Diving with Sharks

After the cavern dive, we hung around in Tulum enjoying the beach, doing a salsa lesson, eating some great sea food and so on. From here we were heading out to Cozumel, one of the best dive locations in the world according to Jacques Coustea the legendary french documentary filmmaker. We were too close not to be tempted.

We woke early, took a collectivo to Playa de Carmen, jumped on a ferry and were in Cozumel by 9am, and at the dive shop by 10. We checked out our equipment, set it all up, and were headed out on our dive boat by 10.30.

It was a very different dive from the few we had done before. The current was strong and so we drifted along doing very little swimming. Anu had a problem equalising while because of the drift the rest of us were drifting away from our guide,  so Nu had to abort her dive. It must have been a heartbreaking hour for her on the boat!

Anyway, we continued drifting until we reached the reef. The reed wasn't quite as abundant or alive as the ones in Roatan but it wa still quite beautiful. We did a swim thorugh which was amazing. To be in a tunnel of coral is quite some visual experience. We came out of the tunnel and traight into a shark! Took my breath away. She was about 2.5m long, grey and very ominous looking. A few minutes later as we swam with her we spotted another shark, but this one was a baby. Beautiful, the way they cut through the water lazily , slmost seeming like they were aware that they were special! We saw a barracuda, an electric sting ray , many groupers including a black grouper, lobsters, and a bunch of other beautiful fish.

When we came back,some other told us they had seen a turtle. I've been dying to swim with a sea turtle, maybe a little too much, and as is with wanting something too much, I've missed every turtle that others have spotted.

Our second dive was less spectacular than the first in terms of the quality of the reef or the under water life we saw but it was great that Nu managed to equalise and do the dive with us this time.

That night we stayed in Cozumel. Cozumel, playa de Carmen, and Cancun are all places I would normally give a miss if not for the diving. They are too touristic, have no local flavour to the point where the local currency is the US dollar, expensive, and far too loud and noisy to be relaxed.  Actually the Yucatan peninsula was far too touristic for my liking. Sure it is beautiful but sometimes tha is just not enough.  I did enjoy the food, the sights, and the diving was exciting but selfishly I wish it had more travellers and less holiday makers.

The Chiapas and Tobasco were also touristiic but continued to retain its local flavour, which was really nice.

A quick stopover in Cancun, and we flew out to Mexico city, the last stop on our Latin American sojourn. It is difficult to describe how I was feeling at this point, and it only got more confusing as each day passed, but I'll try and put that into words in another post.