“Poker face! No smiling at the fishes. Women, no smiling at me.”

The floodgates have opened and lately all I can think about is writing.  I save just a little bit of this motivation for this space here.  I figure after being terribly neglectful for the majority of its existence, my blog deserves some love.  Luckily for me, you can ignore a blog for months at a time without too many repercussions (you can also call it dirty names, attend to it after a few glasses of wine and easily take it with you when you travel).  If those merits make little sense to you, then you haven’t seen my list of reasons I do not want kids.  But that is another subject entirely and not at all to do with why I am here.  Why am I here?

I am here to tell you that last month I was sorely tempted to move to Mexico.  First of all, I had the most amazing tomatoes aboard Nena.  No, these delectable slices of juicy red fruit were not my main reason for wishing I could throw caution to the wind and stay on island time for the rest of the summer (at least), but they were most definitely noteworthy.  I have never in my life tasted such scrumptious tomatoes and have spent the last two and a half weeks searching for their American counterparts.  So far I have had no luck.  Check back later for my Farmers Market adventures, coming as soon as I haul myself out of bed at 7:30 AM on a Friday when I don’t have to work.  I fear, however, that my search will be, pardon the pun, fruitless.  There are times when the intermingling of senses culminate in the heightening of a single experience.  In my case the sun on my skin and the salt on my lips, the music of the engine and the hull cutting through the water, the blue waters and the colorful spread of mango, red bell pepper, celery, jicama, lettuce and tomato must have interwoven themselves into a complex sensation that revealed itself in the climax of taste as I bit into that perfectly ripe tomato.  In that perfect taste was the simple truth that I am still head over heels in love with the ocean.  That is the reason I cursed my own good judgement for carrying the rest of me to the airport, through security and onto a plane bound for the middle of the desert.

We spent eight days on Cozumel, including those spent traveling.  We had only one mission: dive.  We spent six days aboard La Nena, the dive boat owned by Cristina, who actually went to graduate school with my Dad at Rice University back in the 80′s (small world).  After graduate school she headed back to Mexico, fell in love with the Caribbean and in 1987 moved to Cozumel.  You can probably see why I like this woman.  Besides living the life of an educated dive bum, she is warm, welcoming and hilarious.  Her husband Luis also happens to give the funniest dive instruction I have heard yet.  He usually only goes diving when there are inexperienced or resort divers on the boat.  He had me sit in on two of these briefings telling me that it was “good for my professional diving education.”  With much animation he sits his group down and tells them, “You think you are certified but you know nothing.  I am going to tell you the things you need to know so that YOU DON’T DIE.  I don’t like it when my divers die!”  He then proceeds to go through airspaces and squeezes, buoyancy and choking.  ”I have water in my mask but that water is not going up my nose and I am not choking.  Why?” “You’re not inhaling through your nose?” “NO” “You’re blowing out through your nose?”  ”….NO! I am looking DOWN.  If you have water in your mask and look UP then the water goes down your nose and you choke. So, you have water in your mask, don’t look up.  Clear the water like we practiced and you’ll be fine.”  His advice as to how to keep water out of your mask? “Poker face!  No smiling at the fishes.  Women, no smiling at me.”

Despite the offer to accompany the novice divers for further “education” I opted to stick with my parents and our divemaster, Chucho.  Unfortunately this trip we did not get to dive with Cristina herself because she had friends/business investors with whom she had to schmooze.  Fair enough since, after all, they helped buy Luis’s fishing boat, Second Front (basically meaning “mistress” which is exactly what fishing is for Luis – between fishing and diving, he’ll take fishing.  Maybe because he is always stuck with the muppets).  But Chucho was a fantastic alternate and he was more than happy to spend a week not getting kicked in the head for a change.

www.divewithcristina.com

www.chuchodivers.com

So we splashed….

