Update on Steve Gerrard

This is from Steve Gerrard... in reply to my email.

Tuesday Night, July 19th, 2005

Hello ANDREW,

I offer you pleasant greetings from the Deepwater Horizon. We are 85 miles offshore south of the southwest Mississippi River pass in the Gulf of Mexico drilling a new well for BP in 4,000 feet of water. Last week we picked up and ran west for 75 miles to get away from Hurricane Dennis.

I received several email inquiries concerning the welfare of myself, Kate Lewis and everyone living in Puerto Aventuras and the surrounding Riviera Maya with Hurricane Emily. Obviously, I was not in Puerto Aventuras when Hurricane Emily passed through Sunday night, July 18th. I was lucky.

I spoke with Kate Sunday morning on the telephone as she planned to hunker down in our condominium with our dogs and cats and ride out the storm. Our condominium building is built like a tank as we experience Hurricane Roxanne in October, 1995 with no problems.

Yes, Hurricane Emily hit Puerto Aventuras "dead-on" – bulls eye. From emails from several friends living in Cancun these are the facts I know so far. There is extensive damage to the jungle from Playa Del Carmen to Tulum. Hurricanes strip all the leaves and vegetation clean and it makes the jungle look like winter. It will stay this way for seven weeks. During the eight week the jungle will look like spring with new leaves and growth. By the end of the eight week the jungle will be back to normal. This is what the Mayan people told me years ago and that is exactly what took place after Hurricane Roxanne in 1995. It is during this "winter" season that makes it perfect conditions to look for new cenotes by airplane and that is exactly what I plan to do in a three weeks.

Puerto Aventuras, Akumal and all other surrounding communities and resorts have no electricity. Many of the electrical cement poles along Highway 307 were snapped in half. I understand that Playa Del Carmen has electricity back now. That is incredible. Cancun never lost electricity. I am sure it will take at least six days to get all electricity back along the Riviera Maya coast, hopefully, sooner.

The Pemex station in front of Puerto Aventuras had the gasoline pumps awning knocked over. Any structure with a palapa roof or cover was blown off. As a few examples, the Catalonia Riviera Maya & Yucatan Beach Hotels had significant palapa roof damage as to the Copacabana Resort located three kilometers south of Puerto Aventuras lost its 30 foot tall palapa roof from their lobby. There was significant window damage and many trees blown over. I am told Villas DeRosa/Aquatech suffered window damage, lost tiles from the roofs and lost one vehicle. The list goes on.

The good news is there are no reports of deaths. The bad news is for many of the local people who live in palapa huts or perhaps shoddy constructed dwellings, they are the ones I feel badly for as they probably suffered the worse and need the most immediate help.

The clean-up is the most miserable part of a hurricane experience particularly in a hot month of July (extremely rare). No electricity means no air conditioning or fans to help ventilate homes and businesses. I am confident the Mexican authorities are putting full efforts – 24 hours each day to get all electricity back on-line.

Concerning the cave diving and cenotes, as for the past many thousands of years and probably hundreds of hurricanes to pass by, no problem, business as usual with crystal clear, warm water and great diving. That’s the big difference with the Riviera Maya and Florida. The weather is never a factor for us and diving the beautiful cave systems.

I fly home next week on Wednesday, July 27th. I have two cave diving students from Switzerland beginning on the 28th.

Thank you for your concern. I hope all is well with you.

Maintain and take care.

Safe diving, Steve

stevegerrard@cavediver.com

www.steve-gerrard.com

www.cenotesoftheRivieraMaya.com