January 13, 2012 – Costa Maya, Mexico

 

Bob:

If you build it, they will come!  Apparently that applies to both baseball fields and cruise ship ports.  Someone decided that the Yucatan needed someplace for cruise ships to stop since Cancun was getting too crowded so they poured a bunch of concrete near a small fishing village and called it Costa Maya.  There is really nothing here except an ocean and mangrove swamps.  There are Mayan ruins but they are almost an hour drive away.  Even the scuba shops are 10-15 minutes over dirt roads to the fishing village.

Maxine went on a bus tour to the Mayan ruins while I went scuba diving again.  Since the Holland America ship came in earlier, they got the 8am scuba trip and Celebrity had the noon slot.  I had tried to book independently, but there is only the one shop servicing the cruise port, and the ships have that fully booked so I had to book with the ship.  I like small scuba boats where you get more personal attention and are able to dive mostly the way you want.  In Cozumel I was with three other divers and in Roatan with two others.  Today there were 13 divers on the boat with two dive guides.

Because of the large groups with varied skills and experience levels, the dives were quite shallow and short.  On the first dive they didn’t want us below 60 feet (the level that PADI likes for a newly certified diver) and limited time to 45 minutes.  On both dives I surfaced with over a third of my air left in the cylinder.

There were none of the exciting fish, like eels, sharks and rays, but there was a fairly good representation of the smaller and very pretty fish.  There were several varieties of parrotfish and butterfly fish.  We found several large lobsters that would have made and excellent dinner, but you aren’t allowed to take them on scuba gear, free diving only.  Once again the lionfish were present and once again the dive guide didn’t bring along a spear to do some eliminating.  She did say that they are now having regular lionfish hunts and killed over 250 at the last one.  I don’t the human hunting is going to control the population of a fish that lays 30-40,000 eggs every few months, but it seems to be helping in some areas.  One guide said that some of the larger fish now follow them when they are hunting and are willing to eat the lionfish when they are pulled off the spear.  Perhaps they will develop a taste and start to hunt them on their own.

This was our last port.  Tomorrow we are at sea and then on Sunday we return to land and the more real world.

Maxine:

Today I went to see the Mayan ruins at Chacchoben.  It took about 45 minutes to get there, driving through green jungle punctuated by the occasional small village.  Our guide,  David, led us through the ruins while doing an excellent job explaining Mayan society, government, politics,  and religion.  We saw two large pyramid-shaped temples and the foundations of a very large house, along with many good size mounds that were covered with rocks and trees, waiting for archeologists to come and search for more buildings that are surely hiding beneath the surface. 

I was very impressed with David’s expertise and knowledge as well as with his communication skills.  I really learned a lot and now have a much deeper understanding of an ancient people and their complex culture which he brought to life so effectively. 

Today was very warm and humid, with occasional rain showers, so I was very glad to get back to the ship and relax for the rest of the day.