Since this trip journal has suffered terribly from a lack of stories about toe injuries, here’s a quick one: in the midst of the whale shark excitement yesterday I whacked the hell out of my pinky-toe-neighbor toe on the side of the boat, and under any other circumstances might have called for an injury timeout, but with whale sharks awaiting a toe was not going to be a cause for distraction. Overnight that toe magically grew two toe sizes and turned all sorts of shades of awesome, events that would have tempted a lesser man to post pictures on Facebook (I had no readily-available internet connection). For better or worse the toe now seems to be on the mend, and is merely one toe size larger than normal and a curious shade of grape.
With the obligatory toe adventure story out of the way, today was mostly a travel day and thus of relatively little note for journaling purposes. We awoke to thunderstorms, started on the seven part journey from Isla Mujeres to Cozumel at around noon (taxi to ferry to taxi to bus to taxi to ferry to taxi), and managed to cut two steps out of the journey by paying $50 for a taxi directly from the Cancun ferry terminal fifty miles south to the Playa del Carmen ferry terminal. Shortly thereafter we departed on the ferry, and after thirty minutes of enjoying the ridiculously blue waters of the Mayan Riviera arrived on Cozumel to checkin to a hotel that Audrey had previously visited on a dive trip in 2000. Following a sauna-like run in the hotel’s “gym” we enjoyed a dinner featuring unbelievable Mayan sauces that was hosted by the garrulous old Mexican restaurant owner. The coming days will likely involve some SCUBA diving and perhaps even some moped-ing mixed in with siestas and bebidas before our departure date arrives in another week.