Happy Birthday Lucy!

 According to all her paperwork, today is Lucy's 6th birthday!! What a lucky dog she is :). My youngest brother was very nice to her and did all sorts of special birthday things for her (he's 10yo and still at that age where birthdays are the best thing in the world haha). He made sure my mother got her a present and he made her a "cake" (I think he just crumbled up a bunch of dog bones in a dish, but the dog liked it haha).

MARVET

Hi All!

If you have been following my blog lately to read about MARVET, be sure to check out all the posts since May 31! If you've been reading all along, there's a chance you've missed a post or two because as I've been updating them online, I've set them to be uploaded on the day they corresponded with, even if they were posted after that date.

Enjoy!

Goodbye Playa Del Carmen

Well, this is it! My time in Mexico for MARVET is officially over. The last several days went so quickly starting Saturday! Although I didn’t love every minute of this trip, I loved most of them and that’s what counts! I’m glad the rain finally let up and went away because it was really getting on my nerves by day 5.

My roommate and I got up at 8:30a to finish getting things together and to get breakfast before leaving. I had super yummy French toast with bacon for breakfast – wish I had discovered that sooner! Afterwards, we finished getting her ready to go to the ferry to Cozumel for her flight home. My last adventure in Mexico was finding the post office to mail post cards. The guy at the front desk told me to go to the corner of 20^th and 2^nd and there I would find the mail center, so after I walked my roommate to the ferry, I headed off to find the post office. When I arrived, all I saw was a drop box. Not helpful as I needed stamps first! Begrudgingly and confused, I began heading back towards the hotel to re-explain my request. One block up, I ran into a travel agency. Lucky for me, he spoke English and I was able to explain my predicament. He told me that it was a bright pink building on the right and that I couldn’t miss it, so I tried again. Sure enough, it’s bright pink! I missed it because it’s not much of a store, and it had no identifying markings on the outside that I could see from the sidewalk. 150 pesos later, all of my cards have been mailed!

Next up was finalizing my packing plans. It didn’t take me too long to get everything in order, so I ran back out for a few last minute pictures. There is a beautiful statue on the beach that I had hoped to get a good picture of during my trip and I managed to get an excellent shot as there were few people hanging around so early in the day. Playa doesn’t really start to get busy until mid-afternoon.

I am finally headed to the airport to catch my flight. Several of my groupmates and I caught the ADO bus to the airport, an easy and efficient way to travel and very close to our hotel! To think that 2 weeks ago I stepped off that bus and went the wrong way while touring the city a bit!

Time to say goodbye – it’s been a great MARVET trip Playa Del Carmen 2013!

MARVET Day 10

Today was the last day of MARVET. We headed off to Puerto Adventuras (where we played with manatees) at 7am to tour their fish house. During our time in the fish house, we helped prepare diets for several of the dolphins for the day. The fish house is a spotless and super clean space. To prepare a dolphin diet, you start by hand selecting all the fish for weighing. The fish must essentially be perfect – no lost eyes, broken bodies, guts hanging out, damage to the skin, etc. Next, fish are placed on a scale until the amount the dolphin needs for the day has been met (say 3 pounds). The fish are then evenly distributed among 4 coolers that will go into the freezer for trainers to take out for each session that day. It’s a pretty smelly job!

We had a few more lectures to wrap up with before giving our presentations. We were placed in groups of 4 or 5 and given a research paper to read and present on. Our paper was about marine mammals as sentinels. Our paper and presentation was the longest but each group managed to get through everything! We said our thank you’s and goodbyes and headed back to the hotel for the afternoon off.

Afternoon off? Guess what that means! More diving!! 3 of us headed off to the dive shop for a 2 tank dive. Keeping with tradition of being clumsy and silly, I of course caused the most problems (extremely minor though) and we got 2 beautiful dives on reefs called Mochee and Jardines. We saw tons of fish – I’ve never seen so many big fish in one place which is so cool! We also saw a ton of squid and were able to get really close! We stumbled upon an eel that was sleeping in a cave that must have been at least 6ft long and was as thick around as a small child. I’m glad he stayed asleep! The boat was eagerly awaiting us both times we ascended much to my relief and pleasure. I did really well controlling my buoyancy and breathing during both these dives, I am very proud of my progression!

We had one final MARVET dinner where we received certificates and delicious dinner at the instructors’ house. They made so much delicious food! After dinner, my roommate and I did some last minute shopping before turning in for the night to pack. Tomorrow is a long day!

Dolphin Discovery

Today was a nice and lazy morning. It started with my friend knocking on the door to pick equipment up from the dive shop and asking if I'd be up for a two tank dive tomorrow afternoon. Ecstatic about the prospect of getting 2 more dives in, I happily and readily agreed.

