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Detailed Photo Review of Carnival Dream 7 Night Western Caribbean Cruise 3/10/19


deladane
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Not long after that, people started to return to the boat and Rocky broke out a cooler of rum punch.  Honestly, I was still so tired from fighting the current that I didn’t feel like drinking at that moment, but I took some and shared the rest with DH.  The ride back to Caye Caulker took about 10 minutes, and I was looking forward to spending some time on solid land.  I am sad to say that my experiences snorkeling in Belize were disappointing.  As cool as it was to be in the water with so many sharks and stingrays, the high winds and rough currents made it challenging to really enjoy the experience.  The mother in the family of 6 said she had taken this same tour on a cruise in January and they had perfect weather with no wind at all.  She said that made a huge difference and she had a much better experience that day than she had today.  Such is life, I guess!

 

Back at Caye Caulker, Beto said we had an hour and a half until we needed to come back to the boat, so we walked back to the restaurant to let the waitress know we were ready for our lunch.  Sure enough, our sandwich was ready so she told us to take a seat and she would bring it to our table.

 

Lunch with a beautiful view

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The sandwich was plain (that’s what we expected given it was just a grilled chicken breast lol), but it was tasty and the fries were great.  We were both glad we only got one sandwich because neither of us was hungry enough to eat a whole meal, but this was the perfect light lunch.

 

The restaurant has this two-story structure with dangling tables and chairs that swing on ropes.  It looked like a fun place to sit but we opted to sit inside to be in the shade.

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After lunch, we walked around the island a little bit.  I wish Beto had told us where to go because we just kind of wandered around aimlessly.  I’m not sure if there was more to see that we missed out on, but what we did see was very pretty.  The island has a relaxed, beachy vibe, and I’m pretty sure there are no cars on the island so everyone either walks or rides golf carts or bicycles.

 

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Not knowing exactly where we were going, we turned left down one of the side streets. 

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At the next intersection, we saw this mini market…

 

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We walked inside looking for some local beer, and discovered Belikin beer.  We planned to take it back to the beach to drink there, but the store clerk said it would be okay to drink it as we walked around the island.  Gotta love the laid back Caribbean way of life!

 

Cheers!

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We still had 45 minutes until we had to be back at the boat so we walked around a little bit, then went back to the Magic Grill and sat in the adirondak swinging chairs out front.  At 2:30pm, Beto gathered us up and we got back on the boat for the long ride back to Belize City.

 

This was our boat for today’s tour

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The ride back was just as scenic as the ride this morning.  I love when the water is nearly the same shade as the sky, and just look at all of those palm trees!

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Finally, we saw the Dream anchored off in the distance and knew we must be getting close to the end of our ride.

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According to my notes, we arrived back at the dock at Terminal 4 at 3:23pm.  As we were pulling up, we could see them loading passengers onto the next tender.  This morning when we were on the tender, they said the return tenders would leave every half hour, on the hour, so we really wanted to make this 3:30pm tender.  As soon as the boat was tied to the dock, we hopped off, said a quick thank you to the guides, and booked it as fast as possible to Terminal 2.  Incredibly, not only did we make it in time, but we managed to get a seat on the lower level in the shade!  We were really happy knowing that we wouldn’t have to wait 30 minutes for the next tender because we were tired and really just wanted to get back on the Dream ASAP.

 

Just some final thoughts about our day with Coral Breeze… I am kind of torn about how I feel about this tour.  I know some people don’t like Belize and opt to stay on the ship instead of exploring this port.  I think that would be a mistake considering how beautiful it is, from the bright blue water to the lush green palm trees to the soft white sand.  I can’t speak to how things look on the main land, but there is no question of the natural beauty on the outer islands.  My research told me that the coral reef in Belize is the best in the Caribbean, but I honestly can’t say that I agree with that.  I already expressed my disappointment in our experience snorkeling at the reef.  I’m not sure if Coral Breeze just took us to a bad spot, and maybe there was better snorkeling at a different spot along the reef?  Or maybe we just had unlucky circumstances in having a young child in our group who demanded all of the guide’s attention?  Or maybe the rough seas and strong winds and currents in the water hampered our experience?  Whatever the case, I did not think what we saw could be classified as “the best in the Caribbean” and it leaves me wanting to return to Belize and go somewhere else to see if we can find something better!  In terms of our experience at Shark/Ray Alley, I did enjoy my time in the water with the animals, however limited that time turned out to be, but I think the guides could have done more to enhance my experience there.  Part of the reason I opt to book tours with private vendors and not through the cruise line is to have more individualized attention from the guides, and I just do not think I had that treatment from these guides with Coral Breeze.  Would I book this tour again?  Unfortunately, probably not.  For a tour that lasted nearly 6 hours, I spent less than 1 hour in the water.  I don’t think that is enough bang for my buck to warrant repeating this tour.  If I am lucky enough to return to Belize, I will probably seek out a different snorkeling experience at a different location if that is possible, or maybe even a discover scuba diving course if it is available.  Hmmm… honey… do you want to book another cruise????? Haha just kidding! 

