Comings and Goings…..Week 7 in Pez Maya

Hola vacas locas!

The end of week seven already – who would have thought it! Time flies when you’re having fun as they say (whoever ‘they’ are) and fun has certainly be had this week. First, the diving – we’ve actually been doing it this week – awesome! The staff have even hinted that full monitoring of the reef will begin next week; we’re all just a teensy bit excited by this news to say the least. The coral kids can hover on their heads for hours on end (or we could if we had an endless air supply…) and the fish freaks can swim slower than anyone has ever swum before - we are ready!

The Rescue Divers and Divemaster Trainees are also being kept busy saving lives, demonstrating skills, leading dives and learning all about physics and physiology – exciting stuff. Some of the DMTs look about ready to keel over – stick with it guy’s, it’ll be worth it in the end!

As we mentioned last week, there was an exchange with the GVI expedition at Mahahual; we lost Sarah, Jax, Mark & Lluvia for four days but gained Kyle, Holly, Elsa and Denise. Much fun was had and it was great to have some ‘fresh blood’ in the fold – although everyone here was glad to get our missing sheep home again. We were especially pleased to see them as they managed to lure one of the Mahahual staff back to Pez Maya; Nikki has very kindly been loaned to us for a while – welcome, Nikki, we hope you love it as much as we do!

As we’ve been on a bit of a diving roll this week some of us decided to take another tour around some of the amazing cenotes (underground rivers, more or less) that this region is famous for. This time we visited Gran Cenote and the dramatically named Temple of Doom; the general consensus? One of the most incredible experiences we’ve ever had, ever! The stalactite & stalagmite formations in Gran Cenote are exquisite, and the atmosphere in Temple of Doom is something else – the name is well deserved! The way the light falls through the water at the entrance to the cenote makes it look like a skull (or The Mighty Boosh face, depending on your point of reference…), but undoubtedly the best part of Temple of Doom is the fact that it’s made up of a layer of salt water (being more dense) sitting below the layer of fresh water. You can shine your light at where the two meet (called a halocline) and watch as the beams bounce off in different directions. You can also feel it when you’re swimming through it: salt water – toasty warm; fresh water – not so much…Cool as… This trip was preceded by a lecture from the lovely people at ‘Cave Heaven’ telling us all about how the cenotes were formed and how we can get ourselves certified as Cavern and Cave Divers. Many of us are really keen to do it – it’s just a question (as always) of money and time…

And so on to some non-diving antics. For some reason Top Trumps seems to have become quite a popular game this week. We have two decks – sharks and Harry Potter – but have discovered that it’s rather difficult to combine the two and play with one giant deck; we can’t decide if a maximum depth score of 1000 feet should trump a magical ability of 8… It did inspire us to create our own Top Trumps cards though – one for coral and one for fish. Categories include maximum size, abundance, susceptibility to disease, number of young (for fish), toxicity (for coral) and so on. We are convinced that they would prove to be an invaluable study tool for future Expedition Members – we’ll let you know how we get on.

Another extracurricular activity this week has been inventing ‘Pez Maya slang’ names for coral. It’s like cockney rhyming slang, but without the cockney. Or the rhyming. We now have many beautiful (and tenuously linked) new names for different corals; Agaricia agaricites is Popeye, Acropora prolifera is Zorro and Millepora alcicornis is General of the Armies of the North…it goes on. Mike, Greg and Liz are insanely proud of these and will bore you for hours if you mention the subject. Everyone else on base has learned this the hard way (any future Pez Maya EMs do not fear – we’ll leave you a full list).

Finally it’s been a week of hair cutting madness. Julia has set up a salon where payments can be made in the much sought after currency of Ferrero Rocher; both Liz and Mark have taken advantage of the service so far. Liz’s crop is now much tidier and Mark took the plunge and had his long locks turned into a short back and sides. Julia did a great job on both – especially as the only scissors we can find are the giant kitchen shears which are about as sharp as a banana.

Until next time, manten la fe y serás grande!

Comings and Goings…..Week 7 in Pez Maya