Wednesday 20th November 2019 to Wednesday 27th November 2019

This time we flew out of Manchester airport after a difficult early morning drive battling with road closures at every touch and turn, with long diversions to negotiate across the Yorkshire Moors. Would have been quite scenic if it hadn't been dark! We got an excellent deal on-line with TUI at the alleged 5 Star Dreams Villamagna in Nuevo Vallarta, which is on the west coast of Mexico. I also booked a 6 dive package (3 mornings of 2 dives) with Scuba Steve, an independant small numbers, dive operator.

Unfortunately, Scuba Steve was not able to provide a 15ltr cylinder, he reckoned he hadn't seen one for years, so I had to go with a 12ltr one. As it turned out, I only did two mornings and 4 dives because my BCD had developed a fault. I noticed on the second day that I was fighting with my bouyancy all the time. I seemed to be very floaty and had to keep dumping air. I suspected that my BCD was inflating all by itself and this was confirmed on my 4th (and last) dive of the holiday. Of course, this constant BCD inflation and air dumping, because of what I assume to be a faulty inflator valve, coupled with a (for me) small cylinder, didn't help my dive times!

The highlight of the diving, for me, was the Princesa Vallarta Shipwreck, which was the first dive of the holiday and it also provided the opportunity to penetrate inside, although the visibility was not that good. The Princesa was being towed to be sunk off Los Arcos as an artificial Reef but it didn't quite make it there, it sank prematurely just off Garza Blanca at around 26mtr in October 2017. Originally a bay cruise ship transporting people between Vallarta and Yelapa, it was later modified for cargo. I had indicated to Scuba Steve that I wanted to do dives at the following locations - El Morro, Princesa Wreck and Las Marietas - but the dies I did were at Princesa Wreck, Los Arcos (a wall dive), Las Caletas and Majahuitas. Perhaps, El Morro and Las Marietas would have been the dives on the 3rd day :-)

I didn't get many pictures this holiday, the visibility was generally poor and there was not much of note, that I saw, to snap. Plus, my battery ran out after the 3rd dive and I couldn't find my spare. Anyway, the pictures below are the best of the bunch.