Cruise to Cozumel

You can go ahead and thank me for not putting that Enya Sail Away song over and over on my video of this trip, or perhpas the Styx version by the same title.

There I had to do it.  I'm sorry. I'm so Sorry.  You don't have to thank me now...

Cripes...that's tough to listen to and even tougher to recall the awkward years of youth with a song like that actually on the radio...

Now that I have embarrassed myself thoroughly because I know either of the two songs mentioned above, not that it matters since nobody reads this blog and I'm typing to myself basically.  Oh well, I will get on with the post.


Brenna and I managed to get away on a couples cruise to Cozumel with like ten zillion (read: about 20) of our friends and soon to be friends.  The dynamic of so many people all getting along well was cool.  Very low drama and we enjoyed the company of some really great people.

Cozumel is one of our favorite Scuba diving places on the planet.  Not that we have been to all of them, but it's still one of our favorites...

We really enjoyed the cruise and goofing off as the ship gently rumbled and rolled across the gulf.  The winter of Alabama receded quickly and was replaced by the semi-tropical climes that we remember from our Florida days.  The February sun was brutal and had the potential to fry our tender winter hides, but also having some Florida experience and being, well, "older" now, we opted for sunscreen rather than tanning oils and made it through without looking like the lobsters we ate on board the ship.

We were on the Carnival Elation, which is an older ship that travels out of Mobile Alabama, and it was perfect.  No big deal or production to get to the boat from our home and it was small enough (only 2,000 people vs the big ships of 4,000-5,000 passengers) that we could actually get around without feeling like we were on a cattle car.

Brenna and I were really excited about getting back in the water as we hadn't been diving since our St. Lucia trip (which was awesome and can be read about here, and here, and here...Ok, I wrote a lot about St. Lucia...)

We docked in Cozumel and met up with the dive boat which was run by Sand Dollar Sports, and they did a great job of getting us out to the dive site and making everyone feel comfortable.  It was our second time using the shop and they are good.  Check them out if you are ever down in the area.

The first dive was on Santa Rosa Wall which starts off as a sandy bottom at roughly 50ft, has some great coral heads to explore and tunnel through, and the wall itself drops into the abyss.  I tried to find out how deep it was, but I couldn't find anything on Wikipedia to give me a good estimate of the depth, so I'll just say...it's deep.  Like the kind of deep that will easily kill you before you get anywhere near the bottom.

I took the ever so versatile GoPro 960 camera down on its inaugural dive adventure.  I know it was rated as a waterproof housing, but it seems such a gamble to jump in the water with a video camera after years of hearing your dad tell you not to do stuff like that...

As if it wasn't obvious by now the camera survived, and it worked!  It's certainly no dive camera from a professional standpoint, but for all the stuff I do with it, it's great!  Now I wonder if GoPro will send me the upgraded 1080p HD version for all the dang free advertising I give them...Oh, wait.  Nobody reads this blog, so I guess not...  Fudge...

Well, readership or not, I got to use the new iMac I bought after the PC died and edited this video for all your viewing pleasure. I hope you like it, and have a great week.



And as always, the HD link is here since the frame is too big to fit in this blog column.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MapHJ29rG8&hd=1