Finally made it in the water yesterday. Like I’ve said before I talk about diving more than I actually dive, but occasionally I do get to blow bubbles.

We were diving with one of the harvesting divers from Isla Natividad to see how he dived and better understand his working conditions. They dive using a hookah system: a hose connecting a compressor on the boat to a regulator the diver wears. They don’t bother to wear fins. Instead, they wear double the weights a diver interested in swimming would wear and don work boots to literally run on the ocean bottom searching for their catch. Each dive they focus on one particular item. They collect sea cucumbers or snails or red algae, depending on the season. This time, the diver was demonstrating how he finds and collects snails.

To watch the diver do his job was very much like trying to chase a rabbit through a thicket, he moved so fast and so randomly. But it was very eye-opening to see how he worked. We were only diving in about 30 feet of water but normally, they dive much deeper and the work of breathing at those deeper depths is dramatically increased. I was breathing hard swimming around trying to keep up with him. I can only imagine what it would have been like at his normal depth.

While I love the ocean, I think I find man’s interaction with it the most fascinating. For me, diving and travel and exploration isn’t just about seeing things (although I do get to see some really cool things from time to time), but it’s about understanding that interaction. People who make their living directly from the ocean, working on it or in it, see the ocean differently than those of us who simply visit it from time to time. The only way to understand that is to work directly with them.

After making two dives, where I got to do very little sight-seeing other than chasing the diver, the boat man wanted to take us on around the island and show off his home. On the back side of the island is a sea lion colony. You could hear the dogs barking a long way off and smell them from almost as far. The closer we got, the louder they barked and the bulls moved back and forth protectively. It was fun to get up close to them, though, on the boat and watch them sun themselves or jump off the rocks into the ocean. They look like big brown Labrador retrievers.

After that, it was back to work. Matias and I put on about three hours of presentations for the local divers, mostly just answering their questions. And that is where the connection in a place like this happens. We stopped being tourists watching and started connecting with the divers as equals, helping them out and understanding what they do, how they live and what they think. Afterward, we were talking that you can’t understand people by standing on the outside. Travel is great, but getting to know people and become friends is the real purpose behind the adventure..

Matias and I are here for a couple reasons. The primary one, though, is to perform a risk assessment on the hyperbaric chamber here on the island to make sure it is functioning properly and able to treat injured divers. That is one of the many functions we serve at Divers Alert Network. Believe it or not, I end up talking about diving more than actually doing it. But, I do get to at least talk about it in some really cool places.

Part of the surrounding area is called the Vizcaino Marine Protected Area (MPA) where no harvesting or fishing is allowed. This area is designed to help the fisheries recover, giving fish, sea cucumber and lobster a place to reproduce and grow. To offset some of the potential lost revenue that comes from making a portion of their fishing area off-limits, the local divers are looking to find ways to diversify. One possibility is eco-tourism into the MPA. The island already has some limited tourism from surfing (they were telling us that a couple big name surfers were here just last week) and they have opened a tourism office. It’s still pretty rustic and visitors are typically camping but it has some possibilities. But, before they can really offer tourism diving here, they want to make sure their chamber is up to standards.

In the midst of our review, though, one of the harvesting divers who works on the island got the bends yesterday. Sort of threw a wrench into our plans (and his of course) but we have ended up helping organize the treatment. Never hurts to travel to places like this with a hyperbaric physician. The case ended up being one of the worst, if not the worst, cases of the bends they have ever seen.

The connection to the ocean is what makes these divers continue doing what they are doing in spite of the risks they face. They take great pride in being fishermen and divers. The diver in the chamber, as a matter of fact, has the diving cooperative logo tattooed on his arm.

There is very little to do on the island that doesn’t actually involve the ocean. They work in the water, they commute to the mainland and have goods delivered by boat, the kids play in the waves and most of what they eat comes from the ocean. Today, the divers had a party to celebrate the last day of diving for sea cucumbers for the season. They celebrated with a cookout of flank steak—they eat seafood every day so this was something special.

What is rewarding to see is that these divers, and the cooperative they belong to, recognize how important the ocean is to them and their way of life. They are more than willing to change if it means ultimately preserving their way of life. Obviously, I wasn’t here when they decided to set portions of the area aside as MPA and I am sure they had arguments and fights and people were scared by it. But, by taking these steps and changing how they operate—realizing that while the ocean is vast it’s not infinite—they are finding ways to preserve their way of life for themselves and their children..

