As we headed to BCS, which is how all the hip kids call Baja California Sur (I’m pretty certain they don’t), we actually had a shopping list of underwater creatures we wanted to see, and there was supposed to be a tattoo at the outset if we saw all of them. Spoilers: we didn’t, so no tattoo. The list was composed of whale sharks, sea lions and hammerhead sharks.
Well that went quickly.
I’m sitting in an airplane seat again. Exactly the one I had on the way in, 27D. The week just flew by. My wife is sitting across the aisle from me with a red hibiscus flower in her hair, she looks fabulous, I’m curious if customs will say anything about it. The flower I mean.
I sing your praise Mysterious Lady of the Sea, I sing your praise Ix’Chel, I sing your praise Cozumel. I sing of your beauties and your mysteries for all to hear.
As you no doubt gathered from the none too subtle opening of this post, I’m thoroughly enthused by our scuba trip to Cozumel. Expectations exceeded.
For the first time in my life I am up in the air on the last day of the year, I certainly hope there will be many more, and so it is not without irony (for a founding member of the D&C no less), that I really hate flying. I’m sure there’s a metaphor or a fake Chinese cookie message in there somewhere, but I’m at a loss to interpret it. My spidey senses are a bit dullish this morning, 3 AM wake-up, Bloody Mary in the airport lounge and all that, plus the aforementioned “dislike” for aerial travel, which if you knew more of my background would bump the irony up to eleven. The complete Diving and Chillin’ clan is headed to Cozumel, meaning the island of the swallows in the Mayan language. Expected activities? Please cue the evident punch line: diving and chilling. For the first time kids, the second generation of the club, are joining us. Time moving on and all that.
I was originally going to name this post “Diving With the Mohawks”, then “Every Dive Makes You Better”, but I settled on “Cold Ass Honky”, because I really, really was. Not in a Macklemore way either, more in the thermocline and water at 5 degrees centigrade (41F) kind of way. Without exaggerating one tiny bit, it felt like little needles of burning pain all over my body. You know you’re in trouble when you’re the only guy at the bottom without a dry suit. Still well worth it though, that’s diving for you.