Are Yew For Escuba??

I was!  And at about 7:30am this morning I was removing my earrings because my dad told me that they look like fish lures and Baracudas will bite your ears off.  I realize the odds of this happening are basically none.  Nevertheless, while I've never been a huge fan of my ear shape, I'd still like to have them on my head.  So the earrings and rings came off (I like my fingers too).

Dad and I arranged for a boat out today for two dives.  Because, like always, I forgot my dive log in my dive bag which is sitting in Brad's garage I'm going to use this post as my dive log as well so that I remember stuff.

Dive 1: 

• Max Depth: 60ft
• Bottom Time: 58mins
• Water Temp: 80 degrees Fahrenheit
• Scuba Buddy: Dad and Johnny (dive leader)
• Location:  Cartagena, Colombia - outlying islands 
• Visibility: 40ft
• Marine Life:  Parrot fish, angel fish, queen angel fish, boxer fish, squirrel fish, green moray eel, lion fish, rock fish, brain coral, little blue fish, school of larger little blue fish, quite large red snapper

This was quite an interesting dive.  I saw 3 Lion Fish get murdered.  You'd think, as an environmental advocate, I'd somehow be opposed to this.  But I am not.  Don't get me wrong, its not an easy thing to watch, spearing a fish (you have to spear them, their spines are poisonous).  Problem is, Lion Fish don't belong in the Caribbean.  Some years ago a hurricane came through and broke open an aquarium which dumped Lion Fish into the Caribbean.  Here, though, they have no natural predators like they do in the South Pacific.  They have been wreaking havoc on the underwater environment ever since and there are way too many of them.  I've seen a few before on my dives in the Philippines but...just a few.  Lion Fish are everywhere here.  Its not a good thing.

This is what a Lion Fish looks like alive:

Early on in the dive we saw a relatively large green moray eel.  Creepily cool things to see underwater.  Then the first Lion Fish was killed.  There were lots of fish - many more than on the dive I went on last week.  The coral was more colorful and the fish certainly weren't shy.  We planted ourselves on some rocks and the fish just swam all around.  Very neat.  Then Johnny killed the 2d and 3d Lion Fish.

Dad ran out of air first so we went back to the anchor line and dad went up.  I still had about 1000psi or so in my tank so Johnny and I stayed down a while longer.

He motioned for me to follow him.  He went back to the 3d dead lion fish and stuck him on his prong.  I forced myself to watch all of this because, well, I just needed to see these things.  I don't want to be a blissfully ignorant person.  I need to see life and death of wildlife.  He motioned again for me to follow.

 

It wasn't very long before I knew where we were.  The Morray.  He was feeding the Lion Fish to the Morray Eel.  The eel didn't take it from the prong.  Instead, Johnny used the rocks to remove it from the spear thingy and we backed off and watched.  He didn't eat the whole thing.  We only saw him take a few bites before I was at 500 and we needed to surface.  I think its important for me to actually see this whole circle of life thing.  But, no lie, its hard to watch something so beautiful die, even if its for the survival of the ecosystem.  Johnny told me that the Morray would finish the fish off later...I had no doubt of that.


These were pictures my dad took.

Dive 2

• Max Depth: 68ft
• Bottom Time: 50 mins
• Water Temp: 80 degrees Fahrenheit
• Scuba Buddy: Dad and Johnny (dive leader)
• Location:  Cartagena, Colombia - wreck dive (2 ships) 
• Visibility: 40ft
• Marine Life:  yellow striped bass, giant ass (as in 5 ft long) red snapper, clams, little no-name fish...two sunken boats.  

We had about an hour decompression lunch.  Johnny had made us some ham and cheese sandwiches.  I didn't want to eat the ham, so I saved it and Johnny told me I could feed it to the fish.  Whoo!  Surprisingly I feel better about the fish eating the ham that I would feel if I had eaten it.  Something about giving back to the earth or whatever.  Win-win situation.  

We followed a sand bar (with some sporadic coral rocks) over to where the first tug boat was sunk.  Johnny said it took 8 months of paperwork to get the government to allow him to sink the boat and it took 26 minutes for the boat to sink.  :)  It was only sunk in 2004 and there is a surprising amount of growth on it.  It was a quick visit to the tug boat.  We were to go through it and out the other side.  The only problem was, it was freakin *dark* in there.  

Johnny looked at me and gave me the ok sign and I just signaled back "so-so".  The end result being that he held my hand and led me through the pitch black boat until I saw the light out of the exit then I finished by myself.  I think going through the first black hole was enough to give me the courage to do the others.  

The second ship was quite large.  We all went through several different passages through the ship.  It was really neat, going slow and looking around at all the rooms.  I wonder what it would have looked like in its golden days.  We even went up into an air pocket about 40ft down.  Talk about a surreal feeling! I was 40ft down and breathing air that didn't come from a tank...it was really freaky actually.  I kind of wanted to just keep breathing out of my regulator even though I technically had my head above water.  Bizarre! Dad ran out of air first again so he went up and Johnny and I continued on.  

He said if we had the air he'd take me through somewhere really spooky.  By spooky, he meant dark...dark for a good 20 seconds of swimming in this ship (its longer than it sounds when you're blind...trust me).  Even in light of the fact that he was holding my hand and guiding me through this place all I could think was "don't panic, just breathe...if shit goes down, just follow the light behind me...oh wait, the light is gone...shit, ok, well, at least I know what direction to swim."  

I'm mildly claustrophobic, yet I have no problems diving.  Many people think that if you're claustrophobic, you can't dive.  Untrue.  Generally visibility is good and I never feel enclosed even if I'm 70ft underwater.  You can just look around you and you don't feel trapped at all...its a massively large ocean and you can see for a long ways.  Its scary in the way that being planted in the middle of an African Savannah would be scary.  Lots of wildlife, avoid the lions (aka, sharks).  *But* when I'm underwater on a tank of air carrying less than 1000psi and I'm traveling through a dark ass ship.... If I'm going to need to control my panic underwater...that would be the time.  

Overall though, I felt safe with the dive master next to me and it was a really really awesome dive and lots of fun once I relaxed a bit.  Highly recommend it!