SCUBA with Coconut Divers

We had tons of fun on our Mexican vacay. Tons. The photo below was not from one of those fun times. 

Oh what's going on here? That's me, lying on the bottom of a Mexican boat. This was not just-for-funsies. I was full blown, terrible-awful, seasick. Just an hour before, I looked like this:

Much better, right? You see we were greeted in Mexico with questionable weather. The dive company we were diving with (Coconut Divers) canceled our day of diving in Cozumel because of the wind, but said they would still take us out to Isla Mujeres before the weather got too bad. It was actually raining when we took off in the boat, and I was a tiny bit nervous about the choppiness of the water, but I reminded myself that I've done a number of dives in rain and waves. In fact, during one dive in Bora Bora on our honeymoon, the water was so rough and the captain was driving the boat so fast through it that the hard-core French lady on board screamed "I'm scared and I don't like to be scared!" and the American gal from Texas actually started crying. Max and I still use the phrase "I'm scared and I don't like to be scared!" whenever we're discussing frightful things. Anyway, I made it through that, I could definitely make it through whatever Mexico threw at me. Or so I thought.

I got just a bit queasy on our ride out to Isla Mujeres, which has totally happened on other dives, but the sickness always goes away the instant I backflip into the ocean and disappear underwater. I love diving. Looooove diving. I was so excited to be among the fish and corals again!

So happy!



We actually dove in the Cancun National Marine Park at its underwater museum, so in addition to the sea life we saw sculptures like this house.

And figures like these ones.

Unfortunately, about halfway into the dive, I started feeling sick. Really, really, sick. I just couldn't figure out why because I have never, ever been sick underwater before!

I tried to keep enjoying the dive, but all I wanted to do was get out of the water! It was so sad, y'all!

I finally realized that everything in the ocean around me was swaying back and forth. Fish would all move up together, then back, then up, then back. Our dive was pretty shallow, and I'm thinking that because of that the surges were very strong, and were probably the cause of my sickness.

Back and forth, back and forth. I never even got a chance to snag the underwater camera out of Max's hands and snap some pictures of him because I just kept getting more and more sick. 

When it was finally time to get out, I looked up at the bobbing boat and knew that 1. It was going to be tough to grab ahold of the ladder and climb back in and 2. My nausea was not going away. 

I climbed into the boat and I was can't-even-talk, have-to-close-my-eyes seasick. I was shivering and hot at the same time so I peeled off my wetsuit and tried not to vomit. We drove over to the second site for the day and the dive master urged me to get back in the water, saying that it would make me feel better. Normally I'd agree with him, but I had just spent half a dive being sick in the water. Plus, I was feeling so bad I physically couldn't get my equipment on. So (le sad) I stayed on the boat, head on Max's knee, while the other divers (sans Max) went back in. This was our actually anniversary day and Max said he didn't want to leave me (sweet man). Plus, I would have been all alone with the captain who didn't speak any English. Max struck up a convo with him in Spanish of course, which I half-listened to once I migrated to the bottom of the boat where I thought I would feel better. 

I still don't really know what about the whole experience did me in. Had this been my first dive ever, I don't think I would have ever headed back in! Luckily, the was dive twenty-something, so I know it was just a bad day. And I'm even looking forward to heading back underwater. Maybe just not in Mexico ;)