Mexico Dec. 22-31/2011

I start on my way to Orlando at around 6pm EST after making a stop at the dive shop to pick up some more goodies to take to Mexico. I made it to the Wyndham hotel on International drive at around 9:30. This is a nice hotel. Here are some pictures of my room and the view from my room.

As I was driving south towards Orlando, I noticed the temperature my dive bag (that would be my Toyota Tundra) was displaying was going up. It was getting hotter outside. At 9:30 pm it was reading 73 degrees F outside. Sweet, I think. But I’m heading to Mexico and the weather for this week shows to be in the 80’s. What a way to spend the Christmas holidays… Diving!!! 🙂

My flight departs at 8:30 am on Dec 22 and my alarm is set for 5am. I figure to be t the airport by 6am.

Now, I originally stuffed 4 bags for this trip,yet somehow ended up with 5. At the last minute, I decided to grab my murse, that’s murse for Man Purse. I use it to carry the camera, lenses and flash while scoping out the island. So three check ins and two carry. Phew, can’t wait to get to the parking lot to figure out how one person is going to mange getting all those bags to the check-in counter.

Its Thursday Dec 22 and I made it to the Orlando airport at around 6am. I managed to pull three bags with one hand and two with the other, into the elevator, turning them around to exit the elevator, along a moving floor and up and escalator to the self checkin counter at Delta by using nothing but brute strength and bungee cords. I like bungee cords!

Here I go, time to weight the bags. I am afraid the new pelican case with the housing stobes, arms and other accessories will weight, oh I guess 65 pounds. No Way!!!
Only 46 pounds!! Remarkable. Now for the dive gear, doh! 51 pounds and they let it go. The third bag, not a proble, 34 pounds. That total was haulded using my right arm, 🙂 the other two bags I’m carrying on.

I arrive Cozumel at around 12:30pm CST and my bags are one of the first off the plane. Thought the X-ray and sinor “you have batteries?” Si, I reply. “you must show the man your batteries” as he points to security.

Next, “sinor, please press the button” RED! Damb!
“sinor, please move ALL your bags for inspection”

The entry into Cozumel has you pressing a button that displays either a red or green light, green means go, your in, red means stop (alto) we will open ALL your bags for inspection. Way back when, it use to be am actual street light, now they are two leds, red and green. Imagine trying to move 5 bags with out bungee from point to point by yourself. I make It through, finally and onto van 28 to be driven to my hotel.

It is a nice day, not too hot, maybe mid to high 70s and partially cloudy. I check in, and unpack, setup the housing and gather my dive gear, for tomorrow, Friday 12/23 I will be diving.

I relax for a bit to cool down before hitting the shower. Once cleaned up, I head to the bar. It’s happy hour I find out and I’m happy. Here are a few shots while at the bar.

Now, here is something that happens to me while sitting at the bar. A manager walks by and I stop her, to ask where everyone is. See, the place seem empty. There are a few large groups of people but not a lot of people. That’s Ok because I now know I will not have divers all over me while in the water. Now note, I have not met this manager before, she was not at the counter when I checked in and she said “you are in room 201?” and continues to name who I booked my room through and other things. After spilling my beer and picking my jaw off of the deck, I say “have we met before?” she replies “no” and I ask, “how is it you know so much about me?” “you are sinor Davis, a famous person on Cozumel” we go on to mention a number of people on the island we both know. WOW, what a way to start the trip.

I finish 4 beers for $70.00 pesos (that’s less than $6 US) and head to eat some dinner. Then back to the room to relax and be well rested for Fridays dive, 12/23.

At around 9pm my friend Alex calls and I am to meet the boat at the dock at 9am. Two other divers are diving with another DM and Alex and I are diving together. Three divers total.



Our first stop, dive #1 and #2 are shallow dives, average depth 48 feet, as it turns out. Alex and spend over and hour diving. I surface with 41 pounds of air left. My regulator was beginning to breath hard as I finished my safety stop and had almost enough to inflate my vest.

The afternoon was spent R&R by the bar.

Lunch!! Yummm

Day two of diving Dec 24, two AM dives planned.

The first was diving through the passageways. I love this site because it is beautiful and fun to dive.

Our second dive had us decent to find this shark, lots of turtles. So far all dives exceed one hour.

It’s Monday Dec. 26. Today I lost my notebook during a dive. Water proof paper that’s had tucked under my shorty, right thigh. I had to go soooo bad when we got back to the boat, I pulled my wetsuit off while still in the water and that is when I lost the notebook. I did not realize it until after I got onto the boat. All my motes on all my dives up to today were on there. Email addresses of those I met during this trip. I was bummed. See there are two types of divers, those that pee in their wetsuits and those that lie about it! I don’t pee in my wetsuit and the reason I had to go sooo bad by the time we returned to the boat. So Joe and Sue, I need your email address again so I may send you some pictures.

So while I can remember the sites, from Mondays diving, our first was Columbia. Columbia is one of my favorite sites. deep, wall, passageways, colorful coral. Our second was on francesa. Here is where we saw the spotted eagle ray, here are a couple of pictures.

Tuesdays dive, we head to Maracaibo, way down south of the island. Today we hunt for lionfish. At this site, they are big and found deep. We will clean them during the dive and when we reach the boat, we will skin them and make ceveche. Alex has brought all the making for ceveche using fresh ingredients from his garden. Imaging that, dive for your lunch and eat it during the surface interval, lionfish ceveche. what a vacation.

Pingo, our boat captain and boat owner has a great boat. I love this boat. 6 divers max and fast.  When considering diving in Cozumel, consider Pingo (email Pingo) and Alex Adventures (email Alex). What a team!!

Tuesday 27 December, four dives, la Francesca

Delilah wall 

Yucab

Thursday was my lastday for diving and the third time this week we came across a spotted eagle ray at Cedral as well as a scorpion.

Sorry no pics of the ray, too far away, yet a wonderful site to see. Here is one of the scorpion though.
We then bee lined it back to paradise where we wanted to see the sea horses while there was still daylight. About 10 minutes into the dive, we came across a couple of them.

Crab, lobster, some of the biggest I’ve ever seen, lionfish, which we were happy to remove from the ocean, eel, cowfish, etc.. Paradise is a cornucopia, a plethora of sea life. It’s relatively shallow, 50 feet and less, slight current and if the sun is out, bright! This dive ended up a night dive. We spent 82 minutes diving it.

Here are some misc. pictures

Friday I had a message in my room. Wonderful way to end the week. I think I will make that a tradition from now on. Last day is massage day, since there is no diving in the afternoon.

That’s about all for the week and speaking with Alex, I believe an early July or early august trip will be made, so stay tuned to the events page found at the top of divetalking.com

Cheers,
Larry

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