SCUBA!

Aimee and I have a new obsession.  We started SCUBA diving earlier this year, and we really can't get enough of it.  As soon as we got to the resort, we started asking around about who takes out dive groups.  It didn't take us long to find the excursion desk outside of the dining room.  Most of the tours were expensive and pretty cheezy (jeep tours and the like), but one of them was a legitimate SCUBA operation.  Sign us up!

We woke up at an ungodly 8 am on the morning of our dive, and we headed down to the hotel lobby.  We joined a German family sitting next to their well-organized dive bags, and a Canadian family that was just tagging along for the boat ride.

A few minutes later, an open-windowed mid-80s tour bus pulled up with about 20 people from the other nearby resorts.  Our first stop was a charmingly rundown jungle shack a few miles inland to pick up our flippers and dive gear.  Apparently, most of the people on the bus were just going to the beach; the Germans were the only other people picking up dive gear.

After a 30 minute drive, we pulled into a pretty textbook Caribbean beach town.  There were thatched huts lining the road along the beach, and lush, green trees went right up to the water.  Since we were diving that day, I didn't bring my camera, but I had a little disposable one that let me take a few photos of the town.  None of them came out particularly well, but this one gives a decent feel for the area.

For the sake of an entertaining blog post, I half-wish that I could tell you about the shoddy dive gear and a leaky boat.  But it was actually a pretty legit operation.  The gear was not unlike what we'd rent in the US, and the fiberglass fishing boat would have been right at home in an early-70s Bond movie.

The German family was getting their diving certification that day, so they went out from the shore.  But since Aimee and I had a wealth week of diving experience, we hopped on the boat with a local dive master, and he took us out to "The Wall."

The Wall turned out to be a fitting name for the dive spot.  It's a steep drop off in the ocean floor about a mile or so off shore, and it was a pretty amazing hub for sea life.  We dove down to about 40 or 50 feet below the surface, and swam for a few miles along the wall.  It was only mildly disconcerting that there was nothing below us, and an endless dark blue void to our right.

But the coral and fish were amazing.

The only mermaid that needs a breathing apparatus.

All in all, it was a great little side trip, until Aimee got eaten by a shark.