Scuba Diving on the Great Mayan Reef in Puerto Morelos, Mexico

Twenty-five feet underwater, I'm resting with my knees in the sand, aware of my breathing, aware of the gentle rocking of my watery atmosphere-I feel like I'm home. I wanted to learn to scuba dive for years. Now, here I am just off the coast of Puerto Morelos, Mexico on the Great Mayan Reef, more formally known as the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second largest reef in the world. After a week studying, taking tests, and going over safety procedures again and again, I thought I would still be nervous plunging into the deep. I wasn't. I squished my mask onto my face, tightened the straps on my BCD, wrapped my lips around my regulator, and rolled backwards over the side of the dive boat.

Now I'm kneeling on the ocean floor. A coral wall towers above me on my right and white corn flour sand stretches out into the blue on my left. An endangered green sea turtle nibbles turtle grass. Both he and the grass wave in the undersea wind. I breathe in and the extra air in my lungs allows me to rise slowly from the sea floor. I stretch parallel to the bottom, hold my hands lightly at my waist, and use the strength of my bright yellow fins to propel my body forward-like a fish. I blend in.

A southern sting ray hides in the sand. His tell-tale outline gives him away. He wriggles free, accompanies me for a few yards, and buries himself again. I glide into a living corridor where fluorescent plum and gold fairy basslets dart about on a narrow ledge and silvery yellow tail snapper crowd through a window in the reef. A spiny lobster scuttles backward into his den madly waving his sword-like antenna at me.

The walls of the canyon dwindle and I find myself flying above an undersea garden. Mounds of nubby brain coral sprout from the sea floor like bushes amid a field of leafy purple sea fans. Bronze Christmas tree worms bloom like animated flowers, popping out, showing off their pine-needly hair, and popping back in again. A spotted trunk fish flutters his translucent fins. He hovers like a hummingbird, but he looks more like a kissy-lipped, squarish, polka-dot balloon.

Finally, I follow my bubbles to the surface and reluctantly climb back into the boat. We speed back across the water and, as I gaze out across its sparkling surface, a settled-ness wraps its arms around me. Isaac, our captain, pulls the boat up almost to the beach and anchors to a yellow buoy. I jump into the knee deep water and bid my new diving buddies good-bye, "Hasta Luego!"

Alone, I wander down the beach and find an outdoor caf where I share a spicy shrimp cocktail with the sun and the wind and the fresh air. A woman interrupts me. She has blonde hair and blue eyes like me and she asks in English, "Do you live here?" She wonders if the restaurant takes credit cards. I don't know. As she walks off I wonder why she mistook me for a local. Maybe she just recognized that I'd finally come home.

INFORMATION PLEASE

GETTING THERE

Puerto Morelos, Mexico, a sleepy fishing village and the Gateway to the Riviera Maya, is only 15 minutes south of the Cancun airport. You can rent a car at the airport and drive on the wide, newly paved highway 307 or, if you don't want a rental, hop on a bus. They will drop you at the at the crossroads of the highway and the road to the beach town. Its about a 1/2 mile walk down into Puerto Morelos. If you'd rather not walk, you can hail one of the white taxis. Once you are in town there is no need for a car. You can easily spend a week getting to know the little village and the locals splitting your time between sampling the myriad of restaurants, visiting the local bookstore, diving and snorkeling, meeting expats, or just sleeping on the white sand, nearly deserted beach. The choice is yours.

SCUBA and SNORKEL

You can go deep diving, twilight and night diving, wreck diving, and cenote diving. A cenote is an entrance to an underground river where the water is gin clear, stalactites hang from cave ceilings and bats flutter overhead. You can even get scuba certified. PADI scuba courses are available in most of the local dive shops.

FEAST

Puerto Morelos has an extensive selection of restaurants. We tried El Tio, Posada Amor, Pelicanos (high end and on the beach. Full bar), La Petita (local fisherman hangout. Shabby exterior, but has trees and bushes and tables in the sand inside), La Casa Del Pescador, La Segura (the beach place with the fabulous shrimp cocktail), Juicy Rosie's Juice Bar (where we met George of the Jungle), Ojo de Agua, Cantina Habaneros (expat hangout), La Marina, and Peskyitos (my favorite, Best fish tacos anywhere!)

Travel Addict, Laura LaBrie, has been wandering the globe swimming in crystal clear underground caves, climbing Mayan Pyramids, laughing with local people, greeting wild crocodiles, and sampling native foods. She often finds herself writing about her adventures in an effort to bring you along for the ride so you too might experience the wonder of this great blue planet and ponder its secrets and hidy holes. You can find Laura on line at http://www.littletinyrocks.com. She'd be more than happy to sit and chat with you.