Next up was a delicious breakfast of pancakes at the restaurant next to the hotel. So yummy! Our day didn't start until 11:00a so we had plenty of time to sleep in and get a good breakfast. We took the 12:00p ferry over to Cozumel to visit Dolphin Discovery. They gave us a tour of the facility first and then we got to get into the water with the dolphins! We started with physical exams - dolphin skin feels so smooth and slick! Not like the rays and sharks. They were super playful and full of energy. After the PEs, they let us go through a dolphin encounter! We got hugs, kisses, dances, dorsal tows, splashes, and foot pushes! It was all very magical and exciting. I of course had to find a snorkel mask to keep my face dry during the tow and push haha. It was so much fun!

They did a special sea lion show just for our group. Diego, Rocky, and two others showed off their best tricks. They were so cute. They staged their entrances so that the smallest and youngest went first all the way up to the largest and most impressive sea lion. At the very end, they lined us up and we each received a kiss from their female sea lion.

We got to observe an endoscopy procedure on a dolphin. Unlike dogs and cats, the procedure is performed awake. The animal is surrounded by his trainers and has been trained to swallow and accept the endoscopy scope. It's really impressive - you'd never catch me willingly swallowing a tube! The camera showed beautiful pictures of the esophagus and 1st stomach compartment of the dolphin. Dolphins basically have 3 compartments in their stomach. The first one is tasked with digesting everything that enters into a gruel because dolphins swallow their food whole without even a single chew. We could see lots of fish in the stomach including the tails! Pretty neat!

We took the evening ferry back to Playa Del Carmen and by then it was time for a late dinner. After showers and a refreshing break, a bunch of us decided to hit up 100% Natural for dinner. Such a delicious restaurant. Their menu is at least a dozen pages long and in addition to having tons of yummy dishes, they have multiple pages with fruit juices and smoothies. Healthy and delicious!

Becoming A Fish

Today's topic was all about ecosystems. We have a visiting professor who has frequented the area throughout his career and is very familiar with the local ecosystem.

We started our day at Akumal with a snorkel trip. The workers gave us a hard time about entering the public area for free (they were trying to claim we were entering private property) but eventually let us through. The water was warm and as soon as we entered, we were greeted by a munching sea turtle! The turtle was enjoying a breakfast of turtle grass before heading off. We swam the reef area and I ended up seeing another smaller Hawksbill turtle and a sting ray!

Next up on the list was Yalku. The river bed leads out to the Caribbean sea and is a mixture of fresh and salt water. The rocks looked really cool and there were tons of fish, crabs, and even a few shrimp hanging around. There was a sign at the shower station the asked visitors to not use shampoo or soup when showering. Lost in translation?

The third place we went was called Grand Cenote. A cenote is "a deep natural well or sinkhole of the Yucatán Peninsula, formed by the collapse of surface limestone." That's a pretty all-inclusive definition. They are actually pretty cool (literally as well as figuratively), but I definitely felt a little bit claustrophobic just snorkeling around. Even in my wetsuit, I was freezing! The cenote was all fresh water, which was a pleasant change from all the salty water. It was dark in the cavernous out-pouchings and stalactites hung low from the ceiling. There was a dive party enjoying themselves on the bottom, but I never ever want to dive one. Dark, cold, tight and not my style. Give me a warm tropical reef with tons of pretty animals please!

The forth place we went was a bioreserve. I'm not entirely sure what the original plan was for this site or what the goal was, but we basically just stood at the entrance and talked history for a few minutes. One of the park people offered to take us out to the cenote briefly so we accepted and got eaten alive by mosquitoes.

The last place we stopped at briefly was Casa Cenote. We simply stepped out of the vans to view the cenote and ocean sinkhole before calling it quits for the day. The cenote also has a nickname of cenote manati for supposed manatee sightings occasionally. There was a big sinkhole not far off shore under water in the ocean that we could see from the beach. It would have been interesting to take a peek over the top with a snorkel, but we were definitely tired and ready to call it quits.

Tonight I got to do a night dive! I was so excited at the prospect of getting a good dive here. My camera flash stopped working today (I'm so bummed!) so I didn't get to take it with me. It has to be sent to Olympus for service. I know the dive shop people were trying very hard to make sure everything was wonderful and perfect for us and they did an excellent job.

We collected our gear and headed down to the boat. The first thing we did when we got on the boat was assemble our tanks. Surprise! When I plugged a hose on my regulator into my BCD and turned my tank on, it began to inflate uncontrollably! The inflate button was stuck so they had to switch it out. I almost started crying when that happened because I was so worried about something else going wrong. Between the camera and the BCD and then all of our other ocean adventures or lack of, I just felt like something bad was  for sure going to happen. They brought me back an extra small BCD which isn't what I'm used to so I was a little nervous about that.

Once we had descended I was totally fine. I immediately saw a trigger fish, an eel, and some shrimp, and then we saw an octopus! He was so cool! We watched him climb along the corals and change colors to better blend in. In total I saw 2 eels, 4 stingrays, 7 baby basket stars, 2 flounder, tons of huge fish, a bunch of peppermint shrimp, the largest filefish I’ve ever seen (largest fish I’ve ever seen period) sleeping in a cave, and lots and lots of crabs. I even saw a crab dragging around some sort of carcass for dinner!

