YCGL - Thursday, December 1, 2022 - Ahhhhhhhh.......!

 So, I didn't talk about yesterday's dives at all, so I'll catch up.

I didn't do the shallow dive on the boat like Monday.  I'm pretty sure that divemasters up and down the coast have been warned about the porcined, bald diver from El Presidente.  When I stepped onto the boat, they sat me down in the first seat and had Steve and Arthur step around me.  There could be worse things, and in fact, that put me right next to Mateo, so we could talk and work on my equipment.  

Alfonso and I had established that I needed 14 pounds of weights diving with an aluminum 80 cubic foot tank with air.  However, Living Underwater usually uses steel 100 cubic foot tanks with air that weigh somewhat more. So, we drop from 14 pounds to 10 pounds.  That weight worked fine, but I think 12 might be a little better, it would be easier to trim if I were a little heavier. (Imagine me wanting to be a little heavier!)

However, there's more.  I tend to be a little more volumetric in the stomach and above and less so from the waist south.  When I put on a weight belt with 10/12/14 pounds around the waste (waist, yes, I do know how to spell it), that weight is toward my legs and tends to pull them down, so I'm swimming like a car with too many bags of cement in the trunk.  I need to get the weight further up my chest so it will drop my front and raise my back, so I'll be level.  Some BCDs have weight pockets in the front for just that reason.  Mine did not, so the divemasters tried three different ways to attach some weights to the BCD belt that holds the tank, and finally got it to work.  

But, with the weight on top of my tank, it was unsteady to the right and left and tended to make me roll over sideways.  Which meant I had to expend energy (and use air) to keep myself righted.  At that point, the general consensus was "suck-it-up-buttercup", dive with what you got and we'll try and correct it on Friday.  And everything worked out fine.  I had two good dives.  

Our first dive was to Palencar Bricks.  The boat we were on, the Jewfish, has low sides, so the way to exit the boat is to sit on the gunwale and rotate over backward, holding your mask and regulator in place as you splash and flounder in the water til you straighten up and get your bearings.  Except I've never done it that way before, so I was a little apprehensive.   I've either stepped off the back platform or the gunwale or I've stood on the back and fallen backward off the platform.  I would say that was my favorite way of entering because you basically sit down in the water and you don't have a big splash.  But it means each person does it individually and if you have ten people exiting, it may be over a distance of a couple of hundred feet.  That's tough on the divemaster and you lose time.  Rolling off gets everyone off at the same time.  

Except, when the crew buckled my tank onto the BCD, it must not have been buckled all the way, and as I tried to stand up to the gunwale, the tank slipped but I didn't realize it.  The crew did and yelled and stopped me, but if I had gone over (which I'm not sure I could have), I would have lost my tank and regulator and gotten all kinds of disoriented.  But, they stopped me, got the tank buckled, and helped me up and over the edge.  It's a weird feeling.  

We went to a maximum depth of 81 feet for 61 minutes.  The name Bricks comes from a load of red bricks that were dropped by a capsized barge 70 years ago.  I've never seen them and they are probably buried under the sand.  The reef has numerous coral heads from 20 to 50 feet tall spaced so you can easily swim around them and in some cases, through them.  But the big attraction here was lobsters.  Lots of Lobsters.  They live under the ledges of the coral on the sand base.  Those that we saw were mainly grouped together, four or five or more tightly packed side by side.  You spot them by their long antenna sticking out from the ledge.  All that we saw would have been table sized, and there was one that, based on what Erik and I ate in Provincetown, that was at least three-four pounds.  At the depth we were at, the light is pretty muted, so the colors aren't bright and vibrant.  

When we came to the surface, I told Mateo and Steve and Arthur that I wanted to get out after them so I could watch what they did, because it was different from what I'd done before.  Which meant I ended up in the front of the line and again, just kind of floundered while they tried to help me take my BCD off.  I got it off, the crew pulled it up onto the deck and I swam back alongside the boat to the ladder.  There, you grab onto the ladder and remove your fins.  You pull one off and try to cast it up onto the deck.  Then you switch hands and pull off the other fin.  Only, when I threw it up, it came right back at me and started to sink between the boat and the ladder.  I pushed off to grab it before it sank too far, and dropped like a rock.  I hadn't taken off my weight belt before I took off my BCD.  Luckily, I still had a hand on the ladder and someone else grabbed me so I didn't go "sleep with the fishes", but it was not an elegant exit.  And Steve had caught the fin.  The next time was somewhat better.  

Between dives, Mateo and Pepe worked on the weight problem and got that fixed.  We snacked on pineapple, melon and gingerbread, a common snack in the area.  

The second dive was at Chankanaab Reef, located several hundred to maybe a thousand feet off the beach at Chankanaab State Beach, a popular site for partying and snorkeling.    Luckily, the reef is far enough away that people don't snorkel out this far.  The second dive is shallower, this was only to 41 feet and we had a bottom time of 69 minutes.  This reef is far more colorful because it isn't so deep and the red light spectrum isn't removed from the light.  And there are more fish.  It is again a lot of coral heads with fish darting to and fro.  I was following one who shot to a place and then stayed perfectly still.  He knew I was watching him and stuck there like making a landing off a balance bar.  When I finally decided he wasn't going to move for me, I started looking for Steve, Art and Mateo and I couldn't see them.  Finally, I saw the group off-aways and I started swimming after them.  Then I counted and there were five of them and there were only supposed to be three of us.  When I turned around, Steve was swimming towards me and I could see Arthur and Mateo in the background.  It is very easy to get disoriented and lose your group.  OTOH, it happens enough that the divemasters just handle it.  

When we got back to the hotel, I grabbed the first shower, washed my outfit, and took a nap... a good nap.  It was a tiring day.  Steve and I took a walk around the hotel property and stopped at the Spa.  The nice receptionist gave us a tour and it looked very relaxing.  That evening, we ate dinner at La Choza and called it good.

TODAY was a non-diving day.  I, frankly, was ready for it.  I ached.  This body isn't used to this kind of activity anymore.  When we were in the Spa yesterday, I looked at the massages and thought they looked really good.  So, when I woke up this morning, I called and scheduled a deep tissue and sports massage for 3:00.  I got there at 2:30, sat in the steam room for 10 minutes, and then rested in the lounge until the massage therapist came for me.  He did a great job, fighting knots and tight spots over my back and calves.  And pulled and stretched.  And had a wonderful, thick, aromatic massage oil.  I went back into the lounge again, stretched out and really relaxed, getting my heart rate down into the low 50's.  Really focused on not focusing.  Had a cup of Chamomile tea.  Then back into the steam room again.  Then sat and relaxed.  Tried the sauna, but it was quite a bit hotter than I'm comfortable in.  Showered and then back and relaxed some more..... I was there for over 3 hours............. Ahhhhhh.......................Was that ever nice...

Went to Colores y Sabores for dinner.  Steve knows the owner there.  Here she is twisting my arm to eat more flan....  people are mean in these parts..... umpf.