Lovely Curacao

Let's see, what have we been up to since last Friday! We had a wonderfully social weekend at Sol Food. The dive shop folks come over and we really enjoy hanging out with them and getting to know everyone better. They are such an upbeat, fun group of people! Martin and I have not been going crazy diving but are averaging about 1 a day. We went out on a dive off the beach near the house and I found ANOTHER seahorse. I'm so very proud :) This one was a gorgeous bright yellow. We also had our first night dive (first of 3 for a specialty class). I wore my new hood and was very glad - it's both warm and keeps the little water bugs and nasties out of my hair. Lights under water attract as many little creepy things underwater and out of water. We saw an enormous lobster (easily would have fed 6 ;) and an eel that was hunting. No octopus but we'll be doing a few more night dives so hopefully we'll see one.

I was slowed down a bit Sunday and Monday with headaches. I realized that I forgot my Excedrin Migraine and Naproxen (1st line of defense before the heavy hitters...) so we went to a drug store here. Over-the-counter drugs are behind-the-counter here but psyche - you can get prescription strength Naproxen! Monday was my birthday. That was the day of our night dive and then afterward there was a big group of people that came over for a special spaghetti dinner. (Bryan, manager of the dive shop, has his family visiting for a week.) So we joined them and had a really nice evening and lots of cake! Tuesday was Sunshine's birthday. Since she cooks all the time I made us all burritos (hey, I'm not a culinary star...) and we sat out on the patio and had a wonderfully relaxing evening in the breeze.

Tuesday morning we went diving with Ocean Encounters West on a 2-dive boat dive to the Sponge Forest and Watamula dive sites. There was a really strong current so they were drift dives. I enjoyed them - it's a challenge with the strong current. I'm also taking sudafed for my ears and have found that when I take it I can get down right away - no hovering at 20 feet in ear pain - it's Such a relief. Thank you Sandra for that wonder cure!

Today is Wednesday and we've stayed in studying all day. We have our Rescue Diver Course all day Friday-Sunday and have to do the theory work before then. It was a long study day! We're heading down to Wilhemsted this evening with Sunshine, David and Andreas to have dinner in town. I'm looking forward to it!

Loving Curacao

Life is good, very very good! I just took this picture off of our balcony :)

We arrived in Curacao late Monday night. Sunshine & David greeted us and we talked til late. We had a warm welcome from Meo the cat as well. He slept with us all night. I thought the mosquito netting would bother him but he didn't seem to mind at all! On Tuesday we went for a dive with Sunshine, David and some ladies from the American Women's Club. It was a great dive and I was so psyched - I found a big black sea horse hanging out in some black coral! My training with Sandra in Ft. Lauderdale is showing ;) Tuesday afternoon we went into town and did some grocery shopping. We had to wait on produce though. That arrives by ship on Thursdays so Sunshine picked up our produce for us when she went for her shop on Thursday afternoon. Between availability and the 45 minute drive to town, shopping takes a little more planning than at home.

I went out with David one morning to walk the "pups". (The pups are actually 2 young - huge and lovey fila brasileiros). He showed me the "mondi" (bushland forest) where he's cleared miles of mountain bike trails. The next morning I was able to head out and get a run in up there. I'll have to get some pictures and post them on the pic of the day (3). David has started a non-profit mountain biking group for the local boys here called Westpundt Riders. Martin went out riding with them last night on their weekly ride. I was happy when he returned - walking and not too bloody :)

Yesterday we studied hard and then today went and finished our first specialty class - Enriched Air. Now we can dive with nitrox tanks if we want (more oxygen than air). This gives you more time under water or less of a wait time above water for multiple dives. We won't use nitrox much but it'll be great to be able to when we want it. We've also signed up for the Rescue Divers Course, and both Night Dive and Search & Recovery specialty classes. We're front loading our stay here with classes since the dive shop has a huge group in the end of the month. This will give us time to practice what we learn too.

A major disappointment - the Disco Dive was canceled. And I even had a black sequins jumpsuit to wear over my wetsuit - what a shame! We have so much schedule already - Monday is our first night dive, we're doing a 2 dive boat trip Tuesday morning and then our Rescue class all weekend.

Sol Food opens today for the weekend (Sunshine & David run a restaurant here Friday noon - Sunday evening). It smells great right now. I think a bunch of the people from the dive shop will be coming over for dinner tonight. I'm looking forward to it! It was so nice to see everyone again. It's so unusual to visit twice in only a few months. I'm looking forward to getting to know the dive gang better!

