u/BedroomWonderful7932

Anyone that decries cave diving as nothing but “looking at wet rocks” is an utter loon. In addition to ancient and sophisticated human civilisations, the Yucatan was home to an incredible array of animals, some of whose bones can still be seen in the underwater realm. And some of them, as you can see from this life-sized poster in Puebla’s Regional Museum, were very large indeed! I asked my 195 cm (6’5”) husband to pose next to it for scale. Many of you, I am sure, remember the incredible discovery at Hoyo Negro that included the fossils of 30 extinct mammals: articulated sloths, bears, wolves, and peccaries, to name a handful.

If you haven’t yet experienced cave diving in the Yucatan, I hope you consider it someday. The caves here are truly spectacular. My husband and I run a little bed and breakfast operation that caters to cave divers (we also offer guiding/training), so if you have any questions about a trip here, I would be delighted to answer them.

The salinity, density, flow, and temperature all conspire to create the halocline. It’s the stratified interface where the freshwater of the underground rivers of the Yucatán sits on top of the intrusion of the Gulf/Caribbean directly into the peninsula.

It is a little hard to film, to convey the real experience of what swimming (or scootering) through the thin, blurry layer really feels like.

This video gives some vague impression, at least, of what it feels like when you’re trying to hold a video light in the same hand you’re driving the scooter with and holding a GoPro out at an arm’s length with the other hand.

I’m quite pleased with how these turned out, especially since my mixer died after three minutes of mixing the dough. So I kneaded for about 15 minutes by hand (when shaping the dough, I realised that that was insufficient) and then into the fridge overnight. This time, I boiled the bagels with a mix of molasses and baking soda for a touch of shine, and baked them with a steam pan at the bottom of the oven. I also used parchment paper as a liner instead of a more insulated silicone mat.

I’m fairly happy for a third attempt, but husband says they still need work: the exterior isn’t crunchy enough (even though there was an audible crunch when he bit into it) for his taste. He suggested boiling them for longer than the 15 seconds on each side prescribed by the Thia Codes recipe, and maybe baking for longer than 15 minutes to crisp everything up. The recipe author says that a longer boiling time results in an overall smaller, flatter bagel, which I don’t want, but…meh. Back to the drawing board I go. But only after the KitchenAid gets overhauled. I’m not keen to repeat the hand-kneading experience!

Couldn’t add “result” photos to my post from yesterday, so excuse the new thread. This second batch definitely turned out better than my first sorry attempt at bagels - the “Thia Codes” formula is definitely superior to the King Arthur sandwich bagel recipe, in my opinion. First photo is after a 16 hour refrigerated proof, right before going into the boiling water/molasses bath for 15 seconds on either side. I baked them at 230 degrees C (convection) for about 13 minutes. Probably should have left them in for another two minutes or so.

It’s a decent second effort, but I have a long way to go. The bottoms were a bit too soft and pillowy - my hypothesis is that a silicon baking mat was a poor choice, since it probably has slight insulating properties? I’ll try parchment paper next time (I don’t have a pizza stone or bagel boards) to better bake the bases. But they were definitely tasty and by far the best bagels I have had in SE Mexico!

My second attempt at NY style bagels, but this time (based on input from folks here!), I’m using the Thia Codes formula. This photo was taken right after the initial shaping. Afterwards, they rested on the kitchen counter for 45 minutes (until one floated in a bowl of water). Now they’re sitting in the fridge for the rest of the afternoon and overnight. Boil and bake tomorrow! Wish me luck.