Isla Files 3.6

Falling down on the blog.
Unfortunately I feel like I have abandoned my blog. So much has happened in the past several weeks. We have had company for most of the time and are getting ready for Riley’s visit today. It has been a truly inspiring 3 weeks.
We were fortunate enough to watch the full eclipse of the moon from our pool-side patio. It was a beautiful evening. Our friends Susan and Joe were here from Boise and we joined other friends to watch the shadow of the earth slip slowly over the moon. One of our friends had a very high tech telescope and we had our trusty binoculars but the moon was elegant to the naked eye. The Mayan people mapped the coming of the full moon through this century and beyond. Their calendar was more precise than ours and they made up the time more succinctly than having an extra day every 4 years. I am sure that events such as this eclipse were truly magical for the Mayan. It was so lovely to be able to recline in a lawn chair and just lay back and watch it happen as opposed to shivering from my front porch for a few minutes in the North.
We had good days of diving with Susan and Joe but also had a couple of severe days of wind. The bizarre weather across the Great Plains manifests itself as high winds that whip across the Gulf of Mexico and swirl around this island. When the winds are high, the port in Isla is closed to small boats. That is just as well as being out in choppy water isn’t a great deal of fun for me!
We have seen all kinds of sea creatures on our dives. Also, because of the currents associated with the wind, drift diving has been supreme. It is possible to drop down to about 50 feet, get set, and then just skim across the bottom with no effort at all. It reminds me of dreams of flying.
Susan and Joe left on Sunday, February 24 and Debbie and Peter arrived from Vermont on Monday, February 25. They have had a very hard winter with tons of snow and supreme cold. They have also had much going on in their lives: weddings, illnesses, and the birth of twins. They were in desperate need of a vacation and we had just the spot for them. They rented bikes and we proceeded to terrorize the island, checking out anything and everything that even looked remotely fascinating. One morning we even got up super early and road down to the South end (Punta Sur) to watch the sun come up. That is the Eastern most point in Mexico, so perhaps we were the first people to see the sun that day? The park at Punta Sur is guarded by the Armada. We had to request permission of a machine gun toting soldier to proceed to the point to see the sun. Very sobering! The soldier was friendly and didn’t hassle us at all.
Yesterday Steve and I were running around this end of the island on one of our usual routes. My hamstrings are bothering me a little so I was kind of poking along at the back of the pack. Steve smelled the barn and decided to pretend his last name was Prefontaine. He took off up the hill and as I watched him go, I noticed a large shape stretched out across the road. He ran by it within about a foot, so I was thinking it probably was a palm frond that had gotten hooked off of one of the trees by a large truck. As I got closer, I couldn’t help notice that it was moving. Imagine my surprise when I realized I was looking at a 12-15’ long boa constrictor!! It was just slithering across the road, minding its’ own business. It was pretty big around and probably had just had a rodent size snack. A local man on a scooter stopped and watched with me as it slithered off into the underbrush at the side of the road. We both yelled and whistled at Steve but he did not hear us. When I jogged up to the store and asked him if he had seen it, he was surprised. He had not!! Jose Luis tells us that he found one about that big on his patio last year. He hooked it with a stick and then put it outside the property. The snakes are not dangerous if you leave them alone and also if you are not a small rodent or lizard! I sure wish I had my camera!!