The Cruise as Dive Sampler Package
Grand Cayman, Roatan, Belize (Turneffe Atoll), Cozumel, 2000
Author: Dennis Grace

I wish I could take credit for this as my own Clever Little Scheme™, but in all honesty scuba diving for my wife and I started out as a more or less ancillary activity.  I had been in college for nearly a decade (translation: ten years of poverty), so when the major computer company that I now work for gave me my first annual bonus, we knew exactly what to do with it.  Ten years of sensible spending had gotten us down, so rather than spend any money on the mortgage or my student loans, we opted for a Caribbean cruise. Or, I should say, I opted for it.  She smiled when I suggested it, but the quizzical look in her eyes was clearly wondering why I'd want to do something so uninvolved.  We've always been active people, and my wife considered cruising an activity for people too lazy to actually do anything for themselves.

            "Oh," said my wife, "maybe we could buy masks and fins and go snorkeling at the stops along the way."

            I didn't like this idea. About twenty years ago, I snorkeled in various scenic reefs around the Pacific Rim and in the Indian Ocean (on Uncle Sam's tab), so I knew I didn't want to do that again.  Snorkeling is fine for a while--you get to see colorful tropical fish, coral, and the occasional anemone--but mostly I found it frustrating.  I could never stay down as long as I wanted, and I could never quite reach the interesting sites. It always felt like imitation scuba diving to me. My explanation for waiting twenty years to finally get my certification would fill a long and trashy novel (think David Copperfield, but with trailer parks).  Let's just say I got sidetracked.

            "I've got a better idea," I said, "we'll get our certifications here in Austin and go scuba diving."

            "Isn't that awfully expensive?" she asked.

            "Nah.  Dive shops around town offer certifications for under two hundred dollars.  We'll just rent whatever gear we need."  I was guessing, of course.

            You see, the focus experience was to be the cruise:  being pampered while experiencing new places, people, and sights.  Scuba diving would be just another sight.  In fact, our original plan was to dive in Grand Cayman, Roatan, and Belize, and to take the ferry-to-the-bus-to-Tulum from Cozumel. We didn't want to do the same thing at every stop, after all.

            Well, several burgeoning credit cards later, we were certified (PDIC), fully equipped with our own gear (including two sets of masks and fins--don't ask), and ready for our cruise.  We both had a dozen cold and murky lake dives, including our Nitrox certifications that, due to some poor planning, we did not get to use on the trip. We planned to dive with Aquanauts in Grand Cayman, Hugh Parkey's Dive Connection in Belize, and whoever the cruise line arranged in both Roatan and Cozumel. Those turned out to be Anthony's Key Resort (an impressive operation), in Roatan, and a group called the Snorkel Center and Diving, in Cozumel. Even before we boarded the plane for Florida, the plan had shifted. The cruise would now be our dive sampler. We were going to dive four of the premier locales in the Caribbean in just four days. And Tulum?  Hell, the ruins have been there over five hundred years; they'll still be there in a few decades.

            The initial cruise experience, if a bit rushed, was mostly pleasant.  The gourmet meals were excellent (the quick foods, sadly, were only mediocre at best).  Unfortunately, because we don't drink, sunbathe, or gamble, and because the shows were geared primarily for an older audience, the only entertainment we got out of the cruise was supplied by nature. Spotted dolphins leaped before the bow of the ship as we pulled away from the channel, and flocks of flying fish skittered across the water away from us.  The sunsets were glorious as were the skies at night. Mostly, however, we waited eagerly for out first port arrival: our first Caribbean dive day.