Although the footage does not capture the true beauty of the reefs, it gives a glimpse of their majesty.  And the reefs around Cozumel are truly magnificent.  Towering coral formations – caves, pillars, overhangs – complete with an amazing diversity of life including countless species of coral, sponges, zoanthids, crustaceans, fishes, turtles, sharks.  Long spindly legged arrow crabs, huge file fish, tiny anemone shrimp and throngs of juvenile wrasse kept us company as we drifted the reefs and wove through the complex system of swim throughs.  I even saw something that I had never before seen: a Splendid Toadfish.  These funky looking creatures are thought to be endemic to Cozumel, which explains why I was so excited about the first one I found.  I made Chucho come look at it, smiling wide and shrugging my shoulders as to say “I have no idea!” he pointed to his temple and then motioned as though turning pages in a book: “remember, we’ll look it up”.  I had found something totally novel and after swimming a few feet I saw it again.  And again.  Those bearded toadfish made an appearance on nearly every dive after that point.  The real treat was seeing the whole fish, as they usually hide their backsides in crevices.  Chucho wrastled one out of its hole for a photo shoot and I was delighted to see that the rest of the toadfish was as spiffy as promised.

Each and every on of the 14 dives we did while in Cozumel was between 60 and 75 minutes.  There was no time limit beyond those set by decompression limits and air consumption, an arrangement that suited me perfectly well.  Nena only goes out once a day normally and so there is no rush to get back to the dock.  We left at 9 am and usually returned around 3 pm.  There was one day, however, when two charters went out and you bet your ass I was on both of them.

My dad and I opted to do all four dives that day and it just so happened to fall on the best day for diving we had all week.  The currents were mild and the sun shining.  We were our own little group with Chucho taking the lead.  My mom joined us for the second half of the day.  When she first heard that conditions were fantastic and that we had found her coveted pipe fish (at least it wasn’t a sea horse) she was disappointed that she had not joined us for the first two dives.  But it just so happens that she chose exactly the right dives.  First we went to Santa Rosa reef and visited Chucho’s “girlfriend” who, I hated to tell him, was just using him for his fish lips.  My dad played videographer with his new camera and documented the orgy:

Other highlights from the two evening dives were another pipe fish, two sailfin blennies, a nurse shark and a mongo loggerhead turtle with barnacles on its back meandering across the sand eating hermit crabs.

Not my picture, but I had to show you how seriously cool sailfin blennies are.  I wish I had a video of the display.

Diving was not the only wonderful part of Mexico.  Afternoons and evenings were spent drinking various concoctions featuring either rum or tequila while soaking in the bar side jacuzzi, eating amazing food in town or staying in and making seriously delicious meals of our own, swimming about the shallow reef outside the hotel with flashlights in search of octopi (yes, we did find one!) and in general enjoying the good company.

Now, I am fully aware that living on an island is not like vacationing on an island but when Cristina spoke the words, “You know we are hiring…” I had to work to resist the urge to test her sincerity.  Sure, I do not speak Spanish, but I cannot think of a better way to learn!  But sadly there is no Bikram yoga on Cozumel and its absence would have soon been felt.  Even so, if it were not for my commitment to my job, a lease and a cat I may well have stayed a wee bit longer.

Evenings on Cozumel tended to end fairly early; as long as there was a dive boat to catch in the morning I was okay with calling it a night around 10.  On our last day there, however, I saw no reason to get a good night’s sleep.  Chucho had offered a could days before to take me dancing on Friday night and so at 10:00 we met at Viva Mexico, a second floor bar overlooking the ocean and two XX brought for every one ordered.  The crowd started out fairly mild but as the drinks were downed the scene unfolded beautifully, becoming a rowdy mix of locals and tourists, a eclectic mix of bodies with varying degrees of rhythm.  And the band was awesome.  They started with Pink Floyd and drew from bands like Jet, The Eagles, Journey and many many more that are now lost somewhere in a haze of beer and dancing.  Finally at 2:30 AM my legs gave out on me and I had to declare myself a pumpkin.  The reference was completely lost on Chucho, but my sleepy eyes got the point across and a cab ride (and a glorious shower) later I was happily passed out in bed.

The next day I had to say goodbye to salty sea air and the embrace of the ocean.  I ache for it still, here in the dry heat so many miles away from warm, clear waters.  Arizona has been so good to me this last year and I will always love this place.  But my mind has already started to plan my next move; one that will set my clock back to island time.

