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The way my underwater camera housing is constructed, there is a circular rubber cushion behind the face plate that the camera's lens housing rests against. In the housings back cover there is a rectangular rubber cushion that fits against the digital display and gently sandwiches the camera between the two cushions when closed. Pretty nice arrangement except. . . . . .
. . . . the front cushion acts like a circular seal as well and captures a small volume of air against the lens housing. When shooting video or lots of stills in succession the circuitry behind the lens heats up from the electrical activity and that heats the lens as well. The lens heats that small volume of air and what little moisture there may be in the warm air condenses on the housing's cool front port causing a ring of fog. You can see it forming in the lower left corner of this picture.
I've tried flooding the camera and housing with cool dry air from my room's A/C during assembly and it helped but wasn't a cure. I hated doing this but I finally cut some vent ports in the front cushion to let some cooling air get at the lens and that seems to have fixed it.
Occasionally I stop by the central plaza to check mail through an unprotected WiFi network.
I caught sight of this guy bossing his women folk along the edge of a busy street.
This is a mini-SUV that VW is marketing here.
Here is the first Spanish language AA medallion I've seen. They don't seem to be available in Mexico. This one may have come from the Dominican Republic.
Here is an item for the HPVA gang. This guy visits the island for 6 months each year and brought his 'bent along this year, which the locals find very interesting. His bike is built by the same manufacturer as my three wheeler at home.
I just got a note from an fellow HPVA member that the International HPVA Ice Race Championships were just hosted in Minneapolis again this year and conditions were 'fast'. There ought to be a photo report on the club page soon.
OK, from ice to nice. . . .
Very light winds and almost no current. There were several of these jellyfish around this day and they were unusual enough that lots of fish were taking experimental nips at them but none got devoured.
I just love the markings on these French Angelfish. I once knew a French Angelfish. . . .
Here are a couple shots of a Boxfish. My memory of them is that they were not much disturbed by divers in the past but pretty shy this year.
'Big Eye'
Sea Anemone
Sargent Major
Triggerfish and Butterfly
Scorpionfish (look but don't touch)
Here are a couple looks at a Moray Eel that my Dentist may find interesting.
Branching Vase Sponge
Pufferfish.
Another BigEye
Last week when I looked in this pipe there was a Moray. I was trying to get a picture of the cleaner shrimp near the entrance and had no idea what lurked beyond in the gloom until I edited the picture back at the hotel.
This week it was a Sargent Major and maybe a Squirrelfish
This next critter could be underwater for it's weirdness but I found it climbing up a wall here on land. Maybe someone can identify it for us.
Plastic chairs are very popular in the tropics and we use them at the AA clubhouse. They come with a special rubber pad on the bottom of the chair leg to grip the floor and prevent the legs from spreading out from the occupants weight and unceremoniously dumping them on the floor. These special pads often go missing and to prevent the 'big surprise' the chairs are then doubled up and our seating for 24 becomes seating for a dozen. During High Season visitors increase meeting attendance dramatically and small plastic tables and foot stools are used as auxiliary seating. There was a sale on footstools at San Francisco's and the group agreed to let me go get some.
=)
I picked them up and was bringing them back to the clubhouse after the meeting when I noticed a glow above the rooftops. (night shot, full telephoto, pretty soft, sorry)
Next day I got a look at the burned Pallapa roof of a huge bar a couple blocks away. The local Fire Department did a great job of not letting it spread. Because of the termites in the tropics most of the construction is concrete so fires are pretty unusual.
Here is a Gecko on a wall trying to look like an Alligator.
A couple weeks ago I mentioned a Vanagon that got cut up into a flatbed in Minneapolis years ago, here is it's older sister that ran away to Cozumel.
Mexican horns:
There is a factory tuned horn used on cars, trucks and motorcycles here that operates in a frequency range that Mexicans have been conditioned from birth to be deaf to. When one honks one of these special Mexican horns only the person being honked for or at can hear it. All others are oblivious. . . . . . except, of course, for the uninitiated, such as tourists.
More Horns
Last year there was a young guy who came by and harvested something off the trunk of a tree across the street from the hotel with a pocket knife. I went over a took a look later. The trunk was covered with short sharp spikes like Rhinoceros horns. I asked a local about it and he guessed it was used as some sort of aphrodisiac. This year I noticed that the condo contractor across the street has spared that same tree and asked again about it; this time at the AA clubhouse. I was then told it's true name, Ceiba, and that they usually use the horns in school as a surprise offering when they put them on someones desk seat.
Cold Start
Telling that car horn story was so cathartic I want to tell you about the local 'cold start' technique. First you need to understand a little about how a conventional ignition system works on a gas engine. There is an electrical distributer on most older gas engines that does two things. It is driven by the cam which is itself driven by the crank. Inside the distributer there is another cam that opens and closes a set of electrical points (a simple switch). Each time the points close electricity flows through a set of windings in an ignition coil that builds out magnetic lines of force. When the points open the lines of force collapse over a secondary set of windings creating a hellish high charge of voltage which is directed back to the distributer where it is 'distributed' to wires going to the different spark plugs. Each spark plug gets a flash of high voltage at just the right instant to ignite its cylinder's fuel and the engine runs. The precision involved makes the running of a car quite amazing. In time and sooner in hot climates the plastic distributer cap begins to form cracks from the heat and high voltage and over night the cracks attract moisture if the environment is humid, like in the tropics. Electricity is lazy by nature and will follow the path of least resistance such as following that moisture trail in the cracks to the distributer body, and ground, rather than going down that long wire to the highly resistant spark plug. Needless to say there are a lot of hard starting cars in the tropics with a miss in a cylinder or two until the engine warms up enough to drive the moisture out of the cracks in the distributer cap. The expedient solution is to let the engine race at near full throttle as soon as it starts and continue until it warms up enough to idle unassisted. To the trained ear this cold start method is very agrivating. (Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!!) The solution is to have the distributer cap or spark plug ends (on VW) replaced periodically.
There is a fleet of privately owned and operated one ton dump trucks dispatched by a cooperative union here on Cozumel. It's run like the taxi union. It balances supply with demand and prevents price cutting by the better capitalized owners who would later raise prices when the competition has been broken. One of these trucks, good old 108, is parked up the street from my place overnight and usually between 8-9 AM goes through the cold start ritual each morning, whether I'm ready or not.
(Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!) What a lot of needless noise and wear. Man mastering his machine.
I rode back up to the faux Castle by the municipal marina to get a better picture of the stone work. Now you can see a few of the round stone flowers they used to fill in gaps in the larger stonework.
As I was leaving I stopped on the other side of the marina entrance and looked back for a full view of the place.
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One of my fellow Minnesota AA's celebrated his 18th with us this visit.
And Bortola rests up for her pre-dawn gecko and mouse hunt.
(I havn't seen that young Iguana by the boats lately, Hmmm)
Here is a string of COOP trucks waiting for the call to haul todays load of fill away from the condo project across the street.
This is a better look at the door art.
I showed up for my dental appointment and had the in-lay laid in. Very nice piece of work and low cost too. If you'd like a free vacation to Cozumel you can just about make it so with the savings on dental work here.
Drop the Doc an email for an estimate.
(Tell her I sent you)
Another over the shoulder over the roof-tops sunset shot on the way home.
-Home-