Yesterday was our first day of experiencing how things run here–at least on a Saturday, which is the turnover day for the vast majority of guests. And it was great.

All guests who were boat diving yesterday were put on a single boat, all 8 of us. Some of those folks will be on the boat to which we’re assigned for the remainder of the week, some on other boats. Most of them are here for 10-14 days (“we just get started about 6 days in”). I don’t think we’re quite that hard core. And all are repeat guests, one nearly thirty times.

One Galveston, TX couple, probably about 70 or so, were particularly friendly, and we enjoyed lunch with them, and general fun conversation on the boat. There’s another couple from south Jersey whom we met at our first dinner on Friday, and we’ve also enjoyed chatting with them. She’s a non-diver, so he goes out on the morning boat dives, then they snorkel together in the afternoons.

Our first dive in the morning was to a site that is one of the longer boat rides, timing in at about 30-35′. (The afternoon dive was a more typical [we’re told] time of 5-6′.). The first site was “Carib”. Looking on the map below, “Carib Point” is #71; and Cocoview is #62. We’re told most dives here are ‘walls’, which means dropping at a mooring site near a reef, and the reefs then drop off to extreme depths. The wall that drops off is teeming with life, covered with all sorts of coral, crevasses filled with various life, and of course you can hang at whatever depth suits you. We found lots to see at the 30-40′ depths, though I did go down to about 60 to see a seahorse someone found in a crevasse–about 6′ long, orange, and very cute.