat and were back off. This time our dive site was only a 3 minute ride and the waves weren’t as bad, but still big. We also had a couple more people along. One guy was taking his 3rd checkout dive with Sylvan at the same time we were doing our drift dive.

We descended after the first group again and the four of us met up at about 30 feet. Sylvan tested the new guy on his required skills and after that we were off. Having the other guy along was pretty entertaining as he didn’t quite have his buoyancy under control, and at one point he got too close to Sylvan and they kept getting all entwined together. It was irritating at the same time, because now I had two people who kept bumping into me, so I tried to keep a safe distance behind the two of them.

The dive wasn’t much of a drift dive as the surge was pretty strong, so it wasn’t as relaxing as I thought it would be. We kept criss crossing with the other diving group. Kristen should have taken the advanced class with us since we were basically doing the same dive. Apparently she didn’t want to give PADI any more of her money ;). It was a lot more of the same stuff as the first dive except the visibility wasn’t as good. It was still fun though. Toward the end of the dive we met up with the other group again. Felipe was their guide again, and he had brought some fish food with. On the ocean floor there was a pile of nurse sharks eating it from his BC which he removed and let lay on the bottom. It was kind of eerie at first, seeing all these sharks eating and a BC with no diver inside. Sylvan motioned for me to come down, I emptied my BC and knelt on the ocean floor. He grabbed a shark and pulled it near us, then motioned for me to touch it. It felt so neat. It really was rough like sand paper. And dense, not squishy like the rays. Then Felipe grabbed a shark and started man handling it. He flipped it upside down and I got to rub it’s tender under belly, which was silky smooth. I didn’t have my camera with, but Curtis got some good pics and video. We had to cut out before the other group, as we were nearing our time limit due to the residual nitrogen from our first dive. When we did our safety stop Sylvan had us hold onto a buoy rope. It made me a bit less dizzy than the first dives stop, but it took awhile to get adjusted to the way the rope whipped us around when the waves would come. Fortunately the other group wasn’t very far behind us so we didn’t have to spend any unnecessarily long time on the boat waiting.

Once we got back to the dive shop Sylvan gave us our “homework” assignment and told us to read the chapters on AWARE Fish Identification and Multilevel Diving. Tomorrow we’ll be back at the dive shop at 9 am for those two dives and the navigation dive!!

Belize – Sunday 12/9

Another early morning and another beautiful yet very windy day. C, K, N and I got up and headed to Rico’s for breakfast, where everyone ordered waffles but me (I went for the banana pancakes again). After that we walked to the dive shop to get ready for our 9 am dives. (see new post on diving)

We got back from diving around 1 pm. We hit the pool to wash off our salty bodies and once we got comfortable on pool chairs we decided to ditch the pool and go eat lunch. We went to Rico’s again (surprise, surprise). At a stones throw away from the pool and our condo it’s just too convenient not to go. After lunch K, N and I resumed our position at the pool, while C headed off for a nap in the condo. I just got settled in and started reading the fish identification chapter of my diving manual when I noticed a dark cloud wall looming in the distance. Soon the wind picked up, followed by a commotion of people buzzing about. Then a couple of the hotel employees were running inside and one of them proclaimed, “It’s coming, it’s coming!” We quickly gathered up our belongings and headed back to the room, and not a minute too soon. What was once clearly the ocean and sky became one big undefinable gray blur. Then it started sprinkling, followed by a windy down pour of rain and quick temperature drop.

**STORMY PHOTOS COMING SOON**

While the storm was wreaking havoc on our beautiful condo view, I typed up my dive blogs for the day and started this post. When the rain let up Kristen and I headed to the lobby to check on weekly internet rates. Since it was a reasonable price we signed up for the week. Too bad we have to be in the lobby to use it. Oh well, could be worse. Blog Reader/Writer Kristen wants me to let everyone know that she’s taking a vacation from the vacation blog. Maybe she’ll post now that she can get immediate gratification from her efforts. Until then, keep it right here at jillapalooza for the latest in Belize news!! :bigsmile:

Hol Chan & Shark Ray Alley

Dive 7

Hol Chan was my first dive in Belize as well as my first salt water dive. Curtis, Kristen, Nick and I boarded the boat at 9am. Our dive master, Felipe, was our boat driver and guide for the morning. After a short 8 minute boat ride we arrived at Hol Chan, a local reef. Felipe gave us a quick briefing of the area, as well as hand signs for different aquatic life we may see such as nurse sharks, turtles, rays and barracudas. I was getting ready to enter the water when Felipe told me he was having trouble with my regulator hose leaking. He told me it would be fine as long as I kept an eye on my gauge and asked me if I was comfortable with it. I told him I was alright with it, but when he opened the air tank there was a super loud constant whooooshing noise. The expression on my face must have changed drastically because he immediately said we were swapping regs. After a quick swap I was in the water. I should have checked my BC first because it wasn’t inflating and I was kicking like crazy not to sink like a rock. And through my struggles I hear Curtis muttering “jilly… look… boat… shark.” I tried looking for it, but I was concentrating too hard not to sink the whole 6′ to the bottom. I swam closer to the boat and Felipe made a few quicky adjustments (apparently his reg doesn’t hook well to most BCs) and after that we were on our way.

