Turning Point

Our second dive of the day was at Moc-che, and was my favorite dive of the trip. It was our longest dive, at over 50 minutes, so apparently I was getting a little bit better at the breathing thing. There was basically no current, giving us free reign to cruise around wherever we liked. And this was also the dive where we saw the greatest variety of interesting things.

Things got off to a pretty good start when, the moment we went below the surface, my boyfriend spotted a ray down on the ocean floor, right in the exact spot he happened to be looking. It waited helpfully until we all descended, and we were able to get a really good look:

In fact, some of us went in far closer than I cared to myself:

Shortly after that, the group gathered around a particular area. The dive master was trying to point out something specific, but I couldn't see it. Later that night, I'd learn that he'd spotted a rockfish, so well camouflaged that it had to be pointed out to me even on the photo. It's dead center here:

 There were all sorts of interesting schools of fish everywhere:

And after a while, we came around to an arch that was home to the largest group we saw:

I was still feeling skittish enough to opt for going over the arch rather than through, but it was cool all the same. And then we had a fun finish right as we were about to head back to the surface. We came upon a small field of garden eels, sand burrowing eels that poke up from the ocean floor and retract if you get close:

This was the first dive where I can say I truly enjoyed myself, and I didn't feel like too big a drag on the rest of the group. And I guess it went well enough that, as we were heading back to shore afterward, the dive master decided to alter the planned itinerary for the next day. He'd be taking us to a shipwreck.