Self-guided dive at Jewel Cay

For a while we debated with the notion of just renting equipment and going on a dive without a divemaster, and we finally decided today would be that day. We had already surveyed the site by snorkeling a few times over it, picking out reference points to help us with the navigation. We waited for the dive boat to leave, so that we could have the deck all to ourselves to get geared up. We divided up the responsibilities, Josh being in charge of time, Marisa monitoring the air, and I was looking after the navigation (since I have a pretty good sense of direction). We felt really comfortable being by ourselves, and it didn't take us long to see a southern stingray, and we got pretty close to it, watching it swim along the bottom. Because our dive was pretty shallow and we were very relaxed, we managed to stretch it to just about an hour, having time to explore both sides of the coral reef before returning to the deck. Upon finishing and exiting the water, we felt a great sense of satisfaction as everything went really smoothly. We wrote our own dive profile and fish identifier, and after putting our equipment away we headed into the village to grab some lunch.

In the afternoon, we convinced Brian to join us for a snorkel trip off the deck, and within minutes of being in the water we first saw two, then an entire school of Caribbean Reef Squid, hovering along and changing colours as they were moving around. We tried for a few minutes to get them upset, but eventually two of them got into a bit of a fight and finally we saw them shooting ink and clouding the water. The turning point is when we observed a big barracuda eyeing us, convincing us that we should turn around and head back to the surface. We decided to watch the sunset from the deck before heading for dinner, and it went behind the clouds before it actually set. We were ready to get going when, out of nowhere, the sun reappeared in a hole in the clouds, and we got to see an absolutely fantastic sunset. After dinner we returned to the hotel, and as we sat on the deck watching the stars, we started talking about phosphorescents and we got the great idea to check it out. I dipped a used flipper into the water, moved it around, and dozens, if not hundreds of little lights followed its path. We were so mesmerized that we went to grab snorkel equipment, and jumped in the water for a night snorkel, even borrowing the flashlights used during the night dives. At some point we turned all the lights off and started moving as much as we could, creating the effect of floating heads above water surrounded by little lights everywhere.