After breakfast in the downstairs restaurant we headed to the dive shop to test our nitrox tanks, then took our gear down to the dock where we boarded the Scuba II. We met some of the other divers and our dive master, Francisco. There were a total of 8 divers on our boat, some of the other boats had twice as many divers on them.

We left the dock and headed for Tormentos, about 25 minutes to the south. On the way we talked with Cari and Garret, a couple from Portland. They were really nice and fun to talk with. Once we arrived at the dive site Francisco gave us a dive briefing and then we suited up and rolled into the water.

Cozumel is known for having fairly strong currents, so most of the diving is 'drift' diving. This means that you drop into the water as a group, then you descend to the bottom and let the current carry you along. You watch the fish and coral go by, then you head for the surface where the boat (which has been moving on the surface) picks you up. We had never done it before and it turned out to be a lot of fun. It's kind of like flying; if you have your buoyancy right you can follow the contour of the reef moving below you by controlling your breathing. It does, however, make taking pictures a bit tricky: you don't have much of a chance for second or third shots of things!

We saw a good variety of sea life, including a big seahorse, a lobster, a big moray eel, a stingray and of course, Rick's favorite fish, the trunkfish. Our second dive was at a site called Villa Blanca. We drifted past lots of coral and fish, it was a fun dive. Our second dive was at a site called Villa Blanca, which was back towards the dive resort. Once again it was a drift dive with lots fun stuff, though not a huge number of fish.

We had lunch back at the Scuba Club, then at 3:00 we headed out to a wreck called C-53 with Garret and Francisco. C-53 was sunk about 5 years ago to create an artificial reef. It's sitting perfectly on it's keel on the bottom in about 70 feet of water. A number of bulkheads inside have had holes cut in them, creating a passageway through the interior. They've also cut holes in the hull so that you can pretty much always see a way out. This made Randy happy, since he'd been known to get a bit claustrophobic in tight cave-like spaces. We swam around the propellers and then inside the ship, making our way from the engine room, up toward the front and then exiting near the bridge. We swam around for a bit longer and then surfaced. It was the first time we'd done a wreck dive where we'd actually gone inside.

Back on shore we stowed our gear, showered, and then headed to the upstairs restaurant (The Fat Grouper) for dinner. Afterwards we had a nightcap and headed up to our room to sleep.