havecarryonwilltravel

Boo Hoo. It is time to leave. Today we get in the boat for the last time. Our dive master has a cold and his son, Dennis, is our new leader. He gives us the choice of where we want to dive. We choose San Fransisco and Punta Tunich.

We say goodbye to the flora. To the fans and tubes and feather dusters and corals.

We say goodbye to the fish. Goodbye to the tiggerfish, angelfish, lion fish, filefish and trunkfish.

We say goodbye to the turtles and the eels and the one spotted eagle ray we see. Adios to the deep blue, the sandy bottom, the warm waters.

Adios to Cozumel. Boo Hoo

We dive with many different people while on dive trips. Each day Murray, R, B and I are the constants and a plethora of other divers from all over the world come and go. Divers from Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, US and Australia. These divers all have varying amounts of experience and levels of diving ability.

Murray and I pride ourselves on taking photographs under water without touching anything. We hover, using our breath to control our movements, over the coral to take a shot. If we happen to touch something, we both feel terrible.

We dive with a fellow that, even though he seems to be an experienced diver, feels the need to kneel or step on the coral in order to get a photo. We are appalled at this behavior. We think that there is a certain etiquette that must be followed when in the underwater world and the most important point is to NOT touch anything. Why do some photographers feel they have special exemption from this?

We enjoy diving with a sister and brother from Spain because they spread out over the terrain, just like us, and give everyone lots of room. The ocean is a big space so divers do not need to be all crammed together. It is more pleasant and relaxing to dive spread out and not be bumping into one another.

Find the Flounder!

We like other divers that move slowly. When we were in Grand Turk our dive master, Maki, taught us to move very slowly over the terrain. This allows a diver to study the behaviour of the fish. It also conserves air and diving for 60 minutes is not unusual.

When diving with new people every day, we notice that some divers travel quickly. Whether it is from the need to cross vast amounts of terrain or a lack of proper buoyancy, we do not know. We prefer to move slowly and so almost always take up the caboose position in the dive group. This allows us to travel at our own pace, always keeping the dive master is sight of course.

Anyone can learn to dive, but learning the art of diving takes time and many dives.

It’s Saturday morning. Big day today, Murray’s 200^th dive. To celebrate this milestone, Pumba takes us to Columbia, a more advanced dive with many swim throughs. Deep, curvy, twisty, sloped ones. We pass a turtle in one of them. It is also our dive master’s birthday. Pumba is 45 today. Last night we purchased a small blow up Tortuga and presented it to him when we boarded the dive boat. Pumba took Tortuga for the deep dive and the turtle did not seem to mind at all.

It’s Saturday afternoon. After a lunch, at Wet Wendy’s, of chicken fingers and guacamole with taco chips shared by Murray, B and me, we wander back to our hotel to fill in our dive logs. Then a snooze. We all agree that this is the life to have – breakfast, dive, lunch, snooze, supper, sleep, repeat.

It’s Saturday night. The weather is warm, an improvement from earlier this week. Everyone is out. Tourists and locals both. There is live music in Woody’s Bar and Restaurant, just off the main plaza. A dance band is setting up in the centre of the plaza getting ready to play. A spray paint artist is creating works of art and selling them to interested watchers. Across the street, on the waterfront, a trick bike exhibition is going on.

It’s Saturday in paradise.

Day 4, fingers crossed. Breakfast is at 7:20 then the long walk to the dive centre to see if the port is open today. I check the weather and the wind is mere 9km per hour but it looks like it is supposed to pick up as the day goes on. The forecast is for strong winds till the end of the week. Oh poo. We have to play the dive game day by day. Unfortunate because there is not much else that Debbie and I are interested in doing here on the island.

Port is closed. Just as we leave the shop to head back to the hotel a cruise ship heads for the dock. It is moving slow so we decide to double time it to the big dock and watch as the ants emerge from the bowels of the ship. It took some time but they started to march down the gang plank and along the dock marching to the platz.

The wind is still blowing but we keep our hopes up. If it dies down enough we will be able to dive this afternoon.

The email arrives at 11am. The port is open, we will be diving at 12.30. It is hurry up and wait. The other folks that are to dive with us are told 1pm. At 1 we leave.

The waves are still quite high and the boat ride is rough but we make it to the dive site in good time. B wants to see some turtles. Pumba says how many. B says 5. 5 it is, the dive is relatively short but we see 5 turtles of varying size engaged in different activities.

For good measure Pumba picks out a splendid toad fish. A shy fish, coloured with blue and grey stripes, that spends all day in a hole with only its head visible.

The second dive was also short because our surface interval was only 48 minutes. This time Debbie found a toad fish on her own. It is amazing how one can find things once one knows what to look for.

‘Travel mode’ being the key to not getting excited about cancelled dive days. As we leave on a trip Debbie whispers to me ‘travel mode’. At that time I am supposed to take a deep breath, relax and go with what happens. We cannot do anything about the weather. When we learn that the dive is cancelled we return to the hotel, pick up our books and read. There is a chance the same will happen tomorrow but we have 5 more days left and we will dive again.