Our first Caribbean dive:  Grand Cayman

            The first dive day started badly.  We were scheduled to dive with Aquanauts because we wanted to dive Stingray City.  The cruiseline was only offering a snorkeling trip to the Sandbar, so we had made our own arrangements.  The scary part of this was that we were only scheduled to be in Georgetown for six hours--from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Once underway, we discovered that the time estimate was more than just slightly misleading.  You see, cruise ships don't dock in Georgetown; they don't even anchor. They just drift.  This meant we would be tendered ashore, and since we weren't going on a cruise-sanctioned shore tour, we would not get off the ship until at least 9:30.  The advertised departure time of 3:00 was also misleading.  Three o'clock was the ship's underway time.  The last tender back to the ship was scheduled for 2:30 p.m.  Our six hours ashore had been reduced to five hours before we even set foot off the ship. 

            Just as we were settling in to the realization that our schedule was being severely compressed, about a mile off Cayman, the cruise dive and snorkel director announced that the ship's Stingray City tours had been canceled for safety reasons. At first I hoped this would not impact us. After all, the cruise snorkel tours had some fairly geriatric participants. Surely seas just high enough to cancel a snorkel on the Sandbar for little old ladies wouldn't affect our dive?  Besides, the weather on the West End of Grand Cayman was clear and sunny, so how bad could it be a few miles off in the North Sound?

            Pretty bad, apparently. By phone, Aquanauts informed us that the North Sound was in the grips of a squall and no reputable dive operation would be in Stingray City that day. Instead, since they had already done their deep dive for the day, Aquanauts took us out to dive the wreck of the Oro Verde. We were both disappointed at not getting to feed the stingrays, but I was overjoyed at the thought of diving a wreck, even one in shallow water.

            On the way to the dive site, we suited up.  My wife and I were wearing 0.5 mm fullsuits and 3 mm beanies.  One young man in a shorty chuckled and told my wife, "Your gonna get hot in all that." (And, yes, he was the one with blue lips, running for the solar shower when we got back to the boat.)

            After a dramatic history of the Oro Verde that was probably made up on the spur of the moment, our divemaster outlined the dive.  It was a simple set of instructions.  Hurricane Mitch had rolled the Oro Verde in toward shore, planting her port side against a reef at about fifty fsw.  The mooring line is attached at her bow.  We were going to descend to the bow of the ship, take two leisurely tours of the Oro Verde, and turn up the sand chute at the ship's stern.  The chute goes up to the top of the reef, where we would turn right and head to an even wider channel of sand, which we would follow back down to the ship's bow. A box.  What could be simpler?

            I looked over at my wife, and saw that her eyes were wide.  She was shaking her head. "I don't know if I know how to do this."

            I tried to assure her that the instructions were simple enough, but she was unconvinced. Too many memories of silt clouds in Lake Travis brought back recollections of her old fears of deep water.  I calmly talked through the dm's instructions again, but she wasn't listening.

            "It's all right," the divemaster said, "you can stick with me if you like."

            Reassured, she stepped to the edge of the boat to giant stride in.  After just a moment's hesitation, she was in the water.  I stepped right after her, and the dm followed.  After a quick check, we exchanged thumbs down signs and stuck our faces in the water.

            Even from ten feet away under water, I could hear my wife's delighted squeal.  She had simply looked down, and there it was:  the Oro Verde, the reef, the sand chutes, the other divers, the entire dive plan.  The visibility was 100 feet, and we could see all of the dive site from the surface.  I could even make out sergeant majors and schoolmasters playing in the wreckage.  My wife's fears burst like a happy soapbubble.

            During the dive we saw several gray angels, the largest of which was as big as my torso.  We also saw the usual Caribbean suspects:  blueheads, a sharpnose puffer who eluded my lens, a rock beauty who wouldn't hold still for a decent photo, squirrel fish, bar jacks, yellowtail snappers, blue chromis, dusky damsels, bi-color damsels, tangs, black durgons.  The most surprising fish we encountered was a two-foot trumpetfish my wife found hiding in parallel lines of wreckage.  I've seen hundreds of pictures, but none captures the electric indigo glow of the trumpetfish head.  What an astonishing creature.

            Spectacular as it all was, no aspect of the dive was as important to me as that initial view from the surface.