I love diving at night. A lot of people feel creeped out by it, but I love how vibrant the colors are. I love how peaceful the ocean looks while fish are sleeping (I saw lots of sleeping parrotfish and surgeonfish). There is an entirely different set of critters to be looked at at night, and it feels so special to find them. I don’t feel like something is going to come out of the dark and eat me, that’s not how the ocean works. If you startle a fish or shark, then sure you might get nibbled, but you’ll see that and nothing intentionally comes up to pick a fight. Nature would rather not try and fight. I love that when you have to use a flashlight, you can only see a small snapshot of the reef at one time. You get to pick apart a small area with your eyes and really see everything it has to offer. I love that.

We finally ascended after 63 minutes because my flashlight died. Not at all scary, the group was right next to me and I could see them with their lights (they just couldn’t see me!). That’s by far the longest dive I’ve ever done and I am so excited by it! We did a three minute safety stop before breaking the surface and when we did, the boat was right there waiting for us. Bobbing in the black waters next to the boat, I could see a Cozumel lit up on one side of me, and Playa Del Carmen lit up on the other. It was truly beautiful and so peaceful. I could have stayed there for a while admiring the beauty. Perhaps not floating at sea without the boat though haha.

We headed back to shore quickly and took care of all our dive gear. It was a phenomenal dive and by far my favorite. Not saying too much since I’ve only logged 12, but I loved every second of it! A quick shower and pizza for dinner and it’s time for bed – I’m exhausted!

Whale Sharks...

Well despite the crazy weather and ocean conditions the Yucatan has been having lately, today's weather held out and we had a beautiful day with calm seas.

The morning started early. We were to meet up as a group at 6:30a and head to Cancun from there. My roommate and I thought we set out alarm for 6a, but we received a big surprise when a friend knocked on the door at 6:28a looking for us. Yikes! Luckily we're quick and pulled it together in under 10 minutes!

The drive to Cancun from Playa is about an hour and we headed off to the marina in vans provided by the tour company. We were all pretty excited, albeit a bit nervous (at least us divers were!) about the prospects of rough seas. The whole group took dramamine before coming today whether they thought they'd need it or not since we were going to be on the ocean for many hours today. Upon arrival at the dock, we were greeted with juice, coffee and breakfast snacks before loading up the small boats and heading out.

They told us it would probably be about an hour to get out to the feeding grounds so we all settled in for a pleasant ride. At the hour mark, they slowed the boat down and told us to start looking for dorsal fins as we rode along. We looked, and looked, and looked some more. An hour passed, then another, then another, then another and still nothing unfortunately. All of the boats out were searching hard, visiting all of the known feeding areas frequented by the whale sharks, but we never did find any. :( Very disappointing! 8 hours on a boat and all we saw was 5 sea turtles and a little reef (snorkeling).

The company was very nice and brought us lunch, snacks, and drinks but it certainly was a long day! I had my wet suit on almost the whole time to spare my skin from sun exposure, but my hands and face are still pretty burnt. I have a lovely line across the back of my hands and rings from my sunglasses. It's super attractive haha. I know our whole group is extremely disappointed that we didn't get to see or swim with the whale sharks. It was such a letdown to have a poor diving experience yesterday and then not see the sharks today that we were really looking forward to. Unfortunately that's the trouble with wild life! They don't particularly care to cooperate and it's always an unpredictable event when working with any animals, let alone wild ones that tend to live hundreds of meters below the ocean surface.

Lost At Sea

We are trying very hard to do a whale sharks tour but so far the weather and sea conditions have just not been favorable! Our first scheduled day was Tuesday but the rainy weather was too awful for boats to go out and the harbor in Cancun was closed. Our next scheduled trip was for today, but at the last minute last night they had to cancel due to rough seas. Our third and final date is tomorrow so we'll see if 3rd time's a charm!

Five of us had originally planned on diving Sunday afternoon but when they cancelled the trip today, we knew they were going to try and reschedule for Sunday and thus we would lose our dives. At nine o'clock last night with some scrambling, we managed to reschedule our dives for this morning with plans for a two tank dive and then a night dive conditions permitting.

We arrived at the dive shop at 8:15am this morning very excited to get our dives in! We finished filling out the paperwork and gathered rental equipment before heading down to the boat on the beach. The surf was a bit rough but nothing we couldn't managed so we climbed aboard. Usually divers assemble their own tanks and equipment, but because the seas were rougher than usual, they assembled everything for us. We requested a site that would show us turtles and rays and so the boat headed out to a reef called Tortugas (spanish for turtle). On the way out, the water was quite rough and we got completely soaked! Not a big deal for someone about to head into the water, but still a big difference from what we're used to!

When we arrived at the dive site, we paired up, rolled into the water and descended down. Tortugas is a drift dive as the current is quite strong. It was a very pleasant dive because it required very little movement or swimming! We just let the current carry us over the reef and watched for critters, fish and coral. During our dive, we saw 5 sea turtles and a sting ray in addition to a bunch of huge beautiful reef fish and 6 lion fish. I loved my wet suit keeping me warm at 66 ft down!

