At dinner this evening a delightful little clown stopped by and introduced me to a new friend.

The ladies at the table got balloon bracelets. It was all rather charming in an unexpected way. But, then, no one ever expects the balloon guy. Not really. He’s a marvel unto himself.

We knew a balloon guy. Said it took years to get the art down. Not just tying the balloons, but doing it with patter. You have to be able to make the jokes without looking at your hands. It seems a silly thing, but these are people devoted to their craft. I could barely blow up one of the balloons.

So when you get a new parrot friend, appreciate him. It’s an art that is an investment, even if the finished product only lasts a while. The gesture can stick around for much longer.

Five days a day is just about all you would want to do, and that fifth dive would be a night dive. There’s an issue of timing and chemistry, surface intervals and endurance. We don’t have any night dives scheduled on this trip. We were supposed to get 20, all told, but lost some dives on Tuesday and Wednesday. Counting our last dives, tomorrow, we’ll finish with 14 for the trip, I think. We’re coming in with a bottom-time of juuuust under an hour on each dive, so far. I think we’re doing OK.

I promised you an eagle ray. Here’s an eagle ray. And some beautiful mackerel, and sponges.

We’ll get an even better look at an eagle ray before we’re done diving.

Here’s The Yankee in a swim-through. She used to not do these, afraid she’ll get tangled up in something, but this trip she’s gone through every one we’ve seen so far.

I always go in behind her, just to make sure her rig doesn’t get caught up on something. Most of them are quite wide, accustomed to a bunch of divers and are harmless.

Here’s our other dive partner, my mother, floating along in the currents of Cozumel.

And here are a few of the amazing views we took in. From the very big …

To the medium-sized …

To the small …

There’s easily more than a dozen species represented in that photo, which I took because I liked the two different sets of purple sponges right next to one another.

Below the surface there are mysteries and discoveries and wonders beyond your imagination. I suppose that’s why we keep going down there. To see. To wonder.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2024 at 9:28 pm and is filed under adventures, Cozumel, Friday, photo, SCUBA, video. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.