You say goodbye, I say hello: Pez Maya, week 5

Hola tiburones locos!

Apologies for the late arrival of this week’s blog, we’ve been busy DIVING!!! Yes, you heard us, DIVING!!! Although it did take until Friday 13th for the excessive, unrelenting, never ending, continuous, 24 hour CONSTANT howling wind to cease -oh, the irony!. To make up for lost time we all worked through the weekend (thank you for giving up your spare time, staff!) so we no longer know what day it is, but we’re fairly certain we’ve been DIVING!!! twice a day for five days solid – WOO HOO!!!

Before this glorious reversal in fortunes we decided to take matters into our own dive-starved hands and went diving in Casa Cenote, as well as the stunning Dos Ojos (Two Eyes) and Bat Cave cenotes, where Ralph saw a vampire (bat – though they didn’t seem to have the same kamikaze attitude as the Pez Maya bats, which hurtle into anyone daring to venture along the hut path at twilight). It was an amazing experience to surface inside a cave full of stalactites with bats nesting between them, not to mention the beautiful natural light conditions in Dos Ojos. It was a brilliant send off for our first group of five-weekers – so it’s goodbye to compressing queens Juliette & Fern, tuck food tyrant Ana and New York’s loudest foghorn Oksana (who was also the proud recipient of the Pez Maya Volleyball Champion trophy). We tried tying them to a tree to keep them here but those wily cats got free and escaped – we’ll miss you all guys!

On a brighter note we’ve managed to rope in five new arrivals and celebrate the return of two old friends. Welcome to Brady, Tina, Caroline, Katie and Alex (the tallest man in the world) and welcome back to lovely intern Rhi and former two-weeker, now five-weeker, Jen – remember them? The new arrivals have already started their lectures, tutorials and tests and are settling into the daily duties like old pros. We were also visited briefly over the weekend by Olly from the GVI office in Playa del Carmen; he had a few dives, complemented us on our cooking and slept in a mosquito hammock (which we all thought was pretty cool) before leaving to go back to the grindstone in Playa. It was great to have you Olly, come and see us again soon (if you can tear yourself away from the paperwork).

Anyway, back to the DIVING!!! Although we’ve only been DIVING!!! again for five days a lot of progress has been made; the new five-weekers are already Open Water certified and nearly have their Advanced Diver qualifications, while the rest of us have been practicing our monitoring techniques. Those of us studying coral are having tremendous fun hanging upside-down over a measuring tape, swaying in the surge and writing down whatever coral (or algae, or marine plant, or creature, or disease) we find beneath it – without turning the right way up. The fish monitors have become quite proficient at counting and identifying fish in imaginary boxes while swimming at a ridiculously slow rate (still easier than coral monitoring though….and yes, your bloggers are coral through and through!).

It’s not all crazy underwater poses and hard work though – we’ve had time for a few fun dives too (not that all dives aren’t fun). One of the dive groups encountered a sleeping nurse shark; they circled around it a few times – very quietly so as not to wake it up – and tried not to wee in our wetsuits with excitement. Everyone who didn’t see it was (and still is) very jealous, which has not been helped by the shark spotters’ over-the-top gloating. The fun dives have also given some of the Divemaster trainees an opportunity to practice their leadership skills; congratulations to Ralph, Greg, Kelsey and Andy, who have all successfully led dives.

There has been an abnormally high ‘accident’ rate this week, with a shocking number of panicked, missing, unresponsive and non-breathing divers both under the water and at the surface, not to mention lots of people running out of air, suffering from cramps or just being generally overexerted and tired. It’s actually pretty lucky really, as it’s given the Rescue Diver trainees plenty of opportunity to swoop into action and practice their skills; everyone on base feels much safer knowing they’re around (although a few of their techniques are a little dubious, such as dragging an unconscious diver into the boat by heaving them up by their breasts….)

On a more serious note there have been a couple of real scares recently; Luke was stung on the bottom by a scorpion while donning his wetsuit – apparently it hurt like hell, but the beast in question was not toxic so his bottom is absolutely fine. We shall all be shaking out our wetsuits before putting them on in future. A little more troubling was Dominique feeling really unwell after a dive and having to have two sessions in the recompression chamber in Playa. Happily she is now fully recovered and is in fine spirits back with us on base, although she won’t be diving again for a while. It’s good to have you back though, Dom!

Rather tenuously linked to all the Rescue Diver and base safety stuff is ‘Jax’s Boat Push Rule’, inspired by Laura’s nightmare involving EMs falling over and being crushed by the boats as they are run out of the sea, onto the beach every evening. The nightmares were, in turn, inspired by Jax falling over into the sea or sand at every evening boat push – every one folks, not just one or two, but every single one! We now have to gently walk them up the beach to allay Laura’s fears that her nightmares might be proved to be a premonition.

So that’s all from us here; see you in another few days when we’ll have more tales of our DIVING!!! adventures. Until then, manten la fe y serás grande!

You say goodbye, I say hello: Pez Maya, week 5