Sombrero Reef in Marathon, Fla

Today we are doing our last ocean dive with Tilden dive center, the outfit in Marathon where I got certified. I want to return to Sombrero Reef where I took my first dives, it was so beautiful that I had promised to return, the first time I was in the process of passing my certification so I had lots of exercises to concentrate on so I ws not allowed to bring a camera either and on top of it I was afflicted with Seasickness so severe that I could barely dive. So it will be nice to return in a more relaxed setting and enjoy the scenery. Just in case I took two dramamine pills and had a very light lunch, half a salad without the chicken and very little vinaigrette while Sebastien is devouring a Baconator Burger in front of me. At the dive shop they tell us that the seas are 3 to 5 feet so I brace for the worst.

We get our gear on the boat the "Leisure Lee" and I quickly proceed to get my bcd and regulators hooked to the tank while we are attached to the docks and waiting for the two other divers diving with us today to arrive. By the time we get on our way I'm all setup so I can concentrate on relaxing. The two other divers have dove at Sombrero Reef the day before so we are going to make the first dive at another location called Lobster Hole and the second one at Sombrero Reef.

We get to the first dive site and I'm ready to dive first and since I'm also the closest to the platform and that the dive-master knows that I'm prone to seasickness and would like to spend as little time on the boat as possible, more especially when we are at the dive site with the motors off bouncing around at the pleasure of the waves, they get me in the water right away so I can hang on the tag line trailing at the back of the boat while waiting for Sebastien to join me. He does and we dive down together.

The diving spot is nice but there is a strong current that keeps me deviating from my compass heading, also the visibility is not that great 25 feet at he most and the water greenish. Nevertheless we make the most of it and I even find nice Hogfish to photograph. With the current the swim to the boat is confusing and difficult, I have to surface 4 times to get a visual on the boat. The sea is rough enough that we have to take our fin off while hanging to the tagline because we need both our hands to hold to the steps as they move in every directions including up and down while we are climbing aboard. I got to my seat, untied myself from my gear, leaned over the side of the boat and fed the fishes.

We consume more air then the other divers team so we have to sit on the boat until they come back and get onboard, the Captain then takes us to he secondary location for us to do our second dive, in the meanwhile we have to remove all our gear from the empty tank and put it on a full one. I'm so sick, still vomiting over the side that I cant't deal with the tank change so I asked the dive-master and he did it for me. I managed to stop vomiting before we got to the second site so when we got there I geared up and dove in. I decided not to bring my camera on this dive and to concentrate on the dive, Sebastien is taking some pictures anyways and I don't need the extra burden of my big camera.

So he meets me on the tag line and we dive down on that wonderful site of perfectly clear blue-waters with amazing visibility. The sea life is diverse and plentiful, with nothing to do but appreciate my surroundings and concentrating on my diving it is a perfect dive, well until about 30 minutes into the dive that is. I start feeling queazy so I signal Sebastien "something wrong + stomach" he asks me if I want to surface. I think about the last time on that exact same spot when it happened to me and I surfaced and barfed everywhere and that my instructor had told me afterwards that it was possible to do it trough he regulator. So I signal Sebastien "no to surface, ok to stay here" and according to him thats when I became surrounded by a cloud of chunks and particles, I grabbed my secondary regulator to breathe from while I cleaned my primary and we were able to continue the dive until we finished our tanks. We got back on board and I lied down on the big mattress in the middle until the other divers got back on board. Even if I'm sick every time I go to this place,I still want to return, it is so beautiful the nicest site I ever been to.