This trip was an interesting trip.
\nIt started on Saturday December 26, 2009. The flight\u00a0into San Juan, Puerto Rico
\nwas uneventful and quite fast. The weather into PR that day was around 80 degrees
\nand the sun was shining. I have about a 5 hour wait for the shuttle to Mayaguez, a
\nthree hour ride.
\nOne van, my van and the van carrying all the dive gear left the airport at around
\n6pm for our first stop, the grocery store. There I search for super glue. See, while
\nwaiting\u00a0at the airport, I put my new video camera into the housing to find the
\nhousing doesn’t quite work with this new camera. I discover I am only able to
\nturn the camera on\/off. No zoom, no macro, no other controls may be reached
\nusing the housing mechanism to press the neccessary buttons on the camera.
\nThis was my bad. I decided at the last minute NOT to carry the camera the housing
\nwas meant for and instead carry the new\u00a0video camera, which\u00a0 I presumed would
\nwork with\u00a0the housing. I didn’t test this at home and if I did, would not have carried
\nthe video camera\u00a0I did.\u00a0
\nI was frustrated and upset with myself and knew my videos would not be what I
\nwanted them to be for this long trek I just made. I convinced myself that on\/off is
\nbetter\u00a0 than nothing at all and maybe I\u00a0can perform some editing magic to
\ncompensate.<\/p>\n
The first shuttle of divers arrive at the\u00a0dock in Mayaguez at around 8:30pm. We’re
\nglad to finally be at the boat after a long day of traveling. We meet the crew, fill
\nout the neccessary paper work and most of us stay up for a\u00a0little while then head
\nto bed. Tomorrow, we will be at Mona Island.<\/p>\n
I wake up to see out my\u00a0window, large\u00a0cliffs. We’re mored on the NW
\ncorner of Mona island at a site called, One Particular Harbor. The site was not
\na deep site and because of this and the surge, turbidity was higher than I would
\nhave liked. We spent the morning performing one dive at this site and the after
\nnoon performing two dives. Due to the lower than optimal visibility and the surge,
\nvideoing was a bit challenging. The next day has us at a new site called
\nYule Tide. Yule tide is on the SW side of Mona Island but more central to
\nthat side on the island. This site had finger coral running perpendicular to shore
\nthan would slope down\u00a0starting at 110′ to 180’+.\u00a0A nurse shark was spotted
\nand the usual spotted drum. I spent most of the dive in the 70 foot range
\nfilming what I could for the two dives before moving onto Southern Pride.
\nSouthern Pride was our afternoon site.<\/p>\n
I like this site for the layout and formations. It had a flat sandy bottom with
\nscattered coral heads and a slop leading down to around 100′. Here I located
\nsome of the largest lobster I had ever seen. One could put a saddle on their
\nback and ride them. Also sited were Lion fish. You will see them in the video.
\nThe water was a deep blue, and visibility at around 80′. Simply a\u00a0 beautiful site
\nand coral formations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This leads us to Wednesday, our morning dive is a site called Isle Bonita for
\nan attempted drift dive. I was on dive team 1 of 3. We enter the water from
\nthe side of our vessle and drift away from the boat before decending into a
\nsoup of sand and surge. It was like being in a washing machine. Up and down,
\nback and forth. At times you were face to face with a coral head, then pulled
\nback by the surge. I saw a nurse shark for about 5 seconds and the dive was
\naborted. Up we went to flag our vessle to come pick us up. All teams aborted
\ntheir dive that morning. We head back to Mona were I make three dives at our
\nnew remaining morning and afternoon at Southern Pride.<\/p>\n
I began noticing the sea life seemed curious to their new guests, more inquisitive
\nthan shy. I would have large jacks approach me and just swim around me,
\nlooking as though they are studying this strange creature that enter into their
\nhome. Some were friendly enough to actually approach the camera lens, then
\npeering over the lens to look at me as to say, pretty kewl, what are you?
