We had originally booked a snorkeling trip for Wednesday, but had to postpone it to give Jett a day to recover.\u00a0 That turned out to be a good move as Wednesday was mostly cloudy but Thursday was impossibly sunny and clear.\u00a0 I don’t think Massachusetts ever gets that sunny.\u00a0 It was like someone had removed my eyeballs, polished them with a soft cloth and put them back. My sunglasses needed sunglasses.<\/p>\n
We had snorkeled in Cozumel before, but as a tour from a cruise.\u00a0 This one, booked through the hotel and leaving from the hotel dock, was both longer and less expensive than the other.\u00a0 Given the beauty of the day and the low price, we decided to go all in and booked the 3-reef tour. We left at 12:50 – 20 minutes late because, the staff claimed, the boat had had a flat tire.\u00a0 In charge was “Skinny Winnie” – a rotund jolly man (yes, if he grew a beard he would make a wonderful Mexican Santa) who proved to be talented as both a free diver and mixologist,<\/p>\n
Our first stop – and the only reef whose name I remember – was Columbia.\u00a0 The bottom was 40 or 50 feet below the surface, but the coral formations were towering and in some cases had peaks just 10 feet beneath the surface.\u00a0 The colors were spectaular, the water was crystal clear and the fish were plentiful.\u00a0 I found myself wishing, for the first time in a long time, that I was in my scuba gear so that I could inspect these formations more closely.<\/p>\n
I also found myself wishing that I had brought an underwater camera.\u00a0 I didn’t take one this time because the pictures on my previous trips were underwhelming – gray panels with vague shapes and maybe a spot or two of color, like something a very depressed Mondrian might produce.\u00a0 But I think I would have gotten some nice shots on this trip.\u00a0 Damn.<\/p>\n
Sometimes fish are scarce.\u00a0 I have done snorkel trips where very few fish were seen.\u00a0 On this trip I put my face in the water and was startled to find a fish staring back at me, within arm’s reach.\u00a0 Some chum may have been tossed in the water to attract them as I noticed pickish particles floating around, but the fish seemed more interested in the people than the food. Inquisitive little buggers.<\/p>\n
The second reef ended in a cliff, dropping off to over 100 feet.\u00a0 Snorkeling always produces a “flying” feeling, but swimming over the edge of the cliff made me feel like I was heading toward Europe.\u00a0 Which I was, I guess… just a few thousand more miles to go.<\/p>\n
The third stop was a sand bar.\u00a0 The booze had started to flow by this point and it got a little weird here.\u00a0 We all got into the water (except Jett who stayed on board to keep out of the sun). Skinny Winnie joined us, holding a bag filled with bags of potato chips and towing a boogie board loaded with mixed drinks and cans of beer.\u00a0 We stood on the sandbar, chomping on potato chips and drinking.\u00a0 Just to say I did it, I put my face in the water and kicked a bit, holding my can of beer and my bag of chips out of the water.\u00a0 Snorkling with potato chips.\u00a0 Another first for Sparky.<\/p>\n
We had one more stop at a reef that sported LOTS of huge starfish.\u00a0 And a few sand dollars (or are they sand pesos in Mexico?).\u00a0 It was unlike any spot I have ever seen before.\u00a0 Surreal.\u00a0 But I was getting tired, so I stayed just a few minutes.<\/p>\n
The trip back to the hotel was surreal in a different way.\u00a0 Skinny Winnie convinced a suprisingly large percentage of these married, middle-class parents on Mexican holiday that this would be a good time to do tequila body shots.\u00a0 So Jett and I got to watch (because we most certainly did not participate) couples licking lime juice off of each others’ thighs and sucking tequila out of their navels.\u00a0 What would their kids think if they could see them so engaged?\u00a0 I think at 15 I would have thrown up.\u00a0 If a few of the photos taken that day get to Facebook, families will be destroyed.<\/p>\n
One of the couples on that trip went on a pirate trip the next day.\u00a0 They said it got even weirder… some woman, traveling with husband and family and under the influence of too much tequila, tried to limbo in a short dress and thong panties.\u00a0 Most of the paying customers got a crotch shot that they really didn’t want.<\/p>\n
Mexico makes people crazy.<\/p>\n\n\t\t