Sorry September, My Bad

I keep looking around me wondering where September went. I always do this; whenever I get busy I completely fall off the blog/journal wagon.  Honestly, I was not inclined while in Hawaii to sit down and wax eloquent about the beauties and adventures of the island.  I was way too busy enjoying them.  There wasn’t much sense in writing about the ocean while I could be in it.  That covers the first two weeks of September.  So what happened to the rest of it?  Well, upon my return I tried several times to sit down and write about my trip.  I thought that surely I couldn’t neglect to detail my travels in language every color of the rainbow.  I dedicated hours to the attempt.

I began…

“North Shore is not just a geographic location, not simply a name assigned to describe a coast line with a town called Haliewa composed of an array of shops and restaurants.  Anyone with a travel guide to Oahu can tell you that North Shore is the “country” where surfers flock to ride the swells that role in during the fall and winter months.  They can probably list of names like Waimea Bay, Shark’s Cove, Pipe Line and Sunset Beach.  Perhaps they even have an opinion on the best shave ice in town (they will probably tell you Matsumotos, but they would be mistaken).  But North Shore is very much a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.  Ask three people who have spent some actual time there, “What is North Shore?” and you will get three unique answers.”

I got stuck.

I began again…

“I sat down today to write about the essence of North Shore, to somehow encompass the complex simplicity of my personal North Shore experience.  And I don’t just use the oxymoron in supercilious excess.  Days at North Shore are characterized by effortlessness and relaxation.  Every moment flows smoothly into the next, from diving to relaxing on the beach to cruising into Haliewa where the most difficult part of the day comes down to having to decide what three flavors you want on your small shave ice with ice cream.  But at the same time there are a million little components that blend together to create that quintessential North Shore day.”

I got stuck again.

Sitting in my little coffee shop in the middle of the desert, I simply could not coax the appropriate combination of diction, syntax and imagery from my mind.  I kept slipping away, trying to synthesize and organize all the different experiences I had gone through in the previous two weeks.  The task of organizing and editing it all was so daunting that I did not even know how to begin.  And I still have not made any headway.  Why?  Because for the rest of September I have had very little time to just sit down, take a deep breath and write.  To be quite honest, I haven’t even unpacked, washed and dried my dive gear.  Fortunately it was ‘mostly’ dry before I packed it all, but it does need a good wash and thorough dry.  I basically came home, spent three days quite sick, one day having fun and have been working ever since.  That is only a slight exaggeration.  I also moved   I smile now only because I am DONE moving.  Okay, so I don’t have a whole lot of stuff and compared to other moves, this one was quite painless.  But I still hate moving.  The very idea of it sends me into a panic.   Having moved five times in the last year certainly does not make it easier (except that in the move off Hawaii I got rid of the majority of my stuff).

Those are the excuses that I offer for not having produced a somewhat loquacious narrative on my recent travels.  Fortunately I have something almost (or equally) as good.  Pictures! They’re worth a thousand words, right?  Well, until I am struck with inspiration to write the story that goes along with them, they will have to suffice. 

Day one:  First things first, find me the ocean!

Friday night in Waikiki

Holy Shit it’s Romulus.  Happiest. Four. Minutes. Ever.  And then I cried.

Diamond Head

Labor Day at Three Tables!  A dive followed by a day on the beach and a gorgeous sunset to top it off.

And what’s the day without a little yoga?

Okay, so here’s a funny story for this day, post-dive and pre-sunset.  There we all were (all being myself, Brian, Monica, Claire, Hannah, John, Randy and Stephanie) enjoying a few beers when the group next to us started up with some very suspicious behavior.  The woman pulled out a few lemons from her cooler and placed something dark and roundish on top before squeezing the lemon into her mouth.  Monica leaned over to Brian, “What do you think they’re doing?  Do you think they’re doing drugs?  Those look like they could be shrooms!”  Brian: “I have no idea, they could be.” And then to the woman, “Excuse me! What’s on the lemons?”  And wouldn’t you believe it? …It wasn’t shrooms.  In fact it was li hing mui, a salty dried plum that just happens to taste excellent with lemon!  Fortunately the woman did not hear the short discussion linking her with possible hallucinogenics use and so shared a few with us.  Delicious!  Though considering that afterward we all proceeded to pelt each other with seedpods for the fun of it, I’m not entirely sure there wasn’t something slightly off about them.

