5 weeks...half way!

I´ve reached the half way point!

There´s not much to say about diving this week. I only got 2 dives in, because the weather was so terrible. However, on one of those dives, I managed to see an 8 foot Green Moray Eel. Yipe! Instead of diving on Monday, a bunch of us went snorkeling about a kilometer from shore and I saw my first Barracuda, which circled me for a little bit curiously, before finding more interesting things to look at. I also saw my first Ray on that same trip. In addition, I got my second jellyfish sting. This time it was actually teeny jellyfish similar to what they call sea lice. I was repeatedly stung all over my right arm and a bit on my left, as well as my left shoulder, and my left knee. As soon as I finished swimming the kilometer back to shore, I poured vinegar all over myself, but the next day, my arm was on fire with itchiness! I couldn´t stop scratching, and was very nearly driven insane. It took three days and some prescription grade antihystamines to finally control my reaction.

Aside from that, the week was pretty uneventful. We decided to make this our long weekend, to say goodbye to our five weekers (not everyone stays here for 10 full weeks) so I´ve been in Playa Del Carmen since Friday night. I finally got to see my friend Andres´ fire show at the restaurant Fusion, which was great! (I´m not the only fire spinner on base). I also went to this fantastic Cuban restaurant that had a special from 1pm til 6pm, which included a reduction to 1967 prices...which meant my huge meal of three dishes came to about 3 dollars. Overall, it´s been a lovely weekend of souvenir shopping, and hurricane dodging.

Oh, did I mention I just dodged Hurricane Ida? She just passed a few hours ago, northwest of Playa del Carmen. Just a few sprinkles and a bit of breeze. The past few days of normal crappy weather have been much much worse than what this hurricane brought us.

Now I get to go back to base tomorrow to some hopefully more scuba-friendly weather and get more dives in. I´m up to 23 dives, but I need 60 to get my divemaster qualification. Pray to whatever you pray to for good weather for me, please!!

And I´m still trying to get my camera fixed. I promise I´ll have pictures for you as soon as I have a working camera, sigh.

Until next week!