Today was a pool day. Well that is what we thought when we got up and headed that way. It was nice until about noon, and then the heavens opened; and it rained. Really really hard.

Everyone took shelter under one of the pool huts and was going to wait it out. After all, it was still warm, just rainy.

After about 30 minutes of rain, I decided to bail out and go back to the room. (I had my massage booked for 2 and wanted to try out the spa pool.) I did not see one of the shuttle golf carts so I started walking back to the room in the warm monsoon weather. I never got a golf cart. By the time I got to my room, my towel weighed about 5 lbs and I would have been dryer after 30 seconds of getting out of the pool.

We all dried off and met at the sports bar for lunch. I had a quick plate of Nachos and headed to the spa. The hot rock massage was wonderful. I enjoyed that so much that I booked a couples massage for Cathy and I on Thursday.

I was headed back to the room and noticed that the gang was still in the sports bar. Apparently they were happy there drinking rum and coke all afternoon. I joined them. Vance had taken off just before I got to the sports bar as he was heading to the Spa pool and then he was having a pedicure.

We left the Sports bar and headed back to our rooms. We freshened up a bit and then Cathy and I went to the McCarthy’s for a bit before dinner. We were having Italian tonight. Yum.

Pretty fun day for a rainy day in Mexico. (Oh yea, my Kindle was delivered to my office today! Woot!))

We were up early today and had a quick breakfast and then headed to the lobby to catch the transportation to the Snorkel tour.

It was a short ride, (25 min) to the beach area where the snorkel tour was run. I was happy to see the national part sign up saying you must wear biodegradable sunscreen, not touch the coral, fish, plants etc.  It looks like they are really trying to preserve the reef.

Once we were out in the boat it was a really short ride to the reef. They have buoys on the reef so they don’t have to drop anchor.

I guess Cathy and I are spoiled being divers. This is what I would describe as a cattle boat tour. There were about 15 of us in the water (from our boat, but there was 3 boats) and the guide wanted us to follow him “closely”. He kept telling me to get closer to the group. I finally had to say, NO, I’m not going to get closer because I keep getting kicked in the face or am kicking someone in the face because everyone is packed together.

The first snorkel was not very good. The current and waves kept us from getting over the reef. So we ended up seeing a few rocks and lots of sand.

The next snorkel was better; they took the boat really close to the reef and had us all jump in. So we were a very short swim to the reef. This was better. Much more to see and you could swim back to the boat with the current/waves.

The snorkel operation itself left much to be desired. We booked through The Original Snorkeling Adventure (also know as Morning Glory Snorkeling http://www.snorkeladventure.com/morning.htm Their logo is a fish with a cowboy hat on it) I guess all I can say is if you are going to this area of Mexico don’t use them. In the course of two snorkels they broke most of the reef conservation rules. They were handling the fish. (Picking up an octopus, they were picking up conch and feeding the fish.) And to top it off they have no idea how to help the guests back on the boat. People were trying to hang on to the ladder and throw their fins into the boat before they got in. The people running the boat did nothing to help people onto the boat. It was not until Cathy went up and started to do their job that they even thought to help out.

I ended up writing an email to the company letting them know of my displeasure with their operation. I was surprised to get an email back from them. They did pay the right lip service, saying that they should not be doing feeding and touching the fish etc, and that the people on the boat would be disciplined for it. But for me, that is too little to late. They should have had a much better training program for their guides so they knew not to do that sort of thing. So, please, don’t give them your business.

After we got back to the resort I finally got around to booking a hot rock massage. I’m all set for tomorrow. Looking forward to it. One of the benefits of booking something at the SPA is they have a beautiful hydro pool that you can use the same day.

Pool day today; and booked snorkeling for Tuesday. Simone is going to hang by the pool when we go look at the fish.

Mostly just hung around the pool.  I did go and do some more research on the Kindle and ended up ordering it today. Hoping it will be in Vancouver by the time I get home.

We went sailing today; Vance; Vangie, Cathy and myself. We had a good wind, not great but enough to move us along at a good clip, but not enough to get us anywhere near one pontoon.

We forgot to take a watch with us so we were guessing at how long we were out there. We only had the boat for an hour so we did not want to go over.

Turns out we guessed pretty well. We were back in 0:55 min. – pretty good for landlubbers. Vance and Vangie liked it so much they booked a boat for Wednesday.

Spent the morning hanging out at the pool where we met a group of women from Regina who were down here celebrating one of the groups 40^th birthday. One of the women (Sherry) has an amazing body and great bikini has a Sony Ebook reader and Simone, Vangie and I were asking her a number of questions about it. She told us, during the conversation, that the Amazon Kindle had been released in Canada last week. (Halleluiah! Going to have to order one soon!)

We also found out that Sherry has a new computer that had stopped working. (No screen image) So techie Steve offered to take a look at it later.

We headed down to the beach to see about reserving a catamaran for the afternoon, only to find out that they were all booked up for the day. So we reserved one for tomorrow at 3. There is a good breeze in the afternoon, so it should be fun.