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1 hour ago, deladane said:

My research told me that the coral reef in Belize is the best in the Caribbean, but I honestly can’t say that I agree with that.  I already expressed my disappointment in our experience snorkeling at the reef.  I’m not sure if Coral Breeze just took us to a bad spot, and maybe there was better snorkeling at a different spot along the reef? ... Or maybe the rough seas and strong winds and currents in the water hampered our experience?  Whatever the case, I did not think what we saw could be classified as “the best in the Caribbean” and it leaves me wanting to return to Belize and go somewhere else to see if we can find something better!  In terms of our experience at Shark/Ray Alley, I did enjoy my time in the water with the animals,

Just for reference, we took an excursion to snorkel off Goeff’s Key which included the Shark/Ray Alley (H2O Tierra), and the water/current was the same.  There it was a fin-free area so we didn't have that added support.  At points I was swimming as hard as I could, and was just staying stationary.  Absolutely exhausting.

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1 hour ago, pd7277 said:

Just for reference, we took an excursion to snorkel off Goeff’s Key which included the Shark/Ray Alley (H2O Tierra), and the water/current was the same.  There it was a fin-free area so we didn't have that added support.  At points I was swimming as hard as I could, and was just staying stationary.  Absolutely exhausting.

 

Hi Peggy, thanks for letting me know.  Maybe that's just how things are down there?  Swimming in that current was no joke!  Definitely a strong work out!

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The tender ride back to the Dream took 30 minutes, but I think we had to wait a few minutes for the prior tender to offload passengers before we could get off.  When we were eventually tied up and it looked like people were starting to get off, we realized that although we boarded on the lower level, we needed to get off on the upper level of the tender.  That meant we were the last people to get off the boat.  Oh well, at least we made it onto this boat and would still get back to the cabin earlier than had we taken the tender 30 minutes later, right?  Once again, I was very appreciative of our Deck 1 cabin as we could quickly walk up the flight of stairs and avoid waiting for the elevator with everyone else.

 

This little frog greeted us when we got back to our cabin.

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Strange enough, tonight was formal night again!  With 4 port days in a row on a 7 day cruise, I suppose it’s not that surprising that one of the formal nights needs to be on a port day.  I guess it does make sense to do it today as this was the earliest all aboard time of all our ports with the last tender leaving shore at 4:15pm.  While I showered and started the long process of blowing out my hair, DH went to the bar for a drink since he didn’t need that much time to get ready.  When he returned to the cabin, he was holding not one, but TWO buckets of beer!  Ummmm, honey, what do you have there??  He said the casino bar was having the same happy hour deal that they had on embarkation day so he stocked up on some beers for us for the rest of the cruise!  I knew that Carnival did the embarkation day happy hour but it was great to hear they offered the same deal later during the cruise too. 

 

We both got dressed and headed up to the MDR for dinner.  Here is tonight’s menu…

 

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Setting up for another beautiful sunset during dinner

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Stuffed Mushrooms

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Romaine Caesar Salad (I ordered this nearly every night, and it was always delicious!)

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I usually like to take photos before dinner on formal night.  If we are going to take the effort to dress up, it’s nice to document the occasion and take some photos (on my personal camera, not with the ship photographers).  With trying to get to dinner by 6pm, we didn’t have time for photos before dinner tonight so we did our best to keep our clothes clean while we ate so we could take photos afterwards. 

 

Mission accomplished!

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We still had some time before the Playlist Productions show started, and our favorite couch was available on Deck 4 overlooking the lobby, so we took a seat and listened to the strings trio Kudos Strings.  I was very impressed with this group!  They found a way to make strings appealing to a mass audience by playing unique arrangements of pop songs, so it was fun to try to name that tune as we placed what song they were playing.

