Don't feed the fish!

Looking at the picture above you probably are thinking "Wow. That lady with the huge glasses on her head next to that mildy attractive guy is really hot" and you'd be right. You might also be thinking: "Wow. They are in a beautiful place and are probably having a perfect day" and you'd be wrong.

We are in a place called Costa Maya, Mexico. It has gorgeous sandy beaches, pristine blue waters, nice people, and great weather. We decided to go scuba diving for the first time in our lives. We booked with some little place online that told us to walk past a bunch of buses right off the pier and go to where some cabs were sitting. We did, and quickly found that the guys not by the pier didn't speak English. Luckily Ben was comfy enough with Spanish that he could tell the driver what we were trying to do, but honestly for a while there I thought we'd end up lost in some back alley. We ended up in an alley, but not lost.

We booked a tour that included a 1 hour training session with Jorge and Claire, who both spoke pretty good English. We like them a lot. They were very knowledgeable, personable and concerned with our progress. The girls went with Claire for their lessons and the guys were with Jorge. I could see Jess in the shallow waters scooting about like a pro and figured I would do the same. Turns out that trying to clear my mask under water turns my brain off. If you've never been scuba diving you have to learn to clear your mask by lifting it slightly from the bottom and blowing air out of your nose. Well, apparently that is near impossible for me to do and if I had panicked the 15 times I tried I probably would have drown in 4 feet of water. Jorge probably thought I was a moron - I know I did. Its like I just forgot how to blow out of my nose! In the end we both figured that I should just be really careful not to move my mask once we got 40 feet under. Jessica was awesome at it and picked everything up like a wiz. Shari was good at it too, but very scared to go out to the 40 ft water. She was brave, though and faced her fears.

They took us in this little boat pictured above to a place a few minutes from shore where we could anchor and dive to 40 feet and swim around the corral. It was all fine and dandy until that boat stopped and I started a rockin'. Some find the rocking motion soothing, but I find it to be gross. In fact, I was just telling Jessica that very thing when I puked over the side. I had taken a dramamine that morning, but it wasn't helping. I figured once I got to the bottom where the waving wasn't so pronounced I'd be fine, so I dropped in with Jessica and we held on to the rope to slowly descend to the bottom. I was doing okay and in control and kept giving Jorge the "OK" sign. Once we got to the bottom Jessica and I started to swim around a bit. Suddenly I didn't feel so good. I took my regulator out of my mouth, barfed, put it back in and went back to breathing. Apparently, you can barf through those, but I didn't know that. I also didn't know that at that moment Jessica thought I was going to die. I didn't though. In fact, I didn't die the other 3 or 4 times I spewed under water either. (sidenote: great thing about puking under water is you don't have to clean it up!) I was becoming quite the pro, but I decided I didn't want to attract any sharks and finally told Jorge I was ready to end my scuba experience. He took me back up to the boat where I promptly asked to be taken to non-wavy land. Jessica and the others swam peacefully with the fish and even saw a giant lobster. They all thought it was a great experience. When they came back to shore they told me they were very impressed with my survival skills and my cool under pressure. I agreed. (now that I think about it though, it freaks my freak.)

Before going back to the ship Jessica was able to finally buy one of the dresses for Penny that she had been wanting during our whole vacation. Its a cute little yellow dress....er, shirt. Apparently Penny is much larger than either Jessica or I had remembered. Either that or she grew A LOT while we were gone because the "dress" we picked out only fit over her huge head after cutting it and only went down to her waist. They grow up so fast, right?! Even still, there is no denying that she is adorable.

  

Finally! I'm finished blogging about the cruise...now I can go back and blog about everything else that happened in the last few months! And while I do, I'll be planning our next cruise!