Feb 03, 2008
My old tank has still not shown up so after I used a 'rental' tank for a couple dives they offered me another used tank to replace my missing tank. They took the valve out and let me visually inspect the interior using their slightly frayed fiber optic light.
It has a hydro-static pressure test date of 2006 and mine was 2007 so it will do.
I asked them to mark it for me and they tried to make a double 'D' using an 'I' stamp and a 'D' stamp. Pretty creative.
I got to the clubhouse early and wanted to see if this new wide angle lens would work on my older camera if I just held it in front of the lens. Clumsy but it seems to work.
I think the city water comes from wells here and seems pretty hard. I bring along a few bars of Kirk's Castle soap and it lathers just fine.
After our Sunday morning meeting in the Barracuda Hotel's back yard I asked one of the gang to take my picture.
Here is what recovery in paradise looks like.
I stopped by to pick up some air for a dive and now they can't find the new tank so I went with a rental unit once more. I went in at Villa Blanca Beach Club and was greeted by a 'fast boat' headed South to one of the outer reefs.
The refraction between water and air through glass is magnifying. That boat is maybe 20 feet above me and 20-30 feet East. It's no more dangerous than changing a flat beside a freeway. Well. . . . OK, it is exciting to watch anyway, and the noise is tremendous..
This next guy is no bigger than your thumb, maybe a little longer.
I thought it was kind of strange to find a Ray under a rock like this. When I got home and started editing the pictures I noticed the two cleaner shrimp on the roof.
This is a Trigger Fish and what a pest. I think the snorkel tour guides have been feeding them. A gal I was talking to at Blue Angel said she got bit on the hands a few times with no gloves and it HURT!
I spotted this coral head last year and it reminded me of a huge bowl of different flavor dips of ice cream. At Bridgman's in Minneapolis it would be called the Lollapalooza!
Back again. The little nipper followed me for 20 minutes.
I should have saved this one as a sunset.
You can almost see this Sea Fan swaying with the current.
This is your brain on compressed air.
Some nice diversity here.
Similar players different scene.
Here is one of the corner-post pilings for the Sting Ray exposition fence. Last week you saw a guy digging a hole to set it in. There is a nice big blob of concrete to seal it into it's hole and anchor it down.
How did they get the precast reinforced concrete piling out there to set? It was loaded into the shallows from the truck with a crane. Then they floated it out to the hole using 55 gallon oil drums full of air. When they had it perfectly positioned they let some air out of the drums through a valve in the top and it settled down into it's socket hole. The bottom of the drums are open.
Pretty tough for man to beat a construction like this though:
When I was a kid we were stationed on the Island of Malta in the Med. and I remember their walls being topped with broken glass. I guess that's just one of many nostalgic things that attract me to Cozumel. Here is a local wall. The interesting part is that the local Iguanas feel secure sunning themselves on the broken glass. They are safe from me chasing them.
I'm not a coin collector but I thought you might like seeing all the current Peso coins just because they are so handsome. Ten and a half Pesos equal one Dollar.
100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1, 50¢, 20¢, and 10¢.
Scroll right to view >>--> >>-->
OK, I'm done diving. That last outing finished off my ear for this trip. I wanted to do something more to that last replacement tank to be able to identify it in a formation so I stopped by the air station to pick it up and. . . . . . no tank! We looked all over and it was nowhere to be found, so. . . . . They gave me a third tank. I'd been hauling it around on the trike for a couple days and finally got an idea. 'Carnival' (like Mardi Gras) is in full swing and one of the seasonal enterprises is painting scenes on 8x10 cardboard sheets using spray bombs and a lot of ingenuity. They get $10 us for a print. I stopped by the central plaza one afternoon and found a spray bomb artist who agreed to paint my tank for $10
(As I'm re-reading this I recall a couple younger kids watching for a while as he painted and I thought they were crowding in pretty close as he worked. They were actually huffing the fumes, the rascals.)
As an afterthought I asked the guys at the air station to take the valve out and let me have a look. The tank had a current hydro stat date stamped on it but I just like to look for myself.
It looked excellent, inside and out.
The Mission Grill I frequent 0n 30th is one of three Mission restaurants. Here is the one just off the sea front.
Is that the catch of the day hanging there for tonight?
On Saturday I went back to the air station to have them put my tank in storage for next year. Here is the receipt and I'm posting it here just so I don't loose a copy of it.
As I was getting ready to leave, that nice old Benz pulls up to get some tanks so I asked to see the motor again and take a picture. Is it familiar to anyone?
Out in front of the clubhouse there was this Honda scooter and a child s plastic chair being used as a kiddie seat.
I want to start packing so I'll save the next couple day's pix for the epilogue page next week.
Here is the parting sunset just beyond my home away from home.
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