 

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Tonight’s production show was called Flick and featured songs from movies.  Most of the big songs featured in movies are ballads, so this had the potential to be very demanding on the singers who have already proven to have questionable singing voices.  We went in with high hopes and were pleasantly surprised.  Perhaps it was just better song choice for the person singing each song, but the cast did a good job with this show. 

 

My favorite song was actually the very first song of the show… Skyfall by Adele.  Not only did the singer do a great job, but they had a really cool effect for the staging with this piece of fabric magically dancing around on the stage behind the singer.  I think they controlled it with the fans on the perimeter of that platform, but it made a cool visual (and somehow it never managed to fall on top of her while she was singing haha)

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I don’t remember what other specific songs they sang, but here are some photos from the show…

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After the show, we went upstairs to the Lido buffet for a quick snack, and then went back to the cabin to repack our day bags.  We had another early wake up time tomorrow for our final port in Cozumel!

 

Step Tracker Daily Total:  12,956 steps; 5.23 miles; 9 flights of stairs

 

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2 hours ago, AndrewD65 said:

I leave on my cruise in 18 days and can't wait, any thoughts on the food in the main dining room? 

 

Of course food is subjective, but we liked most of the dishes we ordered.  We tend to order a few appetizers to share, so that increases the odds that we will both find something we like.  I posted the menus for each night so you can take a look and hopefully get an idea of what you would want to order.  

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Friday, March 15, 2019 ~ Cozumel, Mexico

 

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For our last few cruises, the idea has started to cross my mind that I want to try scuba diving.  We did an underwater helmet walk in Moorea in 2017, and the perspective from being several feet under water let me see so much more than snorkeling and looking down from the surface above.  When we booked this cruise, I knew this was the time to take to make it happen.  Cozumel is the biggest of the 4 ports we visited, so there were tons of vendors to choose from, and I liked that this would be our last port, making our first scuba diving experience the grand finale of our cruise.  We are not certified scuba divers, but luckily that isn’t a problem because there are discover scuba diving courses offered by many vendors where they teach you everything you need to know in the first 30-60 minutes of the tour, and then they closely supervise you during the dive.  To be honest, as excited as I was about this experience, I was also a bit nervous and scared so I liked that I would be supervised by a certified guide just to make sure everything went safely.

 

I read a ton of reviews on Trip Advisor and Googled the websites of a bunch of different companies, trying to find one with the best fit for us.  In the end, we booked with CozumelH2O for a 2 tank dive from their boat.  I liked the idea of diving straight from the boat because that meant I wouldn’t have to carry the heavy tanks across the beach, and as soon as we dropped down into the water, we would be right at the reef (as opposed to having to swim to the reef from a beach).  I was originally only going to book a one tank dive, just in case we didn’t like scuba diving or had some kind of problems that we needed to stop early, but they only offered a 1 tank dive if going from the shore, and I really wanted to go from a boat so that meant we had to do 2 tanks.  Go big or go home, right?  I emailed back and forth with CozumelH2O to ask them tons of questions, and they were always quick to reply and help me feel less anxious about the experience.  We paid a deposit of $20 USD per person via paypal and we were all set for our tour.  Here is a description of the tour from the CozumelH2O website:

 

Always wondered how it is to breath underwater, but you’re not scuba certified and not sure if you want to get certified? Or you are a snorkeler and just want to try it once? No problem! The Cozumel Discover Scuba Experience is a great introduction to scuba diving. Our professional dive instructors will teach you the basic theory, basic skills and safety rules you will need to know for a safe first dive, this will take around 45 minutes. After that it’s time for the fun part… your first dive to a maximum 40 ft.

 

The Discover Scuba Experience is a one or 2 tank dive. We do this course in the ocean where it’s very shallow, right before a beautiful reef, so after you learned the skills we will dive this reef.

 

We also offer this experience with a two tank boat dive. At the first spot El Cielo, we will practice the skills with you, after that your first dive will be at Colombia Shallow and your second dive at another beautiful reef, which one will decide your instructor based on your abilities. Expect to see beautiful colorful reefs and reef fishes, lobsters and big fish as barracudas, groupers, parrot fishes and probably even sting rays, turtles and so much more.

 

Can I do the Discover Scuba Experience?

Basically everybody who’s older the 10 is able to do this course. No experience needed. It will take a few minutes before you’re used to breathe underwater and get comfortable with it. But once you do, you’ll realize how easy and fun it is! If you like snorkeling then you will love diving as you will see so much more once you’re under water.

