GIANT RAYS AND GIANT PILLOWS
The editor is happy to report that Mrs.T decided to compose this newsletter. As you know the editor did the last couple of issues while Rebecca has been recovering from her cancer treatments and her stroke. With the cancer cured rehabilitation from the stroke is ongoing. While she has progressed significantly in physical aspects, other issues still remain and there will be long-term challenges. She has improved sufficiently to put this piece together, a nice milestone.
One activity that Rebecca has been able to resume is scuba diving, something she has been doing for about twenty years. She greatly enjoys diving at our winter residence in Mexico near Puerto Vallarta especially as it is not an option in Ohio; diving in the Muskingum River is not recommended. Doctor Oscar, her excellent rehab doctor here, had a good discussion with Alex about easing her into diving with short shallow dives. She has made great progress and by the end of the season will be nearing normal dive activities. So she was quite enthusiastic as described below.
Memory is one of the challenges Rebecca faces. That is one of the reasons events are in reverse chronology. And although she refers to 'Saturday' that could be the last Saturday in February or the first Friday in March; she dove both days and the experiences were quite similar. On to some recent events:
Saturday the bay was quite cool which appeared to cause a plankton bloom. These tiny sea creatures are one of the basics of sea life. All kinds of life depend on eating plankton. We were driving the boat along when we saw two giant mantas gliding along the surface. They were turning and diving in a graceful dance. "What are they doing?" I asked Alex. "They are eating," he replied. It must be a challenge for mantas to eat because their eyes are on the top of their heads but their mouths are on the bottom. They glide along scooping up things they saw before, but somehow they manage. Fascinated, we watched them for several minutes, taking pictures.
We proceeded to our dive site when we saw three more mantas. These mantas can grow to be 22 feet or more across. (Mrs.T reported that some were bigger than the boat. -dt) They were swooping and jumping around the boat. We were not afraid; we were enthralled. Alex convinced his son Manuel to jump in and swim with them trying to take their pictures. The thing is they swim quickly and he couldn't keep up with the mantas, Manuel would hold on to the side of the boat while Alex would drive close so Manuel could paddle over to take their picture.
As we drove across the bay we saw mantas everywhere. I had to wonder where they were when they were not flying about on top of the ocean. We also passed two large pods of dolphins. I don't think that they are filter feeders but maybe they were trying to chase other animals who were. (Dolphins eat fish. -dt) Or maybe they liked the cold water.
We saw lots of interesting fish but the diving was VERY COLD. I had on a 3mm wetsuit and my shark pajamas. My shark PJs, so called by Alex, is a dive skin with pictures of sharks all over it. Alex thinks it is pretty funny. These are available online from divegoddess.com The cold current is either El Nino or La Nina which has to do with winter in Canada and the US. (No comment on MrsT's understanding of meteorology. -dt) But even with two layers I was still very cold.
(An excellent article about the giant mantas can be found here: http://www.vallartasource.com/eco_manta_ray.php -dt)
My Sister Rita and her daughter Sarah came down to visit and I went diving with them. Rita goes diving every year but it was the first time Sarah went with us. Because of my stroke Alex is very careful with me and he is always careful with Rita who, although quite enthusiastic, is inexperienced. Sarah is a certified diver but has not dived for several years. So poor Alex was holding me with one hand and Rita with the other. We each saw lots of things we wanted to check out and show to each other and Sarah. I tried to behave and follow Alex but sometimes he had to give me a little jerk to tell me to keep me in line.
One of our favorite animals was the jawfish. The fish makes a hole in the sand and backs into it so that only its head is sticking out. It looks like a little dwarf with big eyes and a huge mouth with sharp teeth. After we went home we used my fish book to try to identify the fish we had seen. I knew quite a few of the common ones but there are zillions.
Going backwards in time, when I had my stent removed they told me I should sleep propped up in bed. Okay, no problema. (Mrs.T still recalls much of her Spanish. -dt) I piled two king size pillows on my side of the bed and a whole lot of little pillows on top of them. A pillow mountain! I plopped down on top to try it out. Whoops! Maybe plopping was a bad idea. Pillows were slip sliding everywhere. I rearranged everything to try again. I gently eased myself into position on top. First one little pillow escaped then the second one. I grabbed a pillow with each hand but too late - a veritable pillow avalanche and they were all on the floor but the last two. Sigh!
Well when we moved into our condo many years ago I made two large stuffed geckos, each about four feet long, one for each bed in our guest room. I named them Eliizardbeth Taylor and Richard Burttongue. (Burton and Taylor resided in PV while he was filming "Night of the Iguana". -dt) So I took Liz and Dick and curled them around each other in a large gecko lump. Did you know they are called kissing geckos because they make smoochie sounds? I thought I finally solved the sleeping problem; well no. I slept pretty well in a semi-reclining position but Dan reported he hardly slept at all. "How can I sleep when I am being watched by four large reptilian eyes?" he asked. Well I could see his point and I didn't have the heart to tell him I believe that geckos were amphibians; still I could be mistaken. (They are reptiles. -dt) This was easily solved by throwing a blanket over Liz and Dick. I must report that I spotted Dick peeking out to see what was happening.
Just a few pictures. Thanks to Sarah for several of them. : https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ar_LTkWEqhbYnwdIc4Tt60DFvJLj?e=A8MciN
Hope you enjoyed those vignettes. It was quite an effort for Rebecca to put them together and marks another step in her stroke recovery. As we return to our northern home we anticipate further improvements. Perhaps she will be able to compose a couple of newsletters over the summer. We have lots of events and travels planned. Mostly she wants to visit her favorite horse Jewel and resume riding.
See some of you in April and May.
Dan and Rebecca
www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com
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