Now for the story of the sandal reunion. Over the holidays of 03 my landlady Blanquita's family from Merida came to visit. I met her Dad who is a shoe maker. He had on a pair of sandals I admired and he offered to make me a pair for $10. So I gave him one of my WalMart sandals for a size comparison (2nd right in pix). Last year there were a pair of new sandals waiting for me but not the same style as I expected so Blanquita said she'd take care of it and this year that old sandal finally got to rejoin it's mate and here are my new ones. Note that the soles are made out of the side wall of a truck tire. There was a time when auto and truck tires were not steel belted and the Mexican sandal called 'Harrachi' (sp) had tire tread soles. Kind'a tough to cut a shoe sole pattern out of a steel belted tire tread.
--News Flash !!--
This just in. . . . . . I found it.
(no, not the lost camera)
I knew that if I just kept diving my way up the Coast I'd find something and. . . . .
Eureka !
Some of the following will make more sense if you first take a look at this coastal chart of the major populated area of Cozumel. Feel free to bookmark it for future reference.
http://www.usfamily.net/web/lucky/20060107-CZchart.html
Last year there was some very expensive construction underway for a porpoise exposition called Atlantida. Just guessing I'd say their pen was the area of a football field. The construction structure was a fenced in dock type perimeter, built out from the shore. With the Wilma hurricane warnings the animals were moved to safe keeping.
When
Wilma hit, the entire perimeter was dashed
to rubble by the storm seas. I hadn't given that possibility much
thought and was amazed when I drifted into the area on the
North bound current.
I went in the water at the Hotel Cozumel Beach, where I had gotten out last dive from Blue Angel.
I had stopped in at Hotel Barracuda a couple times to check on their construction progress and make sure it was OK to end this dive there. Barracuda is maybe 100 yards downstream from the old Atlantida site; they said it was fine to come out there, if I could. =)
Scroll right to view >>--> >>-->
Towards the right of this panorama you will note a set of steps leading down almost into the sea. At this point getting out of the sea was a matter of scaling the wall next to the steps. (very tricky) A team of Mexican divers are building a cofferdam using sandbags so the steps can be completed down below sea level. The cofferdams are a local building code requirement when pouring cement into the sea. On a previous visit I watched these Mexican construction divers hauling sandbags on their shoulders underwater and stacking them. They were filling them and carrying them in from out side the dam .
They have a trailer mounted air compressor they are using to power a lift pump to dredge out the area where an additional concrete structure needs to be bonded to a solid rock footing. An air lift pump uses air rising inside a pipe to pull in water from below, expelling the air, water and debris in another area. This is often used in underwater archeology and treasure hunting where the discharge is run over a screen for sorting and inspection. Here they are vacuuming their way down to bed rock.
OK, so I went in at Hotel Cozumel and drifted North. There wasn't much different to see except there was more building debris from the hotels and condos that were still under construction prior to the storm.
Here are some critters along the way:
This is an Arrow Crab.
Here is a happy little cannibal. These lobsters know what's tasty.
This Squid swims backwards cruising, frontwards in the attack. He's about 4"-5" long and maybe 10 feet away.
What a pleasant surprise when I hit the piles of debris and junk from the porpoise pens at Atlantida. It was massive and piled high. Then I saw this school of fish that must have been the size of a double car garage,
As I swam towards them the mob started to part and provide me a path through them. Such grace, amazing. I'd used up most of my tank getting up here so I made a tour of the perimeter to get an idea of it's size and ran into that cloud of fish again on my way around.
Next there was this group cruising by.
Just before I headed for Barracuda to get out I spotted these tipped over columns that used to support the pen's fence and perimeter walkway.
It'll probably take weeks to explore here. Lucky me.
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