Peurto Vallarta, Los Arcos (2 Dives) Wifes first evar!

[defied]

11/9/2008
I took my wife to the discover scuba quick tutorial session at a resort down the street from ours. We were met by Alex (Alejandro) of PV Scuba (http://www.pvscuba.com). This guy was very professional. He spoke with Tina, and sat her down with another guest to begin the training. He went through flip cards, as well as fielded their questions for more detailed explanations, and asked them questions to ensure they were learning. Very well done.
Alex then moved them to the pool, and began going over face mask clearing, breathing, and buddy breathing. They practiced very basic buoyancy control, and swimming with fins. They then walked up to a small 10 foot deep pool, and practiced walking in, and equalization, ascent and descent. That was a cool surprise. By the time they were done, it had turned in to a night dive. >0]

11/10/2008

Dive 1:
42fsw
46min
Vis: 20-30'
81deg

After more instruction, and assurance by the guide (Ramses) and myself, Tina performed her first roll in! I told her if she wasn't comfortable with it, we could put her BCD in, and she could climb in, in the water, but she would have none of that, and opted for the roll in. Her first one went very well. She swam over to the line with the instructor. I dropped down to bottom (17fsw), and watched as the instructor and Tina worked their way down the line.

Once on the bottom, we ran signals to make sure she was savvy, and then took off on our way. Ramses took point, and Tina was in the middle with me on tail, watching her bubble trail, and agility. It didn't take her too long to begin swimming with her hands together, controlling her angles with her lungs, as Ramses and I were doing. I was impressed.

Viewing topics included: Fire Coral, puffers up the yin yang, needle fish (Pipe fish, trumpet fish, etc). My cheap dive camera ate it in luggage (Don't get me started on this, but Alaska Airlines sucks, and I've been a devout customer for 6 years).

We came back topside, after cruising around for a while, and after enjoying a sandwich, some water, and a soda, we prepped for the next dive.

Dive 2:
SI: 56
45fsw
45min
Vis: 20-30'
81deg

This one was pretty neat. I got video of Tina rolling in (Youtube baby, here I come!), and we got some shots in the water from my parents who had joined us for three days, and were snorkeling. I'll have them up soon.

We did see an octopus, a tortoise, an eagle ray, and my buddy, a 5 foot pipe fish, about 3 inches in diameter that I lovingly named "Sausage" who kept following us around for the entire trip. He was a pretty cool sidekick, as he and I slowly swam around within a foot of each other, checking one another out.

Eventually it was time to surface, so as before, I locked in with my wife, and began our ascent. Thus ended our dive trip, and we headed back to the marina to finish out the week with volleyball, sun burns, and Mas Tequila.

[airsix]

Glad you both had so much fun! :smt038

[BASSMAN]

I dove in PV as a new diver and it was fun, I know it would be even more fun to go back after having more than 200 dive under my belt.
At least I know I would have longer bottom times

Los Arcos was a cool dive!

[defied]

Yeah, I want to see Devils Chasm next time. She was a little nervous about that (understandably), so we stuck to the shallow stuff. Besides, the vis was not all that for that kind of an adventure anyways.