I`ll be home tommorow so this will proably be my last entry, though I will try and remember to let you know I got home safely. It has been a busy couple of weeks since I last wrote and there have been lots of goings on. We haven`t had a lot of diving becasue there has been bad weather but I have added to our monitoring effort, had a few more fun dives and taken a few more pictures, I have completed my caverner course and visited three cenotes, one of our boats capsized, and we had our exciting final party.
With regards to the monitoring I really haven`t contributed nearly as much as I hoped to in my time here and if I did something like this again (wehich I would very much like to do) I think I would have to do it for longer than 5 weeks as it is just not enought time, what with all the potential problems (e.g. engines and compressors breaking). I have managed to do 5 or 6 transit monitors (the ones I explained before) and one rover (where we swim in an expanding square and note down everythign we see). The staff did however say I was the quickest person there to start monitoring which is pretty cool, and many of the other five weekers either did one monitor or none at all.
The fun dives have been plentiful recently, when the waves are too rough to allow us to do the shallow monitoring sites (we have sites at 5m, 10m and 20m and we only have the 5m ones left now). There are some really nice places to go diving around our base, and the places we go monitoring are not always the nicests ones (becasue they are the ones that need monitoring!!) so the fun dives are a real treat. In total I have seen about 5 sting ray, and a Barracuda (which was chasing its potential dinner at the time). Haven`t actually managed to have my camera on any of those occasions though as we are only allowed cameras on fun dives and we are usually monitoring or planning to monitor.
The caverner course was amazing, it was done in the Two Eye Cenote (Dos Ojos, it sounds better in spanish) we did 3 dives as part of the Caverner Course and learnt to tie of lines - which was pretty cool, and to floow lines really fast with our eyes shut (in case our torches don`t work). We are now cirtified to dive in caverns with just a Buddy and no instructor though I think it would be pretty scary and I wouldn`t try it before having more experience!! But it was amazing down there, it looked like something out of a film, it was creapy and wonderful at the same time and it was like nothing I have ever seen before, it was soooo beautiful. I will definitly be going cavern diving again, thought they say that there is no where else in the world where you can go cenote diving - only Mexico, only in the Ycatan Peninsula. That is why 4 of us decided to pay for an etra cenote dive at the weekend, with one of the local dive shops in Tulum. We actually went on these dives before the caverner course (and I am glad we did as Dos Ojos was more impressive and it was nice to do them in that order). Car Wash Cenote and Grand Cenote were the two we went to on a weekend and they were both very different, Car Wash was a deeper dive and Grand Cenote was beautiful and perhaps more like Dos Ojos. All three were awesome and in amazing settings.
With everything I have done here I will be coming home a fairly quailified diver!! My dive cards with include PDAI Open Water, PADI Advanced Open Water, PADI Cavern Diver and PADI Coral Reef Specialist. Pretty impressive collection for 6 weeks!!
So, last in the excitment, the boat. Nothing to be worried about, I wasn`t on the boat at the time it sank and none of the people who were were hurt but, it was kinda scary not hearing from them and waiting to see what our rescue effort came to. Basically a huge wave came into the boat and the boat sank due to taking on too much water. The captain and passengers (bar one) were thrown out of the boat when the wave struck, the one guy (Luke), who managed to stay in the boat whilst it was sinking, saved the radio and most of the dive gear. The radio did not work as they were out of range and therefore it was two hours before the rescue boat arrived (we waited an hour for them to potentially be driving back and then it took the rescue boat an hour to travel the 14km to where they were). The guys who were on the boat were still swimming to shore when the rescue boat arrived, as with the kit and with the waves and the current it was a long swim. The guys were exhausted, some (those who salvaged their flippers) made it to land just as the rescuers were arriving and they were taken back in the car, the others were picked up by the rescue boat. But everyone was fine and GVI is now going to reevaluate the idea of allowing boats out of radio contact!!
So, an exciting couple of weeks, the final party was on Saturday (lots of alcohol all round) and since then we have been sad becasue we know we are leaving :( - and becasue we have been clearing up!! I have had an amazing time here and met a lot of really cool people and am actually really sad to be leaving. This is the first time in my travells that I do not feel ready to go home, I really wish I had more time to spend in this place with these people doing the work we are doing.
But hey, that is not to say I am not looking forward to seeing all you lovely people at home!! And will hopefully be seeing you sooner rather than later. Am flighing home tommorow and will be back early Friday morning.
Hope to see you guys soon,
Be in touch.
xx
Wednesday, 19 December 2007
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Pez Maya, Mexico
So, it is now the middle of week three of my time with GVI. (No I am not mad, I know it is Sunday but GVI weeks run Wednesday to Thursday, I do not know why).
It has been an exciting week this week, both in good and in bad ways. During the week I did more fish spots and did my first practise transit, I also got to go to Tulum and visit the GVI Teaching Project officially. Sadly, whilst I was in Tulum, Kate - one of my freinds from the project - swam up too fast during a dive and then had to be taken to a decompression chamber (she is ok now!!). Lastly, to end the week on a good note, we spent the weekend in Playa del Carmen partying and doing fun dives (Kate even managed to party with us for a bit!!).
