At the end of May 2000, we took a trip to Cozumel for a vacation. We arranged the vacation through Fun Jet and flew on Sun Country Airlines. This is my daily log of our 2000 trip to Cozumel. Because of a problem Grace was having with her camera and it being in the shop, no photos ended up being taken on this trip. For some photos, check out the trip we made in 1999.
Got up at 06:00 this morning... Went to bed at 04:00 or so... I was very tired... I was up late getting everything packed and ready to go... We were required to get to the airport two hours prior to the flight for check-in and such... We got there around 08:30 and sat around either in the terminal or on the aircraft until after 11:00... We were late taking off from IAH on Sun Country Airlines because the pilot's seat was stuck in the reclined position and would not straighten back up... Kind of funny since the seat on my aircraft had decided to 'recline' a couple of weeks ago when I last flew it... We still got here pretty much when we were scheduled... I was following the flight with my GPS and it was not exactly a direct flight... They flew down toward the Yucatan peninsula and then turned toward Cozumel when there was approximately 200 nm to go... Perhaps on the return flight, I'll take notes of our position and time along the route and see where it plots on a map... We got settled in at the hotel.. It is a Days Inn and half the price of the last hotel (Alegro Diamond) that we stayed at while down here... It is considerably closer to downtown and much more convenient... It does not have a bath tub, but rather it has a shower room that is sunken about four inches... I like this better anyway... Room for three people if they are well acquainted, room for two if they want to get well acquainted. The room does not have a refrigerator, but one is available for an extra $9 per day... Haven't determined if they have an ice machine around here yet... The last time we were here, I noticed that no Dr. Peppers were for sale in the grocery stores, so I bought a couple of 2-liter bottles with me... With all the dive equipment and everything, I had quite a few pounds of stuff to carry... One of the suitcases was 67.5 lbs... That was the one with my BC, tank bands, weights, and such... The regulators were carried onboard as carry-on luggage... I used one of my old Navy seabags (aka duffel bags) to carry all the fins, Grace's BC, and the hardware for attaching the double bands to the BC... It was necessary for me to separate everything on Wednesday night so that it would fit in the suitcase...
It's now 14:30 and I've grabbed a semi-cold (even full cold is not all that cold around here) shower to cool off and the air conditioner is on high... I am feeling more human now... I'm going to go out and see what I can round up for a rental vehicle...
Well, I finally found a rental car... $25 + 10% tax per day... It was quite a walk even to the road that goes along the beach from here... Most of the places were too overpriced -- even the local rental agencies... Turns out that Budget was the low one with a Chevy 'Spring' (some type of 4-door subcompact)... No air-conditioning, of course... I drove back to the hotel and picked up Grace and Kaitlyn... We drove over to a large grocery store that is also kind of a very mini-WalMart... I bought an ice chest, some drinks, and a bag of ice... Turns out the cooler was a Coleman... It was probably more than I would have paid for the same thing back in Houston, but it was cheaper than renting a refrigerator at $9 per day for a week... On the other hand, if I had thought about it more closely before we left Houston, I could have brought one of my coolers... It cost around $36 for a set which included a 40 qt chest, a small lunch / 6-pack cooler, and an insulated water jug (this should prove very useful around here)... We then went over to the other side of the island looking for an out of the way place to eat... The wind and surf was quite a bit more than we had seen last time we were here... When the waves hit the rock outcroppings, it shot up in a large squirt, sometimes 15-20 ft in the air... On the other hand, the west side of the island has water that is as calm as a small lake... We noticed some guys on the beach with a Jeep -- they were stuck, of course... Coincidentally, they had rented it from the same place as I rented mine last year... I tried to help them push, but they had managed to dig themselves so far in that they had bottomed out on the sand... I gave one of the guys a lift back to the south tip of the island (Punta Sur) so that he could call someone... We ate some nachos and had some drinks at the restaurant that was at Punta Sur until the worker came up to us and told us that they we closing the restaurant down so that they could go to town... It seems that business takes a back seat to other things on this island... Some people refer to it as 'island time'... The idea that things just don't seem to get done very quickly... I'm not sure that part of the island has electricity or water... Grace said that the restroom had a couple of buckets in it and 'flushing' was performed by pouring the water into the commode bowl... I noticed that they seemed to be running the music off of car type batteries... I did not notice any lights in the place either... We left Punta Sur and came back into town and grabbed a more complete meal at a local restaurant that was well away from the coast and was considerably cheaper... We had three burgers and two large pork (I had thought that it would have been beef) soft shell tacos / fajitas for around $5 total... The beef was extremely thin on the burgers... Thinner than a McDonald's small burger, but quite a bit wider... I don't think that I saw any cattle while here last time, so I suspect that beef must be imported... I have seen some scraggly horses and burros, so maybe it wasn't really beef... Once you get away from the normal tourist areas, the prices go down for food... As in most areas, the closer you get to the beach, the higher the prices are...
