Week 03
061229
I still do my laundry in a 5 gal plastic pail while I shower each day. After several days of glorious sunshine we had a shower early this morning, and at the crack of dawn I had to bolt outside onto the deck to pull last nights wash down off the line. Life gets so complicated down here
=)
The Christmas pot-luck was a fabulous event again this year. Over 20 people and food for 50. Back in the corner with the blue lights there was a group playing a game where a stack of wooden blocks, each about the size of a 5 pack of gum, is disassembled from the bottom and added to the top. Noisy successes and outrageous failures.
More rain is forecast for today so diving is kind of iffy. Several years ago I tried having prescription lenses glued into my dive mask and it didn't work so well. The lens shop did kind of a sloppy job so I had to return the outfit. My optometrist suggested low cost disposable contacts. They are intended for about one months use and mine are on their second year of diving use only. One eye is corrected normally and the other is more magnifying for reading so I can adjust camera settings. On days I'm going to dive I put in the contacts. Because I use them so infrequently it is a real trauma for me putting them in and especially taking them out.
The glued in lenses work well for 'Nearsighted' people because the curvature of the inner lens surface is curved away from the eye so the axis of sight is mostly perpendicular to the glass. 'Farsighted' lenses, like I require, are curved inward towards the eye so the axis of sight changes angle pretty quick when you look off center, side to side or up and down. For us farsighted folks, the contacts are the solution, plus the contacts are way less expensive than the special mask lenses.
I got a note from Albert Huizing identifying last week's mystery fish. If interested you may want to revisit last weeks page for the update.
A dreaded weather condition here is called a 'Nortay' where a cold North wind blows for a few days and we saw the beginning of one late Monday. I'm sitting here listening to the windows whistle and howl while the sun shines in.
After visiting Atalntida wreckage reef last week I wanted to explore my old diving grounds off of Villablanca, a couple miles South of Downtown.
Issac is rebuilding his beach club La Palapitita (Li'l Grasss Shack) from scratch. All he had to start with were a couple uprooted palm trees he had planted 18 years ago and a bare sheet of rock for a beach. Midway down this page are a couple old panoramas of his place ('05 & '06), before and after hurricane Wilma and here is the progress today:
Scroll right to view, Bill >>--> >>-->
Note the red 'X' on the 'Dive Paradise' building's roof. That was the 'point of view' for this next view, looking out.
Scroll right again please >>--> >>-->
The red 'X' in the end of Issac's new dock was the POV for the first panorama. Note the basic Palapa on the end of his new dock also.
Yes it does look like a great day for diving and there was much to see. Early in the dive I noticed just the edge of this guy's shell breaking the surface of the sand so I dug him out for a picture. Maybe ~9"- 10" long. After the picture I reburied him.
I tried the video feature on my digital still camera and there was just enough extra heat generated to fog the camera housing's lens. So that's all the U/W stuff for today.
Most modern Mexican towns have an excellent water plant but the plumbing system throughout the town can be iffy. It's best to drink purified water that comes in a variety of different size and shape bottles. The home model is generally 20 liters, or 5 gal us. Getting the water served out of the jug can be interesting. There is a tipping basket ($20 us) and a variety of pumps. Over the years I've settled on a simple siphon dispenser ($3).
There is a one-way flapper valve at the submerged end that allows one to remove the top cap and fill the device to the top with water. With the top cap back on you can open the valve at the other end of the pipe and the water will be siphoned out. My unit sits in a closet in Minneapolis for 8-9 months a year and the flapper valve gets hard and warped from drying out and so it wont seal so I can't fill the unit. That flapper valve looked kind of like the exhaust valve of a SCUBA regulator mouthpiece so I rode out to Javier's to see of he had one 'about' that size.
Did I mention he is one of the best equipped and most experienced regulator mechanics in the Caribbean?
Do I know where to shop or what?! He had the exact perfect size valve.
Last year a had a pair of trousers made by a local tailor a few blocks form Blanquita's. I dropped off my Neoprene dive gloves to have some torn seams re sewn and noticed this Mexican made Dinamo (Di like dinner, not diner) Galaxy scooter. All that gets wet in a rain is your hands.
With the Dengue fever threat there was great concern at the AA clubhouse the other night when there appeared over a hundred of these critters buzzing around inside. They walked like a duck and quacked like a duck but they weren't mosquitoes. Great meeting though with all the stress juices flowing.
=)
While we're in the bug department, lets see some more butterflies:
If I can't find anything else to pack in this weeks page we'll just close with another sunset.
