Just a quick update...

The power cord to our computer broke so we are at the mercy of the two other people in our group that have compatible cords. This method has been unreliable at best but we expect another cord within a couple of weeks so stay tuned...

I have been out of the water sick for the last couple of days but I am itching to get wet again because three turtles were spotted at Roca Elefante. I want to see a turtle!!

We got upgraded into the upstairs couples apartment. It only has two bedrooms so we will get a little more privacy and a lot more space. We also inherited the kitten that came with the apartment, Intern. It's lovely having a cat again! :)

All in all, life is VERY good in Mexico. We couldn't be happier spending our Christmas here with our new friends. In case I don't get the chance, I am wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas! :)

Feliz Navidad amigos!

P.S. Divemaster training starts on Friday! Wish us luck!

Every now and then, we see something that makes us do a double take and go "Whoa, we really ARE in Mexico!" It might be the chickens that accompany us for part of our morning walk to work or the horse we saw sitting in the back of a really small pickup truck or coming home to discover that our water was not working at the house.

Apparently the water outage was a municipal maintenance thing that killed our water pressure. Luckily, for reasons that we don't know, a hose spigot did work in the backyard so with a little help from a ladder and some MacGyver ingenuity, I rigged up an outdoor shower and was able to get washed up (wearing a bikini) in the backyard.

We have been diving like crazy over the past week. We headed out to a site called Carazales and did a 70 foot deep dive to satisfy the requirements for a couple of guys in our class. I'm not too keen on deep dives because of my asthma but my buddy, Greg, was awesome and we saw some fascinating things, like a little seahorse ( my first time seeing one!).

After the deep dive, we got to do a fun dive on a site with coral gardens. I felt like we were swimming through a scene from Finding Nemo. The coral is largely untouched so the scenery was a riot of color and activity. We saw a bright yellow puffer, a lizardfish, tons of damselfish and these cute little bright blue fish that were the size of my thumbnail.

We dove the wreck again on Thursday and actually got penetrate it. Cheryl took us in through a hole in the hull and we got to swim around a little. It was freaking unbelievable! Loren actually got some video of it that I will post a little later. We also dove Roca Elefante, where we got to dive through this narrow canyon. It is pretty humbling to swim through a pass with 40 foot tall walls on either side of you. We saw a spotted eel that was easily 5 feet long. He was huge and posed for a couple of pretty pictures for us.

PADI requires divers to have 100 dives before they can start the Instructor Development Course. I have 40 dives and the other divers in my class on have logged 25 or so, so we all have our work cut out for us to be ready for the February IDC. We have been doing short "bounce" dives in the bay to help us log more dives. There is a lot of activity in our little bay in front of the hotel. There are a ton of rays, stonefish, puffers, and schools upon schools of other fish. We have been logging about 4 dives a day, doing two with class and at least two on our own. Doing a couple of bay dives on our lunch break or after class is a great way to relax.

When we got to Mexico, the class before us was starting their IDC, which is 14 days straight of tests, skill assessments, presentations and STRESS. We have barely seen any of the instructor candidates since we have been here and we live with four of them. They completed their Instructor Exams yesterday (with 100 percent pass rate!!) and everyone gathered at the beach house to blow off some steam. With Instructor Kalan leading the drinking games and Instructor Laura playing DJ, we bonded over tequila shots and a hilarious game of Kings. Most of the new instructors are going home over the next week or so, so it was nice to get to know them a little better before they leave.

We have Rescue class all this week (still review for me) and next week we have a lot of time off because of the holidays (we get Boxing Day off!!). After that, we start our Divemaster classes and are on our way to being PADI Pros!

After a yummy lunch at the hotel canteen (30 pesos for all you can eat!) we kitted up and loaded up on the boat to head out to the wreck for our wreck dive.

