After our dive (and disaster in my opinion) at San Francisco Wall, we headed over to Palancar Reef. This would be dive 2 of our adventure today. I had no idea there was a second dive involved

Then they started up the boat and we moved to Palancar Reef. Then they stopped. Hmmm, were they doing a second dive? I watched them change out the air tanks and people were gearing up again. I already had it in the back of my mind that I wasn't going. My wetsuit was off, I was getting dry, my ear was feeling better, food in my belly, and I didn't want to go through the same anxiety as I did last time and I was so afraid that would happen again. I wasn't about to risk it as much as it killed me. Safety first! The hubby ask several times and I assured him..."I am sure". My stomach was rumbling again and I wasn't sure if my diarrhea was about to kick in again.

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Him and Sakari geared up again and waited to be told to jump. It was time for them to go and they must have noticed they were in the wrong position because they told them to hold up and moved the boat. It was really drifting. 

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I took one last picture of my beloved family and I had hoped to see them again soon. By me not going, I still had that anxiety of not knowing what was happening down there and if they were safe. Sakari had that look of "mom, we will be fine"

The hubby was armed with my camera now, instead of the non-working Gopro, and I told him to make sure he got some good pictures!

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Sakari was in and immediately at it...no time to waste

We will start with mi esposo's pictures because...it won't take long to view those. I take about 300 pictures, he takes around 22 pictures. Seriously...I counted! I'll share a few with you.

He spotted a squirrel fish. This was a time that I hadn't seen any on this trip so glad he was good at capturing one. They have a tendency to hide in or under the rocks. It's too bad the color of the picture didn't turn out. They are a pretty red color. 

Then he spotted a Scrawled Filefish. These unique fish have beautiful spotted skin and a fun interesting fact is that they can change their colors depending on their surroundings just like an octopus does. 

Now when Sakari isn't taking pictures, I have started to notice that she puts her hands together...like you see real divers do, instead of using her hands/arms to "swim" like a swimmer. I said something to her about it when we got home and I seen this picture and she made a comment about it too (being like a real diver and starting to do that). I guess she doesn't have much of a chance to practice this skill because she's always busy taking pictures. I'm so glad she outgrew the ear troubles she used to have with equalizing them. For awhile, she didn't even want to dive and would beg not to but I would assure her that we wouldn't go deep and she was enjoying her shallow 20' dives. Now, she gets excited again to dive. She's just a natural at diving and so good at it. I wish I could be like her.

So there you have it! The extent of the hubby's pictures. 

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Now I will show you Sakari's pictures since I can always count on her.

Spotted Cowfish

Yep, I was up there...

There were a bunch of Caribbean Reef Squid in the distance. It's too bad they weren't closer for a better picture. 

THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN....SOMETHING MAJOR HAPPENED.... but, I will leave this until the end of the dive because I had to wait to find this information out, so you will have to wait too. :(

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This part is pretty amazing as well....Sakari found a GROUPER! I think it might be called the Speckled Blue Grouper but the coloring on the pictures makes it hard to tell. It seems to be the only Grouper I can find online but yet in my book, it sorta has the markings of a Rock Hind Grouper. If anyone knows, please comment below so I can mark this appropriately. 

Looks like it was trying to mix in with it's surroundings. Good find Sakari!!!!

Then the big one moves....and then there were two!! Oh my gosh I'm so jealous! I was missing out! I love groupers as well because they are usually hard to spot and not plentiful on dives like a lot of the other fish you see all the time. Then there's that look...those big lips...there's just something about them that makes me giggle. It looks like they are having a bad day and pouting. 

Another Black Trigger

Then they found a very large Green Moray Eel hidden under the rocks. 

They were getting all the good stuff and they were closer to shore than when I went. Why couldn't I have went on this dive instead of the one I went on?????

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A few macro shots

Adult French Angelfish

I don't know how she manages to get so close to these fish and they act like she's not even there. The fish whisperer I tell ya!

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Here's a (too) close picture of a Smooth Trunkfish

Banded Butterfly fish

Sakari managed to capture a good picture of another White Spotted Filefish

Goby

Then there was a momma Goby and all her babies I assume. They were all lined up.

Like I don't even know how she spots these on the sand. They blend in so easily. I guess her prescription mask is working!

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Two more beautiful Spotted Filefish

And then she found this beauty...I don't think I have ever seen one before. It was a beautiful Sargassum Triggerfish. Just look at those markings! Now my book says they are very wary of people and dart into holes and you can't get close to them. Hmmphhh, they haven't met my hija yet I guess. 

An Arrow Crab hanging out in this beautiful coral and there's also an anemone inside there too! The color of this coral was just stunning! Man I'm really missing out!

The dive was loaded with Stingrays of course. 

Sakari loves to go over someone and catch pictures of the bubbles they make. She always manages to catch one that looks like a jelly fish. LOL

Off in the distance they could see all the other divers. Our divers on our boat and a bunch of other divers were down there with them. I guess it was a popular spot. 

Sakari managed to get one last picture coming up and that was of another Spotwinged comb jellyfish

Looking at the times of the photos both the hubby and Sakari took as their first and last picture, it appears that they were only diving for 34 minutes. That sure doesn't seem right unless it was awhile before they started taking pictures, which I can't imagine. I mean it seemed like forever when I was sitting on the boat. 