We did a 5 minute decompression stop at 40 feet and then a 3 minute safety stop at 15 feet before finally ascending to the surface an hour later. Once on the surface with inflated buoys to signal the boat, we drifted in the current and waited to be retrieved. Problem...the boat was nowhere to be seen! A couple of minutes turned into 15, 20, then 40 minutes with us floating on the open ocean desperately waiting and hoping our boat would come find us in the rough seas. Finally we caught the attention of another dive boat passing in the area with our whistle and buoys and they came to our rescue. Although the divemaster and I were fine, my other 4 friends were really nauseous from being tossed in the ocean for so long. We were exhausted climbing onto the boat but very grateful for their aid! They ended up calling our dive shop to have them send the boat to our location to pick us up and return us to shore. That meant getting back in the water and swimming over to the shop boat...ugh. My poor nauseous friends were devastated by this news and I can't say I was too excited either. We managed to roll back overboard, a couple of us with less than 300psi of air and no snorkels (they told us they were unnecessary!!!), and swim over to our dive boat. We headed back to shore roughly but uneventfully and were so glad to finally be back on shore.

The dive shop was mortified by what had happened and promised us this was a rare occurrence and the break in protocol would be addressed. We ended up skipping the 2nd dive and cancelling the night dive as no one had any energy left or desire to tangle with the ocean for any more today.

Hopefully the weather will be favorable tomorrow morning for whale sharks, but if it's not, I will definitely be trying to plan another dive because I'm sad we didn't get to do much today and I love diving so much. As we were told on day one, some dives will be phenomenal and some are going to be terrible but it doesn't make the overall activity bad. It's very true. The dive itself was excellent and the dive shop handled what happened well. They were extremely apologetic, gave us the dive and equipment rental for free today, and were just overall horrified at our experience. I am ecstatic that we got to see turtles and a ray and it was so neat diving in a new location. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get my camera off the boat in its new housing before descending so I don't have any pictures, but I think that's for the best given our long surface stranding!

Sea Turtles and Sting Rays and Sharks Oh My!

Another lovely Mexican day! I keep wanting to call it a Caribbean day or tropical day, but I don't think those describe where I'm at in Mexico.

Today was our third and final day at Xcaret. We started the day with a fish anesthesia lab. Our patients were moderate sized grey tilaia and we anesthetized them in a small tank with clove oil. We then took blood samples and biopsy samples of the gills, fins, and scales for research before recovering the animals in a tank of clean salt water. The fish recovered happily and uneventfully no worse for wear and after microscopic evaluation of the samples, the animals were reported to be very healthy!

Our next activity was to swim in the turtle lagoon, capture a sea turtle each, and bring it to the mangrove area for medical treatment, cleaning, and blood collection. How do you catch a 100-200lb adult male sea turtle? As it turns out, it is much more difficult than you might expect! We worked with a sea turtle trainer and swam out in the lagoon one at a time with fins and snorkels. You grasp the turtle with one hand at the top of the shell (carapace) and one at the bottom and then guide them to shore. This is pretty easy if they're cooperative, but some of the turtles didn't want anything to do with us and swiftly and easily swam us away from the shore line or towards the bottom! They are incredibly strong and agile in the water and even on land, it's unbelievable! As soon as the turtle was out of the water, he received a shell cleaning (sand on the carapace with scrub brushes to remove some of the algae) and a good slathering of ointment to treat ulcerative dermatitis, a common problem in sea turtles. The veterinarians regularly take blood samples from their animals to check their health as most marine animals are on death's door before they show clinical signs of illness. Dr. Ana showed us anatomically where they stick the needle and then we each drew blood on our turtles. The first turtle I brought to shore was quite injured and had been beat upon by the other males in the lagoon. Unfortunately in breeding season, male sea turtles can get aggressive with one another and can inflict extensive bite wounds on each other. We skipped his blood sample (I'm sure they would have seen lots of inflammatory cells!) and gave him a good layer of iodine cleaner and cream. Poor guy! The second turtle I captured was huge and not interested in cooperating with me so I got a bit of a ride! I very easily drew a blood sample from him - hit the vein on one quick stick!

Next on our busy schedule was participation in the shark educational program. In small groups, we got in the water with the nurse shark trainers and they walked us through the anatomy and ecology of the sharks. We got to touch them, feed them and take pictures with them. Their skin is thick and bumpy - nothing like a fish! We also got to swim with the nurse sharks which was really neat (and really not intimidating despite their large size).

We headed off to the sting ray lagoon for more interactive anatomy and ecology. I loved the rays! Their skin was rough on top but smooth and slimy on the belly and pelvic fin. We had the opportunity to feed the rays and get a back massage by their fins, and I got to return the favor and massage the ray! These guys are so cool. We got to snorkel in their lagoon for a little while afterwards and generally enjoy the reef fish and 20+ rays in the lagoon.