While I was walking around earlier in the day, before I had gotten the car, I noticed something concerning building construction around here that really differentiates it from the back home... When they are building a tall concrete column for a structure, tend to put the vertical pieces of the rebar up first and then have someone climb the vertical sections and wire in the horizontal sections... After they have built this vertical 'cage', then they build the forms and pour the concrete... Back in Houston (and I suspect, the rest of the country), they will build the entire rebar matrix on the ground and then use a crane to lift it into position... I have not seen any such cranes in my visits here... It appears that human labor is cheaper than mechanical around here...
Well, it's now 21:20 and I've had my third shower for the day... As long as I don't go outside again before I go to bed, I have a chance of it being my last shower for the day... Once you go out for a minute, you are sticky with sweat... I brought seven or eight T-shirts for the trip, thinking that one a day would allow me to not have to wash any until we returned to Houston... I used up two T-shirts today (one between the first and second showers and another between the second and third showers)... At this rate, I'm either going to have to wash some clothes before I return to Houston or I'm going to have to learn to put up with feeling sticky and not take multiple showers throughout the day... <grin>
We have not been that careful about what we drank and ate today, so if we are going to get Montesuma's Revenge, we sure are giving it all the opportunity that it could ever want...
Kaitlyn woke me up around 06:30 informing me that it was daylight and time to go swimming... I grunted and rolled over and went back to sleep... Later, Grace caught her with her swimming suit on and the room key, trying to get out of the room... Around 08:30, I woke up and started my daily caffeine supplement routine while reinstalling the tank bands on my BC... They don't sell Dr. Pepper around here, so I brought two 2-liter bottles with me -- when that runs out, I'll have to resort to Cokes... At 09:00, Grace took Kaitlyn off to find a local restaurant for breakfast... They came back later and we headed out to one of the local beaches (Chankanaab) that has some caverns / caves and some coral near shore... Nice place, but you have to walk a long way to get back to the diving area... With all the lead that I was carrying, that sure was fun... I rented three tanks ($6 each)... Grace didn't want to leave Kaitlyn around the beach alone, so she stayed with her while I went diving... The walk across the sand with the double tanks and all the weight that I was carrying was very fun... Well over a hundred pounds... I was down 1 hour and 51 minutes... The deepest that I was able to go in that area was 29 ft... I couldn't find any deeper spots... I kept trying to go further out past the last buoys, but I kept getting turned around and next I knew, I had reversed course and I was back at the shore... I remember wishing that I had ordered a compass with my dive computer and pressure gauge a year ago... I finally made it out to the buoys, but I was down to around 500-1000 lbs of air in each tank... I headed back to the beach and upon getting near to it, I still had some air, so followed the coastline for awhile... At that point, I finally found the cave that I had heard about... I went a little ways into the outskirts of it, but there was so many extremely small fish that it was not possible to see further... It was like a wall of fish in front of me... As they parted, I saw one large silver fish that was perhaps 5 ft in length... Not sure what type it was... I was down to 500 lbs of air in each tank, so I decided to not go into the cave system... I prefer to have more air when I'm going into an overhead environment... If I ran into any trouble, that would not give me much time... The water coming out of the cave system was fresh, not salt water... In the area where the fresh and the salt water met, the visibility was very bad... It was not dirty, but rather just very distorted... Kind of like being very badly out of focus in your vision... If I ran into that while in the cave system (which is very likely), I would completely lose reference to where I had been or where I might be going... The only way out would probably be to follow my cave line back... Since I had left it in the car, that was another good reason not to go very far into it...
