Isla Mujeres, MX -- Surace Honeymoon -- Casa Del Buceo SCUBA
12.09.2010. Thurs
The morning sky was slightly cloudy at breakfast, with a few slight breezes now and then. We wolfed down our breakfast so as to make our 8:30am rendezvous with Pablo, our dive master for the day from the nearby SCUBA shop “Casa Del Buceo” which means “Diving House”. With breakfast conquered, we rush back up to the room to change and pack our dive stuff. It was then that I grabbed my wallet to toss it in the safe but as I glanced at it I noticed that we Debit card wasn’t there. Long story short I realized that when I had withdrawn cash the day before the machine in town never gave me the card back. I was too worried about stashing all those pesos that I totally forgot about the card. After a very tense 20 minute call to Bank of America, I blocked the account and we were then able to head out to do some diving with some sense that ‘all would be ok’. 
I was in luck, the somewhat choppy seas and the more than gentle rocking of the boat helped me clear my head (now when I say ‘boat’ I mean that only in the most conservative of terms as it was basically just a converted local fishing vessel [5 ft wide by 12 long]…not really anything super nice). From the look on Andrea’s face, she wasn’t thinking about the lost Debit card either, rather she was fully concentrating on the looming task at hand – her very first open water SCUBA dive (my 261st; she was in good hands…). Pablo chose a shallower, easy spot called Cross of the Bay for her to get her feet wet. A back-roll over the side later and she and I were quickly getting acclimated to the new surroundings. She took to the sport very quickly, seeming very comfortable in the water, much more so than I was when I first dove in back in ’99 at Provo in the northern Caribbean. I was darn impressed with her.
The water visibility being pretty good for the time of year, we saw much of the regular things that SCUBA Folks see in the Caribbean including: Lionfish, Barracuda, Christmas Tree worms,
Conch snails, Lobsters, Angel and Parrotfish and various schooling fish along the reefs. Also there was the Cross that was submerged in about 25 ft of water, see pic below. I think Andrea really liked the dive, she was impressed with what she saw, a bit scared of the Barracudas and really glad to see the Tree worms in person (they are so colorfully delicate and feathery). I was real happy to be in the water with my new wife and to see her comfortable and taking to my second favorite activity with such gusto. One issue which turned out to be pretty big was an ear issue I had due to the dive depth that Pablo picked. I requested that we dive to 40-45 ft, but our site was only ~30 if that. Since right around 30 feet in depth amounts to 2 atmospheres (sea level is 1 atmosphere-FYI) and all we did was go from 24 to 32 feet for just under an hour my ears just popped and popped until they were worn out. When back on the boat I discovered that I had water in the ear and a worn out ear drum in my left ear. Writing this over a month later, this issue is just now starting to correct itself. Ah well, im just glad she had a good time.
The second dive was much like the first; similar looking dive site topography: lots of sand with some interspersed coral heads here and there that we were able to swim around and inspect. A cold, windy trip home finished our day as we had forgot to bring towels, this cost us more than a few goose-bumps each during the bumpy 10 minute return trip. One cool thing: instead of returning to the dock to disembark we opted for the more James Bond-ish method of ending the day, that of driving right up to the beach and running partially aground, much to the chagrin of the hotel staff and those lounging on the beach reading their books enjoying the peace and quiet. We definitely got a few looks as we parted with the guys on the boat.
I thought it was a good day. I had no idea our next day in the water would be oh so momentous! Next post coming soon…
