Diving 2011

Diving

     

Photoalbum Mexico Puerto Vallarta

 

Wednesday November 30, 2011: First diving day at Los Arcos

I dive, you dive, we dive, one day the whole world will dive. Or maybe not. We start our day early: Veerle wakes up at about four, Timo one hour later; we return to our bed and get up at seven. Everything OK? Yep, sure. We ensure everything is ready for our first dives here: masks, camera, towels and all other stuff you usually take with you for diving. Then we go up to the restaurant for breakfast. If you take the extra, the breakfast is nice: scrambled eggs, toast, coffee and juice, the same as yesterday. Because we’re so early, we have the same table as yesterday with a great view on the city, the sea; it’s really nice from the forth floor. We have our breakfast and then it’s time to head for the Pemex, the gas station close to the hotel, because there Cesar will pick us up to bring us to the harbor and there we leave for diving. When we get there he’s already waiting for us, well arranged, on time, even a few minutes early. He waits for us in a white pickup with the logo of the BanderasScubaRepublic and a white and red DAN-logo. He greets us very friendly, like we’re already friends for years. We already expected that yesterday when we first met him, that the service would be very personal. We leave immediately, because taxi-drivers should not see him picking us up. He would be in trouble then. The taxi drivers are some kind of mafia. White taxis take people back to their hotels, the yellow ones from the hotel, but everything is not so clear. We haven’t seen a single white one and the drivers of the yellow taxis constantly ask if you need a ride. In short, if Cesar would pick us up at the hotel, a taxi probably would block his way, because they would feel that he’s stealing their business and they don’t like that.

We head on with Cesar to pick up two more people: Chris and Al. They are in Nuevo Vallarta and that is on the way to the tank filling station that Cesar uses here. On our way there we get some information about the history of BanderasBay, when the Spanish conquistador arrived here and he only saw flags (Banderas) on the beach. Cesar also confirms the story of the stewardess that most people don’t have a driver’s license and it’s not safe to drive. Then again, Cesar is Spanish and he drives here too, so???? In one of the small streets we stop and load the tanks: ten in total. And then we go to the harbor. We see a pier with a dozen of boats moored and we help Cesar to take all gear from the pickup to the boat. We load everything on the boat, not after Cesar has prepared the tanks for everyone. A nice and very personal service. Christian is our captain today of a small boat, but we have enough space for four divers and one divemaster to get ready. We receive a briefing on the boat and the departure is quite impressive: we navigate with the small craft between the huge cruise ships. Today there are three very big ships, for example the Disney Wonder, really unbelievable. Christian continues while Cesar does the briefing. We certainly need to check the signals, because they’re a little bit different here. The pressure is not in bar, but in PSI (Pounds per Square Inch) and the start is three thousand PSI. To indicate the thousand you sign with your finger on your arm and the hundred just with the fingers. A small change, but no problem. They also have a different signal when you’re low on air, because that is just a fist to your chest. It’s nothing difficult, but you need to be aware of the differences. He clearly describes what is going to happen and especially checks with Veerle if all is clear – she just recently received her Open Water Diver license. Both Veerle and Timo have understood well. Cesar also describes some of the signals for the fish we might see and that is about the same as we’re used to. All rather easy.

After half an hour we arrive at Los Arcos and Cesar and Christian look for a buoy, but it has disappeared since yesterday. They don’t know who took it, but there is no buoy. That means we need to descend without reference and start the dive like that. Timo enters the water first, then Chris, Al, Veerle and Cesar. Check the weights: all is fine for Timo, but Veerle needs one kilo more. We dive here with a seven millimeter wetsuit and in salty water. Everybody is relaxed and we can start. During the descent Cesar takes Veerle with him and once we’re at the bottom Timo and Veerle are buddies. We descend slowly all together. We unite the buddy-teams and Cesar dives off. He kicks his fins fast and we have difficulty to keep up. He wants to reach a wall, so we need to dive fast: he has no idea how it is with our air consumption, but we’re doing good. Especially if you know that after Nemo33 this is Veerle’s first open water dive. We swim over a sandy patch and there is not a lot to see. We see a snake eel and a balloon fish, but apart from that only sand. We stay together and reach some rocks after a while. There we notice more sea life and larger fish: porcupine fish, groupers, but we don’t have a lot of time, because we continue fast. Certainly in the beginning Timo is occupied to check on Veerle, more than to look at the fish, but that’s fine for him. The water is green and the visibility is limited to about five meters, but we like the dive a lot. Timo spots a nudibranch, but has no time to show it to the others. Cesar sees a Panamic moray eel and we continue the dive, more slowly now.