On our way out of the bay, Cheryl briefed us on the wreck of the San Lucia. The San Lucia was a cargo ship carrying dry goods (some say drugs) into Manzanillo in 1958. After offloading its cargo, the ship got caught in a hurricane and sank in 20 feet of water off the Manzanillo coast. As we approached the wreck, we could see bits and pieces of it sticking up out of the water, serving as perches for a couple species of sea birds.

We tossed our kits into the 78 degree water and jumped in ourselves. Cheryl paired Peter and me together and Loren and Kiel together since they had cameras. We did our proper five point descent and hit our max depth of 20 feet. With Cheryl leading the way, we started off on our tour of the San Lucia.

Maintaining neutral buoyancy, or hovering, in the water is akin to flying. So we flew next to the wreck, hovering to examine the nooks and crannies that the aquatic life have turned into their habitat. The ship is full of life, as if Mother Nature is atoning for claiming the ship as her own by turning it into a glorious display of color and movement. Hundreds of fish of every imaginable color, shapes and size swim around us, seemingly choreographed in an elaborate dance set to the haunting and sorrowful lament of the ship itself, which sings a groaning song of warning, or perhaps surrender, as it moves and shifts with the changing tides.

50 years of salt and sea have rusted holes in the ship that allow sunlight to filter down on us. With a slight inhalation of breath, one can rise up and peek into those holes to spy on the schools of fish. Some swim out to peer back at you before darting back to their pack, seeking safety in numbers. You may find yourself reflected in the black eyes of a dog faced puffer fish, who matches your gaze warily, not particularly wary anything, much less a human. It is a magical and enchanting experience.

We did two dives on the San Lucia and saw (most notably) two eels, some trumpet fish relaxing in a reclaimed metal cage ( a shark cage? Or perhaps it was once used to transport exotic animals?) and a huge puffer fish that would have been the size of a basketball if he had been threatened enough to puff. We all clambered back onto the boat, tired but chattering excitedly about what we had seen.

Now we are back at home after a quick stop at the Commercial for dinner supplies (ramen, avocados and chocolate milk for me…I’m in a weird mood). Loren is on the computer editing his photos and I’m writing this longhand to be transcribed later. We have our deep dive tomorrow so we need to get some much needed shut eye.

Hasta luego!

Alright, we are going to do a fast forward to yesterday since I will never have the time to catch up everything…

Tuesday

The resort has a certain Kellerman’s feel to it (the hotel from Dirty Dancing). Everything is all inclusive and they have a myriad of activities that the hotel patrons can occupy themselves with all day. There is cheesy 80’s and 90’s pop music blaring by the poolside all day and every so often an MC gets on the PA system to announce that water aerobics are starting in the lower pool. There are families with screaming kids running down on the beach with the dumpy matrons in skirted, flowered swimsuits chasing after them. The performers for the “Hollywood” stage show practice their dances, choreographed to the soundtrack from Austim Powers on the main stage. My fellow employees at the towel stand make small talk with the customers while getting their information to give them big fluffy towels for the poolside. I drift around humming “I Have the Time of My Life” while gathering my mask and fins to head down to the bay for rescue drills.

Our instructor, Cheryl, must have been in a sadistic mood because she started us out with a 400 meter swim. Then we had timed runs with the torpedo buoy, Baywatch style, to “rescue” one of our classmates. As I made it out to Peter, huffing and puffing, I swore she was trying to kill me. Luckily, I felt better and got faster the more we did it. I was hoping that we would get to do kayak rescue but Cheryl let us out early so we could get a couple of dives in the bay. Unfortunately, the IDC kids had taken all the weights, so there was only enough weights for Loren and Kiel. So poor little me had to lay out on one of the lounges and work on my tan before we had to head to class for our Primary Care class.

After a couple of hours laughing at each other performing CPR on our “victims,” the CPR dummies (Sid and Nancy), all four of us (me, Loren, Peter, and Kiel) headed out to walk around town and get some food. We stopped in at the boy’s house (which made me feel lucky that we have such an awesome house) and then over to Peter’s favorite taco stand. There is certainly nowhere in San Diego where you can score four carne asada tacos and two Coronas for less than five bucks. We just relaxed in the waning light and talked about our lives outside of Mexico. It was a nice way to unwind after a tough, physical day.