As for the rest of September, like I said, first I was sick and then I was busy.  For the record, when you teach Bikram yoga for a living, losing your voice is shitty.  But between sick and work I had exactly one day of awesomeness, involving yoga, Honey Bear BBQ and sangria.  And from that day, the last pictures from the month of September…barring those I took last night that are currently stuck on the camera with no batteries.

I STILL think this is a bizarre tag line.

Ribs!  And true to advertising, very tender.  May be my last foray to BBQ for a while though.  I’m feeling a meatless streak coming on.

Happily stuffed with BBQ.

A quick sangria – bagged wine with nectarines, grapes, and blueberries.  And eventually apricot brandy and gingerale.  Yum.

Too much wine in the pitcher, so a glass each to start the afternoon.  Yikes.

Now what of the pictures that are trapped on my camera?  They may appear later and mark the end of September as well as the end of my dear sister Janice’s California residence.  Yesterday I picked her, Amin, Isabel and their cat Khali up from the airport.  After dropping off Khali at Islands Animal Resort along with a strong caution not to try to touch her lest she bite your arm off (she’s got big TEEETH), we were off to the ‘rents’ house.  Isabel and dinner kept us entertained for the majority of the evening.  She’s absolutely precious, of course, and ran at full speed until she finally crashed for the evening.  She’ll be staying at my parents’ house for a couple of weeks until Janice and Amin get settled in DC.  One more reason, as much as I love her, that I’m so glad I have moved out!

Alright, so there is the gist of September.  Perhaps more to come, but I now feel as though I can move forward without the pressure of ‘catch up’ upon my shoulders.

The Dangers of Tropical Living I – Ambushing Fruits

Being a diver, I frequently get into conversations with non-divers about the threat of sharks and how it is so insignificant as not to warrant much energy on my part.  I might not want to be paddling about on the surface in tiger shark infested waters, but the truth is that unless you are chumming the waters, the density of shark needed to qualify as ‘infested’ just isn’t common.  Besides, I feel that I am much safer under the water than I am slogging about up to my knees near Florida sandbars.  Either way though, I rarely devote much thought to the matter.  One of my favorite ways to derail the “sharks are scary” train is to bring up a statistic I heard on the Colbert Report.  I know it must be valid coming from such a dependable source; while Colbert employees sarcasm and parody to make a farce of right wing fundamentalist ideals, he is generally fairly adept at checking his statistics.  I digress.  Sharks and vending machines, that is where I was headed.  In the context of Discovery’s Shark Week, Colbert points out the somewhat bizarre and obscure fact that more people are killed annually by VENDING MACHINES than by sharks.  Yes, vending machines.  And if you are anything like me at this point you are raising one eyebrow (or in my case trying to and failing as always) whilst pondering how on earth one gets killed by a vending machine?  Perhaps while trying to cheat the system, one may get an arm stuck and subsequently starve to death before rescue arrives.  Or maybe that vending machine had been kicked one too many times that day and finally decided to take its revenge via strangling by power cord?  Rather, I suppose, vending machines are rather large and heavy and sometimes fall over.  A somewhat more common statistic quoted in defense of sharky reputations is that more people are killed each year by coconuts falling from trees.

Tropical fruit probably seems fairly innocent to you but today I was almost beaned by that rogue coconut.  I enjoy running at a place called Goodman’s Bay Beach Park and today I took advantage of being in the area to do just that.  I warm up by walking a lap – I am a big believer in warm ups and their injury prevention and endurance promoting qualities.  Bordering the jogging path on either side are (duh duh dun!) coconut trees.  And so the stage was set with my presence, my unprotected noggin and more than a few of those ambushing palm fruits.  Sure enough as I strolled along one of those shelled bombs released and plummeted towards me.  At precisely that moment I looked down at my untied shoelace and stooped down to tighten it.  THUMP.  My eyes rose to a patch of ground only six inches in front of me where settled a freshly fallen coconut.  Okay, truth be told it was a small coconut and the tree was only about 8 feet high.  I don’t THINK that it would have done any fatal damage but I can tell you it would have given me quite a headache and a large lump.  I may also have had trouble recalling what had happened in the time surrounding the incident.