Our last activity of the day was to draw blood from a sting ray. To not stress the animals too much, only a few of us got to restrain and draw samples, but I was one of the lucky few and it was so neat! I had a little bit of trouble at first because their is a thick cartilage ring protecting the vein in the tail, but I was finally able to get a sample.

Day 4 and Finally We See The Sun!

 Sunshine! We finally woke up to a nice Mexican morning since arriving! I am so happy to have nice weather and no rain. We’ve moved on to hot, humid and super melty-sweaty, but I’m not complaining, I love it (though not everyone is as excited as I am about it haha).

Yesterday we spent the day at Xcaret park (ish-car-et). In the morning we covered all of fish pathology (which ended up being 100% repeat of everything we did at the beginning of the semester in exotics) and then had some lectures about the park, its history, and its divisions. We went through all of the animal husbandry and training. It is such an impressive park. The standards, ethics, and people are phenomenal. The amount of training these animals have received is awe inspiring (makes me feel shameful that I haven’t taught my dog back flips!). They have macaws trained to take neat photos with people, fly around the park on command and return, and participate in their cultural show. They have flamingos that go for a walk every day around the park on the sidewalks following their trainer and a little bell. The flamingos are mixed in with the guests and are unbelievably well behaved. Animals are trained to hold still for medical procedures such as blood draws with little more than a certain hand touch. It is just incredible.

The weather started to clear up enough for us to eat lunch outside and we got our first real glimpse of this beautiful tropical paradise. It opens right to the ocean and the whole park is tanks, rivers, and pools fed by ocean water. There are pools that visitors can swim and snorkel with reef fish in, lagoons loaded with sea turtles, and sea trek/SNUBA experiences for people to experience rays in their environment.

We rounded out the afternoon by touring the aquarium facilities. All of the animals and corals come from the local oceans, and all of the water in the tanks comes straight from the ocean (it’s not pre-mixed, altered or filtered). This is truly amazing. What an awesome way to run an aquarium. They have angels, triggers, jellies, conches, rays, manatees, dolphins, sharks, urchins, and everything in between. It is breath-takingly beautiful. We got to watch the handlers bottle feed their 4 month old manatee (he’s so cute!) and visit all of the sea turtles currently in rehab at Xcaret. Dr. Ana (our fabulous host) is in charge of manatees and sea turtles and let us hold the baby turtles! As soon as she said we could touch them, it was a turtle free-for-all! They had dozens of babies ranging in size from the palm of my hand to a decent sized dinner plate. They also has several large adults that were being treated for various conditions such as ulcerative dermatitis that had been brought in from strandings.

After we got back from the park, we headed to Babe’s Noodles which turned out to be a delicious little place to get Asian noodles. We explored some of the shops on our way home before calling it a night.

Today we were at Xcaret for 12 hours. We arrived with nice weather this morning and started the day out with coffee, cookies, and lectures/videos on some of the rehabilitation work our instructors David and Petra have done. We also saw some video clips about the work Xcaret has done with macaw breeding and release into the wild to repopulate some of the decimated states in Mexico. After that, we toured the macaw facilities. They have well over 100 birds and they are just gorgeous! Most of them are still pretty young but many of them are used to perform a park fly over daily. We got to hold them, take pictures, and then participate in a release. So cool. We also visited the flamingos and watched them on their walk and met a Xolo (chollo) which is a hairless Mexican dog that has historic roots with the Mayan civilizations.

Next up was lunch. We have been eating peanut butter and jelly at Xcaret because of the way the park food is designed (more of a buffet for paying guests). The sandwiches are so yummy! It has been a very long time since I had any type of sandwich with delicious fresh soft bread! We sat in the same location over-looking the ocean with a bunch of iguanas.

This afternoon we had the opportunity to necropsy two sting rays and two sea turtles. Smelly but a very neat experience. We had a great time dissecting them and comparing their anatomy to that of our domestic species. There sure are a lot of differences! The GI tract of a sting ray is so much simpler and shorter. The liver makes red blood cells and is grey in color. Their respiratory system consists of gills and their heart is very different. We came out pretty stinky, but it definitely wasn’t as bad as the pig dissections we did in 2^nd term!

We had the opportunity to stay for the park’s cultural night show tonight. It was a two hour celebration of the native history starting with Mayan civilization all the way through present day dances and music. They performed traditional Mayan ceremonies and replicated their ball games, showed the English conquering the land, and took us through a beautiful tour of the history of music and dance. It was phenomenal. Such a touching and unique look at the county’s history.

I took 500 pictures today alone and I promise to start uploading pictures from the trip soon. Unfortunately, the internet here is less reliable than Grenada, making it difficult to get pictures online. Tomorrow we have a lot of lab stuff planned with sting rays, sharks, and sea turtles – I am very excited!

Wet!

Ugh. I am soaking wet, tired, and grumpy this morning. I am so sick of the rain! It just seems to pour and pour with no end in sight and seemingly no place to go. So much flooding here, I just can’t believe the shear volume of water in this country at the moment. I’ve been logging on to the National Hurricane Center’s website religiously hoping to see the gigantic cloud move away from the Yucatan, but no such luck every single day.

