Not only was this a fantastic diving trip, it was also my first trip outside of the United States.  I had a brand new passport on which the ink was barely dry, a new set of dive gear, and a whole lot of butterflies in my stomach.   I went with the Austin Scuba Club on one of their annual trips to Cozumel.  We actually stayed in the town of Playa del Carmen on the Yucatan peninsula.   I hadn’t been diving at all since my certification class two years ago, and you can imagine how nervous I was.   It didn’t help much that our first dive was a night dive. Well, as you can see from later posts, I fell in love with both the ocean and travel.   I’d never realized how amazing the underwater world really was.I’d done my open water training dives in a small lake out in west Texas, and that couldn’t have been any more different than this.

Besides the underwater stuff, I decided I loved the touristy nightlife that the town had to offer.  We ate so much cheap seafood, drank at way too many two-for-one beer specials and danced with tons of local and tourist women.  The Blue Parrot bar is still one of my favorite spots to go to party at night. It’s got a great outdoor bar with swings instead of bar stools.  The drinks were cheap, and the music was perfect.   Because of this, not only was this my first time diving out of the US, it was also my first time diving with a hangover.