Today, I took a taxi about an hour south of Nuevo Vallarta into a small town called Mismaloya to go diving with a different company, PV Ocean Tours. This dive company was different -- a father/son team from the UK and a much smaller shop which was nice. We met on the beach and took a small skiff with 2 other divers out to the dive site about 15 minutes off shore.
Marc mentioned they didn't want to mark the dive site on GPS because then other companies or fishermen would find it, but when we got there, there were already 3 other small fishing boats. He jumped in the water first to "make sure it was still there" and then surfaced to bring us down. Went with another couple from Saskatchewan who had been diving with Marc for several days. About 15 feet into the dive, the DM signaled for us all to go up since he had noticed a small leak on the wife's octopus (that's the thing that attaches to the air tank and has all of the hoses coming out of it). He swapped her out with another tank in the water and then it immediately blew the O-ring when he turned on the air so he swapped her out with their regulator instead. Then went down again and about 30 feet down, the DM stopped us because she lost both of her fins! They were able to find one quickly but the other floated away. The DM looked around for it for a couple minutes and then did a bouyancy check on the good fin but it was neutrally boyant. Since the water wasn't very clear, we decided we couldn't find it so he gave her one of his fins and he dove with just a single fin the rest of the dive.
Got to the first shipwreck which looked like a rowboat or something. I thought that was it but then suddenly came upon a much bigger ship. I almost ran into it since I was looking down at the ground and it came up on me quick with the low visibility. The ship was probably 100' long at least with a cabin area that we wound up swimming through an open window on both sides. That was neat although I was the first one in and was a little nervous that I would disturb some sleeping animal when I went through, but it was fine. The DM also made a signal to remember the crow's nest which he later mentioned had broken off from the ship and fallen over since the last time he was there. The ship was pretty cool to explore and look around.
A few pufferfish and other animals would be hiding in the broken pieces of the ship for shelter here and there.
For the second dive, we went over to Los Arcos (which I had been to on Sunday) which was a short 10 minutes from the shipwreck site. This time we dove in "The Aquarium" which is a very shallow site within a roped off area around one of the islands. We dropped to 37 feet and then slowly came up to be around 20 feet for a good half of the dive. I noticed because I got the alert on my watch that my safety stop was starting and the water was much brighter. Overall OK visibility but not great.
Saw some eels that were different colors than the ones I had seen before which was neat. The DM found an octopus hidden in a crevice of a rock. On the other side of the rock, he found another octopus and then a third one which he was pretty surprised about.
Got back to the resort in the early afternoon and jumped right into the pool with the family. The kids stole my GoPro and took a bunch of underwater photos.
Marc mentioned they didn't want to mark the dive site on GPS because then other companies or fishermen would find it, but when we got there, there were already 3 other small fishing boats. He jumped in the water first to "make sure it was still there" and then surfaced to bring us down. Went with another couple from Saskatchewan who had been diving with Marc for several days. About 15 feet into the dive, the DM signaled for us all to go up since he had noticed a small leak on the wife's octopus (that's the thing that attaches to the air tank and has all of the hoses coming out of it). He swapped her out with another tank in the water and then it immediately blew the O-ring when he turned on the air so he swapped her out with their regulator instead. Then went down again and about 30 feet down, the DM stopped us because she lost both of her fins! They were able to find one quickly but the other floated away. The DM looked around for it for a couple minutes and then did a bouyancy check on the good fin but it was neutrally boyant. Since the water wasn't very clear, we decided we couldn't find it so he gave her one of his fins and he dove with just a single fin the rest of the dive.
Got to the first shipwreck which looked like a rowboat or something. I thought that was it but then suddenly came upon a much bigger ship. I almost ran into it since I was looking down at the ground and it came up on me quick with the low visibility. The ship was probably 100' long at least with a cabin area that we wound up swimming through an open window on both sides. That was neat although I was the first one in and was a little nervous that I would disturb some sleeping animal when I went through, but it was fine. The DM also made a signal to remember the crow's nest which he later mentioned had broken off from the ship and fallen over since the last time he was there. The ship was pretty cool to explore and look around.
A few pufferfish and other animals would be hiding in the broken pieces of the ship for shelter here and there.
For the second dive, we went over to Los Arcos (which I had been to on Sunday) which was a short 10 minutes from the shipwreck site. This time we dove in "The Aquarium" which is a very shallow site within a roped off area around one of the islands. We dropped to 37 feet and then slowly came up to be around 20 feet for a good half of the dive. I noticed because I got the alert on my watch that my safety stop was starting and the water was much brighter. Overall OK visibility but not great.
Saw some eels that were different colors than the ones I had seen before which was neat. The DM found an octopus hidden in a crevice of a rock. On the other side of the rock, he found another octopus and then a third one which he was pretty surprised about.
Got back to the resort in the early afternoon and jumped right into the pool with the family. The kids stole my GoPro and took a bunch of underwater photos.