Once I got back, I hooked Grace's tank up for her and she went diving for awhile... I put Kaitlyn on the beach and had her stay there and watch while I snorkeled along the surface watching over Grace in case she ran into any trouble... Grace had forgotten her dive shoes, so I let her use mine and I wore my fins without any shoes... Of course, I ended up getting a blister behind my ankles where the straps rubbed... I stayed above her for quite awhile and when she surfaced after having been down awhile, I ensured that she was feeling comfortable with it and I told her that I would be taking my equipment back to the car while she continued with her diving... Kaitlyn stayed there on the beach and watched all the people in the water... One I returned, I did not see Grace, but a few minutes later, I saw her fins come up out of the water as she was going back down -- the fluorescent pink fins are very noticeable (especially with the distinctive shape of them... Later, she surfaced and I noticed her fluorescent pink hose guards... She came back to the area where you enter the water and exited... I went down there and helped her off with her equipment... She still had around 700-1000 lbs of air left in the tank, so I used it to do some more diving while she and Kaitlyn rested under the shade... I stayed near the coast in perhaps 20 ft or so of water and I found another cave to the north of the area that I had previous been diving... It had less fish in it and looked large enough to easily get through it, but I was down to 500 lbs of air at that time, so I stayed out of the deeper parts of it... I asked one of the dive shop employees later where the cave went and he said that it connected to the inland lagoon that we had walked past on our way to the beach... They prevent anyone from bringing lights into the water, so they are trying to discourage anyone from exploring the cave system... Once I was down to only 200- 300 lbs of air, I came back and dropped off the tank with the dive shop... I then took all the equipment back to the car while Grace and Kaitlyn slowly dragged up the rear...
My independent-80s setup was not exactly optimal... I used my regulator on the right side and Grace's regulator on the left side... For the most part, the hoses were not as long as I would prefer them... I ended up having to breath through the octo from one regulator because the normal 2nd stage hose was not long enough... The problem with this was that it was upside down, so everytime I exhaled, the bubbles went directly into my mask instead of down and around my face... An inconvenience basically... On the other regulator on the other tank, I had slightly better luck... Although the hose was somewhat short, I could still breath with it and turn my head without it jerking the 2nd stage out of my mouth, although if I turned my head all the way to the opposite side, I could feel the mouthpiece trying to pull out... I figure that I probably need an extra foot for the hoses... The air pressure hoses were also a little short in that they were closer to my face than normal, but they were acceptably visible... If I was back in Houston with plenty of extra time on my hands, I could custom configure this setup to the point where it would be a very usable configuration... At present, things have to be a compromise...
We went back to the hotel and washed (shower #2 for the day) and went out exploring town to see what other out of the way places we could find to eat... We found one that was an order of magnitude cleaner looking that the other ones that we had seen or eaten at and had various tortilla wrapped chicken items... Not bad at all... Might go back if we ever stumble across it again... We then spent some time walking down the street since there were quite a few small stores (usually part of someone's home) along there... We got back at the hotel at around 21:30 and washed (shower #3 for the day) and Grace and Kaitlyn went to bed... I finished off my beer while writing this and it's now 22:30 and I'm going go brush my teeth and crash out too...
Kaitlyn woke us at 08:30 this morning... Well, she might have woke Grace earlier, but it took until then for her to wake me... Although the hotel is very clean, the beds are rather hard... I think I can feel every spring that is in the mattress... Whereas back in the states, one just normally assumes that there is an ice machine for a hotel, that is not the case here... Luckily, there is a convenience store about a block down the street on the corner...
Well, Grace wanted to go to Cancun today and gave me the guilt trip until I said that I would go with them... I was more than willing to let them go alone and have the day to myself... No such luck, I had to suffer with them... The ferry departed Cozumel and docked in Playa de Carma... About a 45 minute ride across the channel between Cozumel and the mainland... Once there, we searched around for a rental car agency that had acceptable prices, but was not able to find one... We stumbled across the bus station in the process and decided to take the bus to Cancun instead... The bus terminal is located in downtown Cancun and it took us slightly over an hour to get there... Once there, we searched for a car rental agency that had advertised in the Yellow Pages for $15... Turns out that it was a bait type ad to get people to listen to their presentation for a time-share... While Grace was looking in the various stores around downtown, this local asshole approached me and tried to get me to go back to his shop, saying that he would make me a good deal... I told him that I wasn't interested and tried to walk away... He kept following me and touched my shoulder... I then took a step back and told him to back off and put my hand in my pocket and opened my knife... He then had the nerve to come toward me and ask me if I wanted to buy any drugs... I told him in a very strong term, "BACK OFF, GO AWAY"... At this point, I think that he realized that I was not an easy mark and went searching for easier pickings... Apparently he realized that there was not a scarlet 'VICTIM' written across my forehead... Afterwards, we took a local bus to one of the more non-tourist type of shopping area... She looked around there for quite awhile... Kaitlyn kept getting distracted and would not stay with us... I was hoping that we finally were going to be DINKs again, but after awhile, she finally found us... Bummer... We got on the bus to go back downtown and ended up getting on the wrong one... Of course, none