Leaving Fort Lauderdale (oops - delayed post!)

I thought I had posted this but I hadn't...so better late than never...

Happy Halloween! OMG - November is here!

We've had a great week. Once again we went diving with Sandra and Dan. This time we found a white-nosed pipefish (pretty rare it seems), and a gorgeous flatworm that was reproducing and spliting in half (that pic didn't come out on my camera :( The Ft. Lauderdale Int'l Boat Show on Thursday was Incredible! We went with CJ and Margie and Sandra and Dan met us there too. Holy cow! It's HUGE. We visited several vendors that people wanted to check out. We toured Cronki, Viking, Lazzara, Tiara, Nordhavn, Selene and Grand Banks boats. It was a great day but very, very hot. We lost the gang earlier on from the heat but we couldn't leave! Never having been before, we were enthralled :) The show was also only a mile and half from the hotel so we could walk home afterwards (traffic was an absolute nightmare!). We got to see the new 60 Nordhavn - Wow. Martin and I are thinking that maybe one day, several years from now, we'd like to cruise again and we'd definitely get a trawler and go further afield. The Nordhavn's are more ship than boat and the 55 and 60 foot models are incredible. (The 60 is the exact same boat as the 55 with an additional 5 feet in the cockpit). It was awesome to get to actually see one! I'll put some pics up on "pic of the day 3".

Speaking of boats - since we wrote last week we've come full circle. We had the sea trial the day after I posted and there was a "miracle". Lucky appeared fixed! It seems it was the trim tabs causing the tilting and overheating at full throttle. We were thrilled! Martin was waiting to pay up and get a detailed mechanics account to post about the Lucky saga.

Then we had a very unwelmcomed shock yesterday. We went to the boat to drop off some stuff (we've moved practically everything from Lucky to the hotel so it's time to start moving it back - we leave on Monday). The mechanics were there finishing off the work so we could go pay up and be done. The last check is the oil and *surprise* there was water in the port drive. Don't really have the words for how that felt. Martin was, livid? Jeffrey, the lead mechanic (and owner) has assured Martin that they'll take care of it while we're gone, as well as the cost. This means a haulout, reentry and sea trial - all without Martin there. Yeah, Mart's not thrilled. But we have to do it or there's no chance of Lucky be "fixed" before we head home.

So now on to our next adventure - Curacao! I'm sooo excited to have an entire month to explore and dive there. It's such a good thing that we planned this, it's a perfect way to end the year! We have Wifi there so we'll be on line and continuing to update the blog!

Swimming with a Manatee!

No, the pic above is a Sea Robinfish but first - Martin swam with a manatee out in the wild - how freakin' cool is that??? Yesterday we went diving with Dan & Sandra. It's been windy and the ocean is too high to go out so we all stayed at the bridge. Martin & Dan were free diving and Sandra and I were scuba diving. Martin & Dan meet up with 10 ft manatee that hung out with them for about 5 minutes. Amazing! They also found themselves swimming with a school of 6 eagle rays! Sandra and I missed the big critters but did find a Sea Robinfish (pic above). It's the creepiest thing ever! It has these appendages like front feet that they can move like fingers to turn over rocks and find food yet it's a fish. Yikes! I'm really amazed at the bridge area. It's just a sandy, kind of ugly space under water and you would never guess that such amazing and rare animals live there.

We also went to the Leonard Cohen concert last Saturday. Wow. It was an amazing, professional, classy show. I just can't believe that he is 75 yrs old. He has so much energy, vitality and wit, it shines through on stage. His fellow musicians and singers are incredibly talented. He sang and also read some of his songs as poems. I was laughing one minute and moved to tears the next. The show was 3 hours long of performance (and a 20 minute or so break in the middle). Even Martin (who was rather dubious about the show) had a great time. Absolutely wonderful!

On Sunday we went to Naples and visited Sue & Armando. It was a great day spent with great people :) We checked out a new English Pub that Martin gave the thumbs up to. We then watched a very strange-yet-funny movie, Burn After Reading. We had a nice afternoon catching up and getting kitty love from Tru & Blu. We finished off the day with stone crab claws for dinner (the season just opened). I'm going to miss Sue & Armando sooo much. I'm so thankful we've had the opportunity to be so close by and to see them.

Yes, I'm starting to really feel that the end of this magical year is approaching. I just can't believe how fast 10 months has gone by. We leave in just about a week for Curacao for November, then a few weeks more and we'll be home. I even have a return date for work, January 11th! Ooh, that's going to be a rough adjustment :) (Don't worry Judy, I'll get back in the flow quick ;) Okay, no more thinking like this or I get all freaky and sentimental.

