SNORK

Here is the snorkel trip report from Feb 11, 2010.   The day started with a pickup from OXXO.   They pulled up in a big bus.   There were 4 people on the bus.  We made it 6.   That was the entire crowd, 6 people.  We got to the marina quickly.   One guy got off the bus and greeted our host.  Pepe said Hi to everybody but he remembered us from last year!  We got hugs and the super deluxe Mexican hand slap greeting.  Pepe made sure everybody filled out our forms and drank a drink.   Good start at 10:00 am.  Pepe kept handing everyone drinks all day long.  He was non-stop.  Even if you didn't order one they kept coming.  So okay now it was time for everybody to get on the boat.  He was herding us.   We walked out to the Pier onto a very nice tri-maran.   As we exited the harbor  Pepe told us it was okay to start enjoying our special trip option.   They drove us around a bit and gave us our flippers and snorks.   I guess our boat must have had something special about it because we attracted so much attention.   Four other boats with scuba divers came up next to us and waved.  Also 2 or 3 wave runner parades came by and one flotilla of little speed boats followed their leader right past us.  Most people seemed to be very interested in the make and model of our boat because they smiled and waved to us and inspected the vessel very closely, but others just kept their eyes straight ahead. 

After our crew dropped the anchor we all put on our vests, masks and fins.   We looked really funny wearing that stuff out of the water.   Soon after we got in Pepe started yelling to come to his location.  He grabbed the camera from me and took off swimming fast.  We followed him closer to the reef.  He had spotted a sea turtle!   Hopefully the pictures will turn out.  (They didn't)   The weather was a little cloudy so the color of the water was only just beautiful.   Spotting the turtle made up for that.   We saw an big angel fish too.   Lots of Jacks and millions of those yellow and blue fish were around all the time.  Pepe had a bottle of fish food he was dispensing.   He even caught a fish with his hand and held it above the water for a second or two,  Just long enough for a picture.

Okay enough snork.  Pepe wanted to know if anybody wanted to ride the spinnaker.   They thrash you all around violently til you fall about 20 feet back into the Caribbean.  Nobody wanted to do that.   The captain got on the radio to make sure our lunch would be ready.   We pulled up at a lonely spot where a grill and table with tablecloth was awaiting us.  There was something special about that deserted spot too.   Our chef and his two assistants had prepared an impressive feast for the 6 of us.   Hamburgers, hot dogs, ribs, chicken and two kinds of tacos.   They had pasta salad, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa and some Mexican condiments on the side.  We hung around on that beach for about 2 hours.   I also think there was something interesting in the sand because during all that time about 8 people came by.   They were really staring hard at the sand even though we waved at them.

That is when they ran out of rum and started feeding me vodka. 

UPDATE
February 2011

Experience is a great teacher.   This time our new underwater camera went directly to the hands of Pepe.   He was gracious enough to snap a bunch of photos, some of which are posted here.

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