At noon, Ted and Vance went to our room to use my computer to pay for the live webcast of the BC Lions vs. Montreal game. I did not want to give up too much beach/pool time watching a football game, but after they had been gone about 30 minutes I thought I would go up and see how it was going. Glad I did, they could not figure out how to get it set up.

Once we got it going we were able to watch last 3 min of the first quarter and all of the second quarter, at which time we headed to the sports/snack bar for a quick bite to eat. By the time we got back to the room, it was almost the end of the 3^rd quarter and the Lions were getting stomped.  About ½ way through the 4^th, Vance and Ted headed back to the pool.

I stayed behind and started doing my research on the Kindle. Shortly after I started doing that Sherry showed up with her new Toshiba A300 that was not working. I started working on trying to figure out the problem when everyone else showed up. It was an impromptu party.  It turns out that Sherry’s computer is fubared, and needs to go back to Toshiba. Bummer, it’s only about a month old.

We wrapped up the room party and everyone headed back to their suite to get ready for dinner. We were going to the Le Fondue tonight, the only place we had not been to yet. The food was very good, the fondue dip was cheese, and a tad plain, but the meat and fish were excellent. And the desert was a chocolate fondue with fruit, marshmallows and Oreo cookies. Yum.  The only draw back was the service was slow, and that is the first time we have found this at any of the restaurants here.

Back to our rooms and off to bed. Tomorrow we are going to go sailing and also check in to going snorkeling on Wednesday.

Well the report on the “Broadway” show from last night was very favorable. Seems like everyone liked it. Although not everyone knew all the songs – I’ll let you guess who that was. Vance and Ted.

We were up early today to catch the bus to Chichen Itza. It left the hotel at 7:15 am and we were told it is about a 12-hour day. So we were prepared with a bag lunch, (which was going to be our breakfast) and we had our bathing suits on and a change of close with us. We needed these because we were going to stop at a Cenote on the way to Chichen Itza for a swim.  The cenote was called Ik Kil cenote and was wonderful. The high calcium content of the water makes your hair very very soft.

Lunch was next and it was at a Mexican buffet with some local dancers for entertainment. It was good, short but good; we were only there for about 45 min.

Our tour guide, Martin, was a hoot. He made the bus ride a joy. Very funny and extremely knowledgeable too boot. Vangie was sitting right behind Martin so she was the burnt of many of his jokes.

Once we got to Chichen Itza we had a tour with Martin for about 1 hour and 40 minutes.  He is and excellent guide who was able to bring humor to many of the historical areas of the site. The

biggest disappointment is the vast number of vendors in the park. It really took away from what could have been a magical experience and made it very plain.  And there were hundreds of vendors. You could not walk from one area to another without vendors on both sides of the path.

The main pyramid is awe-inspiring. Although it is only about 90 feet tall, the technical achievements of the Myan people are to be admired. The building is exactly 17 degrees off from magnetic north, and on the equinox the sun lines up perfectly with the top of the pyramid and flows through the upper chamber and lights the stairs on the shadow side of the pyramid, creating a snake like effect.

After Martin’s tour we had another hour and ten minutes to look around. Cathy, Vangie and Simone looked and souvenirs and we wandered around looking at some of the other ruins.  Time to get back on the bus.

The ride home was a bit faster as they took the highway the whole way back to town. Martin entertained us and he was able to talk Simon into standing up and giving a short rendition of Feliz Navidad; it was quite funny.

We arrived back at the hotel at 7:15 exactly 12 hours from when we left. We located Vance and then went to our respective rooms for a quick shower before dinner.  Dinner, drinks and off to bed. Tomorrow some hard-core beach/pool time and maybe going for a sail on one of the Catamarans.

Today was a sleep in day for me. I did not get up till 10:40, and by that time Cathy, Simone and Ted were already at the pool.

Breakfast is over at 10:30, so I had to go to the sports bar and have Nachos for breakfast. Tough life.

We had planned to meet in the main lobby at 11:30 so we could greet Vance and Vangie when they arrived, so that is where the treo found me.

Vance and Vangie arrived just before noon and they got the paperwork done and head to their room to wait for their luggage. Then it was off to lunch and then to the pool.

I asked Vangie if she could go to London Drugs before she came down and pick me up a pair of sunglass reading glasses. She did. They are amazing. She was able to get a pair of bifocal sunglass reading glasses that have the +2.00 in the bifocal part and just clear glass in the top part. They make checking out the bikinis reading at the pool much easier.

The only drawback to them is they make me look like a gay European interior designer from Barcelona.  But hey, reading is great. They look much better on Cathy, Vangie and Simone, but they can’t have them. I’ll post a photo later.

Vangie and Vance bailed from the pool at about 2:30 and headed back to their room for a nap and I was about 45 minutes behind them. We meet up again at 5:15 to go for an afternoon beverage at the courtyard bar and then headed up to the “Grill” restaurant for dinner. Once again the food was excellent.