 

Price per person with 1 tank: $89 USD

Price per person with 2 tanks: $120 USD

 

Includes marine park fee, 1 or 2 tank from shore, weight belt and weights, fins, mask, wetsuit, bcd and regulator, no hidden cost!

 

Price per person with two tank boat dives: $140 USD per person

 

Includes marine park fee, tanks, weight belt and weights, fins, mask, wetsuit, bcd, regulator, fruit, snacks and purified water, no hidden cost!

 

Today’s Fun Times:

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We had an extremely early wake up time today of 6:30am.  We were due to dock at 7am, so after I finished getting dressed, I peaked outside to see where we were.  I really wished the window was cleaner because this looked like an incredible sunrise over Cozumel!

 

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It was our last port day which meant it was my last chance for a breakfast burrito and arepas!  Tomorrow, we planned to go to brunch in the MDR.

 

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After breakfast, we made our way off the ship, through the duty free store that you are forced to walk through on the way from/to the ship, passed all the stores and vendors in the port, and out to the taxi stand.  By the way, at some point along that path, we had to go through an agricultural check point where they looked inside everyone’s bags to make sure we did not bring any food into the port.  We had bottles of water in our bag, but either they didn’t see them or they didn’t care about water because they didn’t say anything about it to us.

 

Once we found the taxi stand, we asked for a taxi to the Fonatur Marina.  The ride was probably only a mile and cost $8 total for the taxi, not per person.  We probably could have just walked, but I didn’t know exactly which port we were docked at and had we been at the further cruise docks, the walk may have been longer.  Also, I didn’t know if there was a sidewalk or if it was safe to walk from the port to the marina, so it was just easier to take a taxi.  Our instructions said to wait at the ramp by the water for our guide, and when we got there, we saw lots of other people waiting for guides for their tours too.  I guess this little marina is popular for tours for cruise ship passengers because it is so close to the port.

 

We checked in with one of the guides from another company and he showed us where we could sit and wait for our guide to arrive.  Right on time, a representative from CozumelH2O arrived at 8:45am and gave us all the release forms to sign.  After we signed away the right to sue them if we died while scuba diving, he walked us over to where our boat was docked and introduced us to Miguel, our instructor, and Lupe, who would be driving the boat.  We ended up having a private tour because while one other woman was going to dive with us (her name was Chantal), she was a certified diver and was just tagging along on the boat.  I love when it works out like that!  Miguel did try to find others to join the tour, but lucky for us, everyone else at the marina either had another scuba tour booked or preferred to go snorkeling.  I’m sure he would have liked to have more people on the tour so he could make some more money, but honestly, I was much more comfortable knowing that it was just DH and I on the tour so Miguel could focus on us and our safety.  I’m not really sure how it would have worked out anyway if he recruited more people to take the tour because the boat was all set up with equipment for us (notice the name tags hanging from the vests?), so I don’t know where the equipment would have come from if there were more people added to the tour.

 

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As Lupe drove the boat out of the marina and south along the coast of Cozumel, Miguel used the time to teach us our introductory lesson.  I was kind of surprised that he was going to teach us this material while we were on a moving boat considering how loud it was from the motor of the boat.  It was a really good thing that he was only speaking to the two of us because there’s no way we would have heard him if we were sitting further away, and this was important information!  Miguel did a great job of explaining some basic concepts of how the lungs react to the pressure of being deep under water, and how to operate all of the equipment we would be using today.  He showed us a few techniques to equalize our ears from the pressure under the water like blowing our nose or swallowing.  He also suggested we could move our jaw up and down or yawn, but I’m not quite sure how that would have worked out without swallowing a bunch of salt water!  After that, he taught us some of the important hand signals so we could communicate under water.  This was something that really worried me because if there was a problem, it’s not like we could verbalize it to Miguel to get him to help us.  Miguel explained that most of the time, people encountered the same problems so he taught us how to communicate those problems to him using hand signals.

 

After about 30 minutes, we arrived at our first stop: a shallow section of water that was about 5 feet deep with a soft, sandy bottom where we could practice some skills.  Miguel taught us 4 skills that we needed to demonstrate for him before we could move on to diving in deeper water.  First, he demonstrated them to us on the boat and showed us how he would cue us to do them on our own when we were in the water.  Then we got suited up on the boat.  This was my first time ever putting on a wet suit, and suddenly I regretted my choice to take this tour at the end of our cruise.  Holy moly!  It was so hard to get into that wet suit!  Maybe it would have been easier at the start of the cruise before I ate all that food! Haha

 

After we were wearing our wet suits and fins, Lupe and Miguel helped us put on our weight belt and BCD (Buoyancy Control Device), inflate the BCD, and to sit up on the edge of the boat with the oxygen tanks supported on the edge.  It was all so awkward and uncomfortable, but mostly because I was nervous and this was a totally new experience for me.  Don’t I look happy to be scuba diving? Haha… maybe not!

