May The Stars Light Your Way
After a very full day (which started at 3:30am!) of snorkeling with Whale Sharks, we hit the Italian-themed buffet at the Barcelo Maya Caribe Resort for Italian food through the Mexican lens. After dinner, we headed back to the room for showers and bed!
Tonight was a special dinner included as part of our vacation package. Wendy & I dined at the Mexican restaurant on the Barcelo Maya Caribe Resort. We enjoyed the following: * Amuse bouche: Great salsa, guacamole, shredded white cheese, and a few chips. * Shrimp…
Another beautiful day, two more awesome dives… We got to the dive shop early and received scowls from Steffi, one of the dive shop employees who we really connected with. We’d promised to bring her a cappucino and completely forgot.
Our dives took us to Tortugas, where the sea turtles are and later to Paamul.
Tortugas was the first time I’ve ever seen Wendy descend easily. Normally, she has significant trouble with her ears and equalization, but on this dive, she went down at a normal rate. We had a 49 minute dive with Mikey as our instructor and Dan & Scott from St. Louis on the dive with us. Dan was quite possibly the worst diver I’ve ever seen — he constantly swam with his arms forgetting that they’re all but useless under water and was so multi-level it was unreal — and we’ve seen some doozies. We saw tons of Hawksbill Turtles, Cowfish, and, after both Dan & Scott were cut, we saw a school of GIANT Tarpin during our safety stop.
 
 
After dives, we hung out at the dive shop and talked with the gang a bit, and then went to the pier to swim. Toro, one of the dive shop assistants, came to the pier with loads of fish food and threw it on the wading Wendy, attracting loads of fish to torment her. Being the gentleman, I tossed Toro into the water and threw food on him. After that, he and I got into a language-barrier splash contest. We had lunch and happy hour with Dawn & Jon, a super-cool couple we met down there. They live in Ohio, and pretty close to us, so we’re sure to see them again!
Wendy & I then went to the Mexican restaurant for dinner, which I wrote about here. After dinner, we went straight to bed because Thursday was going to be a big day. A really big day!
Dinner tonight was the Asian-themed buffet at the Barcelo Maya Caribe Resort. We had sushi, noodles, and other dishes with an Asian twist with our friends Dawn & Jon.
We got up early today, and with a purpose… We were diving this morning, with two dives — one to Canyones and one to another very close dive site. Grabbed breakfast at the buffet (fruit, bread, yogurt, cereal, and some meats & cheeses) and then…
Today, we rose early — about 7:30 — since the sun comes up and is ferociously bright by 7:00am. We made our way down to the buffet for breakfast, which, to Wendy’s delight, included fresh fried doughnuts. Breakfast was yogurt, scrambled eggs, cereal with milk, fresh fruit, sausage, and of course a fried doughnut.
After breakfast, we made our way back to the room to get changed, then went swimming by the dock for a while, enjoying the fish that live nearby. Soon, one of the small boats — either the dive boat or the snorkel boat — pulled up nearby and told everyone assembled that there was a nurse shark just over there, within snorkeling distance. Wendy and a few others went off in search of it while Drew stayed by the dock.
The nurse shark was never found, but we also learned that there was a barricuda near the pink bouy just over the other way, and most of the water crew snorkeled over to see it, which they did. Wendy reports that it’s a big sucker — about 5 feet long, and “fat as a sausage”. He guards the pink bouy, it seems.
We ate lunch at the beach cantina with Jon & Dawn, and sat and talked with them for a few hours, enjoying the breeze, the beautiful scenery, and the occasional beer or two. The four of us then went to the pool for a while before heading to the resort’s hot tub where we sat for a bit longer.
Cleaned up and hungry again (though we have no right to be), we went to the Seafood buffet for dinner, which is written up here.
Dinner tonight was the Seafood-themed buffet at the Barcelo Maya Caribe Resort. We had delicious cilantro shrimp, garlic scallops, cowfish, and more with our friends Dawn & Jon.