We paid our hotel bill before heading off to breakfast. There is a 100% Natural restaurant in Playa a few blocks from our hotel, but its prices were the same as those in Cancún and significantly higher than other restaurants in Playa. We ate at a nearby natural foods cafe. The food was good (soy burgers, falafel pita sandwiches, and humus and toast) and the liquados superb (the best we had on our vacation). We would return here for future meals.

Our big plan for the day was to ferry to nearby Isla Cozumel for snorkeling. After breakfast it was a couple of minutes before 10:00 and the ferries leave on the hour. We dashed through town only to find that we couldn't buy tickets for the 10:00 ferry and would have to wait an hour for the next one. Not too bad. We got to play on another part of the beach for an hour.

The large ferry took about 40 minutes to make the 11 mile crossing to Cozumel Island. On board were TV programs, in Spanish, to help riders pass the time (we watched a Spanish Daffy Duck cartoon). Also on board as a paying customer was a Mayan dwarf and his guitar. He played and sang then asked people for money. It was about the worst music and caterwauling we ever heard. The stewards on the ferry told him not to play or beg for money multiple times before he finally responded in kind. The Maya are short people and we saw a significant number of dwarfs among them (ancient Maya sculptures includes many images of dwarfs).

During the boat ride the skies were overcast, the water was choppy, and all three of us were beginning to suffer a little seasickness before we reached Cozumel. As we disembarked, we noticed the Mayan dwarf was regaling (not) the line of passengers preparing to board for the return trip.

Cozumel Island is Mexico's largest inhabited island at 189 square miles. It is an enormous tourist draw due to its snorkeling, diving, and fishing opportunities. It was also an important Maya ceremonial center and has a number of small ruins scattered about its relatively inaccessible interior. The tour operators at the dock were soliciting people but being somewhat disoriented from the ride and wanting time to clear our heads, we passed them all by and headed into the city square. We wandered around for several minutes, got a couple of watered down liquados then accepted an invitation (at $60 for the three of us) for a three hour snorkeling tour from an operator. ("A three hour tour.") As we arrived at the dock, we found his glass bottom boat was full (other operators collaborate to fill the same boat) and we would have to take another boat in about an hour. That was actually fortuitous as it gave us a chance to eat before the tour started. Missy and Eric played on the beach (not an especially nice one, though they found a small toy car on it) while Curt got lunch to go.

As we topped our belly tanks it started to rain. We ate (the bean burritos were quite good) and waited it out (five minutes) in a gazebo in the center square. We returned to the dock only to learn that our boat would be delayed another 20 minutes until the next ferry from Playa arrived and its passengers were solicited. Dag!

Finally, our glass bottom boat was loaded with ten people including three young children. The two Mexican kids about Eric's age were, with Eric, the youngest ones we saw our whole vacation doing tourist things. The boat stopped and we all dove into the warm water at Paradise Reef. The coral was fantastic! It was not brilliant in color nor packed together but it was otherworldly in appearance. Some coral were large, delicate looking fans, others seemed to be large brains, others were underwater "cactuses". The numerous fish swimming among them or along the sea floor (easily visible though some ten meters–thirty feet–below the surface) were either brilliantly colored or camouflaged. We were wearing life vests but they could be removed to enable dives toward the sea's bottom. When diving just 20 feet, the water pressure is strong. You especially feel it in your ears and chest and on your mask.

The boat stopped twice more (near Chancanaab Lagoon Park) for additional snorkeling. The underwater scenery did not seem too different but the multiple stops help one get re-energized for snorkeling. (If one did a single snorkeling stop for an hour, it would probably start getting a little common. Breaking it up into three stops maintained the interest. As the water and air were warm, getting into and out of the water multiple times was not uncomfortable.) Eric, who did a great job snorkeling and taking underwater pictures, passed on the third snorkel and played, mugged, and pantomimed with others in the boat (though they did not speak each others' language, he got along quite well with a Mexican mother and her young daughter). Eric got a kick out of Curt swimming under the boat and appearing at its glass bottom.

Again, during this snorkeling tour, no one asked to stop and go to the bathroom.

At the end of our tour we had a short wait for the next ferry. Curt had wanted to visit the small museum on Cozumel but we passed it by for an earlier return to Playa. Following our tour operator's advice, we sat on top of the ferry towards the back (instead of below towards the front as on our first trip) and suffered no seasickness pangs. The weather was still gray as it had been all day. During the day there had been five or six periods of light rain which lasted for a total of less than fifteen minutes.

When we docked we noticed the same construction crew still working on widening the pier. We saw a lot of construction work on roads, buildings, streets, and ruins. These guys are incredibly hard-working. The sites swarm with workers–nearly all of whom are doing hard manual labor–and we'd see them there at the start and end of each day. (Long lunch time/siesta breaks are the norm in Mexico so maybe they aren't working much more than 8 hours, it just seems that way.) At the construction sites we saw, there wasn't near as much heavy equipment as one would see at US construction sites and there was much less standing around and leaning on shovels. The guess is that, due to its physically demanding nature, these are among the higher paying low-skill jobs so there are many people vying for them. That plus having less equipment means to keep your desired job and get things done, you apply yourself physically: shoveling, hammering, chiseling, lifting, carrying, climbing, etc.. In the end, without the equipment American construction workers employ, we suspect the Mexican workers are much less productive.

In Playa, Missy and Eric sought out the vegetarian restaurant and ordered our food while Curt returned cameras and snorkeling equipment to the hotel room and picked up our laundry ($2 for a load–what you would pay doing it yourself in a US laundromat).

After dinner, we got in 30 more minutes on the beach before darkness fell. Another sandcastle, sandball, and waves opportunity. In our room, we saw the Yankees go up three games to none over the Padres in the World Series.
 

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