\nThese are just some of the reasons I love this sport so much. To be at one
\nwith life still very unknown to most. It’s a serenity that give me the feeling
\nthat it is possible to live together on this small planet with all creatures
\nlarge and small. It is moments like this that remind me that this is where I
\nneed to be, where I belong and I must do all I can to understand the life
\nthat is so close to us, yet so unknown.<\/p>\n
This is the part of the trip where the membrane needed to produce fresh water
\nburst due to over pressurization. After our last dive of the day, we headed
\nback to Mayaguez to fill our tanks with fresh water. Talk about over time for
\nthe crew. They must have been exhausted the next morning. We arrived
\nback at Mayaguez at around 11:30PM and departed at around 5:30am to
\nhead back to Mono Island. A 5+ hour trek.<\/p>\n
December 30th and we’re back at Mona Island. It was almost 12:30pm before
\nwe were able to make our first dive of the day. We spend the day at one site
\ncalled, Bubbles and Blossom. This was a wall dive. A nice site where I made
\nthree dives. The wall begins at around 60-70 feet and descends to over 200′.
\nHere I found two very large crab battling it out for space under a coral head.
\nI was able to capture them on video. Discovering the two at the end of my
\ndive, time was limited to the remaining gas I carried on my back. What a
\nsite to see.
\nAlso discovered was what I believe to be a pipe fish. No longer than 3 inches
\nin length, it caught my eye as I was swimming by. Looking at it I could not
\nfigure out what it was. It appeared to be in the same\u00a0family\u00a0as seahorses I
\nthought to myself, yet it wasn’t a seahorse. Still the same, a nice discovery
\nfor me. The final dive, my dive buddy pointed out a peacock flounder.
\nAnother first for me. As he took shots of the eel, I observed where the
\nflounder was heading to see if it would land to get some stills and video.
\nIt did not land and glided out of site. As we neared the end of the dive,
\nA shy turtle comes up over the wall and I was able to capture a small clip
\nof it gliding along, staying out of our way. A nice way to end a dive.
\nOnce the night dive was over, we head back to Mayaguez to refill our fresh
\nwater tank and pick up the new part. A membrane to help us produce
\nfresh water again. Another long day for the crew.<\/p>\n
December 31, 2009. This time we stay off the SW coast of Puerto Rico
\ninstead of heading all the way back to Mona Island. Our site, Isthmus.
\nA relatively shallow dive, 70′ that lead to a wall. I spend two of the
\ndives at around 70. I located three black spotted nudibrachs and
\nwas able to capture them on film. A relatively nice site with good
\nvisibility and very mild current. At this time, my ears are killing me
\nand I discontinue all remaining dives, including the midnight, New
\nYears dive which I believe I counted 6 people entering the water.
\nPretty kewl.<\/p>\n
Friday January 1, 2010 and only two morning drift dives are made
\nand a land excursion for anyone willing to go. I stayed on board
\nwith the crew and one other guest where we watched videos and\/or
\nknee boarded in the bay. It was the perfect way to end the trip for me.<\/p>\n
Saturday, 01\/02\/2010 we wake up to find ourselfs back at Mayaguez
\nto disembark and head back to San Juan’s airport by shuttle. The ride
\nwas nice and the scenery was spectacular. The forests are so alive, lush
\nand green. A very nice island.<\/p>\n
I hope to make this trip again with proper video equipment and perhaps
\nearlier in the season to compare and contrast the sea conditions, which
\nwere rough at times. Though I would like to report, I did not get sea sick
\nonce on this trip due to what I believe is my daily dose of Triptone.<\/p>\n
Though the main reasons why I took the trip did not come to fruition
\nI believe the trip could produce some spectacular sightings.<\/p>\n
Until next time, Dive often, dive safe.<\/p>\n
Check back to watch the video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This trip was an interesting trip.
\nIt started on Saturday December 26, 2009. The flight\u00a0into San Juan, Puerto Rico
\nwas uneventful and quite fast. The weather into PR that day was around 80 degrees
\nand the sun was shining. I have about a 5 hour wait for the shuttle to Mayaguez, a
\nthree hour ride.
\nOne van, my van and the van carrying all the dive gear left the airport at around
\n6pm for our first stop, the grocery store. There I search for super glue. See, while
\nwaiting\u00a0at the airport, I put my new video camera into the housing to find the
\nhousing doesn’t quite work with this new camera. I discover I am only able to
\nturn the camera on\/off. No zoom, no macro, no other controls may be reached
\nusing the housing mechanism to press the neccessary buttons on the camera.
\nThis was my bad. I decided at the last minute NOT to carry the camera the housing
\nwas …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,16,24,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reefs","category-travel","category-trip-report","category-video","category-videography"],"yoast_head":"\n