-Home-
061229
I still do my laundry in a 5 gal plastic pail while I shower each day. After several days of glorious sunshine we had a shower early this morning, and at the crack of dawn I had to bolt outside onto the deck to pull last nights wash down off the line. Life gets so complicated down here
=)
The Christmas pot-luck was a fabulous event again this year. Over 20 people and food for 50. Back in the corner with the blue lights there was a group playing a game where a stack of wooden blocks, each about the size of a 5 pack of gum, is disassembled from the bottom and added to the top. Noisy successes and outrageous failures.
More rain is forecast for today so diving is kind of iffy. Several years ago I tried having prescription lenses glued into my dive mask and it didn't work so well. The lens shop did kind of a sloppy job so I had to return the outfit. My optometrist suggested low cost disposable contacts. They are intended for about one months use and mine are on their second year of diving use only. One eye is corrected normally and the other is more magnifying for reading so I can adjust camera settings. On days I'm going to dive I put in the contacts. Because I use them so infrequently it is a real trauma for me putting them in and especially taking them out.
The glued in lenses work well for 'Nearsighted' people because the curvature of the inner lens surface is curved away from the eye so the axis of sight is mostly perpendicular to the glass. 'Farsighted' lenses, like I require, are curved inward towards the eye so the axis of sight changes angle pretty quick when you look off center, side to side or up and down. For us farsighted folks, the contacts are the solution, plus the contacts are way less expensive than the special mask lenses.
I got a note from Albert Huizing identifying last week's mystery fish. If interested you may want to revisit last weeks page for the update.
A dreaded weather condition here is called a 'Nortay' where a cold North wind blows for a few days and we saw the beginning of one late Monday. I'm sitting here listening to the windows whistle and howl while the sun shines in.
After visiting Atalntida wreckage reef last week I wanted to explore my old diving grounds off of Villablanca, a couple miles South of Downtown.
Issac is rebuilding his beach club La Palapitita (Li'l Grasss Shack) from scratch. All he had to start with were a couple uprooted palm trees he had planted 18 years ago and a bare sheet of rock for a beach. Midway down this page are a couple old panoramas of his place ('05 & '06), before and after hurricane Wilma and here is the progress today:
Scroll right to view, Bill >>--> >>-->
Note the red 'X' on the 'Dive Paradise' building's roof. That was the 'point of view' for this next view, looking out.
Scroll right again please >>--> >>-->
The red 'X' in the end of Issac's new dock was the POV for the first panorama. Note the basic Palapa on the end of his new dock also.
Yes it does look like a great day for diving and there was much to see. Early in the dive I noticed just the edge of this guy's shell breaking the surface of the sand so I dug him out for a picture. Maybe ~9"- 10" long. After the picture I reburied him.
I tried the video feature on my digital still camera and there was just enough extra heat generated to fog the camera housing's lens. So that's all the U/W stuff for today.
Most modern Mexican towns have an excellent water plant but the plumbing system throughout the town can be iffy. It's best to drink purified water that comes in a variety of different size and shape bottles. The home model is generally 20 liters, or 5 gal us. Getting the water served out of the jug can be interesting. There is a tipping basket ($20 us) and a variety of pumps. Over the years I've settled on a simple siphon dispenser ($3).
There is a one-way flapper valve at the submerged end that allows one to remove the top cap and fill the device to the top with water. With the top cap back on you can open the valve at the other end of the pipe and the water will be siphoned out. My unit sits in a closet in Minneapolis for 8-9 months a year and the flapper valve gets hard and warped from drying out and so it wont seal so I can't fill the unit. That flapper valve looked kind of like the exhaust valve of a SCUBA regulator mouthpiece so I rode out to Javier's to see of he had one 'about' that size.
Did I mention he is one of the best equipped and most experienced regulator mechanics in the Caribbean?
Do I know where to shop or what?! He had the exact perfect size valve.
Last year a had a pair of trousers made by a local tailor a few blocks form Blanquita's. I dropped off my Neoprene dive gloves to have some torn seams re sewn and noticed this Mexican made Dinamo (Di like dinner, not diner) Galaxy scooter. All that gets wet in a rain is your hands.
With the Dengue fever threat there was great concern at the AA clubhouse the other night when there appeared over a hundred of these critters buzzing around inside. They walked like a duck and quacked like a duck but they weren't mosquitoes. Great meeting though with all the stress juices flowing.
=)
While we're in the bug department, lets see some more butterflies:
If I can't find anything else to pack in this weeks page we'll just close with another sunset.
-Home-