We'd read good things about the diving in Zihautanejo and planned to stay a few days. We chose Zihuatanejo Dive Center as it was closest to the water and where we'd located a place to stay. We never met the owner but the two young dive masters, Lucas and Sarah, were good hosts. They are from Germany and North Carolina respectively.
The first day, it was only about a 15 minute boat ride out to the dive sites. We like it when they are close! They were two fairly shallow sites which we also like because it generally means better light for taking photos. Although we didn't take cameras the first day. After not diving for almost a year, we wanted to get one day under our belts before adding more things to think about. Unfortunately, it had rained quite heavily the day and night before so visibility wasn't the best. It was still nice to get in the water again.
The big excitement on the second dive was seeing a sea horse! It was red and about 6 inches long. This was the first we've seen outside of aquariums or "seeing" one that was so small we really couldn't see it. (If that makes sense.)
 |
| Relaxing during the surface interval between dives. |
 |
| Sailboats in the bay. |
The second day, there was just Andrew and I diving and Lucas was excited that we were more experienced divers so that he could go somewhere else to dive. We headed over to Ixtapa (about 30 minute boat ride away). Again, visibility wasn't the best and there was quite a bit of current but we still saw lots of interesting fish and sea life.
Andrew had been fighting a head cold for a few days and by the time we finished the second dive he had a splitting headache. He decided to take the next day off and I went out by myself with Sarah as my guide. We went back to the same shallow dives as the first day as Lucas had a couple students to teach and others were along for snorkelling. Sarah was also excited to see not one, but two, sea horses!
 |
| So many sardines! |
 |
| Sea star |
 |
| Zebra moray eel |
 |
| Green moray eel |
 |
| Barber fish |
Because Andrew was still not feeling great and we weren't happy with our accommodation, we decided to leave Zihuatanejo a day earlier than originally planned and hoped that a couple days en route to Manzanillo would give him enough time to recover.
In Manzanillo, we chose Octopus Garden Dive Center, mostly for its location a bit away from the central areas of the city. Our dive master, Daniel, is a local who grew up in Manzanillo. We always appreciate when there are local guides.
Because we had all our own gear, Daniel and the owner, Fernando, assumed we were more experienced divers. We were initially going to go on a deep dive but, once we got out there (a more middle-of-the-ocean location, the current was very strong and visibility didn't look great even from the surface. So we headed a little closer to shore.
The water was noticeably colder than in Zihuatanejo! About 17 C. Even wearing a 5mm wetsuit, after the first few minutes of the dive, I wondered how I was going to last the whole dive. Thankfully, it got warmer but Daniel was only wearing a 3mm suit and was very cold by the end of the dive. He wore a 5mm suit the next day!
The second day we did the deeper dive we were going to the first day. It was definitely a more difficult dive but well worth it. Lots of underwater rock formations that we swam in, through, and around.
 |
| Tiger reef eel |
 |
| Guineafowl puffer fish |
 |
| Remains of the wreck sticking out of the water. |
 |
Mostly due to the visibility, we didn't dive as much as we thought we would (5 days for me, 4 for Andrew) and likely wouldn't bring our dive gear if we did this trip again. Having said that, it was a good change of pace and activity from paragliding, it gave my leg a bit more time to heal, and I hit a milestone of 250 dives.
**My underwater photos are screen shots from GoPro video. I got a new GoPro just before this trip and didn't have a chance to get a proper dive filter so these photos are a bit greener than they should be.
No comments:
Post a Comment