Dive Site: Turtle Crossing
Bottom Time: 1 hour, 6 minutes
Max Depth: 102ft (34m)
Visibility: 40ft (12m) in the shallows, 70ft (21m) at depth
Air Consumption: 210bar – 90 bar

After spending the morning in jail with Dan, I decided that a peaceful dive was much-needed. I did a modified solo dive (solo dive plan, but around a group a most times) focusing on my buoyancy control. I started in 20ft (6m) of water fine-tuning my body position relative to my breathing cycle based on Marc Cruciani’s Pivot Point Theory: that, because our body pivots on a fulcrum between our center of gravity (our weights) and our center of buoyancy (our lungs), our buoyancy is optimized when these two centers are as closely aligned as possible.

After getting a feel for how my gear responds with respect to this theory (conclusion: I need a backplate), I hovered around 30ft (10m) for the next ten minutes while I swam out to the wall. Once over the abyss, I pitched headfirst and plunged down to my maximum depth of 102ft (34m), passing a hawksbill turtle on the way down. Rolling under Jose’s group, I gradually ascended up to 45ft (14m) and trailed the group back towards the mooring.

The highlight of the dive was when a tiny Hawksbill turtle darted past another larger Hawksbill turtle, just in time for Jose to capture some excellent video footage. Marco also got some nice photography of yet another (yes, my fourth) Hawksbill turtle in the shallows. Knowing that both Jose and Marco were testing out Will’s camera, I brought my sunglasses along to get some cool shots of me underwater for the Coconut Tree website. I hope to have some copies soon.