Sunday, February 25, 2007
Today we dove Hidden Worlds—the Bat Cave and Dos Ojos. I spent a lot of time tensing up my shoulders and worrying about buoyancy. I bumped the top of the caves in a couple of places and had a buoyancy issue for some reason. I think I was bothered a little by diving in an enclosed place. The stalactites (hanging from roof) and stalagmites (growing from the bottom) were amazing, including one that looked like a mother and child. On the second dive, we swam through a shallow place where people were snorkeling. In the light their bodies looked like quicksilver. I saw a swimmer who was missing part of a leg, just like the man I saw on the beach a few days before.
There was a rusty blue ladder down into the cenote, but that was only one of many openings. The dive masters hauled the tanks up and down on ropes. One of them, Matthew, was Shaleh’s son. Our dive master was Juan Carlos. He gave Todd and me and George and Christine (a British couple) a long lecture about not stirring up sediment or damaging the environment. I wonder how many times a day he can dive the caves.
There were strings everywhere (like some Mexican version of Tom Sawyer) tied to rocks to mark our routes. We often encountered other groups of divers (four was the maximum per group). We signaled each other by swimming our lights steadily up and down, up and down against a wall. If we were signaling “OK,” we would swing the lights in a circle. A light swung really fast meant an emergency.
I don’t know why I didn’t like it more. Todd said he felt very relaxed.
We went to La Buena Vida for dinner. I had Pollo Pibil, a Mayan dish in which chicken is coated with a red, rather smoky sauce, and Todd had the catch of the day, which was, of course, grouper. Even though I don’t eat grouper in the United States because it’s overfished, I’ll eat it in Akumal because I figure they’ve caught it there with a hook and line rather than some more destructive method of fishing.
There’s a nice breeze on our balcony tonight, unlike the gale last night. It seems to be windier in February than in November. The waves in Half Moon Bay seem to come in threes. The third is the biggest and most definitive.
posted by Price of Silence @ 8:53 PM
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