Very early in our diving careers we visited the Mexican island of Cozumel, this is where I first started underwater photography and Wendy did her first dives in the ocean. After the trip I wrote this report for the scubadiving.com diver-to-diver message board, at the time this was owned and published by Rodale's. I ended up winning a wetsuit after this was voted equal first for best trip report for the month of November. 

In early 2003 I went to Vancouver, Canada to get a new visa. Of course, I could have gone to El Paso, but where's the fun (or diving for that matter) in that? Visa paperwork out of the way, and with newly minted dry-suit certification in hand, I was heading off to see just how good this coldwater stuff could be. Of course, little was I to know at the time that I would end up living in the Pacific Northwest...