Thursday, el cenote de dos ojos

 I got a fair amount of sleep last night, even though I had to get up at 7 this morning.

Yesterday we arranged for two dives, today and Saturday. For today, Steve and Isaac dived and Paula and I just snorkeled. In a cenote, which is basically a water-filled cave. Paula had doubts at the last minute, but I talked her into trying it. The problem was 27 steep rocky steps down into the cenote. But she made it. The unexpected problem was the requirement to wear life vests, which she really didn't need, and it was impossible to get hers to stay in place rather than under her chin and around her ears. So she decided to skip the mask and snorkel (since she couldn't get her face in the water anyway) and just paddle around. But she enjoyed it anyway.

The trip to the cenote should have taken an hour and a half, but took three. Apparently there was a bus accident and someone was killed. And beyond that was highway maintenance. After snorkeling, we sat around for another hour or so while Steve and Isaac took their second dive, talking with Antonio, the van driver. So we got back around 5 instead of the planned 4.

The plan for Saturday is for ocean dives, NOT starting in the morning--nice, gentle dives suitable for someone who just want to have fun without having to work at it (i.e., me).

We are staying at El Cid in Puerto Morelos, a fancy (expensive!) all-inclusive resort. It's the "same" dive shop in a new location. The lady that runs the shop is the same as before, but our dive instructor, Noe, has apparently moved into real estate. Weird.

The plan for the rest of the day is: Nothing. It's a good plan.

I have been trying to learn as much Spanish as I can. It is a lovely, simple, clean language. The nouns have gender, but they tell you what gender they have, and almost all of them tell the truth.

In previous blogs I put a lot of pictures. I'm on a Chromebook, not a Mac, and maybe tomorrow I'll dig up enough energy to figure out how to do it on this machine.

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