SVL

Just a quick post... we're all sadly realizing that there's only 2 and a half weeks left, but I've put off the inevitable by delaying my flights - just by a little bit. After the program finishes, the plan is to go to Playa for a couple of days partying with the group, then north to Merida for a few days, Chichenitza to see ruins, maybe to Uxmal to see some more (my friend Daniella from Merida says that these ruins are in the jungle, which could be a little "Indiana Jones"... cool), Holbox (pronounced Holbosh) to see whalesharks, then south to Belize for more diving (mainly the Blue Hole, which Jacques Cousteau created by blasting a hole in the reef to get his boat free - a little controversial really) and rain forrests, possibly Panama to stay at a friend's B&B, then all the way back to Cancun for my flight to NYC!

In other exciting news, today we witnessed deadly Squirrel Vs Lizard treetop fights, which resulted in mummy squirrel tumbling 14 ft to the ground while defending her treetop nest from the mean and scaly iguana. She lay dazed and motionless for a good 5 minutes before stumbling off into the mangroves (where she'll probably end up getting munched by bigger and meaner lizards). Meanwhile, daddy squirrel tried ninja-speed darting attacks at the lizard, but that didn't really work, and so now the baby squirrels are probably lizard poo.

And of course tomorrow I turn 35. It would be nice to be home with friends and family, but really, I think this is a pretty damn good alternative. After teaching tomorrow, we're going up to Gustavo's restaurant. He's putting a little party on for me and a few of the gang. We became friends with Gustavo just a couple of weeks ago, and as it turns out, he had only must moved down here with his wife a few days before we'd met him. Anyway, he's a really nice Mexican guy whose wife grills some mean arracherra (marinated flank steak) and she makes an awesome mole. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's feast - we're promised some special dishes! Mmmmm.

Haircut fun

Well, I seem to have bad luck with haircuts when away, and this trip has been no exception. I asked Alice to do my hair with the clippers: number 5 on top and 3 round the sides. We set up a chair in the sand with a 5m extension cord and got things going. There was a small hand mirror, which I checked for the first few passes just to make sure that she knew what she was doing. Seemingly, she did. Things went swimmingly, with the sides done to the appropriate lengths, and all that was left was to even up the top. And then the comb fell off. Alice failed to notice and kept the ciippers pressed close to my scalp, thus leaving a 3 inch by 2 inch bald patch in an otherwise pretty good hairdo. I suppose that's all you could expect when you ask a complete novice to do your hair! Thankfully I've got 4 weeks until my interview in NYC.

You'll also note from the photo that it seems holding up two fingers behind someone's head in pictures is a global phenomenon. Oh joy. That's Arturo, mi amigo Mexicano, by the way.

What else has happened... Playa over the weekend was great, but I didn't manage to do any kiteboarding. But the cenote dives were awesome: the water was incredibly clear (the visibility was at least 50m) but really, really cold. In some places, the passage was only large enough for a single diver to pass while at other points, the cavern extended to maybe 50m wide, with stalactites and stalagmites punching up and down all over the roof and floor. There wasn't too much in the way of life, but there were shrimp, and lots of bogie eating Tetras.

I did my first Divemaster Trainee (DMT) dive today, which meant going on a deep dive with the 4 new 5 weekers. I had a few responsibilities: buy eggs for an underwater demonstration (more on that in a bit), make sure that everyone kitted up properly, lead the buddy check, make sure there no problems with descents/ascents with the group, make sure that there were no wanderers, lead a mental acuity test at depth test and crack an egg and float the yolk around to people. The mental acuity test is to show people that at depth, motor skills are slightly impaired because nitrogen blocks neurons. The egg yolk demo was just to show that pressure acts upon an object at depth from all around it, so that the yolk is spherical and you can bat it around like a ball. Kind of fun, actually. Anyway, the main part was to make sure that the other divers didn't have any problems. But right off the bat, as soon as we started the descent, one girl had equalising problems (pain in the ears) and one girl had a mask full of snot and seawater and she had mask squeeze. Anyway, all problems were sorted out, and I felt like a real, proper diving dude!

The half-way point

Wow. The last 5 weeks have gone by so quickly and I'm fearing the next 5 are going to be a countdown for a return to the 'real' world. But, at least we have another R&R weekend in Playa starting now!

It's been a pretty fun week, even though we weren't able to dive for 4 days due to rough seas. On one of those days I went out for a snorkel and saw a 2m Southern stingray just 2m away, which was the highlight of the week. Although, driving the Hummer comes a pretty close second.