You can see mainland Baja California Sur from the eastern harbor area on Isla Natividad. It’s a little hazy but it’s over there. And off the northern end, past the light house, you see Isla Cedros. So, why does this little island feel so remote?

Isla Natividad only has 400 or so inhabitants. It actually reminds me quite a bit of the northern end of Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles County. And geologically, that makes sense, too. They are essentially the same terrain and the same ocean surrounds them. There is even a tourist office here. It turns out the island gets a pretty good south swell and so surfers come here to stay, camp, and surf.

The view around the island is breathtaking, if the island itself is much less so. It’s interesting in its own way, but it’s mostly a dusty, windswept little spit of dirt and rock. That changes, though, where the water meets the land. The tidal pools are fantastic and so are the rock reefs. You can see patches of giant kelp all around the island and the beaches on the Western side are stunning.

There are no cell towers here on the island. The only one close by is on Cedros, but to get a signal from there, we have to walk up the hill behind the house, steep and treacherous. That’s just not happening after dark.

The fresh water seems to be pretty good, and it should be, since it is created in a desalination station here on the island. The electricity here comes from four huge diesel-powered generators. Because of that, electricity is only on for 18 hours a day. It goes off at midnight and comes back on around 6 am. The limited lighting at night, though, makes for some spectacular night skies.

Internet is available on the island, but not as wifi. You have to connect through an ethernet, which is fine, but just not nearly as convenient as I am used to. Yes, I realize that means I am spoiled. But it also makes it a bit harder to stay in touch and up to date with what is going on. I have to move around, talk to people and do my job, making it difficult to stay plugged in.

We’ve been eating entirely too well. There aren’t any real “restaurants” on the island, but a couple different ladies have their homes set up to cook meals with their living rooms turned into dining rooms for others on the island. Mary arranged for us to eat our lunches and dinners with Maria. After every meal as we have walked back up our little hill struggling to make it to the top with bellies full of Mexican-style seafood, we have sworn not to eat as much again. And then comes the next meal.

Something very gratifying to see, and in direct comparison to last month’s trip to Puerto Lempira, Honduras, the locals understand the need to protect their environment above and below the water. They have a recycling program here on the island where they bundle up paper, cardboard and plastic and take it to the station in Ensenada. They do admit that it hasn’t always been this clean. On the other hand, the strange thing we see all over the places, seriously, are fish spines occasionally with heads still attached. The general working theory is the fish have been caught and cleaned and disposed of, but then the sea birds find them and carry them off, leaving them wherever they please when they are done with them. It’s just a little creepy to be walking along and suddenly step over a dried up skeleton.

There is a library on the island, as well as a school for the elementary-aged kids. They are out for the summer and they just wander around everywhere, dropping into the offices to see their parents at work creating a real family atmosphere.

And ultimately, that is the point of this little place. They are very tight-knit, like a family. When one is hurt, they all pull together and do what they can to help. They work together and even when there is a dispute or a disagreement or contested election of the cooperative leaders, they say afterward they get together, have a party and are close friends again. Just like a family..

I’ve been to Mexico five times now, but this is the first time I’ve driven across the border. And I have to say, it was anticlimactic. Probably the build up was more interesting than the actual crossing.

As you approach the International Border on the I5 freeway heading south out of San Diego, California, you see signs alerting you to what is coming. One finally says “Last US exit before International Border.” We took that one to make a few final arrangements.

But let me back up for a second. I should explain who “we” is. There are three of us. Dr. Matias Nochetto, an Argentine doctor I have worked and traveled with for several years. The third is Mary Luna from ReefCheck in Los Angeles. She is of Mexican descent. She picked us up at the airport and is driving us south. They are both fluent in Spanish. I’m not.

As I said, we took the last exit before the border. We bought gas, exchanged money (with a surprisingly good exchange rate) and most interesting of all bought Mexican Auto Insurance to cover our car while we are in Mexico. I was truly surprised how many companies were selling this insurance. Within a block of where we stood, there were at least half dozen companies. There was even drive through Mexican Car Insurance place where you approached a drive up window.