            I hope I never forget that view.  I want to hold every shade of blue, every ripple of white sand, and the entire muted rainbow of the coral from fifty feet up, somewhere in the recesses of my memory.  Every time someone looks at the photographs we took and asks, "Is the water really that blue?" I want to be able to answer with the same unequivocal Yes.  I can see it now; I want to see it always.  I want no reef, no wreck, no blue hole of an abyss, no matter the visibility, to ever compare with my first sight of the Oro Verde from the surface.

Dive the second: Roatan

            When we woke the next morning, Roatan was already in sight.  At breakfast, my wife complained that her ear did not "feel quite right."  Anyone who knows Dory knows that she has an incredibly high tolerance for pain.  If anything bothers her enough to admit it, it must be something serious.  I insisted we see the ship's doctor.

            After a quick examination he confirmed our worst fears, "Quite a bit of redness in here, and a bit of fluid behind the eardrum.  You have a bit of infection in this ear. I wouldn't recommend diving today.  Take these"--he gave her a packet of amoxycillin, some antihistamines, and a nasal spray--"and see how it's feeling tomorrow."

            Without missing a beat, my partner in dive addiction replies, "I am going to dive today, Doctor, so now that you know this, how would you advise me?"

            He told her to take the antibiotic and the antihistamine right away, use the spray immediately and again before each dive, and call the dive at the first sign of trouble.

            I had heard horror stories about dives arranged through cruise ships, but our experience in Belize was mostly positive. Our cruiseline had arranged for us to dive with Anthony's Key Resort. The morning of our arrival at the new dock on the eastern shore of Roatan, AKR had three big Waywards waiting for us with their engines running.  We loaded our gear onto the boats to the accompaniment of a tireless squadron of dancers chanting a welcome at center pier. Divemaster John helped the dozen who boarded his boat to stow gear and select the proper amount of weight, smiling all the while.

            Our boat was the last one to leave the pier, but we were also the fastest (either that or our captain was the craziest).  With the twin diesels roaring at full throttle, we flew across the wavetops and quickly overtook and passed the other dive boats.

            The boat ride was a hoot, but I was a little apprehensive.  How would the waters of Roatan compare with the crystalline clarity of Grand Cayman?  Was our other-worldly view of the Oro Verde a fluke?  Beginner's luck, perhaps?

            Divemaster John began his briefing by pointing out that our dive site was Mandy's Eel Garden.  He was quite insistent about the "Mandy" part (apparently a lady friend of his).  His directions were minimal.  We would be playing a simple game of follow the leader.  The majority of the dive briefing was taken up with agreeing on signals and understanding that our principal commandment was (as the stencil on the AKR tanks says) "DO NOT TOUCH THE CORAL." I verified that Dory was having no problems with the medication or her ears, and we strode into the waters a little ways off the south shore of Roatan.  My heart was pounding in my throat as I dunked my masked face into the ocean.

            There it was again:  the reef, the other divers, a scattering of blue tangs, the sand rolling out and away. The visibility was not quite as high as at Cayman, but nearly so, a good eighty feet at least. I relaxed and began my descent to the edge of the reef.  At the bottom edge of the reef, at about seventy fsw, a sloping plane of smooth white sand stretched away toward the abyss. Every foot or so, a garden eel stood crochet hooked into the gentle current, waiting for whatever free floating tidbits might drift by. As we swam along the edge of the reef, my attention was divided into four parts: following the divemaster, watching for movement on all sides, keeping an eye on my wife, and trying to get a closer look at those eels. I probably should not have tried quite so hard to see the eels.  I ended up dropping down to 85 feet (fifteen feet lower than my dive plan).  Because I was diving tables (I will get a computer, eventually, honest I will), the depth on my second dive would be somewhat limited.  The dive lasted just long enough that I had to decompress for an extra five minutes.

