Cozumel, 2014 (aka The Kennedy Par-TAY)

“Our trip to Cozumel.”  This had been a key phrase in our family for our while.  Back in the spring, John and I had decided that we would host a family get-together in Cozumel.  You might picture aunts, uncles, cousins, parents.  Nope.  Just John, Larisa and the kids (plus Rebecca).  Afterall, it would be the first time in forever (for real) that all seven of us would be together, and we wanted it to be without any other distractions (the cell phone being the biggest one of all).  My granddad’s wife, Vannette, gave us our Christmas gift early and arranged for us to stay in a condo in Cozumel.  We bought the plane tickets, although it would prove to be a tricky thing, and John scheduled our dives with Sergio, the divemaster that John chewed out on our previous cruise :-) You can refresh your memories about that friendly visit by clicking here.

Because of John’s work schedule, we could only take our vacation during the last week of August, the week when Glo started tenth grade, and just days before both Mark and Hannah began their sophomore and freshman years of college.  It took a scheduling genius to figure out how to get everyone where they needed to be when.  Yep, I worked it all out.
Mark, Hannah and I packed everything they would need for school, as well as a separate bag for the Cozumel trip, and drove it all out to Michigan.  We hoped for the best as we flew away to Mexico, leaving behind their lives in our two cars.  Meanwhile, John, Glo, Ethan and Rebecca drove down to BWI and flew from there.  We actually met up in Dallas where my crew almost missed our flight because of a late connection. 

John had been wanting to go to Cozumel for a while, as had I.  I think he wanted to go not only for the diving, but for the Mexican culture.  Boy, he sure loves to whip out the Espanol, and we love listening to him do it.  I wanted to go for the diving—it’s never disappointed, and Cozumel has some interesting  drift dives.  Mark just wanted to go diving after two years of not even touching a body of water.  Ethan always wants to dive, not matter the place.  We were excited for sure.

We headed to El Cid, our home for the next eight days.  It definitely wasn’t the Hilton.  Or

 the Westin.  Or even a good Holiday Inn Express.  We could tell that it had seen its glory days already.  Not much air conditioning anywhere, lots of bugs, not the full kitchen that was promised, and just kind of a run down feeling.  However, we had three separate rooms which was nice, a decent pool and beach, and a dock for quick pick-up for dives.  Rebecca made the most of beach volleyball, flat volleyball and all!

Only a Midwesterner would show up on a Mexican beach in denim capris :-)  Glo knew how to play her cards right though--she got a strawberry daiquiri out of it!

The view from the beach was amazing.

Needless to say, we spent the majority of the time diving.  If my sinuses could do more, and if John’s wallet was a never-ending supply of money, we would have dived even more than we did.  There’s just so much to see under the cerulean water, and never enough time…or money…..or steroids.

We never dive on Sunday, so it being just our second day there, John arranged for a rental car (a Suburban) and we headed out to church first.  John always believes in helping the locals by supporting their businesses (over American chains), so when our dive master said that he had a "friend"  who had a car we could rent, John took it.  It didn't have much gas in it which of course left me rather nervous, and it was a beast to park.  However, it carried our groceries from the grocery store, it took us to church, and it took us to the Mayan ruins.

Now THAT'S a rental car :-)

It’s always such a beautiful thing to visit church in another country.  I love seeing people who share all the same beliefs that we do, but they have their own sets of challenges, and they remain faithful.  Their chapel was packed, and everyone did everything they could to get into the room for in this building, only the chapel was air conditioned :-)  My heart went out to the missionaries serving there.  While my boys were freezing in Poland and Russia, these young men were sweating in paradise…and in suit coats.  I said a little prayer for their mothers who no doubt were just as worried as I had been when my boys were far from home. 

It was insanely, oppressively hot.  We loved it, but it was just really, really hot.

We had shown up at church an hour earlier than necessary, so we decided to get a quick bite of lunch. John took us to Burger King. Same food…sort of.  There was a movie playing on the TV there. I think it was Avengers, but of course it was subtitled in Spanish. Nobody seemed to care though--they watched it anyways.

A panoramic shot of Burger King.  It was new and really nice...and completely empty.

After church, we headed back to El Cid to change our clothes, and then drove out to some ruins. They were further than we expected, and we were going off a tourist map of the island (so they weren't that easy to find). Too, they closed early in the day, so by the time we showed up, we were the only visitors. And I was STRESSED about our emptying gas tank situation. Again, hotter than Hades.

This picture reminds me that Mark was still recovering from his sprained ankle.

The iguanas are crazy big....and crazy looking!

I do believe Hannie and I were photobombed....x3!  You can see how "happy" I am to be there by the expression on my face....

Of course John insisted on jumping over the rope barricade and climbing the actual ruins.  I tried to remind him what the ruins would like if EVERYONE ignored the rules, but in true John fashion, he didn't listen :-)

An ancient Mayan artifact obviously.  Yes, we brought it home.

