Mexico: Diving Days — Life of the Mayers

First and foremost: BAHIA DIVERS! If you are in the Yucatan area and looking to hire a SCUBA diving company, this should be the only one that you consider. We dealt almost exclusively with the owner, Marcos, directly, and he and his company are INCREDIBLE. Seriously, look nowhere and consider no one else.

We knew that we wanted to get into the water for a significant portion of our vacation, as we still miss our Hawaiian water lives and the freediving days. Fortunately, we attained our open-water SCUBA diving certifications when we were in Thailand last year, and knew that no matter where we went on this trip, it would be somewhere that we could get back into the water and dive. Salt water is truly my therapy and my zen.

We went out for two full days, doing both morning and afternoon dives, and it was incredible! Also, to make things even more awesome, they transported us to and from our resort, and they were only about a 10 minute drive down the road.

Day One: We did open water out in the Gulf. It was impressive, and more beautiful than I was expecting.

We were able to walk straight out onto the boat, and from there we went. It took a few minutes to get back into the swing of things (SCUBA is SOOOOO much more work than freediving!), but the immediate calm and serenity of being underwater quickly assuaged all of that. Fortunately for us, there was a professional photographer with us on the second dive, so she captured many awesome shots!

Day Two:

This day was spent in fresh water, with our first experience with cavern diving. WOW, what a difference! This was our first experience diving where there wasn’t immediate access to free air directly above you, and having to rely on a flashlight to see anything. I am not going to lie…this was stressful. I struggled. The first dive, I was a bit of a mess, and just could not get my mind to calm down…so my breathing was all over the place, thus resulting in my buoyancy being erratic. It is just a bit unnerving having your sole source of air being strapped to your back, and there being a tiny light guiding your way. There were beautiful glimpses of light that would trickle in from holes to the above ground, so the instructor would have us cover our flashlight to see/enjoy that….well….nope, only did that once. I was able to calm down by the end of the first dive, and was put together after the break enough that the second dive went SO much better. I cannot say I was relaxed, but I can say that I was calmer enough to appreciate it. Carlitos was our dive master on this day, and he was just as incredible as Marcos!