Our San Carlos trip was great and we all made it home in one piece. Todd, Melissa and I all completed our skills and are now
PADI certified Open Water Divers. This will enable us to purchase air and dive to 60 Feet without a dive professional. This photo was taken outside the hotel and marina shortly after we arrived on Thursday evening.
The marina in San Carlos was very nice and we loved the area. This was our first trip there and we really enjoyed it. The weather was wonderful, although the visibility in the water was very poor on our first day. This can occur when it is windy or some other weather or ocean activity takes place. We didn't let it deter us and were all happy to complete our dives successfully.
Here is Seth preparing for one of his dives. He was not to thrilled with the visibility or the fact that he couldn't see anything when he initially entered the water. It was pretty intimidating for him and
Madi didn't like it either. They both completed 2 of their dives, so they have a couple to go. We are planning to go back to San Carlos in May when the water temperature has warmed up, so they will complete the rest of their dives at that time. They both did a wonderful job and loved it once they got brave enough to
descend to the bottom. They saw all sorts of sea life and had a great time.
Here are Todd,
Madi and John (the Oasis owner) preparing to enter the water. John went with
Madi one on one for her first dive and she had a great time with him. He was very proud of her and thought she was one of the best 10 year old divers that he has seen.
This is a photo of a very large Jelly Fish that we saw near the island that most divers go to near San Carlos. The island itself is about a 2 hour boat ride from the marina and is not populated by people. It's inhabitants are mainly Sea Lions, a variety of birds and other
aquatic life. The visibility is typically much better there than in other coastal areas, so it is a popular dive site.
These are a few of the female Sea Lions sunning themselves near the island. We were all able to witness these creatures swimming underwater during our dives.
Madi, Todd and Brian were able to play with young female who did some
barrel rolls a couple of feet from them when prompted by Brian. The female and baby Sea Lions love the bubbles that are
emitted from the scuba equipment and typically love to play with divers. The adult males, on the other hand, can become irritated with the presence of scuba divers and we were instructed to leave the area if one appeared. They will sometimes come up and growl in your face or bump you if you insist upon intruding into their territory, so we were advised to leave if one approached.
The water is only about 65 degrees in the Sea of
Cortez this time of year, so needless to say we all had 7mm wetsuits to keep us warm.
Madi seemed to be fine with the temperature, however I had to warm up after my dives, it was cold.
Brian, who was Melissa's instructor during her confined water dives, sat up top with me during a portion of the trip to the island. We got to see some very interesting things during the trip and we all really enjoyed it.
There were several species of birds in the area. These little fellows looked like Storks to me, although I am far from a bird expert so I am not entirely sure if that is accurate. They were very neat birds and Todd took several nice photos of them.
This picture illustrates the visibility that we had to endure during our dives. This is Melissa and Brian during one of her dives. She did a great job on her skills and didn't let the visibility prevent her from completing her skills and overall evaluation. We weren't able to take the camera with us during our dives since we had several skills to complete, so Todd took it down during an extra dive that he did and took a couple of photos.
This was John guiding Todd through an underwater rock formation near the island. He had some air left and was not to cold, so he spent some extra time with John just exploring after completing his skills. Todd really loves diving now that he feel more comfortable with his abilities as a diver.
Although the visibility was poor, you can see a small stingray in the center of this picture. We all saw several of these during our dives in addition to many other wonderful animals.
One of the most amazing experiences of our trip occurred during our trip to the island on Saturday morning. As we were making our way to our dive site, Melissa noticed splashes in the distance. She asked John if it looked like dolphins to him and as we got closer, he told the boat to follow so that we could see what it was.
As we approached, we were amazed at the number of dolphins we were witnessing in the water around us. The pod was very large, we were quickly in the middle of hundreds of dolphins. It was an experience I'll never forget. They are very beautiful creatures and we loved witnessing them in the wild and traveling together in such large numbers.
When they noticed the boat they began to swim under us and very close to the boat, so we all had a great view.
Madi loves dolphins and was so excited to see them. I think it was one of her favorite experiences of the trip.
As you can see, Seth really enjoyed it as well. It was an amazing sight.