We dove, and we dove some more.  We did morning dives, afternoon dives, drift dives, wall dives, and night dives.  It was so easy with Sergio, as it always is when we stay somewhere.  He got to know us, we got used to his way of doing things, and it was just easy.  One of the nicest things about him in particular was that during our surface interval, he would take us to a beach (usually we just sit on the boat).  It was so much fun to get out of the boat, enjoy some of the delicious fresh fruit he brought and just relax.  That is, most of us relaxed.  But John and water toys?  Yeah, he and Hannie decided that the ocean playground must be there for them, and they were climbing all over the slides.

Hannie convinced Mark and Glo to swim out to the closest trampoline.

Food was tricky, because we didn’t have the full kitchen we were promised.  We ordered pizza a couple of times, but mostly we went out for dinner each day.  Being in the Caribbean, we expected a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, but it was mostly beef and tortillas everywhere.  Delicious beef and tortillas, but believe me, we eagerly anticipated Sergio’s fresh fruit on the dives J  We headed to the grocery store a couple of times too for breakfast and lunch items, and like church, it was a fun experience.  Everyone around the world has to eat, and it’s always a good indicator of the people to see what they eat.  For example, there was an entire half of an aisle devoted to tortillas!  Yep, we aren’t in Amurica anymore, Toto!  And cookies.  Mexicans definitely like their cookies….as do we.  Those Mexican cookies were sooooo good!

Always Hannah's favorite on cruises or at any tropical location: the strawberry Day-Queerie

Here are the best of the best pictures I took underwater. Of course, I have 100 more, but these will have to do.

Grey Angel Fish can frequently be found around turtles.  They eat the extra bits that the turtle chews off the coral.

I believe this is the only picture we took of the whole family for the week.

Caribbean lobsters

A juvenile spotted drum fish.  Always my favorite, because they are so cute and fast.  Of course, this makes it almost impossible to catch them with the camera!

I do believe we are the WHITEST bunch of people in the Caribbean at any one time.  Or at least the most CLOTHED :-)

A moray eel

I like to find schools of pork fish.  It becomes a game to see how close I can get with the camera.  When I upload my photos, it's a series of pictures--from further away to as close as I can get.  This was pretty dang close.

It's the same with these SCHOOLMASTERS (from the snapper family).  They create a tall column by grouping together.

Cool swim through!

Our friend, David, thinks this is a Guitar fish (part of the electric ray family).  If so, they are extremely rare.  I actually found him when I was doing a handstand in this beautiful white sand at about 30 feet.  I put my hands in the sand, and something POPPED out of it.  I screamed (Hannah heard me), but thankfully kept my wits about me and got a picture.  David wondered if I got shocked. Thankfully, no.

I really love this picture, black and white and all, because it captures the surreal mood around the PORCUPINE fish (from the puffer fish family).  They seem to just float in the water, and divers are always careful not to approach too closely.  I used to think that caution was necessary for the safety of the divers, but I found out that it's more for the safety of the fish:  they can only "puff" five times in their lifetimes before they die.

A yellow ray.

The conch shells are frequently overlooked, because they look mossy and old.  However, it's fun to catch the living creatures that live inside!

I had the brilliant idea of taking our Christmas pictures under water.  The kids made the signs.  However, I couldn't find a card layout that worked, and I didn't like that I couldn't really see our faces.  

As far as underwater family photos goes, this one is pretty awesome.  If only I had had a higher quality camera!

A perfect moment--a grey angelfish with Ethan.

See the eel?

This was the first time I've EVER seen a frog fish.  It's actually a STRIATED FROG FISH, and it has a boomerang-shaped lure, just above its lip.  I was VERY excited!

It doesn't matter how many times we find a turtle, we're always excited!

A yellow stingray.

Another juvenile spotted drum.  It always feels like a good luck token to me.

And here's the adult version of the spotted drum.

 The night after Mark, Hannah and I left to return to the States, Ethan, Rebecca, John and Glo went on another night dive. Thankfully, Glo took the camera and got some really awesome shots:

I personally have never seen one of these SCRAWLED FILEFISH, and I had to look it up in the book to figure out what it is.

The holy grail of night dives:  an octopus.  We all feel like it's a successful night dive, if we can see just one.  It looks like this was taken during the day, but Glo has the flash on, and the divers are shining their flashlights on the octopus.

One of the coolest things about the octopi is that as they try and hide from you (and the flashlights), they change colors as they cover different terrain.  Green, red, orange, brown.  It's amazing to watch.

At the time, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was happening on social media.  Mark was challenged, and decided to put a more creative spin on it.  Since the ice wouldn't fall "down" under the water, John helped Mark still dump it "on" his head.  Unfortunately, Mark never posted it, and there are no subtitles, but you'll get the idea.  

After days of diving, and feeling the stress on my skin and hair, it's nice to actually wash off in fresh water and plug in the flat iron. Thankfully, I had my in-house hairdresser (aka Hannie) willing to help me, and restore my hair to what it should be (post salt water). Of course, in the heat and humidity, it only stayed like this for 3 minutes :-)

It was so good to be together again as a family.  I think we would all agree that the best part was having Mark back home again.  The family felt complete.  Three cheers for Cozumel!