Wednesday, April 30, 2008

i'm off

i fly out tomorrow back to puerto vallarta. i will finally rest. as in doing nothing... maybe some sun bathing. i haven't sun-bathed in a week really. i think my skin is happy with me about that.

my only plan is to check out the bungie jumping place in PV. as long as it's not too expensive. and i want to para sail. and get a couple of more runs in. then it's back to SF on cinco de mayo.

see you soon!

love you.

-xoxox

Me

Diver's Log: Day 4

Punta Sur: Devil's Throat

Start Pressure: 3150 psi
End Pressure: 550 psi

120 feet for part of dive up to 80 feet for other part of dive, 35 mins bottom time max

We had to do a quick descent to get in devil's throat. we went through into the sandy-bottomed caverns of devil's throat. it was wicked, wicked cool. we had to go head first... i knew the pressure was going to hurt like hell and it pretty much did.

wilma had done a lot of damage to some of the unique coral formations that jorge wanted to show us. there was a huge french angel fish hanging out next to a sea turtle. i snapped a photo but it probably won't come out. it was an amazing dive.

SI: 1 hour nose bleeds during the surfacing. there was some peacocks hanging out on the shore that i photographed. one of them was happy to show me his plumage... i kept imitating his cooing and he kept cooing right at me. it was fun.

Cedral Wall

Start Pressure: 3200 psi
End Pressure: ? psi

Current was at least 2 knots. I got a picture of a lobster as i whizzed by it. think leaf in the wind. i was proud of myself for getting down into this reef. i was balanced and snapped a couple of pics of a text book trunkfish, smooth triggerfish, and a pork fish. there was this beautiful 1 foot long parrot fish. right there. and i wanted a picture. so badly.

one of my two cheapo cameras wasn't cooperating so i reached for the other one. that's when the current took charged of my hand and sliced it open on the reef.

gushing blood looks like rust under water. i was a little scared. i knew there's like .0001% chance of a reef or tiger shark being in the area... but still. i musta smelled like lunch.

i found jorge and he helped me out of the water... i was upset because the cut looked like it needed stitches... the boat driver did a great job of bandaging my hand and i've been gimp-typing these posts.

i think it really should have been stitched. i am a member of Diver's Alert Network and have insurance for diving accidents but i don't want to do stitches. the wound reopened in the shower but i bandaged it back up.

i had nose-bleeds after this dive, too.

you know what? i'd do it again in a heart beat. there's three things in my blood... the water, horses, and music... these things make life worth living.

i can't tell you how amazing all this was in spite of the nose-bleeds, the pain, the injuries, what have you.

and a big huge thanks to Jorge, the boat driver, and the crew @ Pepe's Dive shop. They are a first-class outfit.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Diver's Log: Day 3



Columbia Reef

Start Pressure: 3250 psi
End Pressure: 400 psi (not being able to breathe means i'm using the heck out of my air

80 ft max, 45 mins bottom time, 70-80 feet for most of dive. We swam through canyons btwn the reef to start. I got 1 probably not-so-good picture of a lobster. i also saw a crab although it wouldn't come out for me... All i saw was twitchy antennae and legs. After coming out from dive and taking fins/bcd/air/weight belt off i saw a turtle swimming so i jumped back on in amidst some teensy box jelly fish and snapped a few turtle pics... It was definitely a hawk's bill turtle.

Surface Interval (SI): 1 hour Jorge put his dive master skillz to use and took a lighter to my mask to help with the fogging issue. it worked. Muy bueno!

Philipe's Chun Chakab

Start Pressure: 3150 psi
End Pressure: 600 psi

70 feet to start, most of dive @ 50-60 feet max. 45 mins bottom time max.

This was my first wreck dive ever! w00t! Wreck dive, 70 feet to start. Swimming through the boat was tricky and fun... You had to be careful not to get hoses & dive lights caught on anything. Saw a sting ray off in the distance and photographed it. Not sure if it will come out or not. Saw a good-sized mackerel and a gag. Spent some quality time photographing a beautiful, healthy-sized french angel fish.

had nose bleeds when surfacing after this dive.

