One of the most memorable things for me was when my third wife and I went on a cruise ship from West Palm Beach to Key West, Cancun and Cozumel. I had just turned 40 and I remember learning that I must be starting to have a problem with heights when we climbed the lighthouse in Key West and I looked out over the railing. I had to back away from the railing and press against the wall, going back down the inside stairs soon after. That was the first time I had ever felt dizzy at any height (this was about 70 feet) and it bothered me, but my wife was having a great time and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
Later, walking down Duval Street, she was wearing a colorful spandex mini dress and I remember watching a cab driver practically break his neck looking back watching her as he was driving by. I gave her a heads up and she caught it out of the corner of her eye. It really made her day to know she could still do that and of course, I was pretty proud of her as well.
We had borrowed snorkels, masks and fins from her brother and his wife for snorkeling off the beach when we got to Mexico, because somebody said that would be fun and we should try it. I had never snorkeled before but I dutifully carried the duffel bag of equipment off the ship and into a cab after going through customs as we made our way to some beach in Cozumel. Once we had established our blanket on the beach, we started getting ready to go in the water. I remember specifically discussing that once we were in the water we needed to check to make sure we can see each other frequently because if one of us got delayed or in trouble we needed to stick together. We were, after all, not just at a strange beach in a town we’d never been in, we were in a foreign country and we’d gotten there by ship! I wasn’t sure what might go wrong, but I was sure that it would be better if we stayed together.
We got in the water and oriented ourselves to the landmarks so that we would recognize the beach where our blanket was when we got back. My wife headed out and then turned to the right moving up the beach and I started out somewhat alongside her. I started to get a little water in my mask and dropped behind a bit trying to stop that from happening. When it became too much to deal with I realized I was going to have to get out of the water to figure out how to readjust everything. I looked up and waited for my wife to look around so I could let her know I was stopping but she was a ways down the beach still swimming steadily looking under the water, totally absorbed in whatever she was seeing. Well, good for her.
I was in about twelve feet of water. There was a large rock near me that was just under the surface of the water and I went and sat on that. With my head and chest out of the water I was able to work with the adjusting straps on the mask until I was pretty sure that I had a good seal against my face. Of course the real problem was that the mask was not the right size for me but I thought I had it to where it would work now. As I slid down off the rock into the water I came face to face with the largest grouper fish I had ever personally encountered. He was just sitting still in the water about three feet from my face with big fat lips and two fins slowly moving back and forth on either side of his head. He looked for all the world like a kid with his thumbs stuck in his ears slowly waggling his fingers at me! He may have been watching me the whole time while I was completely unaware that he was even there. I felt violated. Fortunately he didn’t seem to care much about me and slowly turned and swam away.
I looked around in the water and down at the bottom. About the time I noticed some sort of a statue down there I also noticed that water was trickling in again at my temple and I knew it was time to get back to the beach and forget snorkeling. I was hoping my wife was having a better experience than I had. I was sure she did, because when I got back to our blanket it was another couple of hours before she showed up. I managed to not bring up the whole buddy system conversation and she got to talk about everything she had seen. The day ended well, and hey, I got to see a big fat grouper up close!
Large Grouper in Cozumel
Source: http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/cozumel-diving