And then we reach the steep wall, this is the place to be, because there is a lot of different life and more colorful than what Veerle has already seen and also better than for example Oosterschelde in The Netherlands. We drift along the wall and love every second of the dive. We go a bit deeper than eighteen meters, but everything is under control. At the end of the wall there is a small canyon that takes us to lesser depths and here are many fish: sergeant majors, damselfish and very beautiful small yellow-blue fish. Cesar asks one time during the dive how much air we still have and we both have enough and we also did not forget to different signals. We continue the dive. Then a special balloonfish swims by: blue and black with white dots. After about half an hour Veerle signals she has about thousand PSI and that means we need to end the dive. Cesar takes us to a rock that lies about five meters under the surface. Close to the rock Timo sees a nudibranch and constantly blennies appear between the rocks. There is a lot of current and we need to hold tight, otherwise we would get dragged away by the current. Timo thinks this is heavy for Veerle’s first dive, but she loves it and has complete control. A couple of times we dive hand in hand just for safety and we notice that from the air consumption. After the safety stop we surface and can put the BCD and other gear on the boat and then get back on the boat ourselves. The first dive in Mexico is very good. It’s not the longest one – thirty five minutes – but was a good one. We’re happy if we can dive.

We get water and stay on the surface for fifty minutes. While we look at the pelicans coming and going, we also check out another bird breading on these islands. The blue-footed booby is actually a species only found on the Galapagos archipelago, but there is a second place on earth and that is here at Los Arcos. Timo takes a lot of pictures and then we go to the start of the second dive. We find the buoy here and can moor and that makes it easier to start the dive. We get some general information about the islands, birds and other animals and the fifty minutes are over very fast. And then it’s time for the second dive of the day. Apparently Cesar is confident, because Veerle starts immediately with Timo. We enter the water first: Timo, Veerle, then Chris and Al and Cesar comes in last. It is not so deep, because we see the sandy bottom: about five meters of visibility. We quickly go down, because a boat arrived with ten divers and about twenty of snorkelers. It’s getting busy. That’s why we descend rather fast, follow the mooring line and start the second dive. We meet at five meters, all OK? Yes and there we go! We hover over a sandy patch and see a large ray, it looks like a bluespotted stingray, but this one has brown spots. Nice one! Then we see two shadows flying away and later on the boat Cesar tells us that were eagle rays. And then we move on: Cesar, then Veerle and Timo and lastly Chris and Al. they close off. Covered by the rocks we see some butterflyfish, because we left the sand behind us. One large fish with a hump on his head swims before us and we love this dive a lot. The visibility is now about six meters and that is a little bit better than the first dive. And we still have some current. Timo has the same thoughts: quite surprising that these sites are chosen for an open water diver. The vegetation is rather special with many brown plants that have not been identified. We mainly enjoy the colors of the fish: small ones with blue in the front and yellow at the back. A couple of wrasses are here too and balloonfish and porcupinefish are the most common ones. Really great! They stay close to us and we can get some nice pistures. And then Timo spots a good one: a scorpionfish. He’s not happy with our presence and attacks so we move on.

Then we arrive at Devils Drop. From here it goes down five thousand feet; that is also the reason why humpback whales are here. And this is the season when they come to calve. On our first day here we don’t see any. A couple of small moray eels are sheltered in the cracks, but we can see them very well. This second dive is a couple of minutes longer. Veerle was diving with Timo hand in hand and that was good for the air, which is nice. Time flies and suddenly it’s time for our safety stop. With five divers we do our safety stop without reference, really great. Timo takes Veerle with him and makes circles around Cesar who concentrates on keeping his depth, so we still have a visual reference. After three minutes everything is OK and we go up. We take off our equipment and board the Yiyo. We immediately take off our suits and cherish the sun to warm up and return to the harbor. We receive a sandwich and then we quietly leave the divesite over a choppy sea. And then suddenly captain Christian yells he has spotted dolphins, yes! This is not a small school, but there are hundreds of dolphins. They are on the left side of the boat, but also at the right side and we regularly see them jumping out of the water, a great sight. We stay with the animals for about fifteen minutes and like this a lot. In the distance we also see a large group of seabirds diving into the water and we think there will be a swarm of fish below the surface – just decimated by the dolphins. After this we sail back to the harbor. Again we have the three big ships, a Dutch one, another one from the Bahamas and the Disney Wonder. Cesar asks Timo to take pictures and send them to him for his daughter. That’s not a problem. After forty five minutes we’re back at the harbor and there we load all equipment from the boat back into the truck and we quickly go and have a look in the harbor. This is a military site and we should not be allowed, but we can have a look at the large number of iguana’s here. There is a large one on the ground and another one in a tree. The latter is really magnificent orange and seems to be a dominant male. We’ve seen plenty of wildlife today: under water, on the water, on land and it’s been a great day already.