This morning we woke up to load thunderstorms and the sound of large vcolumes of water hitting the ground. Doesn’t exactly make you want to get out of bed! Today we are at a park called Xcaret. One of the rules of this park is that they expect students to come professionally dressed. Not a big deal, except when it’s pouring rain out, a skirt or pants aren’t really the most ideal clothes to be wearing. So yay for that. We loaded the buses for the park and drove the quick trip down the road. Unlike Dolphin Discovery where we were a very short walk to the classroom on arrival, we were dropped at the very entrance to the park and then had to walk about half a mile to our site. I’m just feeling super whiney and grumpy right now. I’m soaking wet, tired, and not feeling 100% which just doesn’t make me a happy camper. I’ve sat in lectures for 3 days straight now with the only “fun” activitiy being our manatee swim (which was amazing for sure! I’m just ready for the next fun thing to tide me over). Our schedule has been vastly altered because of the weather so I really expect the second half of our trip to be great, we just have to get through the monsoon at the moment.

Yesterday was 50% lectures and 50% free. We did marine mammal pathology for 4.5 hours yesterday (professor just kind of went on and on haha). After we finished for the day, a couple of us headed off to schedule some dives for Sunday. Right now we’re scheduled for a 2 tank afternoon dive and a night dive! Fingers crossed for the most beautiful weather the Yucatan has to offer that day. A couple of people wanted to go see some of the Mayan ruins so we began to explore our options. We split into 2 groups to allow some of us to get lunch. The plan was to catch a bus to Tulum to explore for a few hours. We ate our lunch, bought our tickets, and hopped on a bus to Tulum none the wiser. As it turns out, the bus to Tulum goes to the city of Tulum, not the ruins. 1^st oops. A bit confused, we stumbled outside to find a taxi to actually get to the ruins. The first guy my friend talked to said “it’s closed!” when she asked about a ride. Thinking he said “It’s close,” she say’s “great! Can you take us?” He gave us a very confused look and kind of just pointed at his buddy and walked away. Repeat the same conversation, but this time we figured out that he said “closed” and not “close.” Bummer. So now we found ourselves in the city of Tulum, in the rain, with no ruins. We decided to walk around a little bit before catching a bus back to Playa. Coming to Tulum, our bus ticket price was $38 pesos (about $3.80 US). Funny thing – to return to Playa? $66 pesos! No clue why the return trip was twice as expensive – we were pretty thrilled about spending $11 US to visit nothing in the rain for 3 hours! It does make for a pretty funny story at least, but I think we’re done with being spontaneous in Mexico! Lesson learned haha. The one awesome thing that came out of the trip was that we learned that McDonalds sells ice cream cones for $8-10 pesos which made us pretty happy!

Hopefully the rain lets up soon because I am really in desperate need for some sunshine! I really want to be able to maximize this trip after spending so much money too. Today is supposed to be the worst an final day of the rain, but I just can’t get myself to believe that. We’ll see come tomorrow. The main thing would be gorgeous weather for our whale shark snorkeling trip and diving day, but I’d like some better weather so that we can actually do the hands on stuff associated with our trip because the rain has been the main cause of the high volume of lecture hours at this point.

Rain, rain go away, and don’t come back until at least June 14^th! 

Are We Under Water Yet?

Ugh. I am soaking wet, tired, and grumpy this morning. I am so sick of the rain! It just seems to pour and pour with no end in sight and seemingly no place to go. So much flooding here, I just can’t believe the shear volume of water in this country at the moment. I’ve been logging on to the National Hurricane Center’s website religiously hoping to see the gigantic cloud move away from the Yucatan, but no such luck every single day.

This morning we woke up to load thunderstorms and the sound of large volumes of water hitting the ground. Doesn’t exactly make you want to get out of bed! Today we are at a park called Xcaret. One of the rules of this park is that they expect students to come professionally dressed. Not a big deal, except when it’s pouring rain out, a skirt or pants aren’t really the most ideal clothes to be wearing. So yay for that. We loaded the buses for the park and drove the quick trip down the road. Unlike Dolphin Discovery where we were a very short walk to the classroom on arrival, we were dropped at the very entrance to the park and then had to walk about half a mile to our site. I’m just feeling super whiney and grumpy right now. I’m soaking wet, tired, and not feeling 100% which just doesn’t make me a happy camper. I’ve sat in lectures for 3 days straight now with the only “fun” activity being our manatee swim (which was amazing for sure! I’m just ready for the next fun thing to tide me over). Our schedule has been vastly altered because of the weather so I really expect the second half of our trip to be great, we just have to get through the monsoon at the moment.