So, to start at the beging of my narrative, we all know what fish spots are becasue I have told you about them before (this week I saw sting ray on two separate dives - they were amazing to see!!). A transit, however, is something new, it is a type of monitoring technique where we lay out a thirty meter tape and note down all the fish we see whilst swimming along that line. You have to swim really slowly and note down fish in a cirtain vecinity. You do it will two people, person one notes down the adult fish and person two lays down the tape, then you wait 5 minutes (for the fish to settle down again) and then you swim back and person two notes down the baby fish and person one reals in the tape. It is actually quite hard to swim slowly, in a straight line and at a good distance from the bottom and write down fish all at the same time. We are still only getting one dive everyday at the moment becasue of all the problems around base (the compressor and the engin on one of the boats being broken) but hopefully by next week things should speed up if we manage to get two dives a day. Meaning I will be out monitoring (doing what I came here to do) soon!!
On Wednesday (mine and Jons two year anniversary) I got to go into Tulum (the near by town) and experience a day in the life of the GVI teaching project. We went to a TEFL session in then morning, which was really cool, we joined their EMs for a lesson in how to teach English. We then had a load of free time so we went to the internet and got nice food (I ate far too much). In the afternoon we went to a spanish lesson (which was way to advanced and went right over my head), helped with a little of their lesson planning and then went and watched them teach a lesson, which was pretty cool.
We arrived back at base really late on Wednesday night but one of our instructors picked us up in the car and told us on the way home about Kate. Whist out on a dive earlier in the day she surfaced too fast and had a pain in her chest whilst she was comeing up. Ohand, the staff member who picked us up, was also the staff member who was on the boat when Kate surfaced and he said he had never driven the boat so fast in his life. Kate was given oxygen as soon as she was on the boat and was driven straight to Playa del Carmen and taken to a decompression chamber, she is fine now but she cannot do anyhting strenuous for the next two weeks and she can never dive again, which is very sad becasue like all the people at Pez she loves it. Just incase you are worried I would like to assure everyone that my dive computer beeps furiously when I go up too fast, I keep a close eye on it and I tend to be one of the last people to surface. Everyone is different and there are never any garentees though, diving is a dangerous sport and insidents like this make you undersatdn that more and understand why we have the rules that we do.
So, to cheer us up after a week with half the number of dives than usual and the insident with Kate we all went to Playa Del Carmen for the weekend. A group of us went for the dive on Saturday with a dive center in Playa, which was really cool and then we went out drinking Saturday night. Sunday was spent with a loing lie-in womething impossible in Pez even on a Sunday becasue the huts get so hot, it was lovely having a fan in the room.
The dives we went on on Saturday were amazing. We went on two dives, both very different to anything I have done with GVI. We did a drift dive, meaning we just drift along in the current, which was awesome. It was so cool to not have to do any work but at the same time it was kind scary to not really be able to go where you wanted - if you tried to swim into the current you would get no-where fast. We saw loads of fish, but more impressively we saw loads of turtles, something we generally don`t see in Pez. It really was amazing. And then at the end of the 40min dive, when we surfaced, the sun was setting overhead and making the horizon a beautiful orange whilst we were floating in the water, it was so pretty. We then got back into the boat and froze our arses of going to the next site, the site for our night dive. The night dive was also pretty cool. We saw laods of fish, though it was difficult to tell what they were becasue of the light, we also saw a sting ray and an octopus. The Octopus was brilliant and facinated us for ages, it was constantly moving and changing colour (it really looked like it was the inspiration for alien, Ed even said he felt like it was going to just on someones mask at any second). It was really strange not being able to see very far, and only being able to see the others on your dive from where there tourches are shinning, but it was very very cool.
After the dives we went back to the dive center and had a BBQ which was very very yummy, loads of chicken wings and some really good fish and some really good veggies and bread too, I was starving (as I am sure you can imagine). I shared a bottle of white wine with one of the guys, Tim, which was quite a luxury. At about 9pm we headed back to the hotle where I had my first shower in 3 weeks (don`t worry i had been washing with a bucket, well once a week anyways). But the shower was heaven, warm powerful and relaxing. When we had all showered and changed we had a drink in the hotel bar (another glass of wine for me) and then moved onto a sports bar down the rd where we drank some more and chattered away (I drank 2 Capirinha`s, not as good as the ones in Brazil by a long way but they were passable). I decided that was probably a little too much alcohol for me as we made our way to a place we could dance so I didn`t drink anymore, and a good thing two coz I have a cracking hangover this morning (or I should say this afternoon now!!) I was meant to be getting up early and doing christmas shopping today, thought I would say that was lready out of the window after the wine!! But it was a good night and a very good day yesterday.