            After the first dive, we stopped over at Anthony's Key Resort to fuel up, get full tanks, and buy t-shirts.  Then it was off to Butcher's Bank and our second, slightly shallower dive.  My floor for the second dive was fifty fsw, which was annoying because I saw some photogenic looking French angels playing down at about sixty or so fsw.  When I stepped into the water for the second dive, the first thing I noticed was that I was cold.  I had gotten slightly chilled by the end of the first dive, and the same thing had happened at Cayman.  An hour and a half in the hot sun in a sweatshirt had done little to mitigate my chill.  Suddenly, my 0.5 mm steamer and 3 mm beanie were just not enough for 79F water.

            I have tried to recall what happened during which dive, but the two dives were similar enough that the only differentiating point was the garden eels. Dory and I have discussed the dives quite often, and we still are not certain which events and which critters occurred during which dive.  Basically, though, it went something like this:  bright red and chromium yellow sponges, seafans on every coral outcropping, blood red Christmas tree worms, every possible variety of Caribbean parrotfish, tangs, queen triggers, surgeons, black durgons, doctorfish, French angels, four-eyed butterflies, blue chromis, dusky damsels, bicolor damsels, yellow-tailed snappers, schoolmasters, sergeant majors, three-spotted goatfish, small groupers at every turn. The remarkable creature encounters included a long lizardfish trying very hard to look like sand, an eighteen-inch green sea turtle munching unconcernedly at the seaweed as we all swarmed past it, a coral shrimp with brilliant blue eyes, a sharpnose puffer who did not want his picture taken (I got this one, but just barely), a four-foot grouper hanging out under our boat, and the biggest lobster that I have ever seen.  The lobster's head was a good ten inches wide, and his tail stretched back and curled under at about three feet. Wouldn't you know, Dory had the camera when I found the lobster.  I caught up to her, but I couldn't find my way back to the undercut, and the rest of the group was getting away from us.  We had run out of film by the time we reached both the turtle and the lizardfish.

            I also saw a bizarre looking creature that, from the stuff of its body, I guess was some kind of cnidarian.  It looked like a sheer ribbon, a foot long, and about two inches wide.  At first, all I saw was a pair of brilliant white, parallel threads, moving through the water with a serpentine undulation.  It had a head that looked like a glowing golden filament.  Upon closer inspection, I noted that a network of fine fibers connected the two white threads.  

            All in all, Roatan offered a beautiful, craggy, healthy set of reefs and a clear colorful dive.  I would love an opportunity to dive Roatan for about a week sometime. Next time I'll wear a computer, do Nitrox, bring another camera, and explore a bit deeper. If I go in April again, I'll wear a thicker wetsuit.

            Sadly, the standout event of my Roatan dives was neither the craggy reefs, the monster lobster, nor the carefree sea turtle.  The standout was a lesson I would rather have never learned. I had often wondered what the phrase "dived out" could possible mean. How, I wondered, can a reef be dived out?  "Fished out" I can understand, but diving, to me, seems a passive interaction with the reef environment.  If we hover above the coral, keep our hands on our cameras, leave only bubbles, take only pictures, and only use our knives to cut away fishing line, how much impact can we have on the reef?

            My teachers in this regard were an idiot from New England and two clumsy women (I don't know where they were from).  The women were severely over-weighted.  They could not keep their feet up, and when they weren't finning up clouds of sand in the wide crevasses and sand chutes, they were kicking the coral and damaging gorgonians.  One of them actually deliberately reached out to touch a fire coral outcropping with her bare fingers.  She jerked her hand back at the sting, but it must have been pretty mild; she was fine by the time we got back on the boat. The idiot from New England seemed to think he was landing on the moon. During each descent, he dropped down flat-footed onto the sand and trudged around through the shellfish spouts.  I kept hoping he would find a stingray.  He, too, kept kicking the coral and leaving his fat signature on the reef. Despite obviously not knowing how to swim in scuba gear or how to control his buoyancy, he kept trying to slither his broad carcass through narrow clefts, an effort that eventually paid off by getting his tank caught in the coral. I don't know whether the divemaster pulled him out to rescue him of to keep him from doing any more damage with his flailing limbs.

