exploration was supported by our new hookah. A hookah, for those of
you who don't know, is a pump that takes air from the surface of the
water and pumps it into hoses and sends it to you, compressed and
ready for breathing. This way you can stay underwater for long
amounts of time without having to come up for air.
The area we decided to "dive" on was a clump of rocks that were about
20 yards from the shore of an island named Las Tres Marietas. The
three Marias. The rocks were mostly rock, but there is evidence of
coral beginning to take over. It's a really good sign. There were a
large amount of fish there that didn't really seem afraid of humans,
so you were able to swim with the groups of parrot fish. Just watch
out, they bite.
There were also eels and small octopi that hide in the coral. I
spotted two octopi in the same little cave. They were probably three
inches long with bodies the size of a half dollar. I spotted them as
they were moving, otherwise I never would have found them. They
changed color almost immediately to their surroundings. This is
called camouflage coloration.
My favorite fish was a small blue one. It had amazing colors. It
started at the nose with a dark blue and then darkened back to the
tail. There were three turquoise blue spots on the back that stood
out but made it look really bright and colorful. It was feeding
mostly on algae, but occasionally it would go to a chunk of soft
coral and bite off of that. It didn't swim in any schools of fish and
hid in chunks of coral alot.
The coolest experience swimming was when I swam with the fish
schools. They were very large fish, but they swam pretty slowly so I
was able to to drift in the middle of them. They didn't really seem
to mind me at all. A few little fish nibbled at my feet when I was
with them. It tickled my feet so much that I laughed hard enough to
scare them away.
Over all diving was a really good experience for me. It is definitely
something that I expect to do again soon.
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