There are probably a lot of ways to celebrate your 70th birthday.
Deb chose scuba diving in Cozumel.
This should surprise absolutely no one.
Deb’s birthday falls around Memorial Day, which usually means we’re spending the holiday weekend diving at the lake. But 70 is a pretty significant birthday, and this year Deb decided she’d rather spend it somewhere with warm Caribbean water, considerably better visibility, and someone else filling the tanks.
She also allowed a few of us to come along.
And by “a few,” I mean somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 people.
Divers, non-divers, family, friends, kids, and grandkids all descended on Cozumel for a week at Hotel Cozumel.
But first we had to get there.
Nothing Good Happens at 3:30 in the Morning
Most of the group left Northwest Arkansas on Sunday, May 24—Deb’s actual 70th birthday. At o’dark thirty.
For the record, Nicole was not happy about being awake at 3:30 a.m.
Not mildly unhappy.
Not quietly sleepy.
Grumpy.
This was apparently entertaining to everyone else.
Most of us left XNA and flew through either Miami or Dallas before continuing to Cozumel. A few particularly fortunate travelers somehow managed the scenic XNA-to-Miami-to-Dallas-to-Cozumel route. Because when you’re trying to get to an island in Mexico, obviously the best approach is to see as many American airports as possible first.
Our Dallas group was supposed to arrive before the Miami group.
We did not.
They beat us by nearly two hours.
Then, once we finally landed in Cozumel, the baggage conveyor broke, so we spent nearly another hour standing in the terminal waiting for our checked luggage.
Apparently, this wasn’t even new. Becca said the same thing had happened when they were there in February.
Eventually, however, people and luggage were reunited and we made it to Hotel Cozumel.
And, more importantly, Deb’s birthday could actually begin.
Seventy Years Called for Cake
Every trip needs a shirt, and this one was no exception.
For Deb’s 70th, everyone had turquoise shirts—Deb’s favorite color—commemorating the birthday trip. That evening, decorations went up, tables were pushed together to accommodate our not-small group, and Shirley had worked with Alex Viña of MexicanDiver Cozumel to arrange a birthday cake locally.
There was only one small problem before dinner.
Addison and Bentley were still in the water.
Apparently the two junior divers had decided Deb’s birthday celebration could wait because they were busy shore diving.
They were forcibly retrieved.
Okay, “forcibly” may be overstating it.
They were yanked out of the water and sent directly to dinner wet so they wouldn’t miss the celebration.
Priorities.
We sang Happy Birthday. There was cake. And at some point I accidentally sat in what had apparently been designated Deb’s chair and was promptly informed of my mistake.
Not by Deb.
For someone turning 70, Deb herself took the whole thing pretty much in stride.
Then again, one birthday cake wasn’t going to be nearly enough for this trip.
Finally, Addison Got Her Cozumel Dive with GranDeb
The next morning, the diving began.
We were diving with MexicanDiver Cozumel, generally doing two boat dives each day, with a handful of shore dives mixed in throughout the week.
The water was in the mid-80s, which meant most of us were diving in either lightweight 1.5 mm exposure protection or shorts.
It was terrible.
We suffered.
Somehow.
We made dives at Cozumel favorites including Santa Rosa and Palancar, along with other sites throughout the week. The junior divers generally sat out the deeper first dive and joined us for the shallower second dive. One dive a day seemed to be plenty for them, and it kept them within appropriate depths.
For Addison, though, this trip had been a long time coming.
When she was about 18 months old, she and Deb apparently made a deal that Deb would certify her in Cozumel on her 10th birthday. It was promptly put in my calendar the day that deal was made.
Because these are completely normal conversations to have with toddlers.
The plan didn’t quite work out that way. Addison was certified at 10, but her certification happened back home at the lake.
Nearly two years later, she finally got her ocean dive with GranDeb.
Jared and Alessandro took Addison and Bentley down. Once everyone was settled, Jared paired Deb and Addison together, and the two finally got the dive they’d talked about for years. When Addison’s air dictated that it was time for her dive to end, Jared took her back to the surface.
It wasn’t the certification dive originally imagined when she was a toddler.
But she finally got to dive Cozumel with GranDeb.
And she did it during GranDeb’s 70th birthday trip.
Welcome to Ocean Diving
Addison wasn’t the only one experiencing something new.
This was Madison’s first trip to Cozumel and her first time diving in the ocean.
Even experienced divers had occasional issues during the week. Ed ended up battling ear trouble and had to sit out a couple of days of diving—particularly frustrating when you’ve been diving for years and your ears suddenly decide they’re no longer interested in participating.
That’s diving.
Sometimes the equipment causing problems is attached directly to your head.
Sharks. Unless You’re Addison.
Cozumel delivered plenty of marine life throughout the week.
We saw turtles, moray eels, rays, nurse sharks, reef sharks, and more fish than anyone was going to attempt to count.
At one point, Becca was doing a swim through when a moray eel dropped down directly in front of her. Because apparently doing a swim through wasn’t enough stimulation.
Addison, meanwhile, had one request.
She wanted to see a shark.
Badly.
Naturally, we saw sharks on the dives she didn’t make.
Or we’d see one after she’d already needed to surface because of air consumption.
The sharks of Cozumel were apparently working from her dive schedule and actively avoiding her.