Night Dive: Paradise Reef

Start Pressure: 3150 psi
End Pressure: 500 psi

45 feet maximum 50 - 60 min bottom time

Night diving is THE BEST!!!! It's a not-so-secret-secret. First thing straight off we saw was a baby nurse shark. i hope my pics came out. everyone was helping each other out by lighting up the critters whilst trying not to shine the lights in their eyes and scare them off/blind them. we all had to stick together tightly to not get lost... it's a hazard of night diving... especially night drift diving.

immediately after bitty baby nurse shark we saw a slipper lobster. it was so cool! there were 3 different crabs... two on adjacent rocks... one of which was not about to allow us to interrupt his dinner. wicked cool. there were 3 squid... two right in front of me that flew off as other divers approached. i could have sworn i heard them say vaminos.

i had a honey-combed cowfish SITTING ON MY HAND!!!! it was wicked. i couldn't believe it. it just sat there. i finally removed my hand because i was worried it was bad to touch it.

there were two stingrays... i took many pictures of the one cuz everytime i looked over he was there again. i think he was running from the other divers behind me. they were either clear-nosed or skate stingrays.

this dive was incredible and truly wonderful!!!!

Pills consumed: 9 benadryl allergy sinus, 2 actifed noche

Monday, April 28, 2008

vicious cycle

this post is back-dated as is the diver's log day 2,3 posts... i was wicked exhausted after the diving... diving will wear you down just because of breathing the air and the pressure changes to your body... i spent a large part of the rest of the day in bed....

i went out for lunch after diving and this waiter thoroughly attempted to rip me off and i was sad... he tried to charge me $11 for two drinks with NO alcohol in them after promising me a free drink if i came back to eat with them...

i still ended up paying 5.50 for one non-alcoholic drink which was the equivalent of strawberries in a blender with ice. the owner came out and told the waiter that the drink should be $4 only but somehow that message didn't get through...

bummer. normally i'm an extraordinary tipper (three years of waitressing in school is still etched in stone in my brain) but i stiffed the guy with no qualms. no more will i go to restaurant Mesaicoz. Mesaicoz is still owned by Jorgini and was the restaurant Bianci & Jorgini mentioned in lonely planet Mexico. it's a shame this happened 'cuz the food was quite good.

there is a tropical depression with 80 km/hr winds making weather overcast so i haven't been doing any sunbathing here... spent day/evening in bed although i didn't let the cold keep me from running before diving in the morning.

it's a vicious cycle... the cold is making diving painful and the diving is prolonging the illness. SIGH. but the diving is so fantastic i'm doing it anyways. i'm taking actifed noche before bed tonight and going for it again tomorrow.

Diver's Log: Day 2

We begin this day by the dive master, Jorge telling me to be careful... he noticed I had a nose bleed after the second dive yesterday (no wonder i was having problems with my ears... from now on i will go no where near a friend with a cold for at least two weeks prior to dive trip... :-()

Since the dosage of 2 benadryl allergy sinus no workie the day before, i had popped 3 pills before this day's dive.



Palancar Gardens

Start Pressure: 3000 psi
End Pressure: 0 psi

Saw a school of Sergeant Majors straight off. We swam through a cavern... It was fabulous although painful because swimming head first with the sinus problems is the most painful thing i can do... like knives in my ears.... We saw a sea turtle pretty immediately off. We saw a female coral crab and a male king crab who was only too happy to flash his pincers @ us (nobody likes a flashy pants mr. crab)

I did a bad thing and instead of coming up with 600 psi as instructed i came up with 0. Yes. Goose egg. De nada. I took a breath from my regulator and nothing came out. I won't do that again.

Surface interval (SI): 45 minutes

Delila

Start Pressure: 3200 psi
End Pressure: 300 psi

@ 50-60 ft for most of dive

Saw and photographed a barracuda in first 30 seconds of dive. Also saw a nurse shark. I was having a problem with foggy mask or i could have done better with pictures. This was a drift dive with really serious current. Over 2 knots. Jorge, dive master extraordinaire pointed out some goby's for me... they make holes in the sand and pop their bitty heads out... . I saw a huge parrot fish and got a pic.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Diver's Log: Day 1

Today I dove both Cedral Wall and Yucab (starting towards Tormento). Our dive group today was really good about alerting each other to cool stuff... Which is great. This isn't always the case. People were a-clankin' things on their tank and everyone would swim over and take turns at spying stuffs... And taking pictures.

My ears are causing me serious pain on account of this F*(King cold I STILL have but it's worth it. I had an issue on the first dive which caused me to come up briefly... After a discussion with the dive master he decided to help me go for it and that was that... I don't care if my ears split off of my head people... I'm a-diving.

My ears seemed to get better during the second dive but I will be taking the sinus pills I have religiously for the duration of my diving and also the airplane trips both back to Puerto Vallarta and then back to SF when the time comes.