of the bus drivers speak English... I know how to count from one to ten (and a few cuss words for appropriate times), so to say the least, our communication attempts were not very successful... He directed us to another bus on the other side of the market area... We walked over there and after awhile, the other bus came along... After paying for it, he drops us off in front of a Sam's Club and a Wal-Mart and seemed to be instructing us to wait for yet another bus to show up... Grace could not pass up the opportunity to go into a Wal-Mart in Cancun, so she insisted we check it out... At this point, I'm getting pissed... I was ready to just get my ferry ticket and find my own way back to Cozumel -- if they find their way back to Cozumel, fine, otherwise, I get a REAL vacation... We went into Wal-Mart and it was similar to ones in the U.S., but there were some differences... For one thing, it sold tequila, beer, liquor, etc... Also, their sporting goods department was not as well stocked as I see in Houston... I was hoping that I would find one of the queen size air mattresses so that I could make my hotel bed into something that was considerably more comfortable... No luck, it looks like I'm going to have to continue counting all the springs in this mattress... We bought some water and some soap at Wal-Mart... Grace likes Zest soap, I'm not all that crazy about the original flavor, and they had some flavors of it that we could not find back in Houston, so we bought four bars of each flavor that was not available back home... Some of it will go back to Houston, at least one bar will be used here -- it seems that Kaitlyn decided to use the bar of soap that we brought to play soccer in the shower room (that tends to accelerate the usage of it for some reason)... Upon exiting Wal- Mart, I was tired of the run-around with the bus and tossed the bus transfer tickets and grabbed a cab... It was only 20 pesos (about $2) from there to the downtown bus terminal... Definitely a lot less hassle... We arrived at the bus terminal a couple of minutes before the next bus left and was able to take it with minimal wait... An hour or so bus trip to Playa de Carma and we just barely caught the 21:00 ferry back to Cozumel... We picked up a bag of ice on the way back to the hotel and arrived there at 22:15... After a shower and a beer (not necessarily in that order), I'm ready to crash out... It's now 21:10 and Kaitlyn has crashed out and it is the first moment of quiet that I've had all day... Ahhhh... Tomorrow, I hope to do some diving and not waste a day like was done today...
Woke up at 09:00 this morning... Grace and Kaitlyn headed off in the rental car to the grocery store to get some breakfast... This is Grace's first attempt at driving in Cozumel, so it might prove interesting... I am in my caffeine supplement morning mode and I've just opened my last 2-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper... Looks like I'll be drinking Coke before the vacation is over...
Grace arrived back from her trip to the grocery store at 10:20... She was not comfortable about where the reverse gear was located in the car and even when she knows where the reverse gear is, her parallel parking abilities are definitely lacking, so she managed the entire trip without using the reverse gear...
I decided to do some possible shore dive site exploration today... I left Grace and Kaitlyn to their own stuff while I went snorkeling at various locations around the island... I figured that I could hit a lot more sites without them slowing me down (ashore and in the water)...
At La Ceiba Reef (off the La Ceiba Hotel pier), there is an old DC-3 that has been sunk (inverted)... There is also some coral formations in the area... Not like the boat dives, but better than just sandy bottoms to see... That might make an interesting dive...
I went south of Chankanaab and parked off the side of the road (on a hard spot so I didn't get stuck like I did last year)... I entered the water in a rocky area... There is a quick drop-off from the shore to the bottom of perhaps 20-30 ft... I hugged the coast and worked my way north, trying to find the underground river that was mentioned on the maps... The caves that I had found yesterday did not see to be flowing enough water to really be considered an underground river, so I wanted to try working my way back to the Chankanaab area from the south... Suddenly, visibility gets distorted and the water gets colder and I realized that I had found it... I looked at the coast so that I could more easily find it next time and it turns out that there is what appears to be a concrete structure / walkway over where the river comes out... When I was diving yesterday, I had not gone that far south... Assuming that you already have tanks that you have rented elsewhere, there is considerably easier access from the south than the long walk through Chankanaab park... The one difficult part of it might be negotiating the rocks during entry and exit while wearing tanks (especially double-80s)...
I then drove further south to San Francisco beach... According to my map, there is supposed to be a San Francisco Reef offshore... I swam quite a ways out and made a large semi-circle search pattern, but all I could find was sea grass and sand... No reef in site... I finally got tired of seeing sea grass and headed back in... The bar on the beach was making fresh pina coladas, so I bought one... Overpriced at $6.50, but pretty good... Served in a semi-hollowed out pineapple... After finishing the drink, I took out my knife and cut up the pineapple and ate what they had not used for the drink... I guess that was my lunch for the day...
I then drove further to the south to turnoff for Punta Sur... Since they had a $10 admission fee, I didn't go that way... I turned back to the north on the east side of the island... After a short drive, I saw a spot that was solid and I parked and went down to the water... It was a very rocky coast... Some of the coral erosion resulted in very sharp spikes that hurt even through my shoes... After studying the surf and the rocks some, I decided it would not be survival oriented to attempt a beach entry there... The height between the top of the waves and the troughs by the rocks was 6-8 ft... Perhaps once you got out a hundred yards or so, it might be just medium swells, having that type of swells hitting those rocks would have ground a person into a red smear on the rocks... I decided that it would not be a good place to enter...
