Across the border and into Mexico

We crossed the border at Brownesville into Mexico at 6am. No issues at all with immigration...we were bracing ourselves for the worst. Last April when we drove the truck out, we got in the wrong line and literally... just drove across the border without having anything stamped or turning anything in...who knew? Anyway, we were a bit worried about that. John learned a new rule about the FM3. Apparently, you can't stay out of Mexico for over 6 months...you must return within that timeframe. The officer was really nice about explaning the rule and also since there was no stamp to prove when we left...John got to keep his FM3. We know the rules now :)

This leg was long but uneventful. There was a particular song, "shakedown street" by the Grateful Dead that was ringing in my head after Tampico. Yep, we got shaken down by the policia. The funny part was, there was absolutely no pretense....we want money for drinks was what was said. John said "no" followed by "no ingles" and then they shifted over to me. I gave them a few pesos (ok...$100 pesos) we went on our way and I am sure the traffic behind us was greatful since the "road stop" disappeared after the contribution.

One last thing, if you ever get to Tuxpan, Mexico....the Holiday Inn is awesome. Tuxpan is a really neat place because it is right on the river and the Holiday Inn has great rooms, fast reliable internet, stunning views of the river and really cool lighting both inside and out. We used to stay at the Best Western here....Holiday is has that beat hands down.

On to Villahermosa tomorrow.... diggity diggity

The journey has begun

We made it to Ft Stockton, TX safe and sound. On to Brownsville tomorrow morning and if all goes well, we will be crossing into Mexico first thing Tuesday morning. Two days across Texas and three days through Mexico to our final destination, Tulum.

We were home less than 24 hours before we started this roadtrip, having just returned from Vegas where we attended the DEMA show (Trade show for SCUBA). That was a blast... seeing all the "scuba celebrities", friends, new equipment, and just overall fun. No rest for the weary!

Preparing to head back down to Tulum

We are busy getting ready for another trip down to Mexico, driving the truck back down. Last April we drove it back to the US as it needed some work. Truck is repaired and very soon to be Mexico ready. John already got the new sticker at the Mexican consulate....which is so awesome, I can't even tell you.

We are making a pact to have more pictures and less writing for our Fall 2010 trip blog. Sometimes though, diving, margaritas, friends and food get in the way of our "pacts".

We will also be attending the GUE (Global Underwater Explorers) conference during our stay. Also heading back to Camillo for more exploration and survey ....should be a great trip.

Keep checking for updates.

Rain Rain Go Away

It has been rainig for the last 2 days. Unfortunately the weather report doesn't say it will stop anytime soon. It was a torrential downpour yeaterday. But today has some sunny spots so far.

We were supposed to do our last dive in Camillo yesterday, to pick up our safety bottles that are still there, remove some jumps and check out the new lead. Good to go right......Nope! Once again our plans were foiled by the land owner. She changed the lock....we had the key, but she changed the lock....really? Long story but the short version is she didn't want us in anymore, and thought we were letting other people in and not telling her. We paid her for the 6 people we took in there one day, but she got confused because she or her son let other people in that day also. Confusing day for her equals no access for us...apparently. Fernando went over and spoke to her, gave her back the key and now we have to go in on Saturday.....not what we had hoped for, but at least we can get back in. Fernando told us we should not let people in without calling her first....since she speaks no English and really fast Spanish, I am not sure that would work out so well....but next time we will do that.

On Monday we went on an excursion with Danny and some other folks to Yax Chen. Yax Chen is a cenote and one of the entrances to the Ox Bel Ha cave system that the Zero Gravity guys and MCEP (Mexico Cave Exploration Project) are exploring. The cave system is really interesting and neat. There are so many centoes that you really only ever go 20 minutes through cave before you get to another one. The cave does not have the magnificant decorations that other caves in the area have, but it was still a neat dive. A great scooter cave for next time. We swam alot for a total dive time of about 2.5 hours...maybe 3...I have to check. One of the coolest parts was a section called the Milky Way. It was a Hydrogen Sulfide layer that looks like a witches cauldron brewing.....it creates a visual distrubabnce that is really cool. Plus if you look at some areas there are "milk ribbons" that are floating in the water. It was really specatular. We also saw a few tarpon in the cenotes. I would go back to this cenote again......with a scooter.

We have been attending the nightly seminars at Zero Gravity. They have been really great. There was one on video, one on the Ox Bel Ha exploration and last night was on some wrecks in Canada and some in Australia. The Australia presentation was done using Microsoft PowerPoint 2010....that had some great features. The Australian who presented works for Microsoft and said it will be available soon. He said if the presentation tanked he could wow us with the graphics and technology. It didn't tank....:)

Only a few days left until we start our drive back to the States.

