Reptilian Spirit Guides & Ocean Butterflies
On my second day in Puerto Vallarta, I decided my sea legs needed some exercise, so I went on a two-tanker with a small dive-shop called Ocean Quest to the Southern part of the Bay of Banderas, near a beach called Majauita. The divemaster L. in his 40's had started diving in '97, and liked it so much that he decided to join the industry, and moved to Mexico from Germany in 2000. He said he decided to leave Germany after a couple friends in his same industry and the same age dropped dead of heart attacks. Aside from chain smoking, or perhaps because of chain smoking, he seemed to be about as laid back a person possible, so it renewed my time-to-time daydreaming about becoming a professional diver and living in the tropics. (Beach living is an essential component of my 8-fold path to bumhood, which I hope to elaborate in the coming months, just after I stop using snooty words like "elaborate" in my speee-aatch.)
I decided not to get the Advanced Certification just yet, because conversely L. was so laid back, that I doubted how much challenge I'd get out it.
On the trip out to Majauita, we passed scores of monstruous multi-story mansions jutting out of cliffs. The one I thought was most interesting was an ultra-modern design, which incongruously had a traditional tile of the Virgin Mary next to the swimming pool.
There were only two other divers on the expedition, a fifty-something lawyer J. from Nevada and his son (a very brave fan of body modification, with a gigantic ear piercing that made loops of his lower ear lobes), but they had brought the rest of the family with them to snorkel. I was still jet lagged, so I didn't talk much, but listening, my initial impression that they must be a pretty religious family (with 5 kids) was confirmed when J. started talking to the second divemaster K. on the boat about accepting Jesus as his personal savior, a few minutes after his twelve year-old daughter had got into a debate with K. about witchcraft being real. I guess the snippets of conversation sounded strange since I was feeling meditative, and was just focusing on the skyline, happy to be in the presence of the gran acuario santo once again.
We were passed on the way by a Pirate sailing ship that my dad apparently got the chance to steer at a company party on it when he last went to PV. Parting observation as the masts set under the horizon: people on vacations in not-your-everyday vehicles like to wave at passing strangers. Why only when passing, is it just that you are waving at a group? (Insert Seinfield monologue/tone here, "Really people...")
On the first dive, we went to 85 feet (deepest I've been so far) along a slope, and awaiting us at those depths was a miniature scene straight out of "Dune." There were scores of two or three feetlong garden eels (as in 80-90) wiggling to and fro to an unseen snake charmer, half their bodies concealed within their seabed burrows. Also at the beginning of the dive there were umpteen Angelfish at a shallow depth, so that we were totally surrounded by the schools...and L. brought pieces of bread to feed the fish. The great thing about the dive site due to it being on a slope was that during the safety stop at fifteen feet (a practice to add an extra margin to avoid the bends), there was as much to see as at eighty (instead of watching the clock).
After a tuna fish sandwich lunch (not bad, with some sort of corn admixture), and hanging out at a practically deserted resort beach for the session interval (the time taken out of the water to allow nitrogen to diffuse from the body), the boat went one or two beaches up north near another resort. I was puzzled for a moment why arrr, seadog of the seven seas that I be, I could spot no bikini models on the other resort's beach. Mental transcript: "Ay captain Mojo, where she be! Me ain't got de' least sight o'her." But at least in this case, true to positive stereotype (I leave to another day the question of if such a thing could exist), my first clue at a glance was that the beach was missing any of my fellow metabolically-challenged friends -- "Oh. [Punchline deleted, not offensive to anybody, just Jay-Leno-lame]"
Generally you use a shallower dive profile on a second dive, so we went to about 50 feet. There weren't too many notable sightings, but near the end of the dive, L. who was my dive buddy, made a sound with his horn. There was a big sea turtle flapping its wings maybe ten feet below the surface. The father-and-son had some notion about trying to stay as deep as possible as long as possible, which caused them to miss seeing it. (It's a 360/3-D undersea world, a wider angle of vision. Unless you have a personal bathyscape, deeper for depth's sake doesn't necessarily mean better. Under the clear conditions, a snorkeler could have seen 75% of what we saw for a fifth or less of the price -- but granted it's not as up close and personal.)
On the way back, well, when the NPR-mellow meditation leader says, "Think back to a happy place....What is surrounding you...what are the sounds?" T'was there. In a place without any butterflies of the stomach variety. Instead, maybe 150 meters out from the shore, there was a yellow butterfly that fluttered starboard our boat for over five minutes. That's when I knew it must be an omen from the depths of another world! The sea turtle must be my long-lived, green-like-an-alien, spirit guide. As yet I've had no mystical visions and dreams instructing me to "go to the place where XYZ," where XYZ="buffalo shed mammoth tears", "the coyote howls at the half-moon and chases tail," or even, " it's always summer, not an ounce of snow, and there are lots of delicately-featured, beached creatures who just can't seem put on all the sunscreen by their little lonesomes."
On second thought, I guess the dream doesn't need a talking sea turtle to be sweet. With my luck, the turtle would probably make me go on some self-sacrificing Rambo mission to kick egg-poacher ass anyways, and how does that lend itself to preventing the serious menace of melanoma one backrub at a time?