I then drove even further north on the east side of the island... I came across an area where there was a sandy beach... I climbed down there and examined the wave pattern some more... I thought that I might be able to accomplish a water entry here, so I waded out a little ways and between the battering of the waves, managed to get my fins on... I then proceeded to attempt to swim further out... The waves were battering me so much that I had to hold onto my mask during every wave to ensure that I did not lose it... I was getting tossed around all over everywhere... The difference between the height of the waves and the troughs was enough that it allowed the waves to pound me on the bottom... Luckily, the bottom was sandy at that point, otherwise I would have ended up with major shredding of my body... I made it perhaps 150 ft off the beach before I decided that diving on the east side from the coast would not be that great of an idea... My return to shore was not all that much fun either... Major pounding of me into the sand by the surf... My entire swim shorts were filled with sand by the time I was washed up on the coast like a piece of drift wood... I ended up crawling the last 20 feet... An interesting experience, but I think I'll pass on a repeat anytime soon... Every muscle in my body was sore from the constant pounding that I received...
Since I was already on the other side of the island, I decided to continue the drive around the island, but I did not attempt anymore beach dives... While driving along the road that traverses the island on the northern part of the island, I noticed a dirt road that went off to the north and I turned off on it and followed it... It was quite bumpy and probably better suited for my Jeep and 4WD (with the addition of a winch) than the Chevy Sprint that I was driving, but I continued until the road looked like it went from solid and bumpy to a softer dirt... Since I had not had that great of luck with soft soil in Cozumel on my last trip, I decided that it was time to turn around and go back... All this distance, there were electrical lines, so I believe that I was in what passes for civilization on that part of the island... The electrical lines continued, but I wasn't about to go any further unless I had a vehicle that was more off-road capable... Most of the residents in that area resided in small concrete-based buildings... The 'nicer' ones were made from concrete blocks, the others of trunks of small trees aligned vertically with concrete plastered over the cracks between the pieces of wood... At one point, I came across a house that was better made than the rest of them and actually had a concrete swimming pool in the yard... The pool looked to be partly above ground and partly below ground... I suspect that is to keep any flooding during tropical storms or hurricanes from washing into the pool... In one house along the road, I noticed a few cows in the field... They were Brahma cows, but quite a bit smaller than what you find back in the states... The ground after having been cleared of trees is very rocky -- understandable once you realize that the entire island is basically a coral outcropping and any real topsoil that is on the island is just decayed plant matter from over the years that hasn't washed away... With such a rocky soil, it is probably difficult to grow enough food to support a family, much less the amount that would be necessary to support cattle... Quite a lot of the buildings are created from coral chunks cemented / mortared together... I suspect that when the farmers are clearing their land, the collect the rocks from the soil and use them to build their dwellings... The island seems to have most (if not all) of the natural resources for making concrete... Perhaps the lime or cement portion might need importing, but the sand and aggregate is readily available here... The steel rebar is most likely imported from the mainland...
Kaitlyn woke us up at 08:30 this morning... Finished off my last bottle of Dr. Pepper during my morning caffeine supplement routine... Looks like it's time to go to the grocery store and pick up some Coke... Grace went up to the local laundry to wash clothes this morning... It seems that we go through clothes quite a bit quicker around here...