Once again, however, I barely escaped the tropical fruit ambush with my life.  That is correct, this is not my first battle.  My first day back in the Bahamas after teacher training, back in December, I was hunting papaya with Chris and one nearly got the better of me.  And when I say nearly, I mean I was the winner solely because I later ate that papaya and so won the war.  The first battle, however, went to the fruit.

While I was away at training, Chris discovered papaya in the backyard of our apartment complex.  He had talked several times about “hunting papaya”, which seemed at first a less girly sounding way to say “I’m outside picking fruit”.  December came around and I jokingly donned my camouflage hat and brandished the ‘spear’ (a broom handle with a steak knife taped to the end).  Off we went into the ‘jungle’ to hunt the dreaded papaya.  I spotted my quarry:  a barely yellow, plump specimen.

I went in for the kill.

But this papaya was not giving up without a fight.  All of a sudden.  WHACK!

And much to the delight of Chris, I jumped, screamed AND got hit by a melon.

Thus ends the story of the Great Papaya Ambush.  Never again will I make fun of papaya hunting.  That shit takes skills.  Oh yes, and subsequently, if you ask me about my fear of sharks, the answer is that I’m far more afraid of tropical fruits.  Especially heavy ones that grown on trees.

A Cliche Hello

Where am I?   Currently I am living on New Providence in the Bahamas.  What am I doing here?  Living.

A little about who I am and how I got here.  For the majority of my life I was a student, and not just in the capacity that I attended school.  I took my career as a student seriously, becoming valedictorian of my high school, graduating university with a 4.0, studying abroad at a field school, living to pass my GREs with flying colors so that I might go on to graduate school to earn my PhD in cell and molecular biology, the first step in a long career doing research and teaching.  I got as far as graduate school before realizing that life should involve happiness and fulfillment, neither of which I was achieving in class or in lab.  Had I gone anywhere other than Hawaii, I might still be on the path I had set out for myself long ago.  Instead I slacked off in graduate school and went diving instead.  Over the past year, my direction has shifted from a PhD track to dive master and Bikram yoga teacher.  For anyone who has ever had their life train derailed, you know it’s both exhilarating and terrifying.

In May I took permanent leave from graduate school, in August I packed my bags, sold my car, found my dog a home and left Hawaii.  Why?  The answer to that question is so cliche that I almost blush to type it.  I followed a boy.  Roll your eyes, “awww”, smirk, just do what you gotta do because here comes the next one: “Follow your heart”.  I was in love and in a position to take life by the reins and kick it into a gallop.  I moved to the Bahamas.  Three weeks later I was in Las Vegas to begin my 9 week training to become  Bikram Yoga teacher.  From Hawaii to the Bahamas to Vegas back to the Bahamas.  From student to dive master to Bikram yoga teacher.  That has been the last nine months of my life.  I believe I have earned the right to another cliche: “Change is good.”  At least it can be as long as those changes are made with honest intention and an open mind.

That is the highly abridged version of how I came to be where I am and a bit of the back story as to why I believe in “no worries”, “living the dream”, “all you need is love” and still find myself biting my nails anxiously because I can’t shake the feeling that I should be DOING something.  Some days I just can’t shake that student mentality. Hopefully on Monday far fewer of those days will plague me.  Monday morning I begin teaching Bikram Yoga at a local wellness studio.  There is not a Bikram Yoga Studio here, much to my chagrin, and so it is up to me to launch a Bikram yoga community.  It took me 3 months to find a studio and set up my classes and I am two days away from walking into that hot room as a Bikram teacher.  Wish me luck!

So that wraps up my little “about me” section.  To come is a blog about my Bahamian adventures, from tales of diving to yoga news with everything from recipes and rum ramblings in between.  But right now I have to pick up Chris from work.  One of us has to bring home the metaphorical turkey bacon.