Pura Vida!
BAH does Costa Rica (Page 2 of 3)
Our second dive of the day was at a place they called Fantasma, just north of the Catalinas. The current here was absolutely wretched and for some inexplicable reason our dive guide chose to swim against it. "Swim" is an inappropriate verb in this case, as what we really did was hand-over-hand it across the rocks on the bottom of the ocean. It was like rock climbing, horizontally. The experienced divers dubbed it a "flag dive," meaning you spent your time clinging to something and fluttering in the current like a flag flapping in the wind. Many claimed it to be one of their worst dives ever, including one guy with over 4,000 dives logged, who has dived everywhere in the world. Our equipment took a beating from the jagged rocks of the reef. My dive gloves, virtually brand new, now have holes in the fingertips. My fins are all banged up. It was necessary to descend down the anchor line, since there was no way for the group to stay together in a free fall to the bottom. Just pulling yourself down the line in that current was a chore, and I was gnashing my teeth as I watched my tank pressure dropping during the friggin' descent, cherished air being wasted short of the ocean floor. I wasn't so distracted, however, that I didn't notice the totally cool cloud of jellyfish through which we descended to the bottom. There were thousands of them, little guys that could fit in the palm of my hand, tentacleless and transparent, undulating balls of jelly shot with neon blue striations. At the bottom, visibility was a miserable 15-20 feet at best, often less.
At 71 feet beneath the surface, I lost Betty. I had pulled my way down the side of a big rock to check out a huge moray hiding under an overhang. When I worked my way back up the rock, Betty was no longer near me. I looked back and saw her holding hands with the dive master (Debbie -- pictured with Betty above) bringing up the rear of the group, the two of them struggling against the current together. They were just at the limit of my visibility. Looking forward, I could only just barely make out the flippers of the diver ahead of me. I knew if I hesitated, I would lose sight of him, which would mean all three of us in the back would be lost. Reasoning that I should keep him in sight, while they kept me in sight, I broke the cardinal rule and abandoned my dive buddy. I thought she would be fine with Debbie. What I didn't know was that someone else had fallen behind the two of them and become lost. Debbie sent Betty on ahead by herself and went back after the missing diver. I traveled maybe another ten feet, looked back, and there was absolutely no one behind me. Just over the next rock there was a sheltered canyon where everyone was trying to regroup. When I arrived alone, Steve and Allen (two of the Blue Water instructors that had taught Betty and me to dive) saw that I was alone, and when I signaled that I had lost Betty, they went back after her, signaling that I should wait with the group. Betty did good. She was totally lost, but she didn't panic. We'd all been told that if we became separated, we were to search for the others for one minute, and if we didn't find anyone, we were to make our way to the surface. Betty was getting ready to head topside when Steve and Allen found her. Just as well she didn't have to surface on her own in that spot, though, as the current and surges were so bad that the safety stop was a difficult one to make. When we finally did come up, we were a million miles from the dive boat. When we returned to the dive shop, our group raised hell about the dive master who had led the dive and asked that he not work our boat again. We never should have been working against that current. Either the site should have been scrapped for another one or we should have been traveling with the current. It was a scary thing, losing Betty for a few minutes, and I decided then and there not to separate from my dive buddy again, regardless of the circumstances.
Pictured above is Allen, owner of Bluewater Divers OKC. He's a lot of fun to hang out with, rides his motorcycle way too fast, and is a great dive instructor. He and I are planning to parachute together soon.
Third day, first dive, was Bat Island at the extreme north end of the gulf, another hour and a half boat ride from the dive shop. Our boat actually blew a water pump on the run out there, but, amazingly, the boat captain was able to fix it in about 30 mins. We all felt for him, down in the hold with that hot engine. This is the dive where we were supposed to see large and aggressive bull sharks. We were told that the boat would back into a wall, where we would descend quickly as a group to a sandy cul-de-sac against the wall. The sharks would then come check us out while we sat on the bottom trying to look like something that doesn't taste good. We were told to keep our hands in against our chests and smile a lot. Once the sharks had checked us out, they'd ignore us from then on and we'd be able to scuba at leisure. Unfortunately, except for a very large ghost or two in the gloom, really just passing shadows, I never saw a bull shark -- very disappointing! This was my deepest dive; my computer logged 99 feet. Had I been paying attention, I would have dropped another foot just to make it an even 100. Of course, because it was our deepest dive, it was also our shortest: 33 minutes. I want gills. Running out of air and having to come back up just plain sucks.
The most memorable part of this dive -- for me, anyway -- was actually the safety stop. At 20 feet, waiting three minutes to off-gas some of the nitrogen in our bodies, we were circled by this enormous cloud of jacks. Each fish was about 24 inches long, silver and yellow and blue, and there were literally thousands of them. That's me pictured above.
