Up and out early again today to catch a taxi to Akumal. We thought we might be late as the taxi took a while to show up, but everything is tranquilo in Spanish countries. We rocked up and hung around in the shop till the boat came back in with our instructor for today.
Luis, the Mexican Condor, helped us get our kit sorted. This time I felt happy doing the checks myself. Aimi’s tank connection to the hoses was leaking a bit more than I was comfortable with, so I got the tank changed over.
This time I didn’t forget my GoPro and no sooner had we landed on the bottom, a Turtle drifted past. For the setup, transport and boat ride out there, I had the GoPro wrapped up and tucked in my BCD pocket. I had to really scramble to get it out, switched on and recording to get a shot of the Turtle, I didn’t know if we would see another on the dive. I needn’t have worried. Again, as we toured the sea scape, turtles perked their heads up from behind corals or out from under rocky overhangs to see us.
It was so amazing to see turtles, but that wasn’t the only sea life worth seeing. In a few occasions, the Condor was pointing at something that we couldn’t see. I’ve no idea how he spotted it, but a flat fish was squatting behind a fan. It was only when he got close enough that it decided to dart away did we see it at all. Until that point, it’s natural camouflage, to look like the sandy bottom of the sea, was doing a great job. Same thing happened with what looked like pretty standard reef dwelling fish. They were iridescently colorful but only when we finally got within spitting distance (which, underwater, is REALLY close) did we realise what they were. A whole group swarm herd platoon squad of squid, all swimming with their wiggly fins along the side of their… heads?
I’m not sure how much of these I got on the GoPro. It’s a great camera, but so wide angle that you have to get really close to see anything in detail. The screen on the back is great, but so small it’s hard to review the footage. It will be a nice surprise when we are home to see what I managed to capture.
Tonight we are at the other Italian (mexican) restaurant. Yup, there are loads of places to eat at this hotel. We can’t quite eat somewhere new every night, but almost.