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Bernie and Lib Ann Cappelli chaired this dive. John Kelly designed the T shirts.
John Kelly and Mike MacCullough spent a few days traveling from San Francisco to Cozumel, visiting one airport after another.
Most of the Alacosta divers were on a Continental flight approaching Cozumel when the plane suddenly dropped. Drinks hit the ceiling. Purses, passports, and glasses flew through the air. One of the flight attendants hit her head on the ceiling, and then hit the floor hard.
Finally, we reached Scuba Club Cozumel, missing only Vicki's and Marie Barrett's luggage. After a brief lecture about diving in Cozumel, we were ready to purchase enough tequila for our stay.
When the Alacosta divers reached the boat, we were split into two groups, each with a dive master. Jesus, one of the the dive masters, was quite strict about leading his dive group. John Kelly sometimes had trouble following, and was told by Jesus, ``I am the son of God and you are John. You should follow me.'' John switched dive master shortly after this event.
We found the usual collection of angelfish, parrotfish, and sea cucumbers.
During one of the night dives, the divers found 3 squid swimming midwater at about 15 feet. On the other hand, some divers claimed that the creatures were cuttlefish. On this dive, the Blurb walked back to the Scuba Club Cozumel along the sidewalk.
Unfortunately, the rented kayaks were missing the plug for their holes. Most of the time, the drainage holes remained above water, but in rougher waters, some of the kayaks took and water. This led to kayaks tipping over, spilling people down the river.
Natalie Walsh was the first to tip over. Michael Daily followed a short while later.
John and Vicki tried to avoid overhanging branches when they tipped their canoe, spilling its contents down the river. Nancy Stryble was kind enough to demonstrate her kayaking experience by retrieving John and Vicki's belongings. Unfortunately, Nancy is used to ocean kayaking, where the kayak stops moving when the kayaker stops paddling. Nancy tipped over next, hanging onto a tree branch while her kayak was pulled away from her. Two more kayakers tipped trying to help out.
Within 20 minutes, the canoers and kayakers were back on the river, tipping every half hour.
As the afternoon wore on, the winds picked up, blowing upstream. Without paddling, the boats would have traveled slowly upstream. As some of the boats passed by rocks, the wind suddenly picked up, tipping more canoes. As we passed on treacherous stretch of white water, we discovered an aluminum canoe tipped over, buried just below the surface of the water. No passengers were visible.
Finally, the boats reached the end of the run. This trip took longer than usual, but the boaters still found time to visit the local pub.
blurb@alacosta.org