After that experience, we crossed the border. And it was mostly a nonevent. We went over a good-sized speed hump and we were there. There was a check-in station for people with “Something to Declare” but since we had nothing, we could have moved on without stopping. Except, Mary also knew we were supposed to get Visas since we were heading into Baja California Sur. The funny thing was, I didn’t realize we were actually in Mexico yet and asked that question. “Are we “IN” Mexico?” The Visa process was entertaining though. We went to one person, filled out a form, took a second form to the “bank” and paid our $22 each and then went back to the first man to receive our Visas; I half expected the first man would have taken his lunch break while we were gone. The amusing part was he never actually looked at our passports. We could have put any name down on the forms and no one would have known the difference. Right up until we got into trouble, of course. And during the course of the trip, we passed at least six military checkpoints so it was probably best.

From there, we drove together to Ensenada to meet up with a driver from the diver cooperative who would take us the rest of the way, about a 12 hour trip.

Baja is all low desert; scrub, desert flowers, cactus and dirt. That’s about it. The first three hours of the drive were pretty unnerving. The road was narrow, people were passing and it was stop, slow and accelerates through a series of small towns. After that, the road took off and we were able to make good time. It was still winding though, with no guardrails or roadside shoulders. We actually passed a semi truck that had wiped out. I am sure the drive lost attention for a second and dropped a wheel off the road. He was never able to right himself and laid it out, spilling his load. Not sure what happened to him as we rubber-necked past.

Around 830 pm we stopped at a little roadside diner. I love these places and they are all over Mexico. The US Health Department would have a conniption with them, but they are interesting. The food is authentic, hot, good and cheap. After a good, filling meal where we watched a Mexican dance competition on TV and got waited on by three generations of the family, our driver “Chacka” climbed behind the wheel and we took off again.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I have absolutely no idea what time it was, I realized we had stopped. I had been stretched out across a seat in the van so I sat up and asked what was going on. I was told “Someone hit a horse and we are going to help them pull it off the road before someone else hits it.” Not what you want to hear as you wake up. It turned out someone in a truck had hit a stray horse and killed it instantly. Fortunately, the animal was off the road so we didn’t have to do anything.

We hit the road again and finally stopped for a couple hours and we all slept around 430 am. We woke up with the sunrise and took off again. As we arrived at the water’s edge, a boat was waiting to take us to the island, a short ride away. All in all, about 14 hours travel time from when we left Ensenada to when we arrived at Isla Natividad. A long, long way to go.

This trip is a counterpoint to my recent travels to Honduras where Matias and I are working on a project to help local harvesting divers dive more safely and avoid injury. Here in Baja California Sur, we are visiting with, and learning about a group of divers who have been doing essentially the same work as the divers in Honduras. This group, however, uses a diver’s cooperative that oversees the diving, the harvest and the distribution of that harvest. I’d like to see what we can learn from this group and possibly apply some of their lessons to the divers in Honduras.

More to come later..

Throughout much of the developing world, pay as you go cell phones have revolutionized lives. I’ve seen it in Africa, South America, and the Caribbean where nearly everyone has a mobile phone. They have literally leap-frogged over years of development.
Telecommunications providers in these countries have found it is easier to build cell towers than it is to string land lines. That makes perfect sense. And, with the ability to sell cards with “minutes” on them, users can recharge their phone whenever they run out.

While the ability to communicate is (probably) a positive advance, around me I see evidence of a negative one, too. Water quality in a place like Puerto Lempira, Honduras is low so bottlers are purifying and importing water and soft drinks. Obviously, access to clean water is a good thing. But what is truly troubling is the amount of plastic trash on the ground and in the water. This is a beautiful lush rain forest. The water just a few yards from homes is filled with fish and shrimp for the taking. Mangoes literally fall from the trees (I was nearly hit several times yesterday).

But, this plastic trash just stacks up and gets thrown in the water and nothing is done about it. As we first approached Kalkira, I saw piles of bottles floating in the water.

Leaving the village, Elmer pointed out a sign that says, basically, “Put Trash in Its Place”. But, the trash can beneath it was overflowing with plastic bottles and the ground around it was covered. Just after I took a picture of it, a boy grabbed a rake and piled up all the bottles—and then burned them. And this was literally feet from the water. I don’t even want to think about the chemicals he released into the air and then breathed as he tended the fire, and what else leaked straight into the water.

Elmer suggested that the ships that deliver cargo to these villages could then pick up the bottles and take them to La Ceiba for recycling. (He is going to recommend this to a friend who owns a boat making deliveries to La Moskitia) I would like to see the soft drink bottlers (Coca-Cola was the primary brand) take responsibility and work to clean up this trash. They are making plenty of money selling Cokes and Dasani water here, they need to reinvest some of it for the future of the people and the environment..