Time to get active. The first that I joined was pickleball. The Canadian guy and his wife setting it up already had extra paddles and nets, so all I had to do was show up at 9am at the courts, located in the gated community of Playacar. If you’ve never seen pickleball before it’s played with plastic paddles (a bit smaller than a racquetball paddle) and a ball similar to a whiffleball. The courts are smaller than a tennis court and the net is a little shorter. It has an area next to the net that you aren’t allowed to step in, so it makes for some more interesting strategy placing little drop shots in this area. We were playing doubles, so it’s not really too much running. For that reason the older people seem to prefer it to tennis. But ball placement is key, so you definitely still have to be quick on your toes. To start there were five of us, but it would keep growing, as expected. They say pickleball is the fast growing sport in the US right now!
Staying out of the kitchen! The line that runs parallel to the net
Next up: Scuba diving with the sharkies! January to March is bull shark season in Playa and I certainly wasn’t going to miss out on it. We had a group of three, plus the instructor, all set to go. It wasn’t through an actual dive company, the instructor was a freelancer, and we got our gear through a small shop right on the beach. For most commercial dive shops the money mostly goes to the company and the local instructor makes just a small percentage, so this way was better for the local economy. The only downside was the equipment was a bit shoddy. There’s always a tradeoff. But anyway, we got geared up, hopped in a boat waiting for us at the shore and a few minutes later we were at the dropoff point and rolling backwards off the boat.
I assumed we’d have to go find the sharks, but literally as we were descending someone made the fin-on-forehead sign (universal signal for shark!) and pointed down behind me. A bull shark lurking down by the sandy bottom. By the time we were at the sand there were three of them circling, and a few more would show up as well. These are not friendly looking sharks! They have big ole jagged teeth sticking out and a general disposition that says ‘don’t mess with me’. Which is fair, as they are one of the more aggressive shark species. They are quite intimidating, and they are not afraid to get up close and personal. But they know the drill, they know they’ll get fed eventually, which is why they buzz around like vultures. And as far as I know there have never been any attacks on Scuba divers. Although I don’t know if I can say the same for snorkelers!
So we were down around 70 feet, 5 or 6 bull sharks just gently weaving in and out of our group. Sometimes they’d disappear out to the blue, but they’d always come back. For taking photos underwater it was pretty great with how close they’d get. I was using my underwater casing with the iphone 11 for the first time, and I was really impressed with how easy it was to use, and with how well the photos looked. Seriously the advances in cameraphone technology over the last few years have been very impressive! No need for a DSLR + big clunky underwater casing to take good Scuba dive photos anymore.
big moray on the 2nd dive
the funky looking remora fish
After 50 minutes or so we started our ascent, the sharks still following us. The boat captain tossed over some jumbo fish heads that the sharks eagerly gobbled up, and then they wandered off. We all got in the boat, everyone was super pumped about being so up close and personal with the feared bull sharks. Plus we still had one more reef dive to round out the morning, although Playa’s reefs are mediocre at best. But still, definitely a cool experience.
Next class: Yoga! This one yoga organization offered a bunch of classes up on a hotel rooftop, so I opted for the 4pm beginners class. Now when picturing a yoga class, I was imagining mostly women, mostly young fit women in form fitting attire. Well, you can imagine my surprise when I walked up and the whole class was men! One guy about my age, two guys in their 50’s and one guy in his 70’s. Okay then! Although the instructor did fit the stereotypical description I had in mind, a super bendy Russian girl, who also spoke pretty good English. But with an all male group and a hot young female instructor, it sort of made you go ‘hmmm.’
But anyways, the pace of the class was nice and slow, which of course I liked. And I thought for sure I would be the least flexible person in class, but that was not the case. The 70 year old guy could hardly even do most of the moves, what a loser! Ha, I’m kidding, it was admirable that he was now doing yoga 5 days a week. And most old people are just like this guy, literally zero flexibility. I was starting a bit late, but I wanted to be able to move my body in a couple different directions when I get older! And one of the dudes in his 50’s was like stretch armstrong, I was impressed.
So between pickleball, diving, and yoga, plus playing poker, cooking, going to the beach, kindle books, learning more Spanish, going for runs and doing body weight exercises, I had quite a few different things on my plate to keep me busy for a while. Without hardly any drinking and partying, I had enough time for all of them! Life was pretty good.