Night Dive!!

Howdy Folks!! 
So we have been trapped by the resort vacation package. Sean-Pierre of the Jamaican tourist Board used that terminology and said it is a possibility with resorts like Couples. One of the nice thing about Couples Negril is the scuba is included. I’ve done two more dives this morning and a night dive. 
Sean-Pierre is the man that reminds me of Serge in Beverly Hills Cop, he has such a love for Jamaica, traveling and doing fun things. He scuba dove with me yesterday some and he was trying out the skiing before Emily and I did the kneeboarding. He shared some scotch bonnet pepper with me at lunch he had acquired, it’s used a lot here in Jamaica. 
The resort traps you by offering activities that are free and the other excursions are a bit expensive. They don’t make a lot on regular scuba because it’s included but, I bet they make up for it with classes for certification. It does make it easy to stay on property and get your money’s worth. 
I do like being able to get a small catamaran and just go sailing. I think that they are fun and with practice it would be more fun. The snorkel trips are too short they should let you be in the water longer. 
It’s nice that they will teach you how to do all the water sports and then you can just do them. If you were looking for a place to learn a resort vacation to Couples Negril would be good. I’m not sure about value just yet, that’s still to be determined. I am getting some dives in though! 
I do think that resort vacations would be fun with a group of like minded people who wanted to share some of the experiences together and some things on their own. 
The resort does a lot of loud music late at night for us. We don’t get into the party scene and getting up early to dive those things just don’t go well together. It’s been good to have met some people and have the interactions. Sean-Pierre cheered Emily on when she was doing her kneeboarding. Those things would be fun to share with friends. 

So my first dive was with a group that all was able to go deeper than I am currently rated. I’m supposed to be going down to a max of 60 feet or 18 meters for those who like metric. They were going down to around 100 feet. I sort of drifted to about 80 once before I noticed how far down I was. I was able to hang out between 60-70 feet though for most of the time they were doing their thing. They got to swim through a sunken tug boat and there were two people that were doing some skills things for their advanced certification. After that they came up a bit and swam around a reef that was about 80 feet and I just was above them, it worked out okay, I spotted 3 lion fish though I think they only got two. There was a kid learning and he missed the last one and nobody tried again because we were going to do our safety stop. He missed one of the others but the guide got it. 
A safety stop is where you go up to 15 feet and hang out for a very long three minutes trying to stay between 20 and 15. The instructors all just stop wherever they are and they don’t move up or down. I have a lot of buoyancy practice to do.  

On my second dive we went to 50 feet and I spotted another lion fish for the hunters/ fishermen and woman. It was a mom, dad and son outfit. I may have to give that a try sometime. You see a lot of fish and corals. There was a bunch of lobsters hanging out under a shelf. 

We just lounged and relaxed for a bit after lunch. I did get a t-shirt from the resort related to diving. 

We had dinner at the grill, the chef did a better job on our burger than the last one did. They were really good. After we had eaten Sally and Sean/Shawn (not Sean-Pierre) who have been diving with me (he actually took class with me) came and sat with us and chatted. They’ve been dating 8 months and seem to enjoy traveling. Sally has done quite a bit. Sean is diabetic, he has an insulin pump, there is another guy that has one that does scuba in case anyone wondered if they could. They live in Austin, Texas. He works for a start up and she teaches at the community college. 

This evening Emily and I had night dives. Emily went snorkeling while I went scuba diving. Sally and Sean both were there as well. 

The night dive was interesting and less intense than I expected. I did see a lot of crabs but not much was different from the daytime. The dive sight was a new one for me. It was 50 feet down and there was an area that was like a cliff or wall of coral. I would like to see it during the day. I don’t know how different it would look but I would get to see it all at once and not just what the flashlight shows. 

I’m going to squeeze in one more dive tomorrow morning and then we have to get our covid test for our return trip home. Sadly that means we are nearing the end of vacation. I was already only planning on doing one more since I haven’t been spending as much time with Emily since they don’t bring the snorkelers to the same places. A lot of the dive sights are just out in open water and is rough on top. 

I will get some pictures uploaded and sent to Emily she can post when she gets time.