            I am pleased to report that I did not see any of this triumvirate of terror diving during the remainder of the cruise.

Dive the third: Turneffe Atoll

            With the ship anchoring just off of Belize City, Dory and I already knew--and dreaded--the going-ashore drill.  This time the tendering fiasco was worse than Grand Cayman. The literature claimed we would be in Belize from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.  We knew that would be false, but we did not expect the ship to delay even handing out tender tickets until 9:00 a.m.  To make matters worse, the OOD that day just wasn't real big on communication. We had been told to wait in the common areas until the announcements to obtain tickets and then again to board the tender. I never heard an announcement that tickets were available, nor did I hear the announcement to board the tender.  We waited--first in line--for our tender tickets, but the announcement just didn't come.  We were beginning to wonder if the ship would ever let us go ashore.

            We had arranged to dive with Hugh Parkey's Dive Connection.  He had promised that we would find him right across the pier from where the tender docked. He had promised he would wait for us, but we had given him an arrival time of 8:00 a.m., and we weren't going to make it until 10:00.  I just hoped he was familiar enough with the cruise schedules to understand our predicament.

            When the tender finally pulled up to the pier, there was Hugh's big white Wayward (identical to the boat from Anthony's Key Resort), waiting exactly where he said it would be.  We dragged our gear bags from the tender all of twelve feet to Hugh's boat, where Hugh's assistant, Tony, took everything.  A minute later, we were speeding across the water toward the barrier reef.  When booking the trip, we'd originally asked to be taken to the barrier reef, but Hugh had vetoed that plan, noting that the water there is often too rough for beginning divers.  As we passed over the reef, I could see his point.  Though it was a clear day and a calm sea, the waters around the barrier reef were a bit rough.

            Our companions on the boat included two American business travelers and four folks from the UK, each with better than five years diving experience.  Dory and I were the decided neophytes of the trip. On the trip out we discovered that one of the American business travelers was a cruise ship captain from a nascent cruise line that will be operating out of New Orleans. He was in Belize researching cruise excursions. Tough job.

            We reached Turneffe atoll and hooked up to a mooring line (the mooring buoy had been replaced with an orange life preserver) over a spot Hugh called the Terrace.  The wall there drops down in scalloped steps. Starting at about fifty fsw, the wall is undercut and drops off to a ledge at about ninety fsw.  From the ledge at ninety fsw the wall again drops off to a second level spot at about 140 fsw and then to somewhere in the vicinity of 200 fsw.  After that, the wall drops off into the abyss. From seventy fsw, I could just barely make out the contours of the second tier (90 to 140 fsw), but with only 60 feet of visibility, I couldn't make out much detail.  I could see the ledge at 200 fsw just faintly.

            The Terrace has a dark, foreboding aura. Shadowy branches of black coral waved from the overarching wall, interspersed by the reaching rubbery fingers of various gorgonians. As we finned along under the overhang at about seventy feet, schools of fish hovered at the precipice and wove their way through sea fans poised to block out the sun.  Blue tangs, black durgons, blue chromis: dark fish appropriate to these dark environs.  Long-spined squirrelfish--pale and ghostly, not the brighter red squirrelfish of Grand Cayman--watched me suspiciously with their stark black eyes. Interspersed among the occasional red or yellow sponge, we saw wan, translucent violet sponges that seemed to glow out of the shadows.  It struck me that diving down along the second tier of the Terrace on un-enriched air would be a Bad Idea.  I would not want to be narced in a place like this. Between the darkness, the looming overhang, the eerie clutching octocorals, and the dark clouds of fish, this site would be the ideal setting for a delusional paranoid episode.  Oh, sure, I saw a few colorful fish, a couple of bright cheery coral shrimp and Christmas tree worms, the occasional neon yellow sponge, but generally I do nt recall much color or light.  No one creature on that dive stands out in my memory as powerfully as the overall haunting gloom of the Terrace.  Odd how a wall teeming with life could seem so funereal. 