Went over to a local dive operator (Sea Scuba) this afternoon that I had conversed with via email while in Houston... They did not have any room on their afternoon boat, but if I had another certified diver, then they would make a trip for the two of us... I explained that Grace had not completed her open water dives and wondered if she could still dive... They said that she couldn't... Oh well, it was worth a try... I asked the guy how much he would charge if I wanted to just take the boat out with me for two 2-tank dives and Grace & Kaitlyn snorkeling... He said he would let me have the boat, dive master, and boat captain for $150 for the afternoon... I called Grace and she said that she would like to do it... We met the boat at one of the piers at 14:00 and went to the Santa Rosa Wall for the first dive... My dive computer did not work, so I could not go as deep as I would have liked... Since the dive computer also has the depth gauge built in it, I also did not know how deep I was, so I had to rely on the dive master's computer... We went to 145 ft for 47 minutes... Turns out that the dive computer did not activate upon entry in the water as I thought that it would and I should have activated it while still at the surface... My true depth and bottom time did not get logged on that dive... Too bad since my depth was at least 10 feet deeper than his for most of the dive... I'm wanting to break the 200 ft mark on one of the dives around here... We came to the surface and moved north to a shallower reef and Grace went snorkeling while we degassed... The boat captain had thrown a piece of bread overboard and some fish were coming near the boat to eat... Kaitlyn got a kick out of that... She kept wanting to put her finger in the water... I told her that if she did, the fish would think it was a worm and bite her... She kept doing it and one of the fish decided to taste the 'bait' and Kaitlyn got bit -- didn't break the skin, but she learned her lesson... Since the dive master's computer did not allow us to have that much of a bottom time even on a shallow dive, there wasn't much purpose in me having two tanks with me for the second dive... I suggested that we let Grace have one of my full tanks and I take an empty tank for ballast (so I don't float with one side higher than the other and so that my tank bands attach correctly) and we made it a three person dive for the last one of the day... Maximum depth on the second dive was 64 ft and it was for 51 minutes... Since I didn't bring any extra weight for Grace (I had left them back in the hotel), she had a little trouble sinking... At one point, the dive master grabbed some rocks and put in Grace's BC... That helped a little bit, but she still has some buoyancy problems -- she is not comfortable with a slight negative buoyancy and when she has a positive buoyancy, any decrease in depth worsens the problem... She needs to work on this some, but I believe that it is just a matter of her getting familiar with her equipment and getting weighted correctly... I wish we had someplace in Houston that was deep enough for her to practice buoyancy control through a large range of depths... She still has a little trouble equalizing the pressure in her ears... The equalization process does not come naturally for her, she has to work at it -- and that tends to be counterproductive... She enjoyed herself and said that it was worth the extra money... She said that after getting back to Houston, she'll finish up her open water dives so that she can get her C-card...
On a side note, it appears that my last minute creation of a bracket to mount the doubles tank bands is working acceptably... It is not a perfect solution, but it works acceptably for open water dives... The one concern that I have is that with the number of hoses coming out of the two regulators, there is a definite possibility for confusion in an emergency situation... First of all, I probably need to replace all of the hoses with ones that are at least a foot longer... I probably still want the capability to have two hoses configured such that they can inflate the BC... I would have one hooked up and the other would be a readily available spare... At present, I have it dangling down the PVC pipe that I have being using as a bracket for the tank bands... Most 2nd stages are designed to be worn with the hose coming around the right side... I'm not sure that I want both 2nd stages on that side and both pressure gauges on the left side... It would seem more straightforward if each tank had a pressure gauge and 2nd stage directly associated with it... Currently, I rely on each 2nd stage and pressure gauge being different to allow me to not get mixed up with regards to which tank I'm breathing from and which tank goes with which pressure gauge and regulator... Theoretically, it does not matter if the left tank is feeding the right pressure gauge and 2nd stage, but I think that would lead to confusion and probably should be avoided... I suspect that by the time we come back here next year, I'll have my rig more custom tuned for fit and functionality... On the other hand, perhaps I'll get tempted by one of the stainless steel backplate designs that the cavers are currently using... In some ways, simplicity would be an attribute... The one thing that I've noticed that seems to be awkward with the independent-80s setup is maneuvering out of water or getting in the boat after a dive... Although an extra tank only weighs an extra 38 lbs, by the time you add the extra regulator and everything, the total weight of the BC, weights, tanks, regulators, and everything else, easily tops 100 lbs... Negotiating a ladder in even moderate seas can be somewhat interesting... Once I buy my second tank, I suspect that I'm going to have to also purchase a hand truck to ease the carrying of my tanks and equipment from my vehicle to the dive site when diving locally... On trips, I'll continue to rent tanks to cut down on my luggage weight...
After getting cleaned up after the dive, we went out to eat at one of the local roadside 'stores'... Afterwards, we went to the grocery store to get a couple more 2-liter bottles of Coke and breakfast for tomorrow morning... While leaving the store, the car was not producing power acceptably, so I thought it might be either out of gas or the quality of the gas around here was not that great... Even though the tank was registering half full, I stopped by the gas station that was next door (they only have two gas stations on the island, I believe)... I limped over to the gas station and even after filling it up, it never got any better... I'm not sure what is going wrong with it, but I was able to limp back to the hotel, but had to park it on the other side of the street since I wasn't all that sure it could make it any further... I tried checking the oil, but it was so dark, I couldn't see what level the dipstick was registering... I'm suspecting that it is either critically low on oil or water, but no idiot light came on informing me of such... The car is fairly new, so I would not think that it would use oil or water that quickly... When I tried to call Budget, their office was closed... Looks like I'll have to call them tomorrow... I then walked down to the corner convenience store and picked up a bag of ice to keep the drinks cold and to provide water to drink... So far, we have reached a nice balance in the amount of water that is necessary to drink and the ice that melts while cooling our other drinks... So far, it has averaged about a bag or two per day... A bag of ice costs approximately a dollar...