Melissa, like
Madi, loves dolphins and was very excited to see them. She had never seen so many together either and was amazed.
This is one of the many neat birds that we saw. There were so many, it was fun to try to get a shot of them. I think Todd did a great job on this one.
This was one of the 2 boat crew on our trip. They cooked us great food and more importantly helped us so much with our gear during our dives. I don't know what we would have done without their help. They were very nice and the food they cooked for us was d
elicious.
Melissa relaxed upstairs during the trip to the island. She loves the ocean and had a great time during the trip. She is hooked on diving and is ready to go back already.
This is another shot of the dolphins, aren't they great?
We were so proud of Seth and
Madi. Not many 10 and 12 year
old children become certified scuba divers and they did a great job. I was really impressed that they both did 2 dives
considering the visibility was not the best. This can be very intimidating, especially for young children. Way to go guys!
This was in the dive shop prior to our departure on Friday morning. They both got some plastic cards to attach to their
BC's that had illustrations of local
aquatic life. These cards are very handy to have while you are diving so that you can look to see what fish or other marine life you are looking at during your dive. They both got very excited every time they saw something, they really loved it.
This is Tiffany, our instructor, briefing
Madi prior to her dive. She and her husband Gary are so helpful to all of us, we really like diving with them. Tiffany is going to begin a masters program in North Carolina this fall, majoring in Marine Biology. She hopes to do Shark research in the future.
This was taken on the boat as we left the marina. Both Seth and
Madi had a lot of fun on the boat and were very well behaved during the trip.
Madi wore her Red Socks hat during the trip. It blew off the boat at one point, but the great crew turned the boat around and retrieved it for her, they were great.
We ate some great Mexican food during our trip. Seth and John bonded during dinner the first night. We had a great group of people on the trip, we all had a lot of fun together.
As you can see, Todd made a new friend at dinner. This was one of the divers from another group who came over to say hello to John and the rest of us. I think he had been drinking a little bit too much and took an earring from one of the girls and
proceeded to put it in his nose, yuck. Todd looks like he loves it, huh?
During dinner we were serenaded by some nice gentlemen. Everyone liked it, but I think
Aiden was the most impressed.
One of the women in our group stood up and began to dance. At that point the look on
Aiden's face was so funny, I wish I had a picture of it.
This is Brian, Melissa's instructor, who is my new hero! I wasn't sure if Seth was going to do any of his dives after he looked into the water and couldn't see the bottom. Brian, who is an awesome instructor, took him one on one and was able to convince him to try. Once Seth was at the bottom he didn't want to get out and loved all the things he was able to see. Way to go Brian!!!
This is the Oasis, San Carlos shop. It was located right by the hotel and marina. The staff here is great and the service they gave us was
superb, we highly
recommend it.
This is Todd at dinner with Tiffany, Gary and Gabby (Tiffany's sister who was getting certified with us). They are great people, we had so much fun with them. On Saturday night Todd and I did a night dive with Tiffany, Gary and Brian. On this dive it was dark underwater, so you could only see by flashlight. Divers like to do these dives since some aquatic life is nocturnal. I'm not sure I really liked diving at night, but I was pleased that both Todd and I accomplished our first night dive during the trip.
This is Seth with John, the Oasis owner, and two students who were on the trip with us. There were a total of 3 other students in addition to our family. We had a total of 5 instructors, so there were pleanty of professionals present which I was happy about. It enabled Seth and Madi to be one on one during their dives.
We had a great trip and will post pics soon from our next dive trip. We will be back soon and this time will be able to take the camera underwater. Stay Tuned!!!
We picked Millie up last night from doggie boot camp. We spent a couple of hours with her instructor who demonstrated the skills that she has learned over the past month. These photos were taken this morning while Todd took her for a short walk prior to leaving for work. As you can see she is walking properly and most importantly NOT pulling on the leash! We are very pleased with her progress and will continue to work with her to perfect the commands that she has been taught. She is so much more fun and even slept in the bed with Todd and I last night. I think we need a bigger bed though, it was like having another adult in the bed. We'll keep you posted on her progress!!!
This is Max with Chris at home. I think both Chris and Julie are really enjoying the new addition the their family and we are very happy for them.
