Abi's Deep Dive

It has been a while, and I have so much with which to update you. After injuring my knee I was pretty down in the dumps. It was possibly the most painful injury I have had, certainly in the last ten years, and I found working and looking after the puppies while getting around on crutches exhausting. Just the pain was exhausting. The morning after I slipped I was retching and had sweat running down my arms just trying to get to the bathroom. I was supposed to be working that day but couldn’t put any weight at all on my leg, so called Miguel at 6.30 and asked him to cover me. Maria was at work that day too and brought me crutches and tape home from base which at least meant I could get to the bathroom unaided and without making the injury worse. It has been a slow recovery, I am still limping but am increasing the distance I walk and have been able to swim, no diving so yet again my Divemaster is delayed. A week after I hurt myself the puppies went to their forever home. I am a crier, and saying goodbye to Snapper and Chub after 5 weeks of being up every night when they cried for cuddles was really hard. Despite the lack of sleep I enjoyed my time with them so much and Snapper particularly had been my little shadow sleeping near me and always coming back to me after he had puppy games with his brother. I expected to be emotional but I was really sad when the puppies left, and I was also gutted that I couldn’t do their first walk which I had been so looking forward to. It seems strange that after 5 weeks with them almost 24 hours a day I will never see them again! Everyone on base misses the cuddles and chasing them around while they explored together, I think they had even grown on Miguel. The puppies now live in the US and the updates I am getting show that they are having a great time in their new home.

I moved house!! I posted on Facebook months ago offering myself as a house sitter as lots of people in Puerto Morelos are there for the winter but find it too hot in the summer so they go back to Canada or the US, so I thought it was worth a shot to get some space. A really lovely lady contacted me in February and asked to meet me (as well as a few other people suggesting I was just what they were looking for with pineapple GIFs!!) I met Nadine, her husband and their little girl and we got on really well. They are from Germany and go home for a couple of months in the summer, they asked if I would stay in their house and stop the humidity making everything mouldy, as well as keeping an eye on their rental which is a few doors down. The house is on a newish development, it’s a bit further from town than the staff house but within walking distance (or it was before knee!!) We met up a few times, agreed the terms, and I was set to move in from May to September. They have done a lot of travelling, I think their 3 year old has been to more countries than I have, and I enjoy their company so I was excited to have the opportunity to spend 6 months in their lovely house, then she said that things had changed. I was worried that they were not going home after all, but they’d found out that they are pregnant and so they don’t know when they will be able to come back to Mexico. I will be in the house a little longer that we first agreed but that is absolutely fine!! There is a lovely swimming pool on the site, an outside gym, which I will use as soon as I am pain free, and some really friendly neighbors. I feel very lucky that Nadine and her husband trusted me to look after their house, and I am so much happier now. I love my job and being in Mexico, but communal living was really taking its toll. I hadn’t realised until I had been in the new house for a week how it had got me down. Now I wake up early, make coffee, put my music on and have a relaxed start to the day. If I am not working I go to the pool and If i am working I walk to meet the participants bus and catch a ride in with them. At the end of the day I look forward to getting home and relaxing, maybe cooking something or just reading in the kitchen, and there are no cockroaches!!!! I have found a few scorpions, the first was the biggest I have seen since I have been in Mexico, just strolling through the house in the middle of the night! When I started sweeping it out of the house I was surprised at the speed with which it could spin around and attack with its tail and pincers. I definitely do not want be on the receiving end of an attack!

Work is good, we have been working from 7.30am-7pm but have a really lovely group of volunteers on base so it’s enjoyable to be with them and see how they develop while they’re with us. When one volunteer Jess arrived Miguel messaged me to tell me my “mini me” had arrived. We hit it off straight away and not only has she extended her stay to do her rescue course but she’s also accepted an offer to stay and work on base after her volunteering finishes. Im glad she will be around for longer Jess is British and good fun, and we have conversations which engage my brain which I love.

Mexico is hot, almost every day the temperature hits a new record, so already the sea is heating up. After the global bleaching event last year it’s not looking good as the temperatures are already higher than they should be. There are lots of webinars and meeting with different experts from around the world to talk about what has been done that has worked and what we can all do next, but honestly unless we can stop global warming it’s not looking good for a lot of the coral we work with. The difference between the reef I saw as a volunteer in 2022 and the same sites now is stark. Over 10,000 Acropora palmata died in Puerto Morelos last year along with many other species and the vibrancy under the water has been lost. Our work with the coral lab has reduced as they plan what they will do next, so we have been getting involved in other projects to make sure that the participants feel like they are making a difference. This is great as we are now also monitoring Sargassum, and Spotted Eagle Rays. The Sargassum monitoring is also handy as we can do it from the shore so it is data that we can collect even when the weather means that we can’t dive. Spotted Eagle rays are stunning!! We take photographs of them from above and then map their markings. Each one has different markings, a bit like a fingerprint, so it makes it easier to gather data bout their movements. The volunteers who are involved in the data entry have given them all names and it is so lovely to hear them chatting about individual rays when they see them again.

It’s 32 degrees here and humid, and when I see the weather reports from England I can’t imagine being back in jeans and a hoodie and not wearing flip-flops all the time. We didn’t get the Northern lights show in Puerto Morelos though, and I have loved seeing all of the photographs of that. Why has that happened? Is it another symptom of the damage we are doing to the planet? I am keeping on with Spanish lessons, my lovely Mexican friend Sarai has given me a couple of lessons and I got to have a long distance call with a student who she is teaching English. His English was definitely better than my Spanish but it was fun to ask and answer questions. I think I am so fearful of saying things wrong that it is good to just have to converse. I need to be braver!

Turtle season is coming and males are now in the area. Volunteers are seeing the green turtles on dives which is exciting and always a popular sighting!

Hopefully in a few weeks I will be back in the water, I think the actual diving would be ok now, but climbing up a ladder onto the boat might be pushing it at the moment. I can’t wait!! I had really made inroads into the divemaster and was enjoying mapping a dive site, so it will be good to finish up. In the mean time I am learning to identify the fish that we monitor including Parrot fish which live in a group of females with one male. When the male dies, a dominant female changes into male which can change their appearance quite dramatically. They are so beautiful with their bright colors, and I am enjoying remembering when I have seen the species we monitor at different dive sites. I also need to identify; trigger fish with their wonky swimming, yellowhead wrasse that have eyelashes, and the balloon fish with the universe in its eyes, glowing green. I hope to know them all by the time I get back in the water.

Life is good!

Love but no bubbles this time,

Abi