Short report about June 24 to 28 trip

[chuck]

A short report about my trip to Cozumel and the return.

The drive to the airport in Dallas from my home in Hutchinson, Kansas was relatively uneventful and we stayed in Dallas Friday night so we could be at the airport early for the 8am flight direct to Cozumel.

Was first in line Saturday morning and the boarding and flight went well, hit the green light and the start of a wonderful trip was going great. Stayed at the Hotel San Miguel Messon down town. This is where we had our only problems of the trip. The AC did not work and we could not make the desk understand that. They would send a non-English speaking maintenance person up and he would hear the AC running and saying “max, max”, I assume meaning it was all that there was. Well I am no AC tech but even I can tell when the Compressor is kick on and off or not. I tried to tell them that the compressor would not work and it was useless. It was hotter in the room than it was out on the square.

Just when we were about to move our bedding out onto the square for the night, my Angel on the Island called. (Christi from Blues XT-Sea diving) called and she said she would speak to them in Spanish and get it strait. Shortly an older maintenance man came up and looked for 2 minutes and said compressor was bad. Then he moved us to another room that we were told they did not have. Christi came through above and beyond again.

After the room fiasco was cleared then everything turned out great. The diving (with Christi) was great the DMs were fantastic and the whole ordeal was as pleasant as I have ever had on the island. Christi’s operation seems to be better every time I go down there and I certainly don’t know how she continues to improve on perfection but somehow she always does.

I made 11 dives in three days and did not have a bad dive. To compare the reef conditions to when I was last there. (February of this year) I would say that everywhere I went they were better. The current is cleaning the sand away and the sea life is even better than it was before.

I was really impressed with Arturo’s (Christi’s DM) description of the pier being destroyed. He told some of the newer divers on the boat that the construction company took out some of Paradise reef to make the pier. It was a shame that they had to do that, but you don’t mess with Mother Nature. She sent Wilma here and took back what they blew up. That pier is now becoming part of Paradise reef. The part that they took away, she is taking back.

I must say that I enjoyed this trip as much as any I have taken to the Island, about 16 trips in the last 3 years.

But when I returned home I was the most impressed and the proudest that I have been in a long time.

We were waiting in line to clear customs and in front of us was a solder that was retuning form duty after being gone for a year. I told him Thank You for what he does and that he should be proud for being a solder of such a wonderful country.

He told us that he was just doing his job but that he was glad to be home. He was about to see his 9 month old little girl that he had never seen. This really sent a pang of pride though me and I congratulated him and shook his hand and thanked him again.

The next thing I seen made me one of the proudest Americans in the country. When this young man entered the room where people were waiting, his wife and baby girl included.

EVERYONE in that room stood up and applauded.

Now that may not seem like much but I was impressed by the group that included younger and older, male and female, and people of all origins and colors, at that point they were all Americans and I must say that I was damned proud to be one of them.

Even though I had just returned from maybe one of the best trips I had ever been on, it almost paled to the brightness of what I had just witnessed and at that moment I was really proud to be an American and to be back home.

Once again Thanks to all our military people for making it so that we can do the things we do and most certainly too many times take for granted.

I could not say anything that could add to what I seen in that airport that day so until the next trip August 2 Thanks again Mr. Link (That was all I got and that was from his uniform)

[kathy s]

An incredible report from start to finish.....Thank you so much!

[DiJo]

happy to hear the reefs are improving! Very touched with your vivid description of Mr Link's (soldiers) return to the USA. It's wonderful that so many stood in the airport and applauded; as there is so much controversy here in Canada about our troops overseas that it's great to hear sooo many people do stand behind our government's decision.