3dive certifications, 2turtles, and a wedding

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hey everyone, its been sooooooo long. ive been so busy! i dont even know wher to start!
the swine flu which was treated as a zombie epidemic has now passed but has completly pained mexicos toursist industry to almost null, everyone is down about it. the media totally overdid it. we were all fine and stayed healthy. sand flies however are demons and will eat up your body and leave horrible blisters that ooze inefcted goo! thats what im going throuhgh right now.
i am a certified rescue diver right now! i can give cpr and all in the water. oh yea save lives what what! we are now lerning how to become divemasters, which well leanr how to teeach pplo how to dive and take them, out on dives and all. we are rushin gto finish it in time. noly 2 weeks lefty!
i went to a wedding a cople of weekends ago in merida, the capital of yucatan. it was with a friend of a friend and we ate tacos, listened to kumbia music and then in walked a mariachi band! lots of fun to see the diff culture wedding with first dance, the parents, throwing of the bouquet, cuting the cake, but it was all mexican style, we danced the mexican train and drank tequila.
it is turtle season , there are 4 turtles that nest on our beaches, green, hawksbill, leatherback, and loggerhead. we search for nests every morning but have yet only found tracks that turn back intot he sea without laying. i was diving with my fish instructor and on our way up to the surface a massive! loggerhead swims glides smoothly towards us, they are so elegant and big and beautiful. the turtle stopped mis water right between us, we had to part so it could get through! it paused and looked at each of us, we were inches away, it was over a metre long, it hung out with us for about 10seconds and then just swam off in the other directios, it was probably soooo old, covered in barnacles and all.
yesterday when me and my buddy where mapping a section of the reef, alnng swims a hawksbill, much smaller turtle, about 2feet long. it was soooo cute! it got a bit spooked cuz we swam towards it and it did i quick loop all the way around us checkin us out and then off it went out of site behind a big piece of coral.
we have stared monitoring finally. i count adult fish in a straight 30m transeect and then juvi fish on the way back. we monitor specific species that are valuable to the health of the reef and the community. we count them and size them and speciafi them ofcourse. i did 3 transects today and 4 yersterday. getttign tons of monitoring don! the data will go to amigos de sian kan and they use it to analyze te healtha dn state of the reef and to see if the fishing restircctions they have inacted are working and whet else needs to be regulated, and how the resorts and residences are polluting the reef.
we are going to have a bbq tomoro and then on sunday im going camping down the road 20k on the lagoon.
havin gtons of fun!! missing everyone! will write more inacouple of weeks. let me know if you guyshave any questions write t me back cuz im sure ive left tons out!

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