Wednesday

Our toilet is stopped up at the house and there is no plunger in sight, which means Loren is not a happy camper. I guess we’ll add a plunger to our shopping list for tonight. We are luckier than others though. The electricity went off at Peter’s house yesterday and judging from his look when he came to class, it wasn’t turned back on yet.

We headed out early to class this morning and in what has become a routine over the past couple of days, we were followed to class by a skinny little black and white dog with a bum leg. I’ve named him Tripod. Apparently he likes gringos because he used to follow Cheryl around. He’s a savvy little fellow, crossing the street at stoplights to lessen the chances of him getting hit. He will trot in front of us, turning around every so often to make sure that we are still behind him.

I’m typing this on a break from our Deep Dive class. We got interrupted this morning by the IDC class charging into ours because they smelled smoke in their classroom. There is no fire but they are airing out the room.

Oh, class is starting again…to be continued after our wreck dive this afternoon.

Since my time on the Internet is limited at best, I’ve decided to keep my journal throughout the week and add it to my blog when I get the chance to log on.

As I said before in my earlier abbreviated post, our arrival to Manzanillo went without incident. It is a little frightening to step off of the plane in a foreign country, not knowing for sure if a person that you have never met before will be there waiting at the gate for you. Mariano was there just as we expected and he carried our over packed luggage to a dented blue cargo van aptly named the “Scuba Limo.”

The drive through the outskirts of Manzanillo was a study in contrasts. Modern vehicles shared driveway space with pecking chickens and an occasional goat. Modern clothing hung on clothesline flapped in the breeze. The countryside is beautiful and I felt like such a big tourist gawking and clapping my hands at every new sight. Mariano casually lit his cigarette and turned the radio to Sublime as he drove us towards the heart of Manzanillo and our new home.

When we got to our house, an unassuming two story white stucco structure with wrought iron balconies, we were greeted by a couple of our new roommates who were hanging out in board shorts on the balcony, surveying the fresh meat. We were only able to catch a quick glimpse of cool white tile, built in couches and ceiling fans before Mariano told us that our room had not been cleaned to their standards and that they would be putting us up in a hotel for the night.

After settling in to the hotel, Loren and I set off to exploring our new city. The weather was hot and muggy as we set off in the dusk. The streets are lined with little shops, hawking everything from beer, to tacos, to scooters for rent. Everyone is very nice and answers our greetings in kind as we stroll by. We find our way to an ATM and muddle our way through converting dollars to pesos, since that is what the ATM dispenses. Mariano had recommended a restaurant to us so we stopped in there to have dinner.

We were pleasantly surprised to see Mariano and Erik, who is the IDC instructor from Cancun, having dinner and they asked us to join them. Loren and I looked on in bemusement as they continued a very lively conversation in Spanish. Aside from the occasional dirty word, I had no clue what they were saying. Erik is from Holland and still has an accent when he speaks English, so hearing him speak Spanish is entertaining.

After a delicious dinner of Shrimp in Tequila Sauce and a couple of cold cervezas, Loren and I made our way out of the restaurant and decided to take a walk to the beach.

One thing that we failed to discover before moving here was that the topography is very hilly. You have to breach a small mountain in parts of the town to head to the beach. We discovered this VERY quickly that night. By the time we reached Playa la Audiencia, we had sweat dripping down our bodies and had certainly worked off some of our delicious dinner.

The beach was definitely worth the walk. We walked along the sand that was lit only by the lights from the Tesoro hotel that was behind us. The waves lapped gently along the shore and there were small skiffs that were anchored in the bay. The water was warm and clear, with little bits of bioluminescence that danced around our feet like fallen stars. Walking along through this vision of paradise with the love of my life was a memorable and very welcoming experience for our first night in Mexico.