Well, who's for it? Go to that happy place. Whatyawaitin'fer.
Wow, for once, I'm speaking a dialect of Californian and I feel no shame.
(The one cool thing I liked about Ocean Quest, besides the small number of divers was that L. had taken digital photos, but alas, he was still a beginner at it because all the photos of me had bubbles obscuring my face. I regret not bargaining for the photo set just so I could better convey the wonders of the not-that-deep, but hopefully future expeditions. )
I decided not to get the Advanced Certification just yet, because conversely L. was so laid back, that I doubted how much challenge I'd get out it.
On the trip out to Majauita, we passed scores of monstruous multi-story mansions jutting out of cliffs. The one I thought was most interesting was an ultra-modern design, which incongruously had a traditional tile of the Virgin Mary next to the swimming pool.
There were only two other divers on the expedition, a fifty-something lawyer J. from Nevada and his son (a very brave fan of body modification, with a gigantic ear piercing that made loops of his lower ear lobes), but they had brought the rest of the family with them to snorkel. I was still jet lagged, so I didn't talk much, but listening, my initial impression that they must be a pretty religious family (with 5 kids) was confirmed when J. started talking to the second divemaster K. on the boat about accepting Jesus as his personal savior, a few minutes after his twelve year-old daughter had got into a debate with K. about witchcraft being real. I guess the snippets of conversation sounded strange since I was feeling meditative, and was just focusing on the skyline, happy to be in the presence of the gran acuario santo once again.
We were passed on the way by a Pirate sailing ship that my dad apparently got the chance to steer at a company party on it when he last went to PV. Parting observation as the masts set under the horizon: people on vacations in not-your-everyday vehicles like to wave at passing strangers. Why only when passing, is it just that you are waving at a group? (Insert Seinfield monologue/tone here, "Really people...")
On the first dive, we went to 85 feet (deepest I've been so far) along a slope, and awaiting us at those depths was a miniature scene straight out of "Dune." There were scores of two or three feetlong garden eels (as in 80-90) wiggling to and fro to an unseen snake charmer, half their bodies concealed within their seabed burrows. Also at the beginning of the dive there were umpteen Angelfish at a shallow depth, so that we were totally surrounded by the schools...and L. brought pieces of bread to feed the fish. The great thing about the dive site due to it being on a slope was that during the safety stop at fifteen feet (a practice to add an extra margin to avoid the bends), there was as much to see as at eighty (instead of watching the clock).
After a tuna fish sandwich lunch (not bad, with some sort of corn admixture), and hanging out at a practically deserted resort beach for the session interval (the time taken out of the water to allow nitrogen to diffuse from the body), the boat went one or two beaches up north near another resort. I was puzzled for a moment why arrr, seadog of the seven seas that I be, I could spot no bikini models on the other resort's beach. Mental transcript: "Ay captain Mojo, where she be! Me ain't got de' least sight o'her." But at least in this case, true to positive stereotype (I leave to another day the question of if such a thing could exist), my first clue at a glance was that the beach was missing any of my fellow metabolically-challenged friends -- "Oh. [Punchline deleted, not offensive to anybody, just Jay-Leno-lame]"
Generally you use a shallower dive profile on a second dive, so we went to about 50 feet. There weren't too many notable sightings, but near the end of the dive, L. who was my dive buddy, made a sound with his horn. There was a big sea turtle flapping its wings maybe ten feet below the surface. The father-and-son had some notion about trying to stay as deep as possible as long as possible, which caused them to miss seeing it. (It's a 360/3-D undersea world, a wider angle of vision. Unless you have a personal bathyscape, deeper for depth's sake doesn't necessarily mean better. Under the clear conditions, a snorkeler could have seen 75% of what we saw for a fifth or less of the price -- but granted it's not as up close and personal.)
On the way back, well, when the NPR-mellow meditation leader says, "Think back to a happy place....What is surrounding you...what are the sounds?" T'was there. In a place without any butterflies of the stomach variety. Instead, maybe 150 meters out from the shore, there was a yellow butterfly that fluttered starboard our boat for over five minutes. That's when I knew it must be an omen from the depths of another world! The sea turtle must be my long-lived, green-like-an-alien, spirit guide. As yet I've had no mystical visions and dreams instructing me to "go to the place where XYZ," where XYZ="buffalo shed mammoth tears", "the coyote howls at the half-moon and chases tail," or even, " it's always summer, not an ounce of snow, and there are lots of delicately-featured, beached creatures who just can't seem put on all the sunscreen by their little lonesomes."
On second thought, I guess the dream doesn't need a talking sea turtle to be sweet. With my luck, the turtle would probably make me go on some self-sacrificing Rambo mission to kick egg-poacher ass anyways, and how does that lend itself to preventing the serious menace of melanoma one backrub at a time?
Well, who's for it? Go to that happy place. Whatyawaitin'fer.
Wow, for once, I'm speaking a dialect of Californian and I feel no shame.
(The one cool thing I liked about Ocean Quest, besides the small number of divers was that L. had taken digital photos, but alas, he was still a beginner at it because all the photos of me had bubbles obscuring my face. I regret not bargaining for the photo set just so I could better convey the wonders of the not-that-deep, but hopefully future expeditions. )
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