            I would love to dive this spot again, perhaps covering less distance and paying closer attention to the wall's smaller denizens.

            Above the wall on the return to the boat, Hugh found a sea cucumber making its gradual way through a sand chute.  Dory looked on in puzzlement at the hairy limp sausage Hugh pointed out, and I began signing C-U-C-U-M-B-.  My signing just seemed to make matters worse (I get a bit overly enthusiastic and sign too fast), and she waved me off.  Hugh picked up the cuke and dusted off the sand. I again signed--more slowly this time--C-U-C-U- and she nodded understanding. Then Hugh held the critter up so that Dory and I could pet its rubbery velvet rows of feet. Later, Dory confessed that she was initially confused not by the speed of my signing but by the creature's size.  Having seen no source of perspective in any photos, she had expected sea cucumbers to be only about six inches long. So when I began signing "cucumber," she had been certain that couldn't be right.

            The first dive had chilled me to the point of blue lips and chattering teeth despite my 0.5 mm steamer and 3 mm beanie. Back on the boat, Tony moved our regs and BCs to fresh tanks while we ate a lunch of baked chicken and potato salad.  Then Hugh moved the boat around the atoll to our second dive site: Chasbo's Corner.  This site was mostly low lying coral heads interspersed with small, irregular patches of white sand. As on the Terrace wall, I found the coral here rife with feathery sea fans and other gorgonians, also whip sponges, barrel sponges, black coral, feather dusters, and the occasional crinoid.  The overall impression it left was of a sunken prairie, with the sea rods and the bushy and feathery black corals playing the role of sagebrush. Schools of tangs percolated out from behind various coral heads protected by damsels of every variety.  Scamps, young groupers, and yellow-tailed jacks seemed to appear from crevasses at every turn. Here and there a queen angel or a rock beauty flashed a little spot of color, and I failed repeatedly to get close enough to photograph playful banded, four-eyed, and spotfin butterflyfish. 

            Perhaps the most amazing sea creature I had the pleasure of observing on the second dive was Hugh Parkey himself.  Hugh is a huge, robust, bearded man with a bright smile and a good word for everyone. He is also an elegant diver, who obviously loves what he does. I would not have believed so large a man could evince such grace as Hugh Parkey wending his way fluidly among the octocorals. What an astonishing man.

            Chasbo's Corner was beautiful, but despite having switched to my much warmer 5 mm hooded vest for the day's second dive, I had to call the dive due to cold after just 35 minutes.  While I warmed up in sun and sweatshirt, Hugh and one of the British couples showed Dory around the rest of the reef, pointing out various juvenile fish, the black coral, some Pedersen's cleaning shrimp, an anemone, a crinoid. She and Hugh surfaced about 25 minutes later.

            As promised, Hugh got us back in time to make one of the last tenders back to our cruise ship. Sadly, Hugh's shop was out of t-shirts in our size.  We'll have to remember to e-mail him for a pair because, as much as I'd love to dive with him again, I don't foresee getting back to Belize for at least a couple years.

Last dive of the cruise: Cozumel

            What can I say about Cozumel that hasn't been said already?

            Well, I guess I'd have to say that my initial impression was not good.  We dived with an operation that I would have to classify as a cattleboat, though they did have two divemasters to herd us through the water. We were crowded at fifteen divers; I hope they never try to fit more on that boat.  We also had no head, a sunshade that covered only a third of the divers, no convenient place to stow our gear, and no rinse tanks.  All the folks on the forward starboard side got drenched on the way out to the first dive site; they got those of us on the forward starboard side between the first and second dives.

