Celebrating life

I came back to Puerto for a few days mostly to celebrate my birthday with friends.

Good designs

Here are a couple good designs I have noticed on the island....I love the plastic bottle recycle bin....don't need a sign for this one!!

156th Anniversary of Holbox

There was a huge party last night in the town square/park celebrating 156 years for Holbox. For this village of 2000 people, it was quite a party! It started with the elders of the village telling stories and then several folkloric dance groups performed. Very impressive! There was a gigantic stage set up for live music, however they didn’t START playing until midnight so I missed that part. Actually there is a party on the beach late every night here….these Holboxenians know how to have a good time!

Living in Holbox

We have a little house rented for a month.....and lucky to have a big yard with productive coconut palms…here is the gang chomping down on some….we eat coconut rice almost daily! And thanks to Daniel we eat frozen coconut treats made with almonds and raisins! Here we are viewing the DVD with friends on the outdoor patio of the house we rented the first week.

DVD Sales

The real reason we are here! To promote and sell the DVD video……produced in both Spanish and English....it is about the Whale Shark.We have put it in local stores and also have a small presence on the pier, but are modifying our “booth” everyday. Here is our first sale!

Tropical Storm Dolly

Dolly passed over us in the middle of the night….lots of wind and some rain….enough to flood the streets for the next few days……the streets are all sand and every year they are more and more compacted with the increased traffic of carts and so do not drain as well. It’s an obstacle course to walk anywhere. In the event of a hurricane threat, it is mandatory evacuation here as it's a very small island and the highest point is probably 3 feet above sea level.

Swimming with the Whale Sharks

We met at the town dock at 7 AM…..Holbox is a small fishing village that only in the last 5 years started promoting ecotourism of swimming with the Whale Shark. Normally the price for a trip is 800 pesos ($80) per person. There were probably 30 boats all geared up to take their clients out to sea...each boat could take 6-10 people and they were full!We headed straight for this storm that passed fairly quickly. After an hour of traveling at about 34 mph…(I had my GPS of course)
we spotted a couple manta rays jumping out of the water like this (not my photos) they are huge here…like 10 feet across or more…then we saw some Whale Sharks!!…its hard to describe the feeling of swimming with a shark that is about 25-30 feet!!
However they are gentle giants…they only eat plankton and that is the reason they are here. The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea meet creating an upwelling of deep cold (78°F) water that is nutrient rich for the plankton on the surface to thrive on. The Whale Sharks are seen feeding at or near the surface at this time of the year.Swimming with them means jumping in the water with snorkel gear on and swimming as fast as you can to keep up….sometimes they slow down and that is an opportunity to photograph them…there is a great Photo ID program that one of the guys at the conference started…turns out each shark can be uniquely identified by its pattern of spots near the side pectoral fin…..using an algorithm developed by NASA Astronomy to id stars! (essentially connecting the dots and matching the triangles) In the library http://www.whaleshark.org/
there have been 5900 photographs submitted from 39 countries…..of these 1400 individuals have been identified! This is Natures way of tagging. After a long snorkel closer to shore where the water was warmer and there were coral reefs with more fish life (in front of Cabo Catoche)…we enjoyed a delicious shrimp ceviche prepared by our capitan!

Whale Shark Conference

We arrived just in time to unload our gear and be present for the opening presentation at 10 AM...we were volunteering our services to film the entire 6 day conference. I learned a lot about filming as I was asked by the park director to film using his DV Cam. What an incredible Conference…..196 people, from 21 countries…..scientists, tour operators, divers, fishermen, documentarians, artists, reporters ….a bunch of interesting people! Here are a few of us.

I also learned a LOT about the biggest fish in the sea, though there are still many mysteries…..what are their migratory patterns? where do they go to breed? to have their young? why do they dive so deep? Only recently, thanks to satellite tagging and data tagging have scientists discovered that they quickly dive as far as 9000 feet, but why?…some scientists were trying to correlate the movements with the lunar cycle…..still lots to learn! The next conference could be in India, Kenya, Philippines or U.S……

Getting to Holbox

We took the van to the island by way of a ferry. There are mostly only golf carts and bicycles on Holbox as a means of transportation, but since we had filming gear and household goods to stay a month, we had special permission. However, noone asked us for the permit, only for the 450 pesos ($45) transport fee. I surmised the ferry operator could care less if we weren’t allowed on the island....as long as he got his fee!
We lined up before daybreak with the rest of the delivery trucks and made the smooth journey in an hour. Some people slept on cots between trucks and some of us watched the sun rise.

Off to Holbox

Holbox is a tiny island north of here that is located about where the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico meet. Every year about this time the largest fish in the world, the "Whale Shark" (Tiburon Ballena) comes here to feed on the rich plankton life that is caused by the upwelling of nutrients where these 2 seas meet. This is International Whale Shark Week and there will be many scientists from around the world attending this conference. Here comes the expedition team again!! We have a name now...Simbiosis X.....so here we go to promote our video about the Whale Sharks in Holbox!!

Chaya

Chaya, also called “tree spinach” grows right next to my palapa. It is my main dietary source of a leafy vegetable…it tastes something like spinach when cooked and is exceptionally high in protein, Vitamin A, C and minerals such as calcium and iron. Usually I simply sauté the leaves in a cast iron skillet (good way to get my daily requirement for iron) and then add a scrambled egg. And of course a little hot sauce! The Mayas have been cultivating Chaya for centuries and are still planting it in family orchards or close to the house so it's easily accessible as a food or medicine. It's a traditional remedy for diabetes, obesity, kidney stones, hemorrhoids, acne, and eye problems. Chaya shoots and leaves have been taken as a laxative, diuretic, circulation stimulant, to improve digestion, to stimulate lactation, and to harden the fingernails.

Chaya is a bushy perennial that can grow up to 20 feet (six meters) in height. I have propagated it by just putting a branch in the ground, which is the best and easiest way to grow Chaya. I know I was supposed to plant a tree for that plane trip across the Gulf but I think this is better as studies have shown that higher yields of greens could be obtained with Chaya than any other vegetable they had studied.
Here they are in the little okra and squash garden that I started last month. Actually I planted many different kinds of seeds (well the ones that Customs did not take from my children when they entered this country….little seed smugglers...ha!) and these are the only ones that grew.