CALL ME REBECCA

Face to Face with Moby Dick

 
The phrase "once-in-a-lifetime experience" is overused and abused.  Last week during her diving Rebecca had the unique experience with angel rays.  That could have qualified as such a special experience.  But yesterday (Wednesday) Mrs.T had an encounter that truly warrants that trite phrase.  Here is the story:
 
 
People have asked me if I ever see whales underwater while I am diving. The answer was "No." You see most of the places we dive are shallow in whale terms, no more than 100 feet deep.  We may see them while on the boat, but never while underwater.  Alex, my dive master, has been diving the area for 25 years - he started as a teenager - and he had never seen a whale while diving, until yesterday!  We were diving at Chimo, one of the deep dives on the edge of the bay.  Alex and I were diving together maybe 100 feet down or so. I was just floating along looking at the fish when suddenly Alex grabbed me and turned me around. There swimming right towards us was a very large humpback whale.  Did I say large?  It was HUMONGOUS.  It was gigantic. It was, in Spanish, El mas grandisima!! And it came right towards us until it was about ten feet away when it turned and swam upwards. It came so close that I could see the bumps on its nose. Alex had a firm grip on me so that although I had a fleeting thought to try and touch it I could not. Although truth to tell, I almost immediately had a second thought that touching something that big might be a very bad idea.  How big was it?  A rough comparison had its flipper about the same size I am. Was I afraid? Not really, for one thing humpbacks are very friendly, and for another I did not have time to be. Was I in awe and shock? Absolutely! Why did this happen? I think maybe the whale heard our bubbles and was curious and came over to see who made them. Either that or God loves us or quite possibly both; we both are nice people. When we got back to the boat we didn't think they would believe us. Fortunately Tony, the boat captain, had seen the whale when it surfaced.  As soon as we got our equipment off Alex got on the radio and started spreading the news all over the bay.  "Y yo tambien!" I shouted, "Me too!"
 
Usually R puts in way too many "!"s when she puts her stories together, but this time the story deserves them.  Needless to say she has been ecstatic since her encounter – walking on air.
 
No pictures this time.
 
Best wishes.
Dan and Rebecca
www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com

WARM!

MOVED SOUTH 2011

 

With each year our move south becomes more routine.  In about a week or less we are settled in physically and psychologically as well.  This year we came down a bit earlier than previously.  But the weather in Ohio was already taking on its usual grey drabness and it was time to go.  As one of our friends, WC, remarked, when the leaves had changed colors and were falling off the trees she knew we would soon be going south.  And the more we spend time here fewer things seem unusual to us.  The hibiscus, iguanas, Coronas, etc. are just all part of the background scenery.  So those of you up north may be reading more about ordinary things in Mrs. T's newsletters.

You probably noted that there wasn't any reporting during October.   R was still in recovery from her September show at ZAAP.  We had several social obligations and of course we were busy packing.  (We don't bring much down these days actually; everything we need is already in the condo.)  But here is a short report on our first few days.

 

Well here we are, safe in our southern home.  The flights were not too bad.  I was x-rayed because of my bionic knee.  (She always is despite having a card –dt)  And one bag did not make our flight but arrived and was delivered the next day.

It is very hot here – about 90F (31C) – every day.  Dan loves it and sits under the palapa reading.  (R does her own heavy reading; eyes shut. –dt)   But I feel it.  It drains me.  Fortunately I can jump in the pool and cool off.  (She doesn't jump in the fish pond behind the Philo house! –dt)   And it is only two short blocks to the ocean.  AH!  The ocean.  It is for me, dare I say, pacific.  Some conquistador got the name right as far as I am concerned.  Currently the Bay, our small section of the Pacific, and even a bit further out is quite warm and I can just float in it like the swimming pool.

Actually it has been too pacific.  I tried to boogie board, but the waves were not good enough.  My SCUBA guys told me to try later in the afternoon.  It was great to see all the guys again and I had two super dives this past week.  I saw lots of neat fish, eels, and rays.  One thing I had never seen before was an angel ray.  They have two rounded wings sort of like butterflies. They are two to three feet across and their stingers are only three or four inches long.  There were lots of them just resting on the bottom of the ocean floor.  (Mrs.T was actually out in the ocean at Las Marietas.  –dt)   If you dug carefully under each wing you could lift them up and they would just lay on your hands until you put them back down.  WOW!

 

I set a new personal record of staying down 52 minutes on one tank.  The record was especially noteworthy because it was my first time out for the season.  But Alex, my weekly dive master, does not breathe at all.  I think he is part Selkie (A merman; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie -dt)   Alex has big brown eyes and a mustache.  He is a little tubby.  (Sorry Alex.)  (I think I need to keep a closer eye on Mrs.T  -dt)

 

I was doing fairly well with Spanish but not so well with metric.  Fortunately Mathman has been able to keep me straight.  Recently he stopped me from buying 3 pounds of cheese when I wanted to buy 1 pound.  Between the two of us we do rather well.

 

Dan found a very large toad or frog in the condo pool bano.  And of course we have lots of kissing geckos.  They are called that because they make little smoochie sounds to each other and of course to me.  Did you know they can walk upside down on our ceiling?

 

As our condo is sometimes rented while we are gone, when we return we are never quite sure what we will come back to.  Things occasionally are missing or are rearranged.  We have generally been rather lucky and nothing important has disappeared or been broken.  Dan was a bit upset to find that we were missing about a dozen plastic ice cream and yogurt containers which we used to store leftovers.  Who could possibly want them?  And why did they leave the lids?  As we had mysteriously acquired a very nice Pyrex baking dish, I thought it was a good trade.  Dan hypothesized that the plastic containers were probably used as molds for a sand castle.  "At least they could have washed them and brought them back," he grumbled.  I valiantly offered to eat a whole lot of ice cream right away to get replacements.  For some reason this offer did not receive the appreciation it deserves.

Just a few pictures:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157628119946654/

 

Hope all of you are doing well.

Dan and Rebecca

www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com