Diving Into Blue

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…then, there’s the private dive.

We’re on the same boat with the other divers but we don’t have to worry about them at all. We’re usually the last ones off the boat. I’m in first, then Greg, Sonita, and finally, our favorite Divemaster, Pingo. We head to the white sandy bottom so Greg can white balance Sonita on the sand. Pingo checks to see if we’re ok, and then off we go, slowly following Pingo.

We’re in no rush at all. We don’t have to worry about slowing the group up or having to catch up to the group. We go at our own pace. Pingo is just there to watch over us but really, it’s like he’s enjoying the dive with us as a friend not a Divemaster. He knows his way around the coral heads and always knows the best swim throughs.

Greg takes his time videotaping whatever he pleases—fish swimming by, the coral, turtles, etc. Pingo and I look out for stuff and signal Greg if we find anything or see anything. We enjoy ourselves and take our time really looking at the small things.

We meander from one coral head to another finding eels, toadfish, hermit crabs, red banded shrimp, and anything else that peaks our interest. We keep our eye out for each other, for interesting things to see, our depth, and our dive time.

Here are just a few things we’ve done during our private dives with Pingo:

Greg videotaped a hermit crab up close as the crab walked along the sandy bottom.
Pingo swam after and captured a juvenile trunkfish, twice, so Greg could videotape it.
The three of us played with an arrow crab.
We’ve watched little fish play hide-n-seek in the coral.
We’ve observed huge parrot fish chow down on the coral—you can even hear the crunch as they take a bite.
We’ve slowly glided through a school of fish just trying to fit in.
We’ve watched a turtle slowly swim to the surface for air and come all the way back down to the coral again.
We’ve seen stingrays play on the sandy bottom.
We’ve gazed in amazement at how graceful nurse sharks swim.
We’ve been transfixed at the beautiful dance of three drum fish.

Although we’ve seen some of these things on regular dives, it has never been to the extent as what we’ve experienced on our private dives. As we glide over the reef, we can stop and poke around at our leisure—we don’t have to worry about anyone else but us.

Since the three of us are all very good on air consumption, we don’t have to worry about cutting our dive short because someone in the group is low on air and needs to surface. Each of our private dives on the shallow reefs has been at least 45 minutes. That’s 45 blissful minutes of enjoyment. Did I mention that the boat is at our beck and call? Once we surface, whenever we surface, the boat comes to us.

To fully appreciate the wonders of the sea, private dives are really the way to go!

// posted by Leenie @ 10:07 PM