Tales from the Glittery Coast

At long last, some quiet time. Lest this become something like a meandering vacation slide show (actually, that will come later when I post the photos, probably mid-week if things go well) I just thought I'd hit the high notes. And, in case you are not a big fan of karma, let me inform you that both LK and I are now battling lovely head colds. As if coming back from white sand and both a poolside and an ocean view all in one room to borderline freezing temps weren't enough...but I digress.


My first time...

So, the first day was definitely the longest day, only because we were up at the crack of four am to catch a 7:30 flight. Hoofa. Cold, rainy and too damned early for civilized people. But having two people teamed up proved to be the answer. LK checked bags while I parked the car and took the econo-bus back to the terminal. We managed to get upgraded to first class even on that first leg, so it was five stars all the way. And of course, LK met another fiddle player in the waiting area (they are everywhere, it seems) one who played bluegrass and jazz and they chatted about the fine points of her fiddle while I sat by sipping coffee and tried to look like I knew what was going on. Onward!


"Are you on your honeymoon? Oh, just practicing..."

We arrived to not blistering but definitely warmer climes, about 75 or so (and it stayed that way for pretty much the whole trip). A cold front had moved in about the day we arrived, which brought with it mild (some might say "cold") temps and some clouds and rain. Some people seemed inclined to blame us for that, but we told them off.

The airstrip at the Cozumel airport (50% of their runways) is only slightly longer than my apartment. The pilot seemed to take joy in getting us about five feet from the grass (read: into the water) before really applying the brakes and slowly bringing us around. We thought he might have a bet going with the co-pilot: "Say, Stan, how close do you think I can get it this time? Under ten feet, and you buy me my first Tequila slammer!" "Dude. You're on." (I'm having the black box subpoenaed for verification).

Customs was a slow process, but since the airport is so bloody small, there was not much to it. But that was when we met the first of many people who wanted our money: Jose. Jose works for a vacation time-share know as the Mayan Palace. After much fast talking and some meaningful looks passing between LK and I (this is now heading into ten hours we've been awake, you understand, and we haven't even gotten our ride to the hotel yet) we agreed to sample their wares. What that meant was free transportation to Cancun (including cabs and the ferry ride, which was rather fun and choppy), plus some other cash prizes (like a deeply discounted Jeep rental) and lunch, to listen to their sales pitch. We figured we would take advantage the next day, get a free trip to Cancun and have a chance to maybe see the Mayan ruins. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice to say: as soon as they realized we were not going to bite, it was like the curtain coming up, the makeup comes off and all the house lights come on. Show's over! Everybody out! They hustled us from room to room, making last ditch attempts to snare us, leading us through a maze of paperwork, just to get our cab back to the ferry. Given that the day was cold and rainy, we didn't miss much, and we had a lovely couple of hours beach-side where some artists were doing some amazing sand sculptures. Those things almost made it worth it.


And the winner is...The Dirty Monkey!

Yes, my new favorite drink when I'm wearing a pale blue wristband that says "give this guy as many drinks as he wants" is the Dirty Monkey. How appropriate that I found a simian-themed drink to tell you about. Now, Webtender.com says that all you need for such a concoction is Irish Cream, dark rum, and cognac. I think I am safe in saying that the drinks I was getting had none of these things in them. What they probably were mixing was the Dirty Banana, which contains creme de banana, creme de cacao, Kahlua and calls for vanilla ice cream (but they seemed to be substituting just cream). They also cut a banana in there, so my daily fruit servings were right where they should have been...All carefully blended and served with flourish. Yum.


It was a fairly drink-intensive week, I think we both agreed. LK suggested we round out our return trip with a visit to Betty Ford. Not quite that bad, but I will say that nothing screams "vacation" like having your first drink at poolside before noon...


The Main Event: ScubaMonkey
or, "psychologists do it with depth."

Okay, it wasn't all vacation time-shares and Dirty Monkeys! There were all sorts of lizards, thick on the ground really, plus some interesting fowl (a peacock came right up to our door and let me take pictures of him). Our room was about twenty feet from the beech and about ten feet from the pool, so we never had to walk far to be watery relaxation-logged slugs. Got some very skillful massages on the beach, took a hot tub on day one, and did some snorkeling on Saturday (or was it Sunday?). But the main event was the scuba.

Now, we had been remarkably impressed by the snorkeling, because you really can see quite a bit in that clear water, and the underwater life even only a few yards from the beach is fairly substantial. And we were told that scuba involved several days of pool work before you ever got to hit the depths, so we we nearly passed up the opportunity. But some investigating showed us that we could take an all-morning training session that would put us on two 40-minute dives that afternoon. We jumped at it.

The morning began painfully early (for us) at 8:30 with a talking class showing us the hand signals, how to clear your ears, etc. Only one other family was diving that day, Judy and her two young charges (blanking on their names now), aged 11 and I think 13 or 14. The younger was very concerned about sharks, and when we finally got to the pool to practice with the underwater gear, she panicked trying to clear her faceplate of water and sobbingly removed herself from the rest of the day's diving activities. But she was on the boat, taking pictures of us as we got in and out of the water. We met Judy's husband, a clinical psychologist (and the originator of that joke) later. They were much more experienced divers and good generous people.

That afternoon, we hit two dive locations, Columbia Reef and one other that I can't recall the name of. I'll dig it up (LK?). All within minutes of the hotel by boatride. It is difficult to describe what this was like. I think diving is the sport of poets. You are deafened by the pressure changes and the sounds of your own breathing, which you must carefully monitor. Equalizing ear pressure was the most difficult and painful part of it. But the deafening silence and the slow careful movement through the water forces one to be exquisitely attentive to everything. It's easy to get misdirected by the current or through the seduction of the underwater world.

And what a world! The reefs were breathtaking, like scaling mountains peppered with multicolored life. Schools of bright, small purple fish were seemingly everywhere. At one point, while I was struggling with my ears in one spot over a coral, a school of fairly large greyish yellow fish started swimming around my head. I felt like I was in a Disney movie. They apparently thought I was their god. An easy mistake to make..if you're a fish.

The highpoint was the eagle ray, a ten foot (easily) spotted ray that we saw on our second dive, about 40 feet down. We were told later than you can dive 100 times in Cozumel and not see one of these critters. The rest of the divers on our charter (all much more experienced than us, the beginner class) scampered to get close enough to see this puppy. It was breathaking, and for me anyway, more than a little intimidating. We are definitely converts to this lifestyle. Only a few more dives and some classwork will get us our certification.

So, we come back to snow and cold and colds. It was worth every minute and every penny. It's been hard to get back in the swing of things, but we're muddling through. Hope to have photos to post before much longer.

posted by MT at 7:00 PM |