The fire alarm went off in our building at work today. This was not a planned event. Usually we receive a warning about a drill, which is helpful. This was not that. A terrible sound emerged from nowhere. Lights flashed.

A disembodied voice told us this was a fire alarm, told us to abandon hope, told us to open the elevator doors and stride through without gazing into the abyss below. The pleasant voice told us that we’d all be written off for insurance purposes, but some might make it out and those lucky few would get a chance to start anew. The voice asked us about other skills no one knew we had, told us finding a way to monetize those skills was the key to our newfound, lung scorched, skin scarred lives.

You want to weigh your options during messages like these. Is this a drill? Should you just stay in your warm, dry office? Should you honor the whuupping alarm?

You should honor the whuupping alarm.

So I gathered up my things and stuffed them in my backpack, and my half-sandwich, because it was almost lunch time, and this fire will not take my computers or my peanut butter half-sandwich!

As I write that, I am thinking of the few other things in my office that I didn’t carry, and I’m kicking myself a bit, but there’s only so much you can do.

I met The Yankee in the stairwell, because you can’t use the elevators. And, two weeks post-op, going downstairs is one of the more difficult parts of her recovery. What I’m saying here is she was slowing everybody down, and that recorded, disembodied voice needs a new line about who to avoid when making your escape from the fiery inferno that is coming for us all.

A police cruiser came. Two rigs from the fire department arrived soon after. The police officer went in to look at the fire panel, a computer system designed to help suss out the location of the supposed fire. Three members of the fire department went in, wearing their turnout gear. Sometime later they all came out. There was no fire.

There was no explanation. Just all of us standing out in the rain, waiting to go back inside, trying to imagine what it was that each person decided to bring outside. Happily, there were no problems or injuries.

Back to Cozumel! The fish take a back seat in today’s photos to the coral. Just look at this stuff.

I mentioned how these were becoming one of my favorite sites of this dive trip. I think you can see now why that was the case.

But just look at all of the other colorful sponges in that photo. It’s something to behold, is it not?

Sometimes you have to look up, because sometimes there’s something swimming above you.

Looks like an aquarium setting, doesn’t it? Note the two gray angelfish (Pomacanthus arcuatus) in the center, and the little blue damselfish (Chromis cyanea) in the distance.

The damselfish always seem to be in the distance.

These next two are the same little bit of coral and sponge, only because it is fascinating and beautiful and I couldn’t decide which one I liked best.

But you can see even more of the tiny, delicate details in those two pictures.

Always look in the vase coral. Because you never know.

These blue coral just seem to glow.

Wanna know about the best fish in the sea?

This is the best fish in the sea.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 at 10:09 pm and is filed under adventures, Cozumel, IU, memories, photo, SCUBA, Tuesday. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.