Day 2 - Monday

We spent Monday morning lounging around our hotel room, relaxing and enjoying the air conditioning. Our ride was supposed to be at the hotel at noon to take us to our house but as noon came and went, we were slowly being taught the lesson of manana time. Everything always happens manana (which usually means in a week!) Mariano arrived about a half hour after twelve and loaded our bags once again into the van and took us to our little house.

This time when we entered the house, we had the time and opportunity to survey our surroundings. There is a common area that contains the small kitchen and a raised living room area that has built in wraparound couches and a coffee table. There is also a built in bookcase that had been used as a place to store shoes (which rapidly changed when I unloaded the twenty some odd books that I brought with me.) The whole house is done in white tile with blue accents. It is all very Mexican.

Since it was Monday, all of our roommates were in class, with the majority of them beginning the rigorous 14 day Instructor Development Course. We share our immediate living space with four other people and there are four more that live above us in another apartment, although we have come to find out that everyone mingles in and out of both houses. Alan and Rachel are the other couple in our apartment. They are an older married couple from northern England. Alan is one of our instructors and Rachel is in the Divemaster course.

Jon and Jason are roommates in the room next to ours. Jon is 19, from Missouri and is about to become an instructor. He is leaving us on the 19th to go to England and join his fiancee, whom he met while in Mexico. Jason is in his early 30’s, is a professional lifeguard and backpacked his way down from his home in Canada to Mexico to become an instructor. We didn’t get a chance to hang out with our roomies because they were working so Loren found out a good snorkeling site from Mariano and we changed into our suits and grabbed our gear, eager to get salty.

As we trekked our way through the heat and humidity, following the directions that Mariano had given us, I started to feel as if we had a joke played on us. Mariano had said that the snorkeling spot was a twenty minute walk away from the shop, which was a twenty minute walk away from our house. He failed to mention that the twenty minute walk was two miles straight up hill. A very steep hill. With red faces and drenched bodies, Loren and I trudged up and up, teased by a slight ocean breeze and a glimpse of the water between adobe and stucco houses.

We finally found our way down to Club de Yates, the snorkeling spot. We laughed and groaned aloud when we looked across a natural jetty to see gently bobbing boats and the Tesoro hotel and figured out that we could have easily swam to the beach from the beach we were at the night before, saving ourselves a long and hot walk. We didn’t ponder this for long as we quickly grabbed our gear and jumped in the refreshing water.

All the years of snorkeling and diving in San Diego did not prepare us for what we saw in our first glimpse of the Manzanillo coast. Schools of brightly colored fish surrounded us, darting in and out of the coral. Loren spotted a ray straight away, followed by a couple of dogfaced puffer fish. We saw more different species of fish in the first five minutes than we had in all our time in San Diego. Loren immediately lamented not bringing his camera. After an hour or so in the water, we decided to forgo the long walk home and loaded our clothes into our bag and swam around the point to Playa la Audiencia and walked home from there to fall into bed, exhausted and happy.

Day 3

Grocery shopping in Mexico is an experience in itself. We found our way into Commercial Mexicana, which is a shopping mall that surrounds a grocery store akin to a Super Walmart. There is a Walmart in town but I wanted a true Mexican experience and Loren indulged me. Doing quick conversions in our head, we have discovered that groceries are MUCH less expensive here. That did good to settle our minds since we are on a tight budget. We got through our shopping trip without much problem, especially thanks to the kind clerk at the seafood counter who gave me ½ kilo of shrimp (which is about a pound) instead of the kilo that I requested. I supposed I will get the metric system down soon enough.

We had to go to the Barcelo Karmina Palace in the afternoon to see where we would be working and training for the next six months or so. I was definitely in awe of the gorgeous landscaping and architecture. It is very obviously a high class resort and I feel privileged to be able to work there and hang out by the pool on my breaks.

