Phase 093: 26 June to 4th September 2009
Whether you are at Pez Maya
for 5 or 10 weeks you will, feel at
home right away. However, a home
very different to what you are used
to. At Pez Maya you will gain a
family collected from all around the
world. This phase we had
representatives from Italy, Denmark,
Holland, Wales, Scotland, England,
Ireland, USA, Canada, France,
Switzerland, Australia and of course
Mexico!
Pez Maya base located right
on the beach is a stunning location
to arrive at on your first day in
Mexico- a real paradise of white
sand, blue water and a clear sky.
The first week at Pez is quite busy
to say the least- base orientation,
PADI Open Water or Advanced
knowledge reviews, science lectures.
And all this on top of learning
everyone else’s names and getting
used to the heat and the
mosquitoes!
The diving is of course what
everyone comes to Pez for. And
once you are in the water and
experience the weightlessness of
diving and see the amazing fish and
coral around you begin to think you
could stay forever. The instructors
who guide you through all the PADI
courses are always very friendly,
encouraging and make each dive
enjoyable.
Of course there is the old fish-coral
rivalry. But whichever one you are
assigned you will have some
studying to do. But it is definitely
worth it to know what you are
seeing under the water, and to
eventually get the satisfaction of
monitoring and contributing the
preservation of the reef that you will
call home for a while. Of course the
other big motivation is getting your
hammock put up once you have
passed your test with 95% or better
(not as daunting as it sounds.)
A big adjustment at Pez is the
wake up. It’s dark, it’s buggy and its
5.45am unless your in kitchen and
then its 5.25am. Each morning your
hut will have an assigned chore to
do, either raking, communal, kitchen
or boat. Grounds is definitely the
best with Kitchen bringing up the
rear. Each huts first kitchen day
usually leaves a lot to be desired,
cooking for 30ish people isn’t easy
especially with limited supplies. You
had better like peppers and
tomatoes! But the call of
“SECONDS” or “DESERT” will come
to be very exciting and cause a
stampede to the kitchen door.
The work week at Pez Maya goes
from Friday to Saturday afternoon.
Saturdays are usually just one fun
dive. Then you are free to see
around the local area. This phase
we visited the ruins at Tulum, Coba
and Chichen Itza, Playa del Carmen,
the Cenotes, dive in a cenote,
snorkelled with whale sharks in
Holbox (a definite trip highlight). Or
you can stay at base and relax, have
a nice dinner cooked for you by the
staff on Saturday- with meat as a
real luxury. The weekends also bring
a few of the legendary Pez theme
parties. We had, represent your
home country, zombie night, tribal
and superheroes.
Of course it can’t ALL be fun
and games at Pez. You have to get
your hands dirty sometimes. Kitchen
clean and beach clean on a
Saturday morning, your allotted
compressor time filling tanks for the
week, radio duty in the hot office
and cleaning toilets on communal
duty days. But the good far
outweighs these minor slights. Every
day is a new adventure in the water
and outside of the water is amazing
all the activities you do it, like The
Pez Maya Olympics is a lot fun.
 093 was a great phase and
we all had the amazing opportunity
of experience the joy of helping a
baby turtle to get into the sea!! We
were in the middle of the nesting
and hatching season so we had the
fortune of watching how the baby
turtles make their way to the
surface and start running to the sea,
it is an amazing moment where this
little creature gets excited and start
paddling into the water. There are
still some nests to hatch so Pez
Maya beach will get more tiny
turtles crawling around.
and it was sung at very random
moments, even in the nights out at
Playa del Carmen. Another song that
we loved was “Baila tortuga baila”
were everybody sang and danced
moving the feet, the belly and the
tail.
So, after ten weeks of hard work
and a lot of fun we finished our
summer adventure some of us
leaving as freshly new Dive Masters,
Rescue divers, Advance open water
divers and of course as experts in
monitoring reefs, which is the
reason we came here! We all said
good bye with tears in our eyes
knowing that we will miss our family
in the last 5 weeks or 10, but also
knowing that we made friends for
life.

As part of the community

work we visited the Tulum summer
school three times and we had the
honour of having them as our
guests at base. With games, songs
and talks we showed the kids the
importance of recycling, some fish
and marine mammals’ information.
We will never forget the song that
later become the song of the phase
“Alele, alele kitatonga, amasa amasa
amasa” (it really doesn’t mean
anything but it is very fun to sing it),