Paradise for sure, last night while I wrote to you the wind quit blowing and it got very still out. We were up at the crack of 9am for coffee, naranja (orange juice, we CAN NOT pronounce the word, every time we get a blank stare and have to mime squeezing something into a glass) Papaya with plain yougurt and pecans, ohhh to die for.   Real coffee too, none of that Nescafe instant stuff.

We then rode the bikes down to the dive shop and signed up for a reef snorkel trip.  Very nice, 8 passangers and two crew in a 24 foot boat, plenty of room, plus it was a short trip so no one was uncomfortable.  First we had to mussel the boat off the beach, no small feat and every one was grunting and groaning pushing and pulling the heavy fiberglass boat off the beach.  Once in the captian realized he didn´t have the key so some one had to go find it, the poor mate just got the devil beat out of him trying to hold the boat full of passangers in the rough shore break.  Finally we were away and the fun began.  I started by making a loud announcement that I didn´t feel good and might throw up!  What a great way to make freinds!  I just laughed and soon every one figured out I was joking….

I was cautious and put sun screen all over me, at least where I can reach, there are yards of pink skin in areas I can´t reach and I regretfully asked Chuck to rub some on my back, it took him for ever, he was very careful and I thought he had done a good job.  Wrong, he had written the word MAGGOT and left the sun screen off the letters, now I have a bright red MAGGOT burned into my back.  I don´t know where he get´s his ideas.  Chuck had gotten burnt pretty bad several days ago and is peeling like a banana.  Well when I returned the favor of putting sun screen on him, I had written the work LEPER on his back.  Where do I get my ideas, so now when we walk the beach with out our shirts, it says LEPER and MAGGOT pretty nice huh?

We could see the Tulum Mayan Ruins from the boat, what a nice sight, there were about 300 people hanging around so we were glad to be on a boat and not on the land.  The reef here was in very good condition.  Much better than the Florida Keys,  lots of Staghorn Coral, Sea Fans and tons of other sea life, very nice.  I can just imagine how nice it would be to dive the deeper reefs further off shore.  I could also imagne Mayan kids playing in canoes here and diving and swimming and having fun.  There must have been enough fish here to feed a good sized village.  I´m sure there were relics of the Mayan out here too, I kept an eye out for odd shaped items, but didn´t see any.  In diving you have to train your eye to look for shapes, every thing is covered with coral and moss and stuff, so it all looks the same, you have to look at an items shape to find treasure.

We all met back at the boat and had good stories to tell, most every one was from France but spoke English so we all got along.  We were hungry once we got back to the beach and walked next door to the restaraunt.  Ooops, did we over do it, we ordered way too much food.  Nachos, Guacamole, fish tacos, chili rellano,, we are still full and it´´s hours later… No dinner tonight, that´s okay, it was my night to buy!

We made it back to Retiro Mayan http://www.retiromaya.com/cabanas.htm (check out the web site, it is a very nice place and the Lady is moto friendly)  We colapsed into hammocks and spent the afternoon lounging, now we are up at the computer shop writing to you and trying to load photos.  Tomorrow we visit the cenotes and probabally another nap, it has been a long way down here, some one said it was 1,400 miles according to their mapquest route, well we have over 4,000 miles on our odometers!  Our KTM bikes are running great and expect no problems.  We will probabally have to go back through Mexico City to get Chuck some new tires for the trip home, other than that we don´t have a plan, but we will start heading back in the next few days, it´s just going to be hard to leave this place, Tulum, paradise found.

Charlie and Chuck