In the home stretch with immigration

We arrived at the immigration office this morning for John's appointment. Things went surprisingly well. There was some intial apprehension when the official informed John that they had been looking for his folder for 2 days. John produced said folder, with the explanation that the lady official handed it to him as we left last Tuesday. He was convinced it was a folder that was just copies, and not the "official" immigration office folder.....until John opened it and showed him the FM3 document. He promptly brought the lady official over to see the folder and she got a bit of talking to. He was very apolegetic and John will have his completed documents next Tuesday and we can come home. Our plan is to come home on Thursday, April 9.....yea!! Of course if by some miracle, I get called to work before then John will be on his own!

We haven't dove in 9 days....since the last really really long dive. The good news is we are feeling better and we will head back in tomorrow to check out some new leads.

We have been talking to some very helpful folks. We believe we are really close to one of the caves Robbie Schmittner is exploring so we had a chat with him yesterday. He is so nice and very helpful. I have also been working on a small project for the QRSS (Quintana Roo Speleological Survey-http://www.caves.org/project/qrss/qrss.htm ) that Bil Philips (another long time explorer) asked if we would take on. It is basically taking a copy of the survey data for Camilo, and re-entering the line names to fit the universal prefix model they have adopted. No small task as I have found out....but I hope to have it completed in a few days. We are very excited about the info we have found out and can't wait to get back into the cave to check out the leads.

The weather has completely changed this week...it is heating up and the bugs are starting to return. That would normally be no problem except our air conditioning has been out since Friday. We have a big garbage bag where it used to be and unfortunately the window slots beneath have no mesh on them. So the dilema is, if we open the slots to get a breeze in, we run the risk of all the mosquitoes coming in and biting John. They don't like me, they just go for John. And he hates their guts. It makes for some restless nights. Fernando said the air conditioning unit will be ready today....I hope he is right or we are heading to a hotel. We can't do a big dive tomorrow on the very little sleep we have been getting the last few days....I would surely run us into a wall or into some small hole from lack of focus.

The lack of sleep was also evident during the questions at the immigration office. The official asked John to write down the name of his father, mother and email. John said, "both of them are dead, they don't have email." I looked at the official and burst out laughing....he laughed a bit too....but not so much. He wanted John's email...hahaaa. No sleep makes you silly and non-functioning.

Two new restaurants opened in Tulum. One is a wine bar and restaurant two houses from Fernando's. It opened for the first time last night...tiki torches lit up the walk way. We have to try that place. And the other is on the main drag, also near Fernando's house. It is before Don Cafeto's. That opened for the first time last night also. We may have to check it out too.

That is about it. I will report tomorrow after our dive.....now back to re-entering cave line data.

Karen and John