F-ing Norbert

Hooray, I got to go diving today. The ship got into port at about 7:30 am. I set the alarm to go off at 6 but just went back to sleep because I was f-ing tired from the idiotic running I did the day prior. I wake up around 7:45, put on my gear and high tailed it to the landing dock. After getting packed in a very small confined area on the ship, we are finally let off the damn thing and I head over to see about my “diving adventure” excursion. I get there and there is a divemaster there waiting for me. I am the only diver from my ship. Hmm, there goes the hopes to meet a cutie diver from the ship, or any other diver from the ship. There are two other cruise ships that made port this morning; Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) and a Holland America ship. I get to the dock to get onto the ship that will take me out to the dive spot. I meet Ted from Arizona who is the single diver from the NCL ship. He is an older ex-navy guy, and fairly friendly. We hang out while heading towards the dive spot, which is about an hour and a half boat trip from Puerta Vallarta. The view, the location, etc just reminded me of going to Catalina as the port looks like Long Beach and it takes over an hour to get to the dive spots.

I’m pumped, the diver master tells us of the fish we’ll see, and other things. Mask on, camera set, into the water. Hmm.. 10-15 feet visibility. Fine, maybe it’ll get better at 60 feet, nope. All my pictures and videos are utter crap. I did see a rather large giant sea turtle and took a video of it swimming away from me, oh well. If the visibility was say a crappy 30 or so feet, the video would have been a hundred times better. There are fish, but not many. There are however, several different types of fish, which is pretty cool. I got to see an eel, but my camera was dying, the visibility was crap, so pictures are crap… Not much in corals, or sponges like those I saw in Jamaica. I think Jamaica has risen the bar so much that my future dives will all be compared to those several dives I did then. *sigh*

When the first dive was over, we had a small little motor boat to take us back to the main boat for food and a short surface interval. We removed all our gear in water then boarded the boat, this is a first for me. Also different is that the dive master connected all our gear, tank, respirator, bc, etc etc. This is just something I’m really not used to because I like to be sure that my gear is good to go. I did a quick check before donning on my gear on the first dive. The divemasters are very capable, and really work to do everything for us – a new experience. We jump off the little dingy and climb onto the main boat. The people on board have already eaten so the divers get to pick through the left overs. There is some rice, fresh fruits, some deli meats and cheese, and some salad. Well, at least I get to stay a vegetarian on the dive boat. Once food is finished, we head back out to the “wall” and dive there. Visibility is the same, utter crap. I saw a striped eel, but the camera’s battery was starting to die, so the pictures didn’t come outas nice as I wanted. Oh who am I kidding, the visibility was shit, so all the pictures suck ass. There are two staff divers, one with a underwater video camera set up to film everything and the dive master leader. There are seven other divers. Other than Ted, I make friends with the dyke ex Army/air force large chested diver. She’s older, about as old as Ted, but her and I throw jokes back and forth, mostly military related.

Other than the divers on the boat, we had folks that were going snorkeling, kayaking, etc. 75% of the women on the boat divers and all, shared the same hair style. They were wearing these Olivia hats, and little dog tags that had an O on it. I just wanted to add the missing colors of the rainbow to the Mexican flag. Nothing better than hanging out on a boat for 3 hours watching 40-60 year old lesbians in swim wear, ick. There were dolphins swimming and showing off right near the boat, birds were diving into the sea for fish, and the mountains surrounding Puerta Vallarta are amazing. For an extra 9 or so bucks, I could have spent the money on a boat trip to Catalina and have 3 dives in much clearer water. However, the trip did include all the alcohol I could consume, so it’s not a complete wash – and the water temperature in Catalina isn’t 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

on the boat there is the drunk douchbag teenager taking advantage of the boat excursions unlimited alcohol. He is drunk and just slamming his stupid cup down after taking a sip which only works to splash drops of margarita on me, some young teenage girls, their father, and Ted. I just wanted to kick his frigging drink off the goddamn boat, hell, I’d love to have kicked him off and under the boat, but I don’t have enough cash to pay off the Federalies… plus the douchbag is from my ship, so I’d have to deal with that too…

I am sunburned I forgot to bring any sort of sunblock, note to self, pick some up tomorrow, or ask the parental units for some. I get back to the ship and drop off my gear, take a quick shower, and head out to check out Puerta Vallarta, It’s been over 20 years since I was last in this city. I check out the mall, and walking around inside, it just feels like I’m in Montebello or something. There is a Walmart supercenter. Not much to see, and nothing I cannot get at home. On the way back to ship, I stop by Tanzanite International, which is a Tanzanite dealer. It’s a gem stone that is sold like diamonds. They vary from low quality pale blue to a deep blue/purple color. Loose stones go for $800 per carat. Damn nice, but I haven’t the slightest idea what to do with a loose stone. So I just grabbed a nice little .25 carat ring, it was fairly cheap, and works to have as a gift for someone special… who ever that may be…. There was another ring I liked, but the thing was a little over 1k; oh well, one of these days.

