I'm at work now so I'll finish posting the second part of the report of
Cozumel Mexico.

I met up with Chuck Hopft and his lovely wife Jeannie. Since I was there by
myself it was nice to have a buddy to dive with. I had met Chuck in the first
Nedfest and knew him but I didn't get a chance to really dive with him much or
to get to know the man.

If you've never had the opportunity to dive with Chuck he is an absolute joy
to dive with. It's rare that I have a diver impress me but this man did. We
both have a love for macro and we would separate and then get each others
attention when we saw something we thought the other would appreciate. Our air
consumption was about the same so we were both always down at the same time and
usually at the end of the dive it was just us in the water.

Chuck impressed me when we came up to me with his hand clasped together. In
it he had a seahorse that he had found on the reef. I have been looking in
Cozumel for years for a seahorse on the open reef and I've never seen one. I've
had several pointed out by dive guides and I pride myself on "finding critters"
but on the open reef it is extremely hard to see one.  He showed the group and
I think it made our guide a little intimidated because he hadn't found it.


 Later in the dive we were both swimming along and we saw a Curley Q anemone
(Humanns book calles it a corkscrew anemone) we both saw a single antennae
protruding from the anemone. Me being the curious type wanted to see exactly what
was behind it. I knew it was some kind of shrimp but what kind. I took a
knife and pushed back the anemone and saw two Red Snapping Shrimp. One started
snapping at the knife and I flushed him out to get a better look at him.

Welllllllllllll....unknown to me there was a Coney right behind my ear
watching the whole thing and all of a sudden he dashed in and "gulp"..... my
intrigue had turned into lunch.

I was so surprised that I actually said out loud into my regulator "YOU
LITTLE SHIT" and I flipped him off. I heard Chuck laughing in his regulator and his
mask almost flooded.

On another dive I happened to be by myself (Chuck had honey do's) and I came
upon another group of divers. I noticed that the DM had a magnifying glass out
and was showing something to one of his divers. This impressed me so I wanted
to watch this man. I floated above him and observed what he was doing. I
watched his single finger touch of the coral and knew that this DM truly had
respect for his environment.

I wanted to know more about him and what he could teach me so I noticed the
color of the top of his tank (every shop in Cozumel uses its own color). When
he finally saw me he was shocked because he didn't even know I was there and
obviously I was not with his group and my group was still way behind me. He
signaled me was I OK and I signaled him back and then to make sure that he knew me
if I asked for him on land I saluted him.

I found out that the dive shop was Aldora and that his name was Memo. I
looked him up and met him but we couldn't get our schedules matched up for a dive
but the next time I'm there he will be hired.



I had a great trip and I'm going to try to get back down there in July or
early Aug. Anyone going then?

I also found out that I'll for sure be going to Papau New Guinea in September
with the PBS crew to film my artist buddy.

Take care,

Ray Jones