Scuba Diving Kauai

One of my favorite adventures on Kauai was scuba diving.  We decided to do our scuba dive at Tunnels Beach.  It's famous for a a barrier reef with tunnels that go through it.  That sounded fun and exciting, so how could I pass it up?

We had to be at Tunnels Beach at 8 AM on Wednesday.  It turns out Tunnels Beach is really hard to find.  There are no signs for it at all.  There is a little road that goes to the beach, but it isn't marked, and it's not anywhere near where Google says the entrance to the beach is. We eventually pulled up to that little road and I walked down it.  I found the people we were Scuba diving with, and they told us to park at Haena Beach which was a quarter mile down the road.

Robyn was stressing out (like she does) but we got there and got suited up without any problems.  They gave us wetsuits and put all the gear on us.  We got in the water and had to swim out to where we actually began the dive.  It took us a a minute to get back into the groove of how to move with all the gear and everything.  But once I was back in the water, everything went super smooth and it was great.

We saw some really cool things while diving.  Here are a few of them.

Swimming underneath a turtle

A sleeping turtle

Seeing an eel

Swimming through a tunnel

We did a two tank dive, which means you do one dive and then come back and get another tank to go out for more.  In between dives, they gave us snacks and our dive masters acted as sherpas, hauling the empty tanks from where we left them in the water and replacing them with full tanks, so that we could put them on in the water and not have to haul them down ourselves.

It turns out I breathe way more than Robyn.  Near the end of our first dive, I told the dive master I was down to 200 PSI in my tank, so he told me to go to the surface.  At that point, I took the regulator out of my mouth and put in the snorkel.  I snorkeled directly above Robyn.  She didn't see me go up, so she continued to follow the group.  She said she was a little concerned that she couldn't find me, but she trusted that the dive master was taking care of me. She didn't realize that I was snorkeling directly above her.  I just continued to follow her until she was ready to surface.  I never lost sight of my dive buddy, even if she didn't know where I was.

All in all, it was super fun.  It was a little more work than a boat dive, because we had to swim out from the shore, but it was still really cool.  We had planned to snorkel at Tunnels Beach after our dive was over, but we were much more tired than we had anticipated, and we realized we wouldn't see anything snorkeling that we hadn't already seen diving.

So instead of snorkeling after diving, we went back to the condo and took a nap.

Naps are a great part of Hawaii too.

Cozumel, Mexico

The last port on our recent Caribbean cruise was in Cozumel, Mexico.  My first view when I looked out at the port was a beautiful one.

We got off the ship to head for our excursion. It was strange, though. Because it seemed super dark outside. Then I realized, it was because of the massive ships parked next to each other. We were walking down a massive hallway where the sun had no chance to peek in.

I call it cruise ship corridor.  Look at that cute girl I was with.

Our excursion was with a company called Fury.  They have catamarans that ferry people around.  The catamaran itself is pretty fun.  They play music, they serve drinks (It was an open bar, people were doing their best to consume as much free alcohol as possible.  I even got in on the craziness, by drinking like 3 glasses of 7-up.  I still drank more water than soda, obviously.  Let's not get too crazy.) and you can look out at the beautiful ocean as you glide across it.

The first place the catamaran took us was to a reef area that was probably 20-30 feet deep.  Naturally, I was the first person off the boat.  While everyone else was trying to figure out how to put their fins on and then walk down the stairs into the water, I just jumped off the side of the boat and put the fins on while floating.  It's way easier that way.  Plus, I didn't have to stand in a line filled with awkward people trying to walk in fins.

I make snorkeling look good.

It was an amazing snorkeling destination.  I was surprised by how much awesome wildlife I saw.

We saw a ray.

We saw fish.

We saw lots of fish.

There was even a Robyn floating in the water.

I thought I saw a sea snake.  I did some research when I got home, and found it this is a sharptail eel.

If I had one complaint about the excursion it would be this:  there was a lifeguard type individual who was attached to a buoy.  The whole time he sat there yelling, "stay close to the buoy."  They never gave us any guidance about what that meant, but most people tried to stay within ten or fifteen feet of the buoy.   That meant there were loads of people stacked on top of each other.  So, it kind of made the overall experience not as good.  Despite that, I loved it, because it was an amazing location.

You can see how surrounded by people I was.  But I was also surrounded by fish.

Lots and lots of fish

After the snorkeling, there was a second part to the excursion.  We got back on the catamaran for about 40 minutes to ride to a private beach owned by the Fury catamaran company.

Chillin' on the catamaran

The sail, and all the people.

When we got there, it was a really nice beach with lots of toys available to play with.

The beach with all of the various toys.

A few different catamarans parked while their occupants played in the water.

I had to climb this mightly slide. (and slide down the other side)

.

Robyn did her mermaid float.  It's a little infuriating how easily she floats, when I just sink.

John and Carol were precious.

Our preciousness with the catamaran in the background.

We relaxed, we played in the water, we hunted seashells.  We had a great time.  Then it was time to head back.  We boarded the catamaran again, it took us for another 30-40 minute ride back to the dock where our ship was waiting.

On this part of the trip, there was a special little treat.  We were sitting on the front of the boat, and we started noticing flying fish that would periodically jump up and fly 30 or 40 feet.  It was soooo cool to watch.

The moral of the story (every story has a moral) is that Cozumel is awesome.  You should totally go there.