Yesterday was 50% lectures and 50% free. We did marine mammal pathology for 4.5 hours yesterday (professor just kind of went on and on haha). After we finished for the day, a couple of us headed off to schedule some dives for Sunday. Right now we’re scheduled for a 2 tank afternoon dive and a night dive! Fingers crossed for the most beautiful weather the Yucatan has to offer that day. A couple of people wanted to go see some of the Mayan ruins so we began to explore our options. We split into 2 groups to allow some of us to get lunch. The plan was to catch a bus to Tulum to explore for a few hours. We ate our lunch, bought our tickets, and hopped on a bus to Tulum none the wiser. As it turns out, the bus to Tulum goes to the city of Tulum, not the ruins. 1^st oops. A bit confused, we stumbled outside to find a taxi to actually get to the ruins. The first guy my friend talked to said “it’s closed!” when she asked about a ride. Thinking he said “It’s close,” she say’s “great! Can you take us?” He gave us a very confused look and kind of just pointed at his buddy and walked away. Repeat the same conversation, but this time we figured out that he said “closed” and not “close.” Bummer. So now we found ourselves in the city of Tulum, in the rain, with no ruins. We decided to walk around a little bit before catching a bus back to Playa. Coming to Tulum, our bus ticket price was $38 pesos (about $3.80 US). Funny thing – to return to Playa? $66 pesos! No clue why the return trip was twice as expensive – we were pretty thrilled about spending $11 US to visit nothing in the rain for 3 hours! It does make for a pretty funny story at least, but I think we’re done with being spontaneous in Mexico! Lesson learned haha. The one awesome thing that came out of the trip was that we learned that McDonalds sells ice cream cones for $8-10 pesos which made us pretty happy!

Hopefully the rain lets up soon because I am really in desperate need for some sunshine! I really want to be able to maximize this trip after spending so much money too. Today is supposed to be the worst an final day of the rain, but I just can’t get myself to believe that. We’ll see come tomorrow. The main thing would be gorgeous weather for our whale shark snorkeling trip and diving day, but I’d like some better weather so that we can actually do the hands on stuff associated with our trip because the rain has been the main cause of the high volume of lecture hours at this point.

Rain, rain go away, and don’t come back until at least June 14^th! 

Manatees Feel Like Elephants

Rain. Rain rain rain rain. So much rain the area floods temporarily! I want to see sunshine! I miss sunny tropical weather. Rain rain go away and don’t come back until I am no longer in Mexico!

It was such a letdown to wake up to it pouring rain out. My first thought this morning was “oh please let that just be someone taking a loud shower!” but no such luck. The flooding here is really incredible. I certainly wouldn’t want to be anywhere near here if a hurricane hit. Makes me wonder what Grenada would look like with this much water. Probably not good!

Despite the rain and mild to moderate flooding, we headed off to Dolphin Discovery bright and early for another day of lectures and a swim with the manatees! We had several hours of lectures by the staff veterinarians talking about everything from feeding control to daily physical exams to their laboratories to their reproductive care. It was interesting because English was for sure a second language for each person but they did really well and we enjoyed filling in the small occasional gaps. Dr. Tarpley also hit more high points in make-up lectures from yesterday. During our quick lunch break, I had a waffle from a shop called the Hip Hippo. A unique name for sure!

It finally stopped raining this afternoon in time for us to hop in the water with the manatees! I decided a full wetsuit was the best way to go given the current and previous weather and boy was I right! It felt great and not too cold in their pool. We broke into groups of 3 and each group got to go over the steps in a daily physical exam performed by the trainers. We got to touch them, feed them, palpate them, and even kiss them! An amazing and unforgettable experience for sure! At the end of the session, they let us swim around the pool with them. There were 2 adult males (Romeo and Robertito), one adult female (Julietta), and a cute little 7 month old baby (Lorenzo). They were such piggies when it came to consuming whole heads of Romaine lettuce – grabbing it with their prehensile nose and mouth and then holding it there with their flippers! Very cute!

Manatee skin feels rough and bumpy in most places, except for the parts where smooth, slimy algae is growing. They have a nose covered in vibrissae that can grasp and grab and search your hands for lettuce.  They certainly are little piggies! Their mammary glands are located in their "arm pits" and frequent flatulence signals a healthy manatee! 

MARVET Day 1

Today officially began the MARVET Playa adventure. We had an 8:25a meeting time for 9:00a classes, but when we came downstairs, half our group was still waiting to eat at the restaurant! We ended up having to delay the classes a little bit but no big deal.

The conference room we borrowed was about a 20 minute walk from the hotel. The weather is still kind of crummy and rainy here, but it was just overcast on our walk over. We started with a little bit of conservation medicine and then segued into anatomy and physiology of marine mammals. The whole day with the exception of an hour lunch break was spent doing lectures. We absolutely froze all morning (just like Grenada! Go somewhere tropical, crank the AC on!) but they were able to adjust the temperature on and off for us in the afternoon so it wasn’t too bad.

It was of course raining when we went out for lunch (while we were freezing cold from the room!) but we managed to find a cute little French bakery for lunch. I know I know, more non-Mexican food! We did have tacos last night at our welcome dinner though, so that counts! I ordered quiche Lorraine and a chocolate éclair and both were marvelously delicious! The chocolate éclair was filled with the most amazing chocolate custard that I could eat forever! Our table was right next to a window leading into the bread oven. We were drooling the whole time watching those beautiful loaves bake! We later found out that the owner of the bakery brought both the oven and the butter used to make all of the pasteries from France. You can definitely taste it! We stopped back later after class and I had hands down the best croissant I’ve ever had in my life. In Mexico! 