We saw lots of schools of fish swimming about and hovering in the coral. There were tons of horse eyed jacks, silver fish with giant horse like eyes. Felipe was a great guide, searching for things of interest for us to look at like hidden eels, sand dwelling creatures, marine life hiding in shells and crab skeletons. He pointed out a tiny baby black and white fish that was less than an inch long. It looked similar to an angel fish. The water was so clear it didn’t even look like we were 30′ down. There were snorkelers on the surface and it was neat to see them from a different perspective.

It was also the first time I got to try out my new MiniReef digital diving camera. It worked out really well, much better than a disposable. The pictures turned out real well while I was holding still, but with the current it was hard to hold the same spot. Especially since most of my subjects were moving and I didn’t have time to get my buoyancy under control. And I think I might have been slightly overweighted as well.

I didn’t even notice we were ascending until we were back in the grassy 6′ water. Then there it was. The nurse shark was back. He was just a little guy, maybe 3 feet long, and I don’t think my picture turned out well because he was too far away. Then we spotted a ray floating around at a distance, as well as a turtle. Soon we were back on the boat and on our way to Shark Ray Alley for a bit of snorkeling.

At Shark Ray Alley Kristen and I were the first in the water and there was a huge shark right below us. The water was only about 8 feet deep, so he was pretty close. He didn’t seem to like our presence much because he swam off right away, but not before I got a great pic. One of the boats there had food for the fish. Of course there were more horse eyed jacks. There were a few rays and one of them was huge. There were a few nurse sharks too. Curtis and Nick touched the shark and said it felt like sandpaper. I petted a ray, it was squishy and slimy feeling. We snorkeled there for a while and I was having just a heck of a time getting my mask to seal on my face. It kept flooding, then my eyes would get all stingy, then my mask became permafogged. But even with the mask issues it was well worth it to be swimming with sharks :bigsmile:

**CHECK BACK SOON FOR PHOTOS**

Belize – Saturday 12/8

This morning we got up extra early and headed to Rico’s for breakfast. C, K and I enjoyed banana pancakes while Nick enjoyed waffles. After that we were off to the dive shop for diving at Hol Chan and snorkeling at Shark Ray Alley. (See post under diving category for details) When we got back Nick and I signed up for the PADI Advanced Diver course, so we’ll be doing 5 dives over the next two days for that.

After that we lounged around the pool for a few hours. The weather was the same today, hot, partly cloudy, perfect breeze. We were pretty much spent from the long day. We ate dinner at Rico’s restaurant because it was BBQ night. Then we took a cab into town so Kristen and I could get some ice cream. We ended up at Manelli’s. The ice cream was great. I had pistachio & coconut. The coconut was good, but the pistachio was the best pistachio I’ve had… and I’ve had quite a few pistachios!!

We headed back to the condo right away. Nick and I read the appropriate chapters in our PADI Adventures in Diving manuals for the beginning of our Advanced Certification courses tomorrow (deep dive, drift dive and navigation) and off to bed we go…

Belize – Friday 12/7

Our first full day in Belize. I got up around 8 am and had breakfast at Rico’s restaurant with C & K. K had some waffles, C & I had banana pancakes. They were very banana-y. One of the ladies at the restaurant was feeding the birds (first restaurant I’ve seen do that). We walked over for a closer look. There were giant sea gulls and black birds that looked like pterodactyls with turkey gizzards. There were also a few eels in the water eating the scraps that the birds dropped.

**BIRD AND EEL PICTURES COMING SOON**

After breakfast the three of us rented a golf cart and drove to town to stock up on some condo necessities.

**VIDEO OF CURTIS’S CRAZY DRIVING ANTICS COMING SOON**

After that we got Nick out of bed and took a long walk up the beach. A really long walk. The weather was perfect. Temps somewhere in the 80s, partly cloudy. The beaches are nice. The sand is gritty, but it doesn’t hurt to walk on it. Only a few areas are good for swimming though. And the whole island seems void of travelers. There were probably 10 people in our pool and section of beach… including us. It seemed to be that way at all the resorts. We’re not complaining though, it’s nice!!

After our walk we lounged around by the pool and beach. Then we headed to the dive shop in our hotel to set up an excursion for tomorrow morning. We’ll be doing a one tank dive at a local reef called Hol Chan followed by snorkeling at Shark Ray Alley!! Hopefully we’ll get some good pictures and non of us will get eaten (don’t worry Cindy, no one’s getting eaten by sharks).

For dinner we ate at El Divino Restaurant at Banana Beach resort. Nick had some sort of meat on a bead of potatoes and I had a grilled snapper. Mmmm… best non-Hawaiian fish ever. Kristen was feeling a bit under the weather, so we headed back to our condo to rest up for the big day of diving tomorrow.

Home     About     Contact     Disclaimer