Cesar needs to drop off the tanks, clean the gear and then he takes us to the gas station and we walk back to the hotel. There we wash the salt of our bodies and our gear and then we go into town to celebrate the first dives in Mexico with four mojito’s. We find a bar with happy hour, two for the price of one, but they serve us four at once. With the sun in our face, sea view and a nice drink we look back at a nice first day of diving. Then we return to the hotel. Veerle has a siesta and Timo writes the report on the balcony in the sun with a beer and a bag of chips with jalapeño-flavor. At about seven it’s time for dinner. We stop at ‘Burger Paradise’ and the food here is just great. Timo has a fajita and Veerle a Hawaiian burger. The fajita is served in a pan and flambéed at the table: this is fun! The taste is very good too: beef, shrimps, chicken with paprika and onion and very well seasoned. The portion is too big, but it’s good. Also Veerle’s burger is nice and we’re having a great time. At about nine we’re getting tired, so we walk back to the hotel and go to sleep. We fall asleep immediately and sleep to the morning. We’re not jet lagging anymore. Or maybe this has never been the case, because we were just tired of traveling and lack of sleep the first day. Tomorrow we have diving day number two and then there is a day without any plans or maybe we find something. We’ll see.

 

Thursday December 1, 2011: Diving day two: Majahuitas Beach north and south

Get up, get up, get up! The noise-makers have started. Every morning the garbage truck passes by with a lot of noise – horns and bells. In Belgium we know a bellman, but not like this. Constantly there is someone making noise with a bell so everybody knows the garbage truck arrives and this is also for the people still asleep. A benefit of this is that the streets are generally clean, but the quality is a different issue. The cobblestones are not very straight, but you preferably walk on the sidewalk and then it’s OK. It’s also much safer, because they drive like madmen here and don’t stop for crossing pedestrians. At the important crossroads we see policemen who try to orderly manage traffic. At about six in the morning life starts and that is also the moment when we get up and prepare for an early breakfast. We have breakfast at seven thirty and ensure we’re ready when Cesar picks us up at the gas station. Today we order an extra breakfast again, because we’ll need to additional calories. We use the elevator again to go to the forth floor and there the waiters of the restaurant are looking very busy serving no one. We’re first here again. We drink a cup of coffee, a glass of juice, have some fruits and eat bacon and eggs and then it’s time to leave and go to the pickup spot at the gas station.

We go back down and walk to the meeting point. We’re not alone today, but there are not enough divers to go to Las Marietas: Cesar needed four divers for that. Our companion today is Dario from Argentina, close to Buenos Aires and we go diving to Majahuitas today. First we pick up the tanks and then go to the harbor. Everything goes nice and relaxed today, because it’s pretty warm. We unload the pickup and take everything to the boat. Today we have the same captain as yesterday and hopefully he can spot some nice wildlife when we return. In half an hour we’re finished and can go to the other side of the bay. Majahuitas is also south of the harbor and it takes us forty minutes to get there. We have enough to talk about on our way there. We again talk about the same rules as yesterday and hear the same information about the signals and the air. The forty minutes are over soon and we can start to put our wetsuit on for our first dive. Timo is first in the water, now wearing the BCD large instead of a medium yesterday and it feels better. Veerle is second and then we need to wait for ten minutes for Dario and Cesar. Everybody ready and go down.

Veerle and Timo dive at the back and stay a bit shallower than Cesar. And then suddenly Dario is on the surface again. Cesar indicates to us we need to stay put and he’s going to check what’s going on. During our descent we already spotted a ray and we check the animal out and already take some pictures. After five minutes we’re back on track and start the dive. The first part is over sand and here we often see small heads sticking out from the sand: garden eels. They’re very funny animals. Also for Timo this is the first time he sees them. Then we reach rocks and in the cracks the moray eels have found shelter. We come across some sand too and then we spot more rays. Balloonfish swim next to us and again the very colorful fish, really beautiful. It’s even better than yesterday, because now we see about eight meters and we’re on a drift. Then Cesar points a scorpionfish and we check the animal out. Timo takes pictures and tries to reach Cesar and Dario, but misses Veerle. He looks to the left to the right, down and up and there she is. We’re twenty five minutes in the dive and she has lost control over her buoyancy. Within thirty seconds she’s already a couple of meters above Timo and then she looses it completely. We were diving at twenty meters the whole time and she had put a lot of air in her BCD. After we spotted the scorpionfish, we had to start again and she lost it. Timo slowly goes after her and arrives at ten meters. Then Cesar sees there’s something wrong, pretty fast and asks Timo where his buddy is. He points to the surface and Cesar comes and joins him. He has been diving about half an hour and is close to thousand two hundred PSI. That’s enough to go to the surface, but not enough to go back down and dive along with Cesar and Dario. At the surface Timo sees that Veerle is already at the boat and Christian picks here up safely. She’s all right, just went up too fast, but it was not a catastrophe. In the end a safety stop is not a decompression stop, although it’s better to have the stop. Today Veerle did not feel like it.

