Five minute safety stop. (Hanging out at depth of 20 feet to allow any excess absorbed gasses to be released from my blood before the final ascent to the surface).
...and like I said before, the pinnacle did not disappoint. Here's a picture of me following one of the divemasters in a descending spiral around the mountain. Check out how many fishes there are! And if you look into the background you can see thousands more!
This is one of my favorite photos - we're down about 45m (~150" feet) and the two divers are floating above the dropoff of the continental shelf and staring down into what looks like an endless blue abyss. Every time I swim over an edge and look down into the deep, I get vertigo for a couple of seconds. One of the craziest feelings in the world. Scuba diving moments like this are the closest you can come to feeling like you're in space without leaving the planet.
After our max depth, we slowly started making our ascent back up around the mountain. I was feeling peaceful and relaxed, slowly swimming next to the reef admiring all the colors and fishes and then when I looked down, I saw my first "real" shark. And by "real" I mean a shark that looks just like a shark that you see on a National Geographic special that's big enough to harm you in the unlikely event it decided to bite you. Trying to calm my shaking hands, I descended to get a little closer and busted out my camera to try to get a movie!