Cedral Wall: This dive we kept @ between 60-80 feet. I saw three lobsters in this dive. Two of them were doing something with each other... I couldn't tell if they liked or hated each other but I surely didn't want to get in the middle of whatever it was they were doing.

I couldn't figure out this cheapo disposable underwater camera for this dive which is sad. I also saw a sea turtle with entourage.... I've noticed that the bigger swimming animals seem to come with entourages... It seems like some fishes like to roll with the big guy on the block or something like that.... I saw a parrot fish and a bunch of queen angel fishes.

Yucab: This dive we ranged mostly between 50-60 feet. This dive was a drift dive as is customary for most of Cozumel diving. We saw two separate spotted moray eels. The first one just wasn't going to pop his head out for me but he was hanging out next to a purple tube sponge with some brittle sea-stars moving around in there. So I hung out there for at least five minutes.... A teensy crab made it's way in & out of the sponge...

Later on the dive master got a teensy crab to crawl on his hand and that was cool. I sorted out the camera situation (off/on... this thing is a pain in the neck) so I was able to snap a couple of good pics of the lobster I saw this dive. I got a pic of a queen parrot fish and several Queen Angelfish and anything else I could photograph along the way. I couldn't get the camera to work when we saw the spotted moray on this dive... But it was cool anyway. He popped his head out and hissed his hello (as is customary)... It sounds pretty neat underwater.

All in all... this was a pretty good day diving... Tomorrow I will be taking one 27 exposure camera for each dive so wish me luck!!!!

Chichen Itza

So Chichen Itza is pretty cool... I thought the trip was overpriced and the tour-guide moved @ what could best be described as a glacial pace... Sadly, I think that was just fine for most folks... But for me... if I take a 3-4 hour bus ride one way up into the jungle I wanna see everything humanly possible.

That having been communicated I took a TON of photographs and purchased some souvenirs from some Mayans. The Mayans were pretty stellar mathematicians as it so happens... The Temple @ Kulkulkan (or El Castillo) is ostensibly the Mayan calendar built out of stone (as well put by the folks who wrote lonely planet mexico). There are 90 steps on each of the north, south, east, and west facing steps and north on this pyramid is magnetic north. For real.

During the spring and autumn equinoxes the north and south facing steps (respectively) appear to have a serpent ascending, descending down them. This happens between 3:30 - 4:45 PM on the dot... By 5 PM it's GONE. How cool is that? When you consider when this temple was built (900 AD) then you realize how truly remarkable it was.

On the way to Chichen Itza we stopped @ one of the 10,000 cenotes (underground rivers) for a jump in and a swim. This specific one is less than 3 kms away from Chichen Itza and is pretty remarkable. I can't wait to put the pictures up on the internet.

Friday, April 25, 2008

special thank you to KD!!!

my best friend from school ran to the airport @ a moment's notice to hang out with me on a layover on the way here to Cozumel... -xoxoxoox

that was definitely another trip highlight!

thanks! i miss you.

-xoxo

Hola from Cozumel

I'm here in Cozumel and finally getting over that horrid cold that got me my last two nights in Puerto Vallarta. I spent the longest travel leg of my journey completely sick... So much so that when my plane was two hours late after midnight in LAX I purchased a blanket and slept on the floor of the terminal...

I have said many times to many folks that I have a gift for sleeping... When it's time to go nightey night... I'm out. And I proved it. The thing is... most of the flight did this... I had to compete for crash space along the terminal windows.

I'm thankful someone woke me up... I awoke to a, "uhh... Excuse me.... Are you getting on that flight???" I sprang up and into action in time to make final boarding while the people who woke me up laughed at my outburst of "Uh Oh!"

I finished that leg of the journey by making it... before my luggage. But my luggage came on the last ferry from Playa Del Carmen and arrived @ my hotel after midnight last night. Which is good... Because the clothes I was wearing after 3 plane rides and a walk into San Miguel de Cozumel had a special kind o' smelly funk to them. So not sexy. Not so much.

My hotel is pretty nice... It's a newer hotel with a swim-up bar and a ladder straight out of the caribbean ocean to the sand with the beach chairs. There's also a hot tub... I know, poor me. So I spent today getting over my cold... Taking dips in the caribbean to cool off.

There was a lot of wind today which meant that snorkelling was pointless... The sea was churned up a bit which is no good if you want the fishies to come hang out.

I was having a heck of a time with the airplane landings yesterday as my ears refused to pop and let go of the pressure... I decided it would be a bad idea to scuba dive. It would have been the pain of the airplane multiplied by a factor of ten... If you have a cold... scuba diving feels like the effect of having knives stabbed into your ears. I've been through that before and decided to opt out of a repeat of that experience.