Kaitlyn woke us up at 08:45 this morning... Usual caffeine supplement ritual... Went outside to look over the car to see if I could figure out what had caused the problem last night... The water level seemed acceptable, but the oil level looked a little low... Called Budget to inform them of the problem that I had with the car and they sent me Nissan Sentra (with air- conditioning) as a replacement... Went back over to Sea Scuba at 11:00 to see if they had any dive boats going out this afternoon... They didn't, but referred me to another operator (Dive Masters) who was located on the beach a little bit south of downtown... They had a boat going out at 13:30 that already had 4 people on it... I arrived there in plenty of time and arranged for my tanks... They set me up with 80s for the initial dive and 50s for the second dive... The first dive was towards the south part of the island, but I don't remember the name of the location... It consisted of various caves and pillars... Since the other divers had already been diving that day, they could not do a very deep dive and ended up staying at around 80 ft... The most I could go was 120 ft due to having to keep within visibility of the group... To get to 120 ft, I had to go so far out from them that I could just barely see their bubbles... While exploring over there, I noticed a large sea turtle (probably 3 ft from front to rear of shell)... Of course, I was the last one back on the boat since I finally don't have to worry about running out of air before everyone else... I nearly ran one tank dry because I had screwed up on setting up the regulators and when I thought that I had switched tanks, all I had done is switch from the normal 2nd stage on my primary tank to the octo on the same tank... I was down to only 200 psi in that tank before I realized my screwup... To switch to the other tank, I had to put the correct regulator in my mouth upside down and it was located such that the hose had to do a sharp bend to go that way... Basically, the hose came out on the left side of the 1st stage, had to loop over my head, and then come from the right in order for the air exhaust to be below my mask... While I was trying to figure out this, I had to use the 2nd stage upside down which put the exhaust directly into my mask which was not that great for visibility... It is good that I realized this at a relatively shallow depth instead of on a deep dive... The second dive of the day was made with double-50s and it had a max depth of 45 ft and had a bottom time of XX minutes... I did not have any problem with my hoses on it (i.e. I corrected my previous mistake)... When I got back to the hotel, Grace and Kaitlyn had left for a restaurant in town... I drove over there and after finally finding the restaurant, I learned that they had left a half hour ago...
Woke up at 06:30 this morning... Tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't... Finally gave up and got up at 07:30... Morning caffeine ritual... Grace and Kaitlyn went out for breakfast... They returned in time for me not to have to catch a cab to the dive dock... Went over to the dive shop and paid for the dive... They said that the boat was running late, so instead of 11:00, it would be leaving at 11:30... It was around 12:15 before the boat finally showed up... Once it showed up, the other divers also arrived... Turned out that we had more divers than would fit in the boat without crowding, so they made a call for another boat... The dive shop's other boat had been rented out for the day to another dive shop for $130... They had to rent a boat from another dive shop for $150... By the time it got there, it was after 13:00... Turned out to only be three divers plus the divemaster... The other two were crew from one of the three cruise ships that had pulled into port today... The girl was nice looking and filled out her bikini very well... Definitely an improvement to the scenery... We went down and did a wall dive (possibly Santa Rosa again)... Since this was my last dive day for this trip, I wanted to see if I could hit 200 ft... I made it to 180 ft easily enough (total dive time of 20 minutes), but I was definitely noticing the nitrogen narcosis effects... Not quite like being drunk, but definitely affects you... I noticed a definite onset of tunnel vision where I fixated on my depth gauge and the slope of the wall... At a certain point, you will be narced out and that point is different on different people... Since I didn't have a safety diver on this attempt, I didn't want to chance going lower... I wasn't sure if the next 20 ft would be the point where I went to sleep... I had my hand on the power inflator for the BC the whole time, ready to press it for an emergency ascent... The problem is that if I passed out, I wouldn't be able to press the button and I would keep going down until I hit the bottom... If I didn't hit the side of the wall, the drop would continue until the absolute bottom of the wall at 6-7K ft... Not sure I want a trip that deep... I think I'm going to have to come up with a way where a safety diver can be at a higher depth and have a small rope attached to me that he could use to pull me up if I screw up too much... Kind of like reeling in a really big fish...
The second dive for the day was as Planacar, with a max depth of 44 ft and a time of 51 minutes... I had left about 1200 psi in one tank from the first dive and had emptied the other tank to less than 500 psi, so we replaced the empty tank and I used the new full tank for the first part of the dive, had the BC power inflator hooked to the other tank, and then used the other tank for the last part of the dive... It's nice having the added safety margin of even a partial tank...