It has been an exciting week this week, both in good and in bad ways. During the week I did more fish spots and did my first practise transit, I also got to go to Tulum and visit the GVI Teaching Project officially. Sadly, whilst I was in Tulum, Kate - one of my freinds from the project - swam up too fast during a dive and then had to be taken to a decompression chamber (she is ok now!!). Lastly, to end the week on a good note, we spent the weekend in Playa del Carmen partying and doing fun dives (Kate even managed to party with us for a bit!!).
So, to start at the beging of my narrative, we all know what fish spots are becasue I have told you about them before (this week I saw sting ray on two separate dives - they were amazing to see!!). A transit, however, is something new, it is a type of monitoring technique where we lay out a thirty meter tape and note down all the fish we see whilst swimming along that line. You have to swim really slowly and note down fish in a cirtain vecinity. You do it will two people, person one notes down the adult fish and person two lays down the tape, then you wait 5 minutes (for the fish to settle down again) and then you swim back and person two notes down the baby fish and person one reals in the tape. It is actually quite hard to swim slowly, in a straight line and at a good distance from the bottom and write down fish all at the same time. We are still only getting one dive everyday at the moment becasue of all the problems around base (the compressor and the engin on one of the boats being broken) but hopefully by next week things should speed up if we manage to get two dives a day. Meaning I will be out monitoring (doing what I came here to do) soon!!
On Wednesday (mine and Jons two year anniversary) I got to go into Tulum (the near by town) and experience a day in the life of the GVI teaching project. We went to a TEFL session in then morning, which was really cool, we joined their EMs for a lesson in how to teach English. We then had a load of free time so we went to the internet and got nice food (I ate far too much). In the afternoon we went to a spanish lesson (which was way to advanced and went right over my head), helped with a little of their lesson planning and then went and watched them teach a lesson, which was pretty cool.
We arrived back at base really late on Wednesday night but one of our instructors picked us up in the car and told us on the way home about Kate. Whist out on a dive earlier in the day she surfaced too fast and had a pain in her chest whilst she was comeing up. Ohand, the staff member who picked us up, was also the staff member who was on the boat when Kate surfaced and he said he had never driven the boat so fast in his life. Kate was given oxygen as soon as she was on the boat and was driven straight to Playa del Carmen and taken to a decompression chamber, she is fine now but she cannot do anyhting strenuous for the next two weeks and she can never dive again, which is very sad becasue like all the people at Pez she loves it. Just incase you are worried I would like to assure everyone that my dive computer beeps furiously when I go up too fast, I keep a close eye on it and I tend to be one of the last people to surface. Everyone is different and there are never any garentees though, diving is a dangerous sport and insidents like this make you undersatdn that more and understand why we have the rules that we do.
So, to cheer us up after a week with half the number of dives than usual and the insident with Kate we all went to Playa Del Carmen for the weekend. A group of us went for the dive on Saturday with a dive center in Playa, which was really cool and then we went out drinking Saturday night. Sunday was spent with a loing lie-in womething impossible in Pez even on a Sunday becasue the huts get so hot, it was lovely having a fan in the room.
The dives we went on on Saturday were amazing. We went on two dives, both very different to anything I have done with GVI. We did a drift dive, meaning we just drift along in the current, which was awesome. It was so cool to not have to do any work but at the same time it was kind scary to not really be able to go where you wanted - if you tried to swim into the current you would get no-where fast. We saw loads of fish, but more impressively we saw loads of turtles, something we generally don`t see in Pez. It really was amazing. And then at the end of the 40min dive, when we surfaced, the sun was setting overhead and making the horizon a beautiful orange whilst we were floating in the water, it was so pretty. We then got back into the boat and froze our arses of going to the next site, the site for our night dive. The night dive was also pretty cool. We saw laods of fish, though it was difficult to tell what they were becasue of the light, we also saw a sting ray and an octopus. The Octopus was brilliant and facinated us for ages, it was constantly moving and changing colour (it really looked like it was the inspiration for alien, Ed even said he felt like it was going to just on someones mask at any second). It was really strange not being able to see very far, and only being able to see the others on your dive from where there tourches are shinning, but it was very very cool.
After the dives we went back to the dive center and had a BBQ which was very very yummy, loads of chicken wings and some really good fish and some really good veggies and bread too, I was starving (as I am sure you can imagine). I shared a bottle of white wine with one of the guys, Tim, which was quite a luxury. At about 9pm we headed back to the hotle where I had my first shower in 3 weeks (don`t worry i had been washing with a bucket, well once a week anyways). But the shower was heaven, warm powerful and relaxing. When we had all showered and changed we had a drink in the hotel bar (another glass of wine for me) and then moved onto a sports bar down the rd where we drank some more and chattered away (I drank 2 Capirinha`s, not as good as the ones in Brazil by a long way but they were passable). I decided that was probably a little too much alcohol for me as we made our way to a place we could dance so I didn`t drink anymore, and a good thing two coz I have a cracking hangover this morning (or I should say this afternoon now!!) I was meant to be getting up early and doing christmas shopping today, thought I would say that was lready out of the window after the wine!! But it was a good night and a very good day yesterday.
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