            The visibility was also, initially, a small disappointment.  On the cruise ship, I'd heard stories from more experienced divers about the incredible vis at Cozumel.  When the dive operation dropped us in twenty fsw over the sand above Palancar Gardens, I looked down to find the visibility at only about 40 feet.  The dive plan was pretty simple:  follow the lead divemaster, drift for 35 minutes, conduct a five minute safety stop at 15 feet, surface, and wait for the boat. Divemaster Eric took the lead, and Divemaster Orlando took up the rear. Eric headed for the nearest coral outcropping and dropped out of site. We followed. When I passed over the top of the nondescript coral head, I fell into another world.

            Off and on over the years I've considered that perhaps I just expect too much. Seeing a circus as a child, I had the same reaction as the lady in the song: is that all there is? The animals looked tired and annoyed, we were too far up to make out clearly any of the acrobatic feats, and it was over in just a few minutes. As a young man, just out of boot camp, I had a similar experience in Disneyland.  I was thoroughly disappointed. What a huge load of cheese it was: one garish, extended advertisement for Disney products. Most of the rides were tame to the point of somnambulistic. Even the E-ticket rides were nothing to write home about.  The Electric Light parade and the fireworks display impressed me only in the degree of their conspicuous consumption.

            At Palancar Gardens, I finally found my E-ticket ride.  None of the descriptions of Palancar Reef had prepared me for this.  The visibility wasn't what I'd been led to believe (it was about 60 feet once we dropped over the edge of the coral), but the geography was incredible. Every turn was another snaky crevasse or wavecrest of an overhang or toothed swimthrough.  Ropy whip sponges curled out at impossible angles, sea fans seined the current at every point, and plate corals strained to extend the impossible geometry of the reef further still.  The landscape was so psychedelic that, later, we would find it difficult to tell which way is up on our photographs.  Butterflyfish, rock beauties, yellowheaded wrasse, squirrel fish, and queen angels swirled dynamic colors into the splotchy rainbow of corals. Palancar was like a compressed, underwater Grand Canyon, and the current made it feel more like flying than diving. When we got to the safety stop, I was cold and I desperately needed to pee, but gladly would I have turned around and done the same dive over again. 

            As we hovered, drifting along at fifteen feet for our safety stop, we finally saw our first stingray of the cruise.  It was a small one, possibly a yellow stingray, and a blackjack was following closely about a foot above and behind.  I know the jack was just following in hopes that the ray would scare up a shrimp or two, but I couldn't shake the impression that the blackjack was out walking his pet ray.

            During the ride to Paradise Reef for our second dive, we were all giddy from the experience. My wife and I had both been somewhat apprehensive about drift diving. Before our open water class, we had heard that Cozumel was drift diving and was, therefore, a slightly more skill intensive dive.  We could not see anything about drift diving that made it any more difficult; if anything, the current made the dive less work.  Yes, I could see that a more powerful current could make for some pretty hairy diving, but we weren't diving Barracuda Reef or the Blue Corner, so what was the big deal?

            Because the first dive had chilled us, my wife and I both switched to our 5 mm hooded vests.  We loaned our 3 mm beanies to a couple who were shivering from the first dive. I spent much of the ride entertained by one young woman making a lame attempt to pick up Divemaster Orlando, telling him he was the best Divemaster she'd ever had because he'd made her feel confident about herself.  At this point, she leaned toward him and tried to slip her hand into his, but he ignored her efforts and began explaining how she could improve her buoyancy. I drank a bottle of water, trying not to think about how badly I needed to pee.

            Paradise Reef is an odd little reef, coral heads scattered about in a wide swatch of sand. Our initial ascent was greeted by a beautiful but very fast peacock flounder.  I managed to point it out to Dory, but it was going too fast to get a picture. Between the coral heads we found conch trails and queen conch scooting along in every direction.  We also spotted a sea cucumber that we found for ourselves.  I found lobsters under every other coral head.  On the coral heads we saw smooth trunkfish and huge platter-like spotted filefish and rock beauties and a storm of damsels.  Between the coral, a pair of French angels stopped to play with our group, swimming in an out around the divers, apparently looking for handouts. I found a beautiful little anemone (one picture of the three I took of it actually came out in focus), but as soon as I moved in to take the pictures, the handful of small fish playing near it disappeared. I also found Christmas tree worms and coral shrimp on what seemed like every other coral head, except when I had the camera.