TI...M?

So far, I can't really say this trip is going how I thought it would. I anticipated arriving in sunny tropical Mexico, exploring around, diving all day today, lounging around and enjoying nice weather, etc. Instead, it was rainy and overcast yesterday, very overcast and rainy today, pouring tonight, and my sinuses are too clogged from allergies for diving. Not that I'm complaining (well except the diving bit, I'm really bummed about that), it's been a laid back itinerary so far and we're about to get slammed with a packed schedule.

My roommate and I are currently highly amused because it is raining so hard and so much right now that the hotel (which has an open floor plan) is flooding. Lucky for us on the second floor it's not really affecting us, but some of our third floor counter parts are getting just a tad bit wet. As in water is flooding under their doors! Whoops! I figured this kind of thing must happen often the way the place is designed, but the clerk at the front desk seemed equally surprised (and maybe even more dismayed than us!) at the volume of water pouring down from every where! At one point he exclaimed "how am I going to get home?!" to which I replied (with hand gestures) "swim!" With wide eyes he looked at me as said "but I can't swim! I will be stuck here!" Ahh the ability to swim. Something I apparently take for granted!

I feel like my classmate and I are getting along in Mexico really well. Nothing really surprises or bothers us and we're very flexible. Thank you Grenada for these skills in patience! Normally when something happens in Grenada that is annoying or silly, we exclaim "TIG" which stands for this is Grenada. Kind of like a silly catch phrase for writing something off.

Hola Mexico!

Oops its been a long time since I updated! Finals ended on a high note, I got to dive a couple more times before leaving, and getting off the island went with just a couple hiccups (more on that later).

I am currently in Playa Del Carmen for MARVET for the next two weeks! A short day of traveling yesterday brought me to this beautiful country that really is nothing like Grenada. I feel more like I am in a spanish-speaking part of Florida based on the flora, shops, and infrastructure, than in another country!

I had to go the airport early to catch my flight (eww mornings!) and had the "pleasure" of dealing with a different airport than the one I usually fly through to go Grenada. So much bigger, much more annoying - definitely don't want to take Lucy there! I lucked out because my flight was supposed to be 3.5 hours long, then 3 hours when I got on the plane, and then when we got to cruising altitude, they announced that it would only take 2.5 hours! I was pretty pleased about that! The airport here is pretty much what I would expect a smaller town USA airport to look like. Definitely not Grenadian! I made it through immigration and customs in 45 minutes with just enough time to catch the hourly bus to Playa rather than have to wait around! The bus was super nice - it was like a greyhound bus but better. The trip took just under an hour and they dropped us off at a bus station about a (short) block away from the hotel. As we drove through Playa, I paid extra special attention to road names and street signs so I'd have an idea of what to do with my map when I got off the bus. Unfortunately, I was stupid and didn't really stop to consider whether I should go left or right, and just went right. Took the "scenic" tour to the hotel (aka I got lost). That was an interesting predicament, as I speak 0 spanish and everyone around me looked like the spoke 0 english...A kind man ended up stopping to ask if I needed help and pointed me in the right direction!

It's certainly very hot and humid here. More humid than hot I suppose, but it's been raining on and off the whole time. Today is a day off to explore a little more than yesterday, although I expect more rain in my future. We had originally planned on diving today, but my allergies were really bad at home this past week and my ears and sinuses are still on the mend (I don't think I could equalize the pressure underwater at this point). The time is an hour behind what I'm used to and I beat my roommate awake by a long shot haha.

Our hotel is very pretty - it's called Hotel Cielo and it reminds me of Grenada so much because the structure is built on an outdoors base with rooms that enter from within. In other words, its not some big tall fancy building but rather a quaint, spanish style building with plenty of fresh air and decorative accents. I like it. I wonder how my American school counterparts will find it when they arrive today.

So far we've passes Burger King, McDonalds, Haagan Das, Starbucks, and Subway and the map shows a Dominos Pizza nearby haha. Very Americanized and not *quite* like Grenada haha. As you walk down the street, vendors call out to you to look at their items or eat at their restaurants, you just have to ignore if you're not interested. Kind of difficult for a polite person because I just want to tell them no thank you or not be rude (but then they've got you hooked). We went for a long walk yesterday evening with plans to figure out dinner. No one in our group of three had any real requests, and we ended passing some guy eating pizza and drooling over that. Who would have thought my first meal in Mexico would be at an Italian restaurant! Go figure. I'm not actually a huge Mexican food lover - I like quesadillas and the occasional taco (but I prefer my homemade version with ground turkey meat) but I'm just not huge on beans and rice. Lucky for me, this is a hugely touristy area and I have every choice under the sun! Not at all like Grenada!