Land, Sea and Air

The timing and location of the Acapulco World Cup made it appealing to combine with a mini-vacation. After the competition was over, we stayed at the beach for two and a half extra days. Getting out just as the spring breakers were coming in was by design!

Scuba diving was definitely the highlight of the short trip. After quite a bit of coaxing and saucer-sized eyes, I finally descended about 20 feet under the ocean for the first time. Octupus, stingrays, eels, brightly colored sponges and beautiful schools of fish were my reward. It's interesting--I thought that having grown up a swimmer, diving would come naturally since I'm so comfortable in the water. But if anything, that fact made scuba diving more difficult. A swimmer knows breath control and knows that you don't breathe in under water. That made it counterintuitive to trust the regulator and mask. Despite the fact that the times I was breathing were very rapid, I only used less than half my oxygen tank because I was pretty much holding my breath most of the time! Oh, well. It was fun and I can say I've done it now. I don't want to do it again without going through a class first. Actually, once I get comfortable with breathing underwater (practicing in a pool of course), I can see scuba diving becoming quite the hobby Eli and I can share.

Not that any other story about our trip can top the scuba diving, but we also watched cliff divers plummet into a rocky and angry ocean. That was absolutely amazing and our pictures just don't do the crazy stunt justice. Then we walked the nearly two hours back to our hotel, seeing most of Acapulco on our evening walk.

Most notably, we didn't get sick! Our experience with Mexico thus far has been dismal (Mexico 3, Eli 0), but this trip proved that our stomachs can handle it if we're careful.