 

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On the count of 3, he told us to just fall backwards off the side of the boat.  It seemed so weird to wear such a heavy tank on my back but still be able to float, but I guess that was just the BCD doing its job!  We slowly lowered into position, kneeling on the sandy ocean floor, and went through all of our skills.  First, I had to remove the regulator from my mouth, blow bubbles, put the regulator back in my mouth and clear it of the water that got inside.  Next, I had to repeat that process and also show that I could retrieve the regulator in two different ways.  The point was that if it somehow fell out of my mouth under water, I would know how to retrieve it so I could breathe again.  Breathing is important!  The final skill was to let some water get inside of my goggles and then to clear it out.  While DH and I took turns demonstrating our skills, Chantal used the time to go snorkeling in the area, so I thought that was nice that she had something to do and it wasn’t like she was twiddling her thumbs on the boat, waiting for us to be ready.

 

After Miguel gave us both the thumbs up and high-five that we had passed our skills, we swam back to the boat and climbed on board.  Miguel removed my BCD and handed it up to Lupe on the boat so I didn’t have to climb the ladder wearing the tank.  That was much appreciated because DH didn’t get the same treatment and he said it was really hard to climb the ladder with all that equipment! Sometimes it’s awesome to be a girl! Haha

 

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Lupe drove the boat a short distance away to the Palancar Reef, and Miguel said it was time for our first real dive!  I just kept telling myself to stay calm and keep breathing.  There was no turning back now!  We dropped backwards into the water and all gathered together to slowly lower down to the reef.  I actually did really well with it and was pacing with Chantal to get about halfway down to the ocean floor.

 

OMG! I’m scuba diving!!

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When I looked around to see where DH was, I realized he was still close to the surface and Miguel was helping him with something.  I thought maybe I had gone down faster than I was supposed to, so I went back up to see what was going on.  Chantal kept going deeper and started to explore the reef on her own.

 

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It looked like DH was having trouble clearing his ears, but it only took him a few seconds to work it out and then we were on our way.  Miguel looped one arm around mine and his other arm around DH’s arm and led us down to the ocean floor.  When he was explaining things on the boat, it sounded like we could swim independently, but once we were under water, he would not let us go off on our own.  I was okay with that because I was still unsure and nervous about the whole thing, but DH kept trying to wiggle away and Miguel wouldn’t let him.  Once again, I was glad that we only had two of us on the tour because I’m not sure how it would have played out with 2 more people… would we have made a big caravan of 5 of us all strung together??  That would have been a bit ridiculous! Lol

 

Luckily, Miguel looped under my left arm so I still had my right hand free to take photos!

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Whenever I go snorkeling, I make sure to adjust my camera to the underwater setting so the colors will come out correctly.  I knew that going deeper under water would cause the photos to turn blue, but since this was only my first time scuba diving, I wanted to test the abilities of my camera and see what I could capture without an extra filter.  If I book a scuba excursion in the future, I will probably look into one of those red filters to neutralize the colors, but for now, here is just a small sampling of the hundreds of photos I took on this dive.

 

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I just wanted to come by and say that I am following, since we sail on Dream in the middle of May and hit 2 of your 4 stops. We did Belize and Roatan in 2017. I am loving all in the information and might actually look into doing the 2 tank discover that you are reviewing right now. Thank you for sharing.

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11 hours ago, HBomb1013 said:

I just wanted to come by and say that I am following, since we sail on Dream in the middle of May and hit 2 of your 4 stops. We did Belize and Roatan in 2017. I am loving all in the information and might actually look into doing the 2 tank discover that you are reviewing right now. Thank you for sharing.

 

Thanks for reading!  Lots more scuba photos to come, but we really enjoyed the tour and I would definitely recommend booking with them if you are interested 🙂

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Thus far, we had seen a ton of coral but no fish at all.  Miguel pointed at something to my left… there was a small school of fish swimming a few feet away.  It almost made me laugh because that was so not exciting compared to the beautiful coral I was staring at on my right side!  I took a quick photo of it to let him think I was impressed…

 

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Ok, now back to the amazing coral…

 

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One of the downsides to being looped under Miguel’s arm was that I couldn’t get closer to things I wanted to take photos of, and I couldn’t linger to take the perfect photo.  I basically just snapped photos with one hand (which means the camera wasn’t very steady) and it was as I was floating past the subject so a lot of the photos came out blurry.