            Again, the dive was over too fast.

            Oh, and I discovered that peeing in your wetsuit is grossly overrated as a warming mechanism.

            We returned to the cruise ship to eat lunch and rinse and stow our gear; then, we went shopping. As we strolled along, looking for appropriate gifts for all the family and friends on our list, I became increasingly annoyed at all the black coral in the jewelry shops.  Yes, the polished black lobsters and sharks and divers with 24 karat gold gear are very pretty, but I think I enjoyed it more waving in the current.

And the winner is

            Impossible to name.  Each stop on our cruise had its own unique charms.  The Oro Verde was our first clear water scuba excursion, our first dive in the ocean, our first wreck dive in the ocean.  This dive will always be a glorious memory for me. Roatan was beautiful in spite of our company, Turneffe was eerie and haunting and inspirational, Cozumel was otherworldly.  If I had to chose a favorite, I'd lose my mind.

            Would I go on another such cruise to sample a series of dive sites?  Probably not.  I guess we just aren't cruise people.  Though the food and accommodations were generally good, we quickly came to realize that the only part of the cruise that really held any charms for us was the dive sites.  Next time, we'll pick a more dive-centered vacation like a liveaboard or a dive resort.

            Would I recommend a western Caribbean cruise as an introductory dive sampler?  Definitely.  We may have only gotten in seven dives in four days, but we got to dive four of the premier dive sites in the Western Hemisphere. I think the trip was about as comprehensive an introduction to the Caribbean's Best Of as any neophyte diver might hope for.

            For divers considering taking a cruise as a dive sampler, I would make a few suggestions that might help you maximize your bottom time. 

            First, bring a wheeled dive gear bag and carry all your own gear.  We found that we could rinse and dry our gear over night in the stateroom shower with no problems.  Be sure you have enough fat hangers, though, if you bring any neoprene.

            Second, bring exposure protection for the dive boats. Some of the boats are covered; some are not. I believer the minimum is a sweatshirt (yes, even in the tropics) and sunscreen. For Roatan and Belize, just in case the noseeums are out,  you might also want an insect repellent with DEET.

            Third, Plan the Cruise; Cruise the Plan. Don't plan to do anything but dive, and know where you're diving and how you'll get from the Ship to the dive site and back again.  This can be difficult to predetermine as the cruise lines arrange these excursions at the last minute and usually can tell you who you'll be diving with a few days prior to departure.  So generally, I would suggest one of two general strategies:

1.      If you have no specific dive shop preferences, plan to dive with the cruise's arranged shore excursions for ports without docking facilities for cruise ships (like Grand Cayman and Belize City).  The arranged excursions bypass the tender lines, and if the excursion is late returning, the ship will wait.

2.      For ports of call where you will be able to simply walk ashore, check the Internet.  In most cases, you can arrange less expensive, less crowded, and more customized dive excursions on your own than through the cruise ship.

3.      Call a few months in advance to arrange dive excursions. Some of the more popular dive operators book months in advance.

4.      For dives you arrange outside of the cruise director's aegis, know that the published ship's schedule is just so much bilge water.  Not only are the arrival and departure  times subject to change according to the weather and the whims of the captain, they represent the ship's arrival time in port, not your arrival time on land. Add a half hour to arrival time and subtract a half hour from departure time for docking ports of call.  Add and subtract an hour and a half for tendered ports of call.

5.      If you want to dive Nitrox, don't take any of the cruise excursion dives. For reasons of liability, they won't support Nitrox.

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