Back on the dive boat, we were joined by dolphins and devil rays that would leap 20 feet from the water to turn head-over-tail somersaults. Totally cool; I had no idea rays did that. I wish I could have gotten a picture of them, but a digital camera just isn't fast enough. By the time you spot one and line up the camera, you've only got a fraction of a second to get the shot before the ray splashes back into the water -- and most digital cameras take a second or two to process the shot. We were all hoping to spot a whale shark out here in the open water, but even though the dive crew had spotted a mother and baby just the week before, we never saw one. We all kept mask, fins, and snorkels handy, though, just in case, hoping for the opportunity to swim with one. As with the mantas, hammerheads, and -- for the most part -- bull sharks, we had no luck on this trip. I really wanted to see a manta, as the locals claim to see ones with wing spans of 20 feet or more all the time. We did our surface interval (off-gassing period between dives) in this absolutely gorgeous little bay with shallow, crystal-clear turquoise water. There's some legend about the bay, something to do with a baby that was sacrificed to appease a hurricane or something (I only caught a little bit of the story that was told by one of our dive crew). Entering the bay, there's a statue of the Virgin Mary on a hill, commemorating the legend (see photo above). Anyway, it was a totally cool spot. Rather than sit on the boat, after I ate my share of fresh pineapple and cookies, I grabbed my mask, snorkel, and fins, and jumped in the water, where I spent an hour or so chasing fish and picking things up off the bottom to show Betty. There were huge conch shells on the bottom, but all of them were empty (local fishermen, I believe). I wanted to bring one home, but we were told that we wouldn't be allowed back through customs with them (and they did search our bags leaving the country). I fed the fish here a cookie. And, sadly, I found a dying porcupinefish.
I brought up a rather large (and rare) piece of coral to show Betty, and she discovered that it had a little passenger onboard. He was cute enough to warrant a photo.
Second dive of day three was at a place called Black Rock. That's it in the photo behind me, really nothing more than a pinnacle of igneous rock protruding from the sea. The incredible thing about this dive is that there were moray eels everywhere. I doubt I'll ever see so many in one location again. All different kinds: green, gray, spotted, zebra, and jewel morays. There were big ones: six feet long, bigger around than my thigh. And little ten inch long babies that I wanted to catch and stuff in the pocket of my BC to bring home with me. I touched several of them. Betty says one tried to kiss her when she accidentally stuck her face too close.
We dove to 73 feet in water that was a glorious 85 degrees F, with visibility at about 50 feet. I paid more attention to the small things on this dive, pulling in close to the rocks to examine little wrasses and gobies, barberfish and Moorish idols (there's a Moorish idol featured in the new Disney movie, Finding Nemo, which I just saw today -- a wonderful film!) and numerous types of angelfish. That's me and Debbie in the photo above, and it appears she's point something out to me. I found a baby scorpionfish disguised as a rock. And sea cucumbers that looked like turds on the bottom of the ocean. Parrotfish were nibbling the rocks and coral here. If you held your breath and listened, you could hear them crunching away.
Last day of diving -- so sad to see "scubah time" coming to an end! -- was at two locations called Sorpresa (Surprise) and Los Meros (the Meadows), the latter actually in Culebra Bay. Surprise took us to 88 feet and included schooling spotted eagle rays. The Meadows was a nice long, shallow dive. My computer logged a max depth of just 41 ft, shallow enough that I was able to stay underwater for an hour. When it came time to surface, the dive master directed Betty and me to the anchor line to make our safety stop. When we got there, we discovered Dana, who was waiting to surface. I wondered why she hadn't ascended the line for her stop, but when I checked my gauges I discovered that we'd already traveled up the reef to a depth of just 20 ft. Had I realized we'd ascended to that depth, I'd have spent more time on the bottom -- as it was, I came out with over 600 psi in my tank, wasted air and lost underwater time, dammit! After having told the dive master we were going up, though, I thought we'd get in trouble for not doing so. But we could have tooled around at the top of the reef, essentially doing our safety stop there at the 20 ft mark, for another ten minutes or so. Next time I'll pay more attention to my depth gauge. Featured in the photo above: (l to r) Steve, Betty, Chris, and Dana.
The Meadows was a cool dive. There were tons of morays and scorpionfish and schools of striped grunts (in which I disguised my land-based self once again). Debbie was an expert at finding nudibranches (essentially a sea snail wearing a Tournament of Roses Day parade float on its back) in the rocks. They're absolutely beautiful, brilliantly colored, ranging in size from about the size of your fingernail to four or five inches long -- a quick search on Google will take you to websites with lots of pictures of them if you're curious. We found a baby stingray hidden in the sand (see if you can spot him in the photo above), an octopus wedged firmly in a crevice where we couldn't get hold of him to take him out for a good look, and all manner of sea critters. One of the divers found a sea horse (Betty and I missed it). It was a wonderful, easy dive to wrap up the adventure.
Back at the hotel that night, Steve and I took mask, fins, snorkels, and lights down to the beach. The sand was covered with hermit crabs, all shuffling along to destinations unknown, each carrying a coveted shell on its back. In the water, we snorkeled about in the pitch black, surprising sleeping puffers and porcupinefish with our lights. You could dive down, scoop them up off the bottom, and hold them in the palm of your hand. They'd blink their sorrowful eyes dreamily and purse their fishy lips in little slumbering snores. I chased a stingray with my light for the longest time, occasionally looking behind me into the pitch black water, wondering if there might be something back there chasing me as well. Though I have a good underwater light, its beam doesn't extend more than 10-15 feet in dark water. Eventually, we retreated from the sea, as we were getting stung by some sort of unseen jellyfish or plankton. We climbed the hill back to our hotel, found the pool completely empty (this was about 11 p.m.) and dove in to wash off our gear and ourselves.
Later, in the room, I packed away my gear. Diving for this trip was sadly at an end. But there were more adventures ahead. To read about those, proceed to Page Three. If you missed Page One somehow, click here. For additional photos shot by other Blue Water divers, click here.
