Days 5 & 6- Eagle ray, Eagle ray, Eagle ray!!!!

Day 5 (Thursday) was another rest day. Ken gave me a belated Valentine’s present by scheduling me a morning at the spa. I got to enjoy the sauna, Jacuzzi, a massage and skin treatment. If I were to win the lottery, this is the lifestyle of the rich in which I would partake. I don't need fancy cars, big mansions or expensive jewelry, but I really like spa treatments!

Thursday was our only day of rain, so like true Lawrances (or Bredemeiers for that matter) we play cards. The rain cleared and we played more volleyball in the pool.

Day 6 (Friday) was our last day here. L At breakfast, I said the chant that we learned in Belize “Eagle ray, eagle ray, eagle ray… Turtle, turtle, turtle.” I was missing my sister-in-law and so I did this one for her. Low and behold, it worked. On our first dive we saw a turtle surfacing. On the second dive we all saw an eagle ray. They are really hard to photograph, but Ken swam his heart out into the swift current to bring you all these pieces of beauty.

We spent the last afternoon soaking up our last dose of UV rays for a few months and then packing. Boo hoo…

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Day 4- Best Diving Yet!

Day 4 (Wednesday) was my (Kristy’s) best day of diving. The first dive (Palancar Caves) was a little rough because of all of the swim-throughs. Even after three days of diving, I still do not relax in them and the anxiety makes me breath in more of my air. It was the first dive that I actually had to show the dive master that I was running low by the safety stop. However, that was not enough to make the dive bad. We saw 3-4 sea turtles. I was the last one into one of the swim-throughs and right before I went in, I saw a turtle. It saw me and was very curious. It swam a half circle around my mask about a foot away with its left eye one me the whole time. I just turned slowly in a circle and watched the beautiful animal.

The second dive was even better. The dive master took the group through a swim-through. I had had too many of those on the first dive. On the boat, the dive master told us that if we did not want to go through them, we could follow the bubbles on top of the reef. I started the dive with 300 lbs less air and did not want to use it up on a swim-through. As I followed the bubbles, I looked up and about 4 feet away from me with a fish cleaning its underside was a spotted eagle ray. It is my favorite sea creature. I was thrilled. I got to watch it a few moments until it swam one direction and the current took me the opposite. No one else in our group saw it. The divers on the other boat saw it and were talking about it on shore. My guess is that they are not as common here as in Belize. We don’t have a picture of one from this trip since photographer Ken was under the coral at the time. I’m posting an old one from Belize to remind you of what an eagle ray looks like.

We also decided to try a night dive tonight. It was only my second night dive ever and the last one was 10 years ago. I was a little nervous. Fortunately, I calmed down as soon as I got down and starting seeing the things that we never see during the day. We saw sharp-tail eel, Spanish lobster, puffer fish (not puffed though), yellow stingrays, flounder, spiny lobster, squid, anemone, and more. It was a good dive as well.

Cozumel Days 2 & 3

Sorry that blogging has been slow from the Lawrance family. I did not feel like blogging Day 2 (Monday) because it was almost exactly like Day 1- diving in the morning seeing about the same sea life and water volleyball and pool time in the afternoon. Rough life, eh?

Day 3 was different, but I couldn’t blog because Ken had an important thing to do on the computer (watching the Butler game on the Slingbox). We took the day off and slept in until 7:00 instead of 6:30. J Getting up weekdays at 5:00 AM to exercise has become such a habit that my circadian rhythms will no longer let me sleep later. Fortunately, we were able to take multiple naps during the day! We also played tennis. The resort has a tennis court and lets you check out racquets and 6 balls. We only sent three of them over the fence! We had dinner reservations at the resort Italian restaurant, Roberto’s. It was a fun opportunity to dress up and have something different for dinner.

Cozumel- Day 1

Greetings from Cozumel, Mexico. Our latest adventure took us south yesterday. We were quickly reminded that Mexico = Flexico. We got in at 1:30 and did not get to our room until 4:00. Customs, immigration, and check-in were all very slow.

Our resort was worth the wait. We are staying at the Wyndham resort. It is a three part, all-inclusive resort. There is a family section, an adults only section (Sabor- where we are staying) and a members only section. We really like it and would recommend it for families and couples.

This morning we went SCUBA diving. It was great to be underwater after a 2 year hiatus. The first dive was a steep reef with many swim-throughs. This was a good opening dive to get used to diving again. It was a good test of buoyancy. We saw more on the second dive- lobsters, grouper, flounder, and a turtle and a nurse shark. The only thing missing were the rest of the Lawrances. Megan, I thought of you with every angel fish. Ken’s mission is to get a great picture of one for you!

We returned to the resort and enjoyed an afternoon by the pool. Ken and I joined in on the afternoon activity of “Mayan sacrifice”. This was a “triathlon” of swimming, running up steps, sliding down a slide, swimming, and then chugging a beverage. I beat Ken and some of the other men, so I was happy. We got talking with some of the other guests during that game and they invited us to play water volleyball afterwards. It was a blast.