We arrived back at the dock at around 16:45 and Grace & Kaitlyn were parked there waiting for me... She had arranged a glass bottom boat trip for her and Kaitlyn for Thursday before the flight back to Houston for $20... I was pretty hungry after the dives since I hadn't eaten anything during the day, so we found a local restaurant and had some beef and pork soft shell tacos... Actually, the tacos around here are probably closer to fajitas than tacos since they do not use ground beef... We came back to the hotel and I disassembled all of my equipment and cleaned it up... The various nuts, washers, and bolts that I used in constructing the bracket were very discolored from the corrosion of the salt water... Some of the washers and one of the wing nuts was from the original kit and must have been stainless steel since they still looked rather shiny... Although I can probably remote the corrosion with a wire brush and make everything shiny again, that would not be a permanent solution... I'm going to have to find stainless steel hardware for everything once I settle on a design for the bracket... The current design is only temporary for this trip... After everything was cleaned up, I then took a shower and watched TV for awhile and subsequently fell asleep around 20:30... The combination of the diving, the sunburn, and getting up early had me tired... I'm not that badly sunburned this trip as compared to other trips that we've made... I wore a T-shirt and hat whenever I was out in the sun, so I minimized the skin that was exposed to just my arms, legs, and neck... Grace had drank too much coffee and was up until 01:00 before going to sleep...
Woke up at 06:20 this morning... Could not fall back to sleep, so I got up and performed the morning caffeine ritual while updating this log... At around 07:00, while updating the log, the power went out... Luckily I was using a laptop and the battery power continued right along... The batteries are probably kind of old and I suspect have started to develop the classical NiCad memory effect and thus will not give a full battery operating cycle, but they are good enough for maintaining power during these types of situations and when I need to move the laptop between power outlets without shutting it down... Called the front desk and finally got them to understand that it was probably a circuit breaker problem and not a blown bulb since the air-conditioner was still running and every light and electrical receptacle was out... After about five minutes, they had the power back on... While waiting for them to restore power, I looked outside and noticed that it is raining... Don't know if it is a widespread storm system or not, but the odds are against it... Small rain showers pop up around here often and after awhile move elsewhere... Grace and Kaitlyn went off for breakfast while I finished packing... Once they were back, I drove them down to the pier from which they were supposed to take the glass bottomed boat / snorkeling trip... The rain shower had stopped / moved on by this time... After dropping them off, I went back to the hotel to continue packing... After I had everything packed, I loaded up the car and drove over to the Budget office from which I had rented the car... I asked them if it was acceptable to drop the car off at the Budget office at the airport and he said that it was, but that they close at 16:00... At 13:00, I picked up Grace and Kaitlyn and we drove around town for awhile... At 15:30, I drove over to the airport and dropped them off and attempted to return the car, but no one was at the Budget counter... Since the car was due back at 16:21 and it was getting close to 16:00, I drove back into town to drop the car off at the location from which I originally rented it... I then grabbed a taxi and went back to the airport... Got over there around 16:30, found Grace & Kaitlyn, and waited around until around 18:30 to check-in... The aircraft did not board until 17:30 and we took off at 20:00... The flight back was pretty much direct, there was no deviation towards the Yucatan like had occurred on the flight down to Cozumel... Arrived back in Houston at 21:48, cleared customs, and I went and got the car and drove back to the terminal and picked up Grace, Kaitlyn, and luggage... It felt strange driving an automatic transmission after having driven a standard for the last week... It also felt strange to be driving a vehicle that was not as close to the ground as the compact cars that I’ve been stuck with for the last week... Got home around midnight and inspected the house to ensure that we had no unwanted visitors and then unloaded the luggage... Went out back to check on the dogs and see how much of their food that they had eaten... They still had plenty from what I had left them and they had plenty of fresh water... I could only find one of the dogs, so I started looking around to see if the other had escaped (they have been known to chew a hole in the wooden fence just to see what is on the other side)... Turns out that one of them had died while we were gone... She was 10 years old, so she was getting kind of old, but I have no idea what was the cause of death... All I could find was a mound of fur under some bushes... Ants had discovered the body and pretty much stripped it of all meat... The other dog is in fine shape, he's about two or three years younger... Don't know if she died from the heat or if someone killed her... With nothing left of the body, it's not possible to determine the cause of death either... Grace was upset after I told her... Perhaps I should have lied and told her that the dog had escaped... Kaitlyn had mentioned at the airport that she “missed the doggies”... Oh well...