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My stomach was still rumbling and at one point I headed to the bathroom. Bathrooms on boats are just so small and this was seemed extra small to the point where it was hard to even close the door and have room to sit down. I weighed my options and I just couldn't go. I couldn't do that to the other members on the boat and I'm not even sure where all that stuff goes? I pulled myself together mentally and emotionally, just like when I was diving, and held it in. I had really hoped this day was coming to an end soon. 

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Now the other older gentleman that had his own instructor had geared up for this second dive only to decide not to go. He said he also decided it would be best not to go and he wasn't feeling well. He said he could feel his heart racing and he said he was better play it safe than sorry because something wasn't right. I was really hoping this guy was not about to go into Cardiac Arrest on me! What was really weird was every time he bent over, to put on booties or fins or his wetsuit on and then again to take all these things off, water would POUR out of his nose...like POUR...like a faucet type of pour. It was so strange. His nose wasn't dripping and it wasn't like snot or had any consistency, it was clear and looked like straight water out of the faucet turned on. When he lifted back up to a sitting position, it would stop. Off and on. I kept wondering how this was happening and where was it all coming from??? Like when you are diving you have a mask on. Water isn't getting up your nose. What the heck?

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I kept looking around to try to see where my family was at. My worry-body-self couldn't help think of all the things that could go wrong. At one point I ask the other instructor that stayed back with the older gentleman "are we still around where they are at?" "Where is the balloon showing where they are?" She was completely confused and didn't understand what I was talking about. I tried to explain it and she said "Ohhh the sausage". I had no idea that's what it was called. She pointed in a direction, but I didn't see it. Maybe her eyes were trained better than mine. I never did see the sausage, but I was never so happy to see their heads surface. 

Sakari gave the success and she looked proud of it!

So they come up out of the water and Sakari is so excited and the hubby has this weird look on his face. She couldn't wait to tell me what she had seen....

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"We seen a shark!!!" Wait, no way! I thought they were messing with me and didn't believe them and the hubby confirmed it and started to describe it. He said "My heart was pounding so hard and it was coming right at me! It was HUGE" They couldn't stop talking about it and told me I'd see it once I get home and downloaded the pictures. Hmmm, I guess they weren't lying. But, when they described it, I was pretty sure it was a Nurse Shark and I was right after seeing the pictures. 

I'm so sad that I wasn't able to experience this and all the other wonderful things they were able to see on that dive. It sounds (and from the looks of all the pictures and videos) it was a wonderful dive. At least I have swam with the sharks on an excursion before but it's just not the same as scuba diving and one come along...as long as it's a nurse shark! I would probably freak out if it was anything else. 

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They did say they were down with the rest of the divers and at one point they were down 70 feet. YIKES! One of the guys on our boat mentioned 73'.

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Here's the video that the hubby and Sakari made during their dive. There's a lot of interesting things in it. You can also tell just how fast the water was taking them and he was following the fish around and going as fast as them while floating. He did confirm that I probably would have never liked it on that dive (not because of what all they seen of course) because the water current here was worse than when I went on the dive. He said it was really bad. Double YIKES!

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Here's a video of Sakari and the hubbys during the second dive. This is why he didn't get many pictures. He was busy taking pictures. I think I'm going to just get him a good Gopro and let him do the videos so we get more during vacations. There's a lot of interesting things in this video and he did a pretty good job of capturing the area and fish...if only he wouldn't scan the area so quickly we'd have us a really good video. LOL

We started heading back and dropped off the group of people that we had picked up at the hotel and then headed back to the dock at the marina.

Once we returned, Alex disappeared somewhere so we decided to go to the bathroom. We looked all over for him and found him in his van in the parking lot. We stopped to pay up with him and to my surprise he had charged us $20 for the wetsuits. He never mentioned anything about having to pay extra for wetsuits when he handed them to us. I thought that was a little crappy of him. At least if he would have told us it was extra, I could have made the decision to not wear mine but I still would have let Sakari wear hers...although hers didn't do much good either because when she took hers off, she was wet underneath including her bathing suit. I just don't like surprise charges like that. 

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Also, since he didn't do any "classroom" work or have us fill out any paperwork, testing and so on like they normal do, we didn't get any books for him to write in to show our dive. I was pretty bummed about that as well. I guess I'll just have to write something down myself. 

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Final Thoughts:

Well, I can't really say I recommend this dive instructor for several reasons. I know he gets good reviews online but my experience was far from that. I thought it was very unprofessional of him to be pulling me down under water when I wasn't ready. You just don't do that! That created more panic and fear for me and could cause accidents by doing that. I think my anxiety during the course of going down increased by his actions and it made the dive worse for me. 

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There was no instruction, other than hand signals, no paperwork, no books being signed at the end to show that we did the dive. I'm big on keeping records of our dives and now I have nothing. He also didn't even talk to us before or after the dives like most instructors do. He was just all about business and not personable IMO. Then we were charged for the wetsuits and wasn't even told it was extra. Way to slide that in on us! I guess you were the cheapest for a reason!

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I do have to give credit where credit is due...the hubby and Sakari said he did show them a lot of things on their second dive and was pointing his light so they could see. Of course things they would have never seen had it not been for him. So, at least they enjoyed that dive. 

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As you can tell, I would never use this person again for diving and would dig a little more deeper into the thoughts of a dive instructor, ask more questions, find someone patient, and get a better feel for the next instructor that we use when we come back to Cozumel.