 

This was that spongy coral that I saw in St. Lucia between the pitons

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If you look VERY carefully, there is a small turtle swimming just above the coral in the middle of this photo.  I really wanted to chase after him but Miguel led us in a different direction.

 

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Here we go… I zoomed in so you can see the turtle a little better, just to prove that I didn’t make it up that we saw him hehe

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We must have been getting closer to the surface because all of a sudden, the color came back to my photos

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Towards the end, we saw a few more fish swimming around

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A whole lot of those round spongey things… I’m sure they have a more technical name than that, I just don’t know what it is lol

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I just loved how everywhere I looked, there was SOOOO much to take in and see.  This was a wonderful place to have my first scuba diving experience!

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Hi Mr. Fish!

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Oh look! There’s another fish poking out of the coral!

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My husband were going to do a discover scuba in Grand Cayman this past February but it was raining and they called the excursion off😥. We are going on another cruise in November/ December and I have booked the excursion again. It's a bucket list thing so loving hearing your experience.

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57 minutes ago, trish4801 said:

My husband were going to do a discover scuba in Grand Cayman this past February but it was raining and they called the excursion off😥. We are going on another cruise in November/ December and I have booked the excursion again. It's a bucket list thing so loving hearing your experience.

 

oh no!!  I would have been so upset if this excursion was cancelled!  How lucky that you will get a re-do in a few months.  I hope you have a perfect weather day and love your first scuba experience 🙂  The funniest part is that we were so far below the surface that it wouldn't have mattered if it was raining... it's always wet in the ocean!  But maybe they didn't think it was safe to drive the boat for your tour or something like that?

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I wish we could have gone in between those rocks as I’m sure there was some amazing stuff in there.

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Around this time, DH looked down at the meter monitoring the oxygen in his tank and saw it was in the red zone, so he pointed it out to Miguel.  That was our cue to start heading towards the surface before DH ran out of oxygen, but afterwards, Miguel told us we were going to finish around that time anyway.  I slowly kicked up towards the surface, equalizing my ears along the way.  When I reached the surface, both of my calves started to cramp, but Chantal and Miguel were right there and each grabbed a leg to stretch me out while I floated in the water.  They knew exactly what to do and they were amazing!  The whole time we were diving, Miguel held a line attached to a flotation device that hovered on the surface of the water so Lupe could follow us with the boat.  They purposely planned our route that we were drifting underwater with the current, so we really didn’t have to swim at all, especially since Lupe was just a few feet away when we came up to the surface at the end.  Miguel had told us from the start that scuba diving is not a sport, it’s a leisure activity because if you do it right, it is not strenuous and can be very relaxing.  He was right!  When I reached the ladder for our boat, Miguel helped to remove my weights and BCD, and I slipped off my fins and climbed back on board.

 

In total, our first dive lasted 45 minutes and Miguel said we reached a depth of 32 feet, and I loved every minute of it!  The one issue I had was that every time I tried to clear my ears, I pinched my nose to blow out as Miguel told me to do.  When I did that, it let water get into my goggles because pinching my nose made a gap in the seal of the goggles, so then there was water in my eyes.  I knew how to fix it, but it got really annoying to have to stop every few minutes and clear my goggles.  While we were on the boat heading towards our second dive site, I asked Miguel what to do and he suggested I should try swallowing instead.  Ok, that’s a good idea, I hope that works out!

 

I forgot to take photos of it, but Miguel passed around a container with cut up melon, papaya, and mango.  It was a much-appreciated snack and helped to get rid of the salty flavor in my mouth.  They also had bottles of water for us if we needed it, but we had brought our own from the ship.

 

Lupe drove the boat back to very close to the marina where we started the tour.  At first I was a little confused and thought maybe that was the end of the tour?  I thought we signed up for a 2-tank dive, but maybe I misunderstood something?  Just as I was about to ask Miguel about it, Lupe stopped the boat.  Our second dive was at the Paraiso Reef, located very close to the marina and where the cruise ships were docked.  Time to suit up for round two!

 

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Back in the water, I felt a lot more relaxed this time around

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DH is getting his mouthpiece in place, and you can see the cruise ships in the background.

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