More turtles and a huge parrotfish

On Saturday we dove at Paso del Cedral and then at Chankanaab Reef We saw 2 turtles on the first dive, but they were a little more shy and didn't hang out to have their pictures taken. Nurse shark, they're very shy and just swim away if you bother them

Queen triggerfish, very bright beautiful colors, but they didn't quite come out in this picture
Yellowtail Damselfish looking right at me, they're one of my favorite fish
Gray angelfish

trunkfish
a blenny looking out of his hole
flounder

brittle star on a sponge
goldentail moray eel
Huge rainbow parrotfish with a bright orange head

another queen triggerfish
close up of brain coral
social featherduster

Cozumel Trip Friday

This was a fun day of diving, we saw 3 turtles on the first dive! That dive site was Catacolio.
Turtle 1 was pretty curious about us and let us get pretty close before he swam away.
Turtle 2 was pretty small and was really curious, I was at the back of our dive group and only a few of us saw this turtle, he swam really close to me.
This is what the colors on the reef really look like, the camera doesn't pick up all the color unless we're about 2 or 3 feet from the subject and we use the flash.

The first spotted drum of the trip, this one is intermediate. They are really tough to get pictures of because they dance around constantly.
Our second dive of the day was at San Fransisco Reef, it's Jeff's favorite site.
Baracuda

This green moray eel was sleeping on it's side under an overhang, it was huge.
Queen angelfish
These jacks were pretty big and swam right at me

Honeycomb cowfish
I'm pretty sure these black durgon (triggerfish) were doing some kind of mating dance

Reticulated Brittle stars are pretty tough to find since they usually stay buried in the sand, this one is all the way out in the first picture and burying itself in the second picture
squat shrimp live in anemonies, they're very tiny, about the size of your pinkie fingernail.
We also did an afternoon dive at Paradise Reef

Spotted eel
banded coral shrimp
splendid toadfish

Yellow headed jawfish, these guys live in holes in the sand and they're tough to photograph
Yellow stingrays can change color
brittle star on a sponge

Flamingo tongue snail
Christmas tree worms

Jeff's 30th Birthday

Our first dive site today was Palancar Bricks, there were a few bricks on the bottom, which is how the site got its name.
Jeff took pictures on this dive and saw this big grouper

I played with some damselfish that were very territorial, one of them almost bit my finger!


Whitespotted filefish


Our second dive of the day was at Chankanaab Reef

Sanddivers are sometimes tough to see because they blend in with the sand really well


Spiny lobster


I wanted to see if the camera would pick up the pink color of this coral

Trumpet fish

Scorpion fish also blend in with the coral really well

We did a third dive at Paradise Reef in the afternoon, we didn't take the camera, but we saw some cool stuff like a splendid toadfish, shrimp, an eel and a couple of stingrays.

Cozumel Trip- first day of diving

We did 2 dives our first day of diving, we didn't take the camera on the first dive at a site named Palancar Caves, there weren't really caves, but there were some cool swim throughs. Our second dive was at Villa Blanca, I took the camera and really just tried to get used to using it.



The camera takes really good pictures, but unless the flash goes off and you're only about 2 feet from the subject, it really doesn't pick up all the beautiful colors underwater. Many of our pictures look pretty blue like the one below, but the actual colors were more like the picture above.

This was the first turtle we saw on the trip, I was pretty excited to get a picture of it, even if it was swimming away from me! I had no idea how close we'd get to turtles later in the week.