January 7, 2007 -- Isla Lobos

Let the fun begin...

We were up and raring to go. Fabricio met us at my cousins house and helped us get thru all the fun stuff of checking in. We had no problem with our luggage weight, and later found out that Peter Hughes Diving had an agreement with AeroGal that they don´t check our weight limit on checked in luggage... THANK GOD!!!

So we were set, now just to wait around until our flight was called. Little did we know that the people sitting around us were also the ones on our trip. There was no big dive group on the trip, just people from all over the world... and I mean all over the world. There was Art and Alicia, from the east coast (i think), Don and Kathy from California, Stan from California, Marco and Monica from Brazil, Tony and (crap can´t remember his name) also from Brazil, Fid and Andrew from Canada and David from England. Everyone was really great, as long as you weren´t Fid´s dive buddy, but i´ll go into more details later on that boy... HEHE...

Once we got to San Cristobal, we were greated by Edwin and Miguel, our naturalist and dive masters. Our luggage was gathered and then they loaded a truck and we loaded into a bus and were on our way to the port. There, we were greated to the barks of sealions that decided to take over small boats, sidewalks and stairways. They were sooo cute. They could care less, only to be basking in the sun... what a life. We all grabbed our carry ons, strapped on our life vest, and got on the zodiac´s. They then took us to our home for the next week. Once we boarded we were sent to the common area to wait room assignments. There are 2 sections on this boat for sleeping... the upper deck... and then the dungeon. Those poor people in the dungeon, especially Don and Kathy that were right were the anchor was. Everytime i heard the anchor go up or down, i´d just have to laugh, they were awake now... and then the dungeon wasn´t a good place to be when we had to travel against the current.

Anyways, we had a nice room, in the upper deck, just off the booby deck, or our briefing area. after our luggage was brought on board, we were briefed on our first dive and we were off to Isla Lobo. We got our gear ready, picked out tank spot, and that was the last time we touched our gear, they did everything for us. They we broke out into two groups, yellow group which was Edwin´s team, and grey group which was Miguel´s team. We were in the grey team, and i gotta say that was a wise choice for the week. The first dive was an easy check out dive, 20-30ft deep, basically to test our bouyancy. No dive master at all. we were loaded into the zodiac´s by team color and then just dropped off. We were told it was a 30 minute dive and to keep the rocks to our right. OMG, this was fun. We went down and a group but slowly Mark and I went off on our own. Then the fun began. This was sealion heaven. They were everywhere and so not afraid of us. They were all pup´s and females that came around us and just played with us. They got very close and one decided to pull at my hair. Such a difference to what we experienced in Cabo where they refused to play with us. We´d twist and turn with them and just mimic one another. We also spotted a sting ray and several different fish. Funny how nothing was afraid of us. Before we knew it, our dive was over and we had to wait for the zodiac to get us. Getting back in is so not fun, there is no graceful way to do it...

After our dive, we were greated by the staff who helped us on board, out of our wetsuits where they rinsed them off for us and gave us hot towels. There was also water and coffee/tea waiting for us and some type of munchie. The staff brought our gear on board and refilled our tanks as we changed again for our captains briefing.

At the captains briefing we were informed of the layout of the ship, emergency procedures, introduced to the staff and the plan of attack for dives. Then we did a toast and it was time for lunch. OMG the food was great, too much but wonderful. After lunch they sounded the emergency siren and we had to grab our life vests from our room and head to the upper deck. There Miguel had me play translator for him and gave everyone directions to what will need to be done in case of an emergency. After all was said and done, we hit the bar, again...

Starting tomorrow, we were on schedule, breakfast at 7am, dive briefing at 8am, diving at 8:30... 2 morning dives, lunch, possible 2 afternoon dives or a land excursion, and maybe a night dive and then dinner... long days await us....