Well here we are, freshly back from our SCUBA diving trip to Cozumel, Mexico. We barely had time to unpack, launder and repack after returning home from California, but we sure felt adventurous.

Our flight was out of San Antonio very early last Monday morning, so we drove down the night before and made a quick trip to the River Walk. Uneventful for us, but apparently quite the event for the thousands of men who were in town for a convention or something. Wall-to-wall beer-fueled testosterone, let me tell you. I can’t believe no one fell in the river, at least not that we saw. But we left as the night was still young.

We stayed at an all-inclusive resort on the beach in Cozumel, Mexico. Sounds pretty fancy, but let me remind you, it is Mexico. But we were pleasantly surprised at the accommodations. Everything was lovely. Especially the open bar.

The purpose of this trip was to get some SCUBA experience in the ocean before our advanced training class (which is next weekend). And experience we did get. We made five dives – one the second day, and two on days three and four. We couldn’t dive the last day in order to prevent the bends from joining us on the way home.

Like my mohawk? We dove to 100 feet maximum, deeper than we thought we’d get to go. It was awesome! This type of diving is called “drift diving” because you pretty much float along with the current, and don’t have to swim too much except when maneuvering through caves or to go look at something interesting.

We saw a small shark each day, averaging 4 feet in length. The one in this picture below was sleeping in a small coral tunnel, then when awakened by our fellow divers, swam away – about four feet beneath me. You can watch the video here. I couldn’t catch up to him because it was against the current.

We also saw turtles, tons of different fish, eel and barracuda. The barracuda I met while snorkeling sort of attacked me. It was completely unexpected and I may have wet my swimsuit. I didn’t lose any digits or limbs though.

There were lots of iguanas hanging around. Particularly, there were two who spent all day around one of the pools, waiting for fruit and other scraps. They were humongous.

The diving was a blast. We got to go from two different types of boats. The first you step off the back to get in the water (a “giant-stride” entry).

The second was a much smaller boat where you sit on the side and roll off backward into the water (“seated back-roll entry”). Very ungraceful, but actually much easier, since all you do is fall over, and I’m good at that.

We got to see lots of different types of reefs, and float along “walls” that were about 30 feet high and filled with coral and sea life. The best part was going through tunnels and caves formed by the coral. Our pictures simply don’t do it justice, as you lose colors the deeper you go. But it was fantastic down there.

I suppose I should point out that yes, our wetsuits were made circa 1994, Michael’s more obviously than mine. We got these when we were teenagers and went boogie boarding in the Pacific all the time. Shocking that they held up this long. More shocking is that we still fit in them. Most shocking is that we didn’t get laughed off the pier. (Just kidding, sweetie).

This picture was right before our first dive – one of the two times it rained briefly during our trip. We had fantastic weather, couldn’t have asked for better. There was usually just enough cloud cover that you didn’t completely broil in the sun. I was surprised by all the purposeful sun-bakers around though – the idiots who fry themselves to a crisp and show up to dinner displaying raw skin in various shades of red, purple and fried. Then you’d see them back out in the sun the next day with no protection, gleefully adding more skin cancer to their future. It’s really shocking. I think we went through about 2 pounds of sun block, ourselves. Barely even changed color.

Anyway, there’s my usual 1000-word update. I’ve included some of my favorite photos for you, but of course, the other 235 are at the gallery.

Michael uploaded a compilation of our videos to youtube as well. Here it is, enjoy! (Music by Radiohead).