The army regularly patrols our little road, going up and down the coast looking for drug smugglers. Anyway, because they do this at least several times a day, they've become at least pretty familiar with us and us with them. They are pretty relaxed guys and pretty good guys. So good in fact, that I drove their Hummer from town back to base. Oh yes indeedy. And it wasn't just a boy thing - the girls loved having a go too... or maybe it was the Army guys who were more interested in letting the girls drive around in their bikini's.

Also at the top of the list of this week's activities was kite boarding. I went up to Tulum last weeeked to see Jessica and Willem and did an introductory session, which was only an hour an a half, as I had to catch a bus to come back down to Mahahual. Fantastic stuff. I think it's going to be the summer activity of choice for 2006. I'm going to do some more in Playa this weekend and if I can, squeeze in another one in Tulum on the way back from Playa.

The main reason for stopping in Tulum (as far as the rest of the group is concerned) is to do a cenote dive. A cenote is a landbased, freshwater sinkhole with an extensive underground network of tunnels that eventually join up with the sea. They're full of stalactites and stalagmites pitch and black inside, so I'll finally be able to use my dive torch! Jessica was telling me it's amazing to all turn your torches off to see the light playing through the water and casting shadows of fish and underwater structures onto the cavern walls. It also sounds like a nice little adrenalin hit!

Just to round out the week, someone dropped off a 5 inch baby hawksbill turtle to the base this afternoon. They found it on the beach, and it looked as though something had tried to take a bite out of it: there was a piece of the shell missing, though there didn't seem to be any flesh wounds directly underneath. It was obviously tired and in shock, so we put it in a tank of seawater and some rocks for serveral hours to let it rest before taking it out to sea to be released. I was surprised that it was released so soon, but it was done on staff instructions: they should know what they're doing!

Onwards, Upwards

There have been sightings of turtles mating, turtles being chased by a lemon shark, another shark sighting today, schools of squid, dolphins, giant barracuda... and what have I seen? A turtle head 100m and 4 squid (which were actually very cool).

But, I am pleased to say that I was the first to attempt and finish a real monitoring survey for one of the sites, and I've now started on the Coral Communities part of surveying. What we'd learned before was called Point Intersect. I won't go into the details, but essentially it's a different way to survey coral and the method includes information on size, predation, disease and tissue death. It's good fun and interesting but pretty hard work: for a given site, doing a Coral Communities survey means recording a lot of data over the typical 30m transect line. And being a coral dude, heads are down and so we miss out on all those other cool sightings.

The buddy pair that spotted the shark today came across an eerie 'Patch of Death': a partially eaten, huge eel, half eaten lobster and fish, dead coral... Just to be safe (but really just being geeky), I brought the dive knife out for the first time. Of course, the fact is that sharks aren't very likely to attach humans... But hey, why not bring it if you've got it? Who wants to be a shark's dinner, anyway?

I made a wicked bean stew with spicy chorizo the other day, which was a bit of a hit. The cookies I tried to make, however, weren't so much of a hit, unless you wanted extra dive weights or something to fend off large predators with. The meals have been pretty good on the whole, a few people have more than half a clue about what to do in a kitchen. But, the biggest bane of everyone's breakfast continues to be porridge. I'm so glad I'd bought the Honey Bunches of Oats in Playa.

Speaking of Playa, we're back there next weekend for the end of Week 5 party. Some people in each group (called Phases) sign up for 5 weeks and not 10, and so those people leave, and we get a fresh batch... and this is an excellent excuse to have a party in a place that includes all the running water you can shake a stick at and food ANYtime you want without you having to make it or wait for a cruise ship to pull into town for. Ah, civilization.

It was great to see Jessica and Willem here in Mahahual, and I'll be seeing them again this weekend, when I'll go up to Tulum to hang on the beach and see some ruins with them. I shouldn't say anything before there's more solid info, but if you know me, I don't tend to keep my mouth shut about interesting news... anyway, the company I was working for in Beijing, Wunderman, is looking for people for the Microsoft account. Jessica, who is in charge of operations globally for the Microsoft account, is recommending me for an Operations Lead position in Singapore, and I'd mainly be looking after Korea and India (yeah, it'll be a challenge). I'll pop into the New York office for an interview when I'm there at the end of June and we'll see what happens after that. But, that's all back of my mind right now - right now, it's all about the coolest thing you can see on your dive. I saw a very cute Manicina areolata today with a weird oblated growth. Yay!