I then went to the little flea market like place and grabbed two scuba themed t-shirts. Once done, I headed back to the ship. I am told that the next port of Mazatlan was canceled because of the recently upgraded hurricane Norbert, so instead, the ship is heading towards Cabo San Lucus, which we were supposed to get to on Friday. My ticket for scuba diving on Friday has been canceled, so I head over to the excursions desk to see if I can dive at Cabo tomorrow, and to see if there is diving in Ensenada which is the final stop as the original planned course was changed to avoid getting hit by that other horribly done Eddie Murphy in a fat suit movie (Norbert). At the excursion desk, I run into young Nick (the 17 year old kid that has been nailing all the other 15-16 year old girls).

He shows me his lovely sun burn; young and stupidly, he turns his back to me and lifts up his shirt to show me his lovely burn… **SLAP** young Nick is jumping up and down in pain. “What did we learn?” The pain subsides and he goes on to tell me about his day, then turning back to his sun burn, he lifts his shirt again to show me his tummy… my slapping hand comes right out and the poor lad jumps back about 10 feet. He’s gonna just have to learn the hard way. We decide to go running on the 10 level deck. I make the poor bastard take the stairs with me, and he’s too busy conversing to notice that he passed his floor by two. I go and change in to my running gear and hit deck 10. It’s pouring rain. Thank you Norbert, now I can’t even run along the bloody deck. I head to the gym and young Nick is there waiting for me. We jump on the ellipticals, set the time for 30 minutes, set our weights, age, and workout style (fat burn); and start running. A little note about Nick, he’s about 165, 5’10 or 11, 17, a track running and linebacker for his HS football team. We start running. We are loud and obnoxious with our comments. I make fun of his Jew like curly hair and ask if he’s related to Thomas Jefferson, he doesn’t get the joke. We banter back and forth, he’s a nice kid. He’s from Wisconsin of all places…. so out comes the cheese head jokes, Packer’s suck jokes, Canadian jokes (this used to annoy Cory Flath as he’s from Fargo) and the joke is that these places are north, cold, and fairly close to Canada. We do our 30 minutes. I get 2.5 miles in, he gets 2, I burn about 450 calories and he does 390. Granted he has less overall calories to burn, but he should have easily out distanced me. I feel good about myself. We go and do some weights. Cooling down, we walk along deck 9,

His parents are there, his mom is 38, a mere 5 years older than me, I’m no longer feeling so good about myself now. He makes the mistake of introducing me to his parents, as I do nothing but throw the poor unsuspecting boy under the bus with complete and utter lies, about my age, about what age Nick told me he was, and about the gallons of beers I saw him consume. Two girls who look like preteens walk by and Nick high-fives them, I make the comment that I must stay away because of “Megan’s Law” Nick’s mom tries not to laugh, but is chuckling and shaking while trying to contain laughter, Nick doesn’t get the joke. He asks his mom to explain and all she can do is shake her head and twitch, still trying to restrain the laughter, and Nick runs off, threatening that he’s gonna ask a complete strange what Megan’s Law is… Man I want to be there when he finally gets to asking someone. To be young and fairly innocent….

I head to the room to show, but the room is being serviced by the turn down service, so I head downstairs since I figured the family would be in the card room. Yep, they immediately get me to sit down and start playing our daily round of Big 2. I kick ass. But I need to head to back to the room to shower and get ready for dinner. Dinner was fairly uneventful, not much to do after dinner, so I walk the stairs up to help digest dinner. I am tired as all hell. Since the Cabo dives on Friday were canceled due to the plan shift, I get added to the roster for the diving tomorrow when we port into Cabo. Yesterday’s dive report says that the visibility is 50-60 feet. So there is a bit of a light of hope for dives tomorrow. The camera’s battery is fully charged and hopefully pictures from tomorrow will be much better. We do not port into Cabo until 12, so I’ll probably run a couple of miles tomorrow before scuba. It is amazing how quickly the body adjusts to exercise…. now the hard part is to keep this up when I get home…