So for the rest of our time in Ft. Lauderdale, we have more diving planned, the huge Fort Lauderale Boat Show next Thursday, and at least one more sea trial with Lucky (tomorrow). Oh, and we signed up for a Disco Dive in Curacao. It involves disco clothes and doing the hustle - at depth - can you say, excited???

Cooling Off

Wow - it's finally supposed to cool off a bit in steamy Florida. While the rest of the country has been experiencing fall, we've been hotter and steamier than summer. But tomorrow's high should be 75! We're finally getting a break, yay!

This past week we've been pretty busy, socially and with Lucky. Here's the run down!

We had CJ, Margie, Sandra and Dan over for Martin's chili the other night. It was so much fun (and so filling ;) I got to see Sandra's pics of an octopus eating a crab - she's an awesome photographer! We have plans to go out diving with them again, hopefully this Wednesday. Thursday we went to see Hangover. Meh, not bad as comedies go...

We have some fun plans for this weekend. Tonight is Leonard Cohen in concert - woo hoo! I'm soooo excited! And tomorrow we're going to Naples to visit Sue & Armando. It was Sue's birthday this week and I'm really looking forward to seeing them again!! We're planning on riding bikes around town and then having a lovely stone crab dinner (or at least Martin is planning on that, he's a stone crab junky).

As for Lucky... Martin and I took her out on a sea trial on Friday. I haven't been on Lucky (moving) since June and I was all nervous! We did fine though Lucky didn't perform up to hopes. At 3400 rpm she's fine. That's slightly above our usual cruising speed. So that's really good! But when pushed full throttle - not so good. The port engine runs about 20 rpm shy of the starboard and overheats. The worse is that Lucky leans really, really badly to the left (at full speed). It kind of freaked me out. Martin says it's because the port engine isn't performing as well as the starboard so she "tilts". We debated letting her be as she is - so we can't run her full throttle - at this point who cares?

But then this morning (the drama just doesn't end), the head mechanic wanted to see Lucky and he and Martin found she was massively down in coolant. So it's boiling out of the engine. This can't be left alone. Sigh. So the work continues. Flipping raw water pumps between engines, blah, blah, blah. Another sea trial early next week but it'll be Martin and the mechanics. I'm good for now :)

Photo Phrenzy!

In case you've missed it, we've added yet another link to pictures on the right. Steph's been such a busy photobug that she's maxxed out Picasa Web Albums again.

Update from Fort Lauderdale

Life in Ft. Lauderdale is HOT! We are coming to the end of a 3 week heat wave - that should be broken this weekend - yay! We've been getting some relief from the heat by diving with Dan & Sandra quite a bit. I've updated the Pic of Day 2 through 10-11-09 and had to start Pic of the Day 3! Sandra and I go scuba diving under the Blue Heron Bridge in Lake Worth and Dan & Martin free dive either by the bridge or out at the channel to the ocean. Our days on Gladius with Dan & Sandra are always fun with lots of sun and laughs. Friends of theirs often are aboard too. After a couple of hours diving we head to one of the many restaurants that have docs you can tie up too. I wish we had more of that in the Bay Area! The bridge area is a unique eco-system (river and salt and shallow) and there are amazing critters there - some that are typically very, very difficult to find elsewhere. My favorites are the batfish and burrfish. The pic above is the burrfish.

We've also been able to spend lots of time with CJ & Margie and the pups - always a Wonderful time! This Thursday we're having everybody over for some of Martin's Magnificent Chili - I'm really looking forward to it! We have settled into a very comfortable life here. I'm still jogging, even with the heat. I got a water belt that has helped a lot. I had a bit of a freaky morning this Monday. Jogging up the beach I saw police and then saw a dead body. He had apparently washed up in the night, rip. CSI is one of my favorite tv shows but I prefer fiction in this case :( Martin is still hanging in there doing the Shred with me. We've been cooking a lot and are still making use of the beautiful outdoor grill and seating area here at Kira-Mar. I recently discovered quinoa and am exploring new recipes... Hm, I guess that's all that new this week!

As for Lucky, things continue to move along and she may be fixed! Racor bowls were cleans, a thermostat adjusted and today the gas tank was emptied and cleaned (apparently we got back fuel somewhere in the Bahamas). Weather permitting we'll be taking her out tomorrow for a major sea trial.