Tomorrow I will be on the first ferry to playa del Carmen on my way to Chichen Itza. We're stopping in a pool/waterfall for some swimming along the way... I won't be back to the hotel until after 9 PM tomorrow night.

I'll be doing diving Sunday - Wednesday including some night diving... Think, "The freaks come out at night.... the freaks come out at night!"

This paradigm also holds true for the underwater community. And the freaks are muy, muy beautiful. Think shrimp lounging around in neon purple tube sponges.

Highlights of the trip so far include the dinner I just had @ Restaurant de Choza (mentioned in Lonely Planet Mexico), the trip last week to Sayulita (a little surf town on the central pacific coast), the wedding (of course, of course), and some late night ruthless UNO card game action with the wedding party.

-xoxoxo from Mexico!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Greetings from Mexico

I wanted to let everyone know I'm having an extraordinary time. A special shout out for my friends Kim and Mike who are getting married later today. This hotel is going to be rocked off of it's rocker...

I knew we were in trouble Friday night when we had things a-going with brutal card games, music, and dancing and then the knock came on the door. I said, "Crap... I guess we're finally getting in trouble with hotel security..."

But no... the bar had closed but they were still serving us booze and pitchers personally (not me cuz i don't drink but everyone else)... The problem is they needed to keep a hold of the pitchers so they brought a ton of cups so we could empty the contents into the cups, stick them in the fridge, and press.

In a few days time I have had a rather large iguana on my head, a beautiful parrot on my shoulder, danced the macarena across the pacific ocean, jet skiied, snorkeled, ocean kayaked, done a boat trip to yelapa, sun bathed, shopped, well phew....

Anyway. See you in May.

-xoxoxo

Congrats Kim & Mike! We all love you.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

not hot

dude... of all reasons to be up all night... doing your freaking taxes is soooo not hot.

ugh.

and to boot, my turbo tax is now refusing to print for me... SUCKA!

i am going to kick this freaking turbo tax in the azz until it does my bidding. no computer EVER gets the better of ME. i AM an IT professional after all...

then i get up in 3 hours and go running and go to work one more day and then...

drum roll please.....

I'M GOING TO MEXICO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Saturday, April 12, 2008

On to Mexico

If you are curious to why my Where Page looks frightfully empty right now... I'll tell ya' why. My friend is getting married in lovely Mexico and I am going to participate in the festivities.

Then it's vacation time for me... I'll be gone for 3 weeks and I am frantically getting ready for the trip... Including getting my f*#*(# taxes out the door (sorry folks... paperwork stinks. HUGELY)

but i am SOOOO excited. My general itinerary:

fun
scuba
fun
sun tan
fun
swimming
fun
running
fun
friends
fun
mayan ruins
FUN
FUN
FUN

phew.... woo-woo-freaking-woo-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Friday, April 04, 2008

big thank you!!

thanks to chris, paul & the boyz of el otro mundo for having me @ the EOM sessions last night...

it was one of those sets... the first bit was rough for me and i finally found my happy space. it means so much more when you got to work for it... i can't wait for tonight @ temple... i am in LOVE with my new rekkidz (i mean this)

but more importantly i am so blessed to have friends like chris, paul, and the usual cohorts of in-studio guests (erik, cesar, stella the wonder dog & charles the feline).

thanks!!!

Tonight @ Temple!!!!!

-------- FUNKENTANZEN @ TEMPLE, 4 APRIL ------------>
Last chance to get on the guest list tonight for Funkentanzen @ Temple!!!!

Hit me back for guest list action.







What: Funkentanzen @ Temple

When: Friday, 4 April 2008
10 PM -> end

Who: DJ Zenith (Funkentanzen, Stirty Beats, Zenomena)
O'Henry (Stirty Beats)
Native Intelligence (Rock It Science, Sleevin.com)

Thursday, April 03, 2008

what the h#c* am I doing up right now??!!!

i'll tell ya' what! practicing. you silly goose.

i'm really proud of myself for finding my second wind and playing my records tonight. at about 10 PM i thought i was a gonner.

i have been suffering from the lingering cold... i am not at full energy right now. i like that i was able to kick myself into motivation after not even getting home from work until 8:15 PM.

i did mandatory chill time until around 10:15 PM and *then* we had the now or never moment. i love nights like this... almost 3 hours of music later.

i'll leave you with the flyer that Temple left for our event Friday night.