2 set-up dives completed

The Cenote-actually last year's photo, but it looks the same...not as muddy though.

Hola!! Monday we picked up 10 stages from the jungle fill station after breakfast at Turtle Bay Bakery in Akumal......we were headed that direction to get the bottles so we figured a ranchero omlete would get us through the day. The most stressful part of the whole day was me having to converse with the Senora who owns Rancho Santa Rosa (the propery where the cave is we wanted to dive). Fernando called her and gave her a heads up on what we wanted to do, but negotiating through the whole thing with my bad Spanish was harder than towing 3 stages through the cave. In the end, we paid her for a week of diving and walked away with the key to the gate! Sweet deal. No more trying to locate her in town or getting locked in on her ranch!

So after all that we geared up and set our first two stages in the cave. For our cave diving friends, we set the first stage aprox. 2000' and the second aprox 4000'. We scootered all the way to Camillo, which didn't take that long...total dive was about 93 minutes....scootering rocks!!

Today was a bigger set up day...but even though we got a late start, we had the key so no problems with access. Except for one thing...it seems the Senora didn't tell everyone that we were diving, so I got asked twice to pay again. Luckily I knew how to tell the workers, I paid yesterday for the whole week and I have a key to the gate....claro!!
Me...a vision of loveliness as I haul gear at Cenote Los Muchachos.

We started off with 3 stages again and had 2 from yesterday already in the cave. Without boring everyone with the details, we completed our plan, and have 2 stages set up past Cenote Camillo ( aprox. 5500') and one way up past a section called the "Loft" (aprox 7000'). Our plan is being revised because once up in the "Loft" you can't scooter and bringing more than 2 stages is completely out of the question....it is just too small. You have to unhook any stages you have and push them in front of you. Anyway, it was a nice dive and the parts we were worried about weren't that small and the one's we remembered as being bigger....just weren't :)

After cleaning up and breaking all the gear down, we walked down to Don Caffeto's for dinner....it was good. Plus more people watching. We ran into Alex Alvarez (owner of Aquatic Tulum Dive shop) and Beto Nava, who is an instructor for GUE (Global Underwater Explorer's) from the Bay Area. He didn't remember us at first but then he did.

Another side note, we have been having a few breakfast meals at Azafran's (a resturant near our apartment) where it seems the same people always go, so we are getting to hear the gossip about Tulum. It seems Tulum is now it's own municipality seperate from Playa del Carmen, and some of the locals are worried about what that means. They want to make sure the layed back atmosphere doesn't turn into another Playa...and are also worried about the cenote's being turned into open rivers. That was the gossip today. I know the municipality part is true because I read it in the Akumal newsletter and they were worried about being part of Tulum...and what that would mean to them.

Oh, one last thing...while looking at property in Tulum, we found Hotel Posada del Luna for sale for a mere, $790,000. Holy Crap. It woudl take you 6-10 years to get your money back....we would guess anyway.

Small set up dive tomorrow and then the next day is our big dive.

Karen and John