Not One of My Better Dives
On our last visit to Cancun my dad and I had planned on doing a dive off of Playa del Carmen. We scheduled the dive, got up early on the day of the dive and drove the 45 minutes from Cancun to Playa. This was going to be our first dive together in several years. Unfortunately, the water was very choppy and my dad decided he did not want to deal with this. I, on the other hand, was not going to let that bother me – if the port was open, I was going diving.
Our group originally started off with four: my dad and me, a newbie and our dive master. On the boat, we also had the captain and an assistant. Despite the waves, the dive master continued with the dive since he did not want to disappoint us or the crew (because of the rough waters, business had been slow).
The boat ride to the dive site was intense with the boat catching air a few times and rocking side to side at times. I was enjoying the ride and even took out my camera to shoot video. I think we were one of only a few boats going out – I can only remember one other dive boat. Inside our boat, I could tell that a few people were feeling a little uncomfortable. I was OK – maybe all my flying was helping me.
Once at our dive site, the three of us got in. The only thing was that you had to be alert: I got in and soon found myself fighting the waves and current but it really was no big deal. We met up, made sure we were all set and down we went. Well, two of us did – our newbie was heaving trouble: he seemed to be stuck at the surface. Our dive master went back up and helped him get down.
Passing thru 25-30 feet is where I started having problems. A few weeks before I had been having problems with my left ear (due to sinuses). It was not a pain I had been having but discomfort. Everything had been fine for the last two weeks Things quickly changed: talk about pain! I worked on equalizing and I finally managed to get things sorted out.
The dive itself was OK. As my dad had predicted, the visibility was poor due to the choppy waters. Current was also a little stronger than usual. It also seemed like the fish were in hiding.
Back on the boat and in-between dives I decided I was going to call it a day because of my ear problem. I was worried about doing damage to my ear. I gave notice to the crew of my plans but they told me I was better off in the water than in the boat because of rough seas. They were very worried about me getting seasick. So, they gave me some tips on dealing with the problem. I decided to go at it but this time I decided that if I did not equalize pressure within a few seconds I would abort my dive.
Our second dive was almost canceled. We started heading down and again I was having problems with my ear. Just as I got things sorted out, our dive master gave me the signal to surface. I had been too busy working out my problems to notice our newbie was again having trouble descending. By this point I knew my dive master really did not want to be here so this was just the excuse to scrap the dive. Although he wanted to cancel the dive, he was having trouble signaling the boat to return. Next thing I know, we’re heading back down and, for the third time, I had to deal with my ear problem.
The return to land was very quiet: the helper and dive master were staring out of the boat and focused on the sea and horizon (a good way to deal with seasickness), the newbie was looking pale and I was wondering about my ear. About the only person that looked normal inside the pitching boat was the captain. Our silence was broken when the captain throttled back and started circling. He had spotted something big and dark moving below. The helper quickly volunteered to go in the water to get a better look (it always feels better to be in the water when you are seasick). He confirmed what the boat captain had predicted: it was a huge turtle (from the boat it looked like it was the size of a VW Bug!).
