I dive with an operation called Chili Charters in Cozumel. The operation is run by my friend Rene, who grew up on the island and is fluent in both English and Spanish. Rene comes from a family of thalassophiles who helped shape the diving industry in the early days of dive tourism in Cozumel. Until recently, there were three boats in the operation until Belinda, one of the small boats that had been in the family for decades, sold to a new dive operation on the island.

The Gypsy (pictured above) and Sea Witch are larger than the Belinda, capable of holding a dozen divers plus a three or four crew and all necessary gear for trips into the Cozumel marine park, and the composition of divers changes from day to day. Sometimes, groups from dive shops in the U.S. book the boat for a week at a time. Other times, it’s booked by locals and local expats who explored these reefs in more pristine times when the area was engorged with a technicolor abundance of marine life that I may never see. The locals and expats who have been diving here for decades tell stories of schools of grouper, unimaginable biodiversity, and perilous exploits performed with the rudimentary gear available during the nascence of scuba diving. This makes the trips more memorable, to sit with some of the unofficial historians of the reef on safety stops. It’s like returning to the evening campfires of centuries past, before the canon of knowledge reached its ubiquity.

Jacques Cousteau visited the Rivera Maya and Cozumel during the filming of The Undersea World. “The Sleeping Sharks of the Yucatán” provides one of the earliest pieces of video in Cozumel that I’m aware of. The crew at the time were unencumbered by scuba safety best practices and park regulations, had what seems to be full run of the reef. Although our video and photography equipment is much higher quality now, the crew of Calypso had the luxury of seeing the reef in its virgin state, before the stresses of mankind— overfishing, climate change, pollution, and tourism— slowly take their toll on the reef.

Many of the folks who dive with Chili Charters started diving around the time when this was filmed, and after decades of life underwater, they have an encyclopedic knowledge of the reef’s future and present. Accessing the Chili Charters brain trust has accelerated my development as a diver and underwater photographer. With my recent upgrade to a Nauticam housing for my D850, I feel like I’m starting all over again, relearning underwater photography anew. I was able to get a few shots that are enjoyable enough to share, although I expect them to get better in the next few months while we’re on the island. I’m itchy to get better, and produce shots that help document the beauty of the reef that still remains.