Timo climbs on board a few minutes after Veerle and we wait for about ten minutes until Cesar and Dario come back. We put our wetsuits to dry and can rest and have our surface interval for about half an hour on a tropical beach. It is a great place; you think you’re in paradise. A beautiful sandy beach, palm trees, great blue waters: what else does a man need? We feel comfortably at home and we feel we could stay here for ages. After about half an hour we need to get back on the boat, climb on it and go to the next dive site. It’s not far away. The first one was south beach and this one if called north beach. This time the order is different. First Veerle, then Timo, Dario and Cesar is still last. We go down very slowly, Veerle receive a kilo again to avoid something like this morning and this time everything will be OK. We dive with the current and we a spotted pufferfish and not even five minutes later Veerle sees an eagle ray passing by. First Timo looks at the majestic animal and decides to still take an unclear picture, but he first wanted to see the ray. We dive between thousands of fish and seem to be in a traffic jam, really an amazing feeling to float here like that. Again we see a few pufferfish, porcupinefish and a couple of moray eels. Some angelfish swim in a small group and between the small rocks we see a juvenile: small and very pretty and cute. A yellow pufferfish swims away from us in the green water and then Cesar signals we need to pay attention. A pearl oyster is open and when he claps his hands it shuts the shells. Just like the Christmas tree tube worm right next to it. Apparently there are also lobsters here, but we only see the leftover skeleton. We start to turn back and Timo thought this would be against the current, but a bit shallower the current takes us to the other direction. Sometimes it’s a bit uncomfortable, because there is a surge that drags you from left to right and it’s difficult to stay in control. Then you notice that Veerle is not really at ease yet, but for her first open water dives – what would you expect. All other dives she’s done very well, expect for the one thing. Banded butterflyfish constantly follow us during the dive and the many small fish also draw our attention.

After about thirty five minutes it’s time for our safety stop and we do it very good this time. Now we have a total dive time of forty minutes and we have had two nice dives today and yesterday. The ones of today were more relaxed and we saw a lot more. Dario and Cesar have some air left and want to continue for another ten minutes and that’s no problem at all. We prepare ourselves for the journey back and sit at the front of the boat in the sun and have a sandwich. We’re not as lucky as yesterday with the dolphins, but we’ll probably have another opportunity to see them. According to Dario you can even dive with them, which sounds interesting. After forty minutes we’re back at the harbor and park the boat between the other small ones. We help to take everything from the boat to the pickup, pass by the tank filling station and Cesar drops us off at the gas station again. We take a shower and will then go to the shop of BanderasScubaRepublic to fill out our logbooks and to get a refund for the Marietas dives we did not do. The shower does wonders and in less than half an hour we leave to Colombia Street for the Correos de Mexico, the postal office. Veerle can finally post the cards and then we quickly go to BSR. Again Cesar welcomes us with open arms and he asks us whether we liked it. The service was very good, very personal and everything was fine. The rental equipment was good and we saw how he cleaned it and stored it, so all was well. And of course the diving too. It would have even been better if we saw a whale or a manta ray, but the Pacific Ocean is not a zoo and we were very happy with these two days. We fill out the logbooks and stamp them and then ask the money back. Se suggests an alternative: for the same amount he can sell us a T-shirt and we like that. The shirts are even pretty with two eagle rays on the back forming the DAN flag, not a bad deal. Then it’s time for a drink on the first ocean dives of Veerle and she even did two drift dives: You rule baby!

We take a seat at La Maquina on the beach and order a celebration cocktail: tequila sunrise. We have a drink and then Dario comes walking down the beach in our direction. We invite him to join us and talk about diving, about his and our country. Maybe Argentina is an interesting destination beginning of 2012. We’ll see. We have a nice evening and enjoy the sunset. Dario gives his e-mail address and we will certainly send some pictures of the dives here. After the third tequila we had enough and return to the Malecon. On our way back Timo notices a kind of procession to the big cathedral. We stop and check this out: a guy with a hat of fake plumage is hitting the drums and others dance to the rhythm. Then the rest follows and everybody walks along, also a cute Mexican boy and he really is aware people are taking pictures of him. We have dinner in La Chata: Veerle has shrimps now and Timo prefers the sate. It’s not a normal sate like we’re used in Belgium with blocks of meat, but his is real beef rolled up and then put on a stick and then backed the way you prefer. To be sure Timo asks for a well-done. It is very good and we enjoy the food and we have a great ending to a beautiful day. After dinner we return to the hotel. We have a drink and cigarette on our balcony and go to bed at about nine. We’re tired and are looking forward to a nice and calm day tomorrow.