Updates Jan - March 2004

Man is it cold in Calgary! This last week has been in the minus twenties. Lee-Anne keeps reminding Dennis that he never use to keep the thermostat set at 24 C.

With the temperatures not rising above - 30 C and a wind chill in the - 40's I am freezing my butt off!

Still working on tying up loose ends here in Canada. Dennis is re-thinking the drive back down plan and will probably fly down by the end of the month and drive back to Canada to pick up our household stuff.

We enjoyed a great day at Lake Louise, the skiing the weather and the view were all spectacular. It has been a couple of years since we have skied LL just because it is pushing the limits of enjoyable travel for all of us when one little girl has a short attention span. Last year we had season passes at Nakiska so all our skiing was done there, pretty nice when you can be on the hill in less than an hour from our doorstep.

This morning while stepping into my skis at Lake Louise for a little down hill action, I received a phone call from Dixie, my cave diving buddy who also lives in PaaMul, Mexico. For those that don't know, PaaMul is currently home to my truck, trailer, dive gear and hopefully soon again, me and my family. She told me that last night a fire broke out and consumed the restaurant, ScubaMex dive shop and quite a few of the trailers and accompanying palapas that house each trailer. The good news is that everyone and all pets are safe and sound. The bad news, many retirees have lost there homes and valuables.

Our trailer and truck are fine, the fire happened on the north side of the park, I am on the south side of the park. However, I did have 3 - 4 action packers of dive gear, mine, my wife's and my daughter's clothes as well as some other stuff stored at one of the places that burnt. No big deal, it can all be replaced - I think my home owners insurance will cover it (no big deal if it doesn't). I just feel sorry for those that lost their homes and because it is in Mexico and their primary residence had no insurance to cover such a loss.

If anyone is unfortunate to ever be in a situation as overwhelmingly traumatic as this, I could only hope they have as wonderful a community as we have in PaaMul to rely on for support. I know everyone there will pull through this. Though there will be some very trying times for those most effected by this tragedy, I will sleep better tonight knowing that they have a wonderful community that will pull together to take care of those in need.

Dennis has been back in Mexico since the end of February working on details from there and I am sure doing a little bit of cave diving.

The party place in front of Phil and Heidi's	Our Hosts, Phil and Heidi
Some of the entertainment	Joel and Louis
Eddie, showing us how to attract a mate	The winners!
All the contestants	The winners and their new shirts
The winning dance	Bill and Tom enjoying the show

I was very fortunate to have some friends come and visit for the week, Daryl and Debra Carylson and Daryl's brother Grant and his wife Sherry. The 4 some stayed in PaaMul at the beach front Cabanas where they enjoyed the view and the nice Caribbean breeze coming off of the water. The evenings were spent on the patio enjoying cocktails and visiting (well, Sherry enjoyed straight juice) and watching movies on the laptop. Daryl and Grant found this amazing bottle of white rum, it seemed the more we drank the less it went down. It became our obsession to kill the thing and after a few nights we finally managed to down it.

An old room mate of Grant's dropped by as well, Shane and his girlfriend Kristy. Shane has moved to Merida and Kristy lives in Playa Car, I look forward to seeing them this summer.

We also did some cavern dives and Daryl, Shane, Dixie and I did a great dive traversing from Dos Oyos West to Monolitho. Shane was able to get a few great video shots during the dive, I'll try to get a few snipes up shortly.