This was our first opportunity to really talk to the two other new interns that would be training with us, Peter and Kiel. Peter is a tall and lanky twenty something with flaming red hair. He has been diving since he was 13 and decided to cruise on down from Wisconsin to escape the cold for the winter. Kiel is from Maryland and he is a fellow adventure seeker like us. He doesn’t live to work, he works to live, saving up his money to subsidize frequent world traveling. We all seemed to get on rather well, which is good since we will be spending A LOT of time together.

We jumped in the pool to do our swim tests, so Alan could assess where we are as far as stamina goes. I hate to say that I failed miserably but I am happy to say that Loren flew through the water, handily beating the rest of our class. Luckily, the pool opens at 8am, a half hour before I have to kit up for class, so I can train. Loren is training with me since he wants to get top marks and maybe take down a couple of the standing Neptunes swimming records.

That night, we got to grab a couple of $1.50 40 oz Coronas and hang out with the roomies that were taking a break from studying. It was fun just hanging around the house, talking diving, talking about home and getting to know everyone. This is an intense process of being thrown into living and working with people and you tend to get close really quickly. We have taken an immediate liking to most everyone in the house and are having the time of our lives.

Day 4

We began our first official day as interns today. Since I am not particularly a morning person, I surprised myself by jumping out of bed with my alarm, ready to head to the pool for our training swim. We made ourselves a portable breakfast of fruit and yogurt and headed out into the cool morning (Cool being 75 degrees or so…it’s funny how your perspective can change so quickly.)

When Cheryl, our instructor, met us at the wet room she told us that there had been a change in plans since we had a client and that we would be going out on the boat. I am still congested from my cold that I had when I left the States so I wasn’t able to dive and Loren decided to snorkel with me instead of dive. We helped load up the boat and headed out with our client, Kiel, Peter, Will (the five master) and Robert, another intern.

Alfredo, our boat captain, took us out to Roca Elefante (Elephant Rock) which is a nice site to snorkel and dive. Cheryl, Will and the client took off on their dive and the other interns and I just putted around the boat, checking out the fish and the reef. When I got tired, I climbed back into the boat and laid out on the bow, working on my tan. I almost pinched myself as I looked around at the blue skies, bluer water and realized that THIS was my life now. Rob laughed with me when I told him this. He is from the UK and feels the exact same way.

We dove and snorkeled another site that was close to where we were and loaded up and prepared to head back to the resort. Unfortunately, the boat had other ideas and short of sputtering a little bit, refused to budge for us. We all sat around and laughed while debating who was going to have to swim across the inlet to one of the closer hotels to get help since no one bothered to bring a phone. A group of Mexicans locals came out and drove around us, all the girls laughing, screaming and catcalling at the gringo boys while Alfredo let them in on our situation. Our potential rescuers sailed away and Alfredo went to work on the boat, finally managing to pull start it to our whoops of relief.

We headed back to the classroom for a Navigation class (which is review for me) and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open for it. After a quick stop at the store, we headed home, where we got caught in an unexpected thunderstorm. Never have I seen lightning flash through the sky with such brightness and ferocity. It was truly an awesome sight to behold and Loren and I had to stop ourselves from scurrying too fast through the downpour, lest we look too much like tourists compared to the locals who carried on like it was just another normal occurrence in their every day lives.

To be continued...

Mexico is unbelievable!! We are having so much fun so far.

We arrived on Sunday and after I got my first stamp on my passport and went through customs for the first time, we were met by Mariano, who is the head instructor at Neptunes. He took us to pick up the IDC instructor, Erik, and then he dropped us off at the hotel, where they put us up for the night since our room wasn't clean yet. We found out very quickly that there is NO "quickly" in Mexico. Everything is done on manana time ( like I'll do that for you manana). One thing that Mexico teaches you is patience.

We have to walk everywhere, so it takes a little bit to get anywhere. I am going to get into good shape though!

Everyone is really nice and the locals are very willing to help our Spanish along.

More later and pictures but I have to get to the doctor to get my medical forms signed off.

Hasta luego!