Day 3.  August 14.  Cocos DIVING Begins.

The passengers consisted of mostly Gringos.  One Japanese, two
Spaniards, three Mexicans, four Gringos from the West Coast, ...
and ... eight from the East Coast.  It appeared that everyone
was an experienced diver, with Albert being perhaps the LEAST
experienced (who put himself down on the Aggressor Info Sheet as
having had 60,000 dives ;o> ).  He promptly established himself
to be the Champion Bullshitter on board.  :-) There was NO
mal-de- mer casualty from the long-rough crossing.  EVERYONE made
it to the 8 am first dive.

The boat consists of a crew of 8.  The Captain must be a Costa
Rican who speaks no English, because I've seen him only at the
introduction of the crew by DM Mark Stephenson was essentially a
one-man crew!  He picked us up at the hotel; he was one of two
DMs who made every dive; he was the photopro who shot the video
for the week and developed all the E-6 slides; he taught two
courses during the week: one in Nitrox and another one in
Rebreather; he helped serve food, pick up dishes, he was the
accountant and treasurer for the trip ... in short, he did
everything except making up our beds and doing the cooking!  He
must be on drugs! :-)  I couldn't last 2 days at his job!  A
most interesting and hyped-up fella -- I almost forgot, he did
the cheer-leading before every dive too -- making sure everyone
was all hyped for the pending dives, in pouring rain on rough
seas or bright sunshine on calm seas.  He would yell out before
each dive briefing, "Is EVERYONE ready to dive?"  And we would
shout back at the top of our lungs all fitting or unfitting
replies to his cheerleading.  :-)

The 21 divers were divided into 10 in one dinghy, and 11 in a
tender.  All gears are pre-loaded into these because getting
from the mother-boat to these bouncing tenders-to-the-dive-sites
is perhaps the most treacherous part of each dive.  :-)

All but 5 divers were diving with Nitrox (EAN32) while the
others were taking lessons to get certified. The diving RULES
were: 120 fsw max; up on the boat with 500 psi; and NO BLUE
WATER diving -- Mark repeated the latter half a dozen times,
because they didn't want to have to look for divers 2 miles
downcurrent or on the other side of the island.  :-)

The regular dives are at 8 am, 11 am, and 3 pm, with night dives
at 8 pm on the first four days.  ALL THREE day-dives today were
at the Manuelita -- the most-often-dived site of Cocos as well
as one of the most exciting ones:  Middle for checkout;  round
one end for the 2nd dive, and round the other end for the third.

The first dive set the tone of Albert and I as SOBs.  Since the
first dive was our own "check out" of our weight, exposure suit,
his new gears, etc., Albert and I agreed that we would keep
within SIGHT of each other (about 50 feet visibility) and follow
the DM Mark.  In less than 5 minutes, I lost sight of Albert
while I was following Mark.  Soon Mark and I looked around and
noted that everyone ELSE went Albert's direction (instead of
turning back at the end of the island as explained in the dive
briefing).  Mark and I saw at least 10 hammerheads, and assorted
white tips.  At the end of the dive, Albert gloated that he saw
ONE hammerhead, and proceeded to tell Mark how the NEXT dive
SHOULD be done -- and he was serious about it too. ;-//

There is no point in describing today's individual dives.  They
were all FANTASTICO.  Hammerheads and white tips on every dive;
eagle rays, marble rays, yellow-fin tuna, and other pelagic;
tons of FISH, including moorish idols, orange and yellow
frogfish, all kinds of trumpet and cornet fish, and ginnea
fowls and box fishes of brown, blue, yellow, and black colors.
These undoubtedly will re-appear in our dives yet to come. The
only thing we can HOPE to see but will require a lot of LUCK are
humpback whales and whale sharks which have been seen here the
past week or two.

The water temp was near perfect.  My HyperAqualand, recording
water temp every 5 minutes during dives, had 23 reading of 81 F
and 7 readings of 80 F, not warm enough to keep the hammerheads
away, but warm enough for me to dive with my 1 mil titanium.  I
was too WARM with a 3 mil shortie over it.  It looks like my 5
mil suit will not be used at all on this trip for which it was
purchased! ;-)

I skipped the night dive (under the boat) as usual.  Only FOUR
of the divers chose to do the night dive -- which is NOT the
"thing" in Cocos because the sharks feed at night, and the usual
night critters such as the octopus appear during the day.
Albert was justifiably excited about having seen TWO frogfish in
this night dive under the mother-boat (No one else saw one).
No, Albert didn't have a camera.  He didn't borrow mine until
the next three nights, and neither he nor anyone else had a pic
of a frogfish the rest of the week. :-(  I didn't see one either,
but I had a pic of a red one from my LAST trip.  :-)

And so it ended a very rough ending of a crossing-trip, and an
exhilarating day of diving.  Everyone was looking forward to
FIVE more days of the same.

< ... to be continued ... >

-- Bob.