After dinner it was back down to the same bar to watch the entertainment and listen to the music.  At 9:00 I bailed out and headed back to my room to get some zzz’s before our trip tomorrow. The rest of the gang went to the theater to watch the “Broadway” show. Don’t know how that was, I’ll have to fill you in tomorrow.

Up really early today (5:45) to get to the ferry to go to Cozumel.  Cathy called the hotel concierge today and arranged for bagged lunches to take with us. We were not planning on having it for lunch, but breakfast as the restaurant is not open here till 7 am.

After a quick coffee, we were off to the ferry, only to discover that the first ferry of the day does not leave till 8am., which is Ok as our dive boat did not leave till 9am.

Once we got to Cozumel we were able to find the dive shop Ok and we headed off to the dive boat.

This is where Meghan is going to hate me. Our first dive we saw a Turtle, some huge Nassau groupers, a barracuda a huge crab and……… an 8 foot hammerhead shark.  Which was so so so cool. Our dive master said in 12 years it is only the 2^nd one he has ever seen and never heard of one so shallow, about 40 feet.  There was a woman who was diving with our boat and was with another dive master and she did NOT like the idea of being the water with a shark, she got out and did not do any ore dive for the day. I can see why people like to dive here, lots of big fish and big coral; very pretty.

Our second dive we saw the largest parrotfish I have every seen. He must have been close to 3 feet long. We saw a snowflake moray eel, a large lobster, black dungeons, Christmas tree worms, but alas, no splendid toadfish.  We were looking, and had our dive master looking but no luck. I guess that means we will have to come back and look again.

We ended up having lunch at the Hard Rock Café in Cozumel and then catching the ferry back to the mainland. Ted had to go visit Hector’s Moms shop. (A place that was recommended to him by a friend) Today it was open so he was able to take a look around, but he did not meet Hector’s Mom, but Hector’s Dad.

Once back at the resort I cleaned the scuba gear and Simone, Ted and Cathy went for a swim. It was a short one as it was late in the day and the sun was almost down. We all had a nap (not together, that would be weird) and then went for dinner. (Together, that’s normal)

The Internet here is being flakey in the room, so I have to go to the hotel lobby to do the posting. So it may not be regular. Sorry about that.

Vance and Vangie arrive tomorrow, we are looking forward to that. Then Saturday off to Chitzen Itza.

We kind of had a late start today, we all decided to sleep in a bit and get going a little later – after all, we are on holidays.

Our mission to day was to try another pool. We selected the one that is “close” to the party pool but far enough away that the party does not spill over, but the music does.  One of the drawbacks about this pool is it has no bar.  Cathy and Ted decided to go get a drink at the closest bar; there are two routes to this bar, so Ted had to time them to see which one is faster so he could have the most economic retrieval time for new beverages. 1 minute 41 seconds was the best time, using the offbeat route. I think it was just shortly after this that we discovered this pool has pool side service so you don’t even have to go to the bar.

We decided to say screw it to the dive shop I was trying to book though (Scuba Du Cozumel – don’t go there!) and called the dive place Ron went to last spring. Deep Blue should have been our first call. Within one call we were all set up to dive/snorkel on Thursday. That meant we would have to go to bed early tonight, as we had to be down at the ferry dock by 7am.

We have also discovered that we need to book later dinners. Eating at 6 or 6:30 is just way to early and we are not even hungry when we show up for dinner.  I think we need to do way less drinking eat a smaller lunch so we are hungrier at dinner. Last night we ate at the Mexican restaurant and none of us could finish our whole meal – what a waste.

Tonight we ate at the Seafood restaurant, and at least we were hungry for dinner. The food at the restaurants is excellent, and the seafood place was really really good.  We’ll have to do that one again.

Today was more of the same, except we stayed at the pools today.

Nothing exciting really happened, except that we decided that one of the bartenders in one of the pools does not like us. He kept serving other guests and ignoring us. That may be because we are polite Canadians and did not scream and shout to get his attention. All the same, we switch pools.

I also contacted the dive shop in Cozumel (Scuba Du Cozumel) about diving tomorrow. (Actually I sent them an email yesterday, but I still have not heard back from them.) After sending another email in the morning and then a phone call in mid afternoon and still not hearing back from them, we decided to put off diving/snorkeling until Thursday.

Up and off the beach; we started there and did some snorkeling on the beach.  I went off to the pool to do some reading and floating. Cathy, Simone and Ted came up to the pool about an hour later. Apparently I missed the topless women on the beach, (they were right behind us) Ted gave me all the details.

The beach here is very nice, the sand is fine white sand that is very soft on the feet. You do have to use some sort of footwear to go into the ocean though as some of the area has rocks just into the water.

After dinner we headed off to the courtyard bar and had a drink while we waited for the nightly show. Tonight was “Grease” and some of the actors came into the bar to get things going. Getting people out on to the dance floor. The other day Simone had her baby time; tonight Ted got is babe time. (And Cathy got her hunk time)

The show it self was high energy, lots of dancing and all lip sync, but fun just the same.