And, frankly, he’s not entirely happy about it. The plan was to have New York burst into spring while I was gone. A failed plan. Meanwhile, Cozumel was glorious—and inspiring.

Last October, the Mexican island off the Quintana Roo coast was devastated by Hurricane Wilma, which for three days more or less parked itself over Cozumel—imagine living through a hellish storm for 84 hours. Homes and streets were flooded. Electricity was out for three weeks. Concrete piers were lifted up out of the water and deposited on land. Hotels, houses, and the Navy barracks were destroyed. Boats moored in the caleta sank or were tossed on shore. And, most saddening to me, thousands of reef fish were carried by the waves onto the land to die.

The economic impact on the island was enormous. For a couple of months after the storm, tourism vanished, of course. The docks at which cruise ships parked simply weren’t there any longer. (I dived under those docks once, and believe me, they were pretty substantial.) Divers stayed away. Numerous businesses were forced to close. Many Mexicans who’d come to Cozumel to work simply left the island, never to return.

But the people of Cozumel are resilient, and rebuilding started as soon as the water was gone. Along the main street of San Miguel, you’d never know that there’d been such destruction just a few months ago. The dive boats are up and running. And the reefs—well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Some sections of the reefs are in worse shape than before; parts of them look stripped of life, or buried in sand. Elsewhere, though, new sections of reef have been opened up and uncovered. The storm has brought new things into the open—like a massive anchor found in a sandy section of Palancar, estimated to be about 100 years old and never seen before. (Near it are about fifteen hefty bricks, apparently ballast from whatever boat sank there.)

And the fish—one of whom is pictured above—are there in force. We saw this particular eagle ray swimming along a sandy stretch, digging for conch (which tells you something about how powerful its jaws are). Eagle rays are astonishingly graceful, beautiful animals; they are also shy, and don’t like divers’ bubbles. The trick when you see one is to drop to the bottom and try to flatten your profile as much as possible. Basically, you hug the sand.

This one was a determined feeder and let us get pretty close before gently flapping his wings and lifting off (they really do look like they’re flying). I mentioned in my last post that diving is a humbling experience; it is also a spiritual one. Seeing an animal like this in the wild is perhaps the best explanation I can give.