Then there was Mark.
After one dive, I climbed onto the boat and everyone started asking where Mark was.
I didn’t know.
This concerned me considerably less than it probably should have.
Eventually we discovered that while everyone else was taking their time getting back onto the boat, Mark—who happened to have my underwater camera—spotted a ray. Burried under the sand at 85 feet.
So he left.
He got the picture.
We’re a group with a lot of very experienced divers.
We occasionally use that experience to make questionable decisions.
Moving on.
Apparently Everyone Had a Birthday
Deb wasn’t the only one celebrating a birthday that week.
Alex’s son, Alessandro, let us know that Alex’s birthday was Wednesday, May 27.
Mark, Addison, and I weren’t diving that day, so while we were in town with some of the group, Jared gave us a job: Get a cake.
We bought one at a grocery store along with icing and a piping bag, and I sat in our hotel room decorating Alex a birthday cake.
Then we needed to get Alex to the hotel without telling him why.
We contacted him and said we needed to see him around 6:00 that evening.
This made Alex nervous.
Very nervous.
He texted Drake.
I happened to be standing beside Drake when the message arrived, so I explained what we were doing.
Drake, being helpful, responded in a way that did absolutely nothing to ease Alex’s concerns.
Basically, he needed to come to the hotel because Deb needed to talk to him.
Perfect.
According to Alessandro, poor Alex spent the rest of his birthday worried about why this large group of customers suddenly needed to have a meeting with him.
He finally arrived somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour late with his wife and kids. His plan was apparently to leave his family waiting in the truck while he faced whatever disciplinary tribunal he believed was waiting for him.
Mark and Jared told him the family needed to come too.
I’m sure that helped.
Instead, he walked down to the hotel’s shore-diving entrance and found all of us waiting with a birthday cake.
Surprise.
He’d spent the afternoon scared to death for absolutely no reason.
On his birthday.
We are delightful customers.
Two days later, on May 29, it was Shirley’s turn. Deb worked with Alex to arrange another cake, everyone gathered together again, and we celebrated Shirley’s birthday too.
At this point, cake had basically become part of the dive package.
What Happens on the Pirate Ship…
Thursday evening we finally did something we’d seen on countless previous trips to Cozumel:
The pirate ship.
Most of us had passed it plenty of times over the years without ever actually going aboard. This time, a large chunk of our group signed up for the sunset dinner cruise.
We took up more than half the ship.
It was an all-inclusive evening with dinner, drinks, and a show. The kids had age-appropriate drinks. The adults who wanted something stronger were certainly not neglected.
There were games.
There were balloons.
There were methods of popping those balloons that made some of the younger members of our group question the judgment of the adults responsible for them.
There are photographs.
Those photographs will not be appearing here.
What happens in Cozumel on the pirate cruise stays on the pirate cruise.
Mostly.
At some point Mark ended up on the floor. I’m still not entirely sure what happened next, but I tripped over him and introduced my front tooth directly to his knee.
Hard.
I couldn’t properly feel that tooth for nearly two weeks afterward and spent a good portion of that time wondering whether the pirate ship was going to cost me a front tooth.
Thankfully, it survived.
Some members of the group discovered that alcohol and several hours aboard a swaying ship are perhaps not the perfect combination.
And one person left the ship barefoot.
Her shoes remained missing for the next couple of days.
We did eventually find them.
That’s probably enough about the pirate ship.
We Occasionally Stopped Diving
Not everyone on the trip was there to dive, and even the divers didn’t spend every available minute underwater.
Hotel Cozumel gave us a pretty convenient place to do absolutely nothing when we wanted to. The pool became a regular gathering spot, and the staff kept activities going throughout the afternoon, especially for the kids.
They also seemed particularly entertained every time they announced that our group was from “Mizzouri.”
I said they were going to miss their Missouri clan when we left.
They probably did.
Probably.
We spent other days driving around the island, visiting the lighthouse, shopping in town, playing in the ocean, eating, visiting other resorts, and generally remembering that taking a dive trip does not require being underwater every waking minute.
Although some of us certainly try.
Seventy Looks a Lot Like Diving
Most of us headed home on June 1, once again splitting between Dallas and Miami on the way back to Northwest Arkansas.
This time, the other group beat us home by about an hour and a half.
Apparently, we learned nothing.
But the point of the trip was never really the flights, the cakes, the pirate ship, the missing shoes, or even the diving.
It was Deb turning 70.
And the funny thing is, 70 doesn’t seem to have changed much.
Deb is still an active scuba instructor. She still spends summer weekends training students. She still travels to dive—multiple trips this year alone, with more already on the calendar. And when she had the opportunity to decide where she wanted to be when she turned 70, she chose Cozumel.
The people around her tell a pretty good story too.
Her son was there. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren were there. Her nephew and great-nieces were there. Spouses, extended family, longtime friends and divers who have traveled with her for years were there. Newer divers were there. Non-divers were there.
And two junior divers were there, including a nearly 12-year-old who had been promised a Cozumel dive with GranDeb when she was still a toddler.
Almost 10 years later, they finally got that dive.
That’s not a bad way to turn 70.
Although next time, I’d still prefer a flight that doesn’t require getting up at 3:30 in the morning.