And now for a few pictures

Some pictures:

John on the way to Zamas Restaurant.

Almost there! They still hold the #1 spot for strongest margaritas....we did another test.

Street in front of Fernado's house, where we stay. You can see the brick grill that used to be used to cook really good hamburgers. It now sits dormant....so sad.

John entering the "compound" with our laundry. This is a side door to get to the room we rent from Fernando.

Once inside the "compound". Our room is around the corner by the dive area.

Lunch at Casa Cenote after the Camillo kick dive. John is wearing one of his new mosquito repellant shirts...."repels mosquitos up to 70 washings". I love the pinatas.

Camillo kick dive.....yes it is true.

We dove Camillo today, but not an exploration dive. We actually, hold on to your hats.....did a kick dive without the rebreathers. Here is how it went down...there are a bunch of folks down here for the GUE Mexico Fun Event and we have the key to the Ranch and they wanted to dive Camillo. Plus one of the guys is doing some photo documentation of the cave system for us. The Global Underwaters Explorers Fun Event was an impromptu event set up by two GUE instructors with the help of Zero Gravity. There are about 30 people down here doing different diving and excursions. So there were 8 divers today heading off in different directions of the cave. it was nice to do a kick dive and poke my head into some holes when we usually just scooter on by to get to our destination.

Tomorrow we are doing an "excursion dive" with Danny and some other people to a cenote called Yaxchen....it is part of the Ox Bel Ha system (currently the longest system in Mexico). On Tuesday or Wed we will go back into Camillo when I get to check out the lead I saw and run the reel. I hope it goes a long ways!!!

The seminar we heard on Friday was an update on the WKPP (Woodville Karst Plains Project-they hold the world record for the longest/deepest cave dive) by Mark Messersmith. It was really interesting, the Powerpoint showed some numbers that are truly staggering. Each rebreather diver spends about $85,000 on gear, a big push dive costs about $10,000, the dive was 28 hours long, and there were a bunch more.....these guys are hard core. Mark talked about doing deco in Turner Sink where you can't even see your buddy because of the silt, so you put your computer right up to your face and tap your buddy on the arm when it is time to switch gas...this went on for hours. The result of these dives showed the Florida State Government how important the spring water is, how fast it travels, and the time they thought the sewage leach fields was taking to get there was actually much faster......they thought years and it turned out to be 32 hours. Guess what sewage treatment plant got moved after that discovery! Anyway, it was really interesting.

It was announced today that the 2010 GUE Conference will be in Mexico this year....I hope we can go!!!

Camillo survey updated ....new lead

We dove Camillo again on Wednesday. The plan was to place labelled markers on the lines we have surveyed so far and also survey the last bit of line we laid. While John was doing the survey, my job was to look for new leads. Dive went really well, my scooter still stuck on a few times and didn't go a few tmes, but the weighting was good and I could deal with the rest.



John completed a bit over 700ft of survey, labelled markers were put on all the lines (except 1), still don't know what kind of bones are back there....and I found a new possible lead. The good news is that the lead is "going in the right direction". We exited the cave at 4.5 hours.



One of the things I have been working on is the technique to carry my own scooter....yippee I finally got it thanks to some coaching from John. I can carry it down, but not back up yet....half the battle.


Here is a picture for proof.

We decided to go to Puerto Aventuras for dinner since we knew we wouldn't be diving the next day....at least that is what we thought before we ran into some people after dinner. Cafe Ole is still a fun place to have dinner; they have great pies and also sometimes live music. ...plus good margaritas. Tonight the owner's band was playing and during break this Frank Sinatra impersonator got up. I have to say, before he started singing I had my doubts. This guy was good. We finished dinner and took a walk around the dolphin pools, I mean jails...someone used that term and it has just stuck....dolphin jails.

We ran into some of our friends from the Pacific Northwest along with some other folks from Canada....and joined them for margaritas. Over the course of catching up, it turned out I was going diving with them in Gran Cenote the following day.

I did two dives in Gran Cenote while John got our gear ready and blended gas.

After one of our dives, we ran into Fred (another one of the owners from Zero Gravity) who let us know about an impromptu seminar on Mayan Archeology that night....heck yeah we will be there....7:30pm at ZG. Since we didn't leave the Gran Cenote until 5pm it was going to be a rush to have dinner and get there....but we up to it.

More on the seminar later.....

We didn't dive today, but are attending another Seminar at ZG tonight. Tomorrow we are going back into Camillo to check out the lead and pull the safety bottles back. After tomorrow we may be done with that section for this trip.

That's what has been happening down here this week....we did see two political marches in the streets of Tulum this week. One an actual people march and the other a taxi driver rally. ...the police came in for the Taxi driver one. I think they were just directing traffic and "watching" that things didn't get out of hand.