April 2025 - Jellyfish, Back to Golf, Tattoo This! Immigration Headaches

In this month I avoided a bunch of jellyfish, but not computer and phone issues, played a bunch of golf, got my second tattoo, continued editing InstaNation and painfully obtained my immigration appointments...

Down under the sea...peace...

Look at the stir of the sand and water in the surging sea

wait there are jellyfish, yikes!

Checking out the seaweed barrier

Broken stuff...

Nice one...after the Elite 16 poor clean up
it was easy to find 3 inch screws in the sand!!!

Switching out BB battery

Bad design, antenna connection
pulled right off motherboard
BUT its a BB so still worked!

Power switch broke on Lenovo
Yoga 6 after only 1.5 years...

Can't even repair it in Mexico
Things are getting to ridiculous
in this wonderful tech world

Salsa explosion...not a good look

Shedding hair everywhere

Cramming in 6 rounds of golf in 15 days at $55 cad a round was great.  Golf, food and drinks for that price.   And good weather too, priceless!

Good round with Bill

Good breaky before the round

My water drop 200 yards out

Dropped it on the green!  Keeps you coming
back to this silly game

Always feels better when you
find some balls

Still bogied after this awesome 2nd shot to be
near the green on par 5.

One year after my Mexican bike spill it was time to put a protective Tattoo over the most damaged area, my left foot. Wanting a local Mayan to put something representative of the area I settled for a highly recommended Italian that had been living in the Mayan Riviera for 15 years.  And he was close to my house which was great since I wouldn't be able to use my foot much after the tattoo.  Well Maurizio...Let's get it done...on one of the more painful spots to put ink I chose not to take any pills or creams in order to have the most authentic experience.  Perhaps that was a mistake, haha...

Artist at work

Am I ready?

That didn't hurt at all...

Wait, that was only the marker

Bring the pain and fun!

Maurizio loving his job

Where did I get such a stupid idea!

Thank god it was a small one and only 3.5 hours!

Very sore, but finished!

Other Stuff

The joy of the Mexican
 and scowl of the Argentinian

These will make you smile
but that was too much.

Love me a good type-o

Racoon debating the best 
container to beg for money on 
5th Ave.

Trump tariffs smoked my stocks!

Best dairy free malt at Comet!

What a bunch of sensationalism!

Marianne and Happy Gui in Playa for some days

watch where you step

I guess I'll go through

Gummies are cheap

Put my Taylor up for sale...

Amazing polenta meal by Anto

All cleaned up Kukulkan

PC film world

Mauricio said that was the ink the tattoo
didn't need when I pulled the second skin off.

Of course government systems are about as stupid as they come and during the bridge between analog and digital we are seeing some amazing blunders. 

I hope the video explains it well that it took me 4 nights straight at 12:05am to lock in 2 immigration appointments for 3 weeks down the road.  Horrible system, imagine a mother of 3 who has to be up for work at 6am the next day.  Absolute joke that this was the only way I could get me appointments.  

And the cherry on top was that you only have a 4 week window before your residency expires to make and apply for the next residency step leaving only 1 week for error after 4 years of residency!  

Absolute joke.

March 2025 - Stingray, Moto repaired, Elite 16 Beach Volley Ball, Bike path 10ave craziness!

In this month, lots of underwater world, fixed motorbike and watched incredible pro beach volley. March was a good month for sure! Definitely check out the 10th ave bicycle path video in the "Other Stuff" section!!

Check out these Stingray videos!

So good to be way out of the human traffic!

Friendly...Someone has been feeding them...X

Reef playa 88

Snorkelling with Martin out at Reef Playa 88

Martin tickling a Rock Fish

Rock Fish

Big swim before Volley Ball

Happy Chappy

Paying $50 for the same view as me

Big needle fish

Sargasso is back...

Lucky to have clear waters still

Motorbike part arrived from Alaska!!!  $50usd for part, $70usd for shipping through creative channels.  Time to stop the bouncing.  Unfortunately due to the damn pre-load adjuster it took 2 hours longer than the 20 minutes it should have taken.  Tight to fish the pre-load through all the frame and harnesses.

Thanks Ramiro

Perfect used condition

brutal messing with pre-load

A dirty job...

Food section...

House specialty at 
La Negra Tomasa in Tulum

La Terraza a great lunch spot with Axel

Breakfast is easy with leftover steak!

Found a spot that sells 85p
for a huge bag of banana chips

Normally each container is 45pesos

Thank you Martin for keeping me in Chocolate
since he didn't take it back to Germany

Prices up at my favourite Friday
spot...HC del Monterrey

Still delicious!

Now to the pro volley ball.  The Elite 16 is the top teams in the world of beach volley ball and this was the first time Playa del Carmen had the honour to host an event.  In 2021 Cancun hosted three weeks in a row to appease the global covid restrictions. 

The tournament was a blast. I went to the pool group games on the Wednesday which was free and the Finals on Sunday.  Cuba beat down the underdog Argentina team in the Men's final.  One of the many USA teams won the women's final.

Big iguana!

Argentina pro vball girls training at Coco

The qualifying days are $5/day
The finals $25 for 4 matches

Practice court

They did great to block views of centre court
from outside the stadium

Side court which is free all the days

The wind was brutal

The Cubans, a very strong team

Bought a ticket off a buddy last minute as the finals had sold out.  Unfortunately I missed the women's semi, but made the finals in both.  The local Argentina crowd was pumped for the Argentina/Cuba final, but the majority of the stadium was supporting Cuba.

Wild...imagine if they had more seating how nuts this would get!?

Demian absolutely pumped
to watch one of his best buds
from Buenos Aires go for Gold

Cuba in the blue and Arg in beige.  Odd they 
didn't let them use their Red and Blue they had??

Many times everyone was on their feet

Cristina with the Cubans before
BTW, the shorter guy is the blocker!

Lion and Cristina, with Gold!

Other Stuff

If my moustache greyed like
that I may not be allowed...

My version of Cheers...

Dirty Martini from the street view

One of 4 Senior Frogs... 
not for me

Dinner with a view of a fat guy
getting a tattoo

Working at 12 years old

Hibiscus Flower and Amarant

Cool hat

That dog is too big for the basket lady

A few streets where the trees are in charge

Video of the ridiculously dangerous bike path in Playa.  Yet you never see crashes...

Still haven't taken their covid
signs down.  Another coming?

Picked up a few rounds of golf as my buddy
needed to finish his package.  20 rds in 15 days

Back in action

A building we looked at buying just off 72 st
and 15 ave.  They completely renovated it.

This look beside a very expensive Tulum Resort

A common sight.  Everyone on 
their phone no matter where

$5! for this small one

Beginning to edit "InstaNation"

Deciding a price to sell my net

Blackouts seemingly more common for the growing city of Playa del Carmen which went from 300,000 to 400,000 people from 2020 to 2024.  This one took out 30 blocks or more for a few hours...

Somebody in my building 
throwing in the towel, haha