MJ and I just got back from a trip to Michigan, Puerto Morelos Mexico, back to Michigan and now home in Pennsylvania. We had a great time visiting my family and her parents in Michigan and spending time with her family in Mexico. It was a very nice trip all around and we didn’t have any travel issues, which was a small miracle with the weather problems during our travel periods.

We met some new friends, Don and Lori, while we were in Mexico. They are from Holland Michigan and we talked with them just about every day. It was nice getting to know them and share some scuba diving stories.

I would also like to express my thanks to Phocea Mexico ( http://www.phoceamexico.com/)

This is a nice scuba shop very close to the beach in Playa del Carmen Mexico. They were extremely professional, nice and provided a wonderful experience. Thank you to Martine who communicated with me in advance via email and over the phone while I was in Mexico. She was wonderful. Dani was very nice and provided a warm welcome when I arrived. The Dive Master Mark (see a picture of him below) was extremely polite, knowledgeable and was an instant friend. Thanks to all of them and their fellow co-workers.  I’ve used literally dozens of dive shops in tons of countries and they are the best I’ve dealt with while traveling.  Top Notch all around.  Thanks

Today’s photo: I took this picture while diving with Phocea Mexico about a quarter mile out from the main swimming beach in Playa del Carmen Mexico. This was the 3rd dive of the day. We did two reef dives earlier and saw Bull Sharks in the distance during those dives. The 3rd dive was to specifically find and dive with these sharks. In my past shark dives with Great Whites, Tiger Sharks, Lemon Sharks, Reef Sharks, etc.. the crew would use chum to get the sharks to come in close to us. Not here!!! We literally took the boat out from the beach, went over the side of the boat, dropped quickly to the sandy bottom at about 60 feet deep and waited. Within about two minutes the sharks found us and came in close for a peek at the visitors in their territory. After about 10 minutes they got bored of us and moved off….I thought. Later when we starting to swim back up to the boat, one of them followed us right to the surface. Nothing like looking down and finding a 10-foot bull shark 5 feet below your feet….. I loved every minute.

I took this photo with my Nikon D90 in an Ikelite underwater housing and two Ikelite strobes. I shot it in Manual mode (f8, ISO100, 120th/second), RAW format, and the shark was about 10 foot away. Later I used Photomatix Pro to tone map the image and converted it into a black and white (B/W) image in Photoshop CS6. Converting it into B/W helped make the shark pop out of the image. The original picture was very blue since there isn’t much light to distinguish colors at below 30 feet. The color image was a little flat since everything looks blue. I hope you like it.

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