Malapascua 2016 Day 3
Sat, May 7 2016 04:08
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Malapascua Day 3
We slept in as long as we could today; however, I think we
both woke up around 2 a.m. and were awake on and off until we finally got up
around 6-something. Eric got all the
camera gear ready and then we headed to breakfast. We had French toast made with their homemade
bread covered with fresh cut mango and cinnamon. It was devoured in no time--delicious.
We headed out for our first dive around 9:30. We wanted to do something easy, slow, and
fairly shallow as this would be the first dive with my new underwater housing
and camera. In addition, with all of our
house selling, buying, and remodeling, along with various other vacations prior
to that, it had been almost a year since my last dive and nearly that long for
Eric as well.
We had a nice easy dive.
I thought my camera was supposed to be white balancing, but obviously
the settings were not set correctly. So
I got footage of a lot of clownfish and some nudibranchs, etc., but it was all
rather on the blue side, having not been white balanced. It was a nice dive, either way though.
We headed back to the resort and had some lunch and sat
around in the shade until our next dive scheduled for 1:15 p.m. It was rather warm this afternoon with not
much wind. Eric went and got the laptop
out and sweating rather profusely trying to get a post put on Facebook.
After nearly falling asleep in the shade, it was time for
our next dive. The second dive was at
Deep Slope. Gino, our dive guide, found
us all kinds of neat stuff on this dive.
We saw cuddlefish, mantis shrimp, nudibranchs, pigmy seahorse, regular
seahorse, orangutan crabs, urchin crabs, moray eel, striped eel catfish, leaf
fish, whipcoral shrimp, pipe seahorses, among others.
My camera worked much better on the second dive once it was
set to white balance properly. I got
some good footage of quite a few things.
After this dive we headed back to the resort again. We rinsed our wetsuits out and headed back to
the room to get a shower and check out our footage and photos from today.
We were hungry after our hard day of diving (Ha, Ha!) and
headed to the restaurant for some dinner.
Tonight we tried the vegetarian parmesan cream pasta with garlic
bread—very good. Then again, I don’t
think they have anything on their menu that is bad. They have quite an extensive menu now with
lots of good choices.
It was a very relaxing day of diving, lounging, and
eating.
Malapascua 2016 Day 1 & 2
Fri, May 6 2016 05:09
| Permalink
Malapascua Day 1 & 2
It was an early start to our journey. Tim, our realtor, good friend, and dive
travel companion was nice enough to pick us up at the house at around 3:30 a.m.
and transport us to the airport.
It is nice getting to the airport that early in the morning,
there are very few people around then.
We had a nice quiet flight to LA.
The plane was far from being full.
We had about a five-hour layover in LA, which was nice
because we didn’t have to rush to get to our flight, especially since we had to
change terminals and go back through security again. The Bradley terminal at LAX is quite a nice
terminal now. They have obviously done a
lot of updating and modernizing. We hung
out in the Star Alliance Lounge until it
was time to board our flight to Seoul.
Our trip to Seoul was aboard Asiana Airlines A-380 (upper
level) in business class. We sat down in
our seats and shortly thereafter a lady with about a 1-year-old sat down next
to Eric. However, there were enough
empty seats that Eric was able to move to a seat on the opposite side of the
plane just behind me. By the time we
took off, there was an empty seat in every direction surrounding the lady with the
kid—having a young child on a plane is like having the plague, especially when
you are stuck there for 13 hours…
After we took off, the meal service started in. We settled in for our time-consuming
six-course meal. We placed our order
ahead of time for the vegetarian meal options.
When we first got started, Eric was wondering if we had made the right
decision or not. The salad consisted of
sliced up vegetables (yellow squash, zucchini, mushrooms) with dressing. By the time we got to the main course,
risotto with grilled vegetables, he was happy with the decision. Everything was delicious—much better than all
the beef and seafood choices on the regular menu.
It was actually quite a bumpy trip from LA to Seoul. Much of the trip was made with the seatbelt
sign on due to turbulence. Unlike on the
US carriers, the stewardesses continue food service, though. As we were eating our meal, our water and
other beverages were sloshing about in the glass.
We got lucky and the little kid sitting across from us was
actually quite good for most of the flight.
He started fussing a bit when we started our descent into Seoul, but my
ears were hurting too, so I can understand the fussiness.
We landed in Seoul and had about a 2-1/2-hour layover before
our flight to Cebu. We went up to the
lounge, which was packed, and managed to find a couple seats to hang out in
until our flight.
We boarded our flight to Cebu and ended up sitting at the
gate for quite a while, apparently due to heavy traffic at the airport. Once we took off, I think I slept most of the
5-hour flight. Eric got quite a bit of
sleep as well. By the time we got into
Cebu, it was after midnight.
A car picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel
which was just across the street from the airport. After checking in, we made or way to our room
and crawled into bed. We set the alarm
clock to get up around 8 a.m.
Breakfast at the hotel was from 7-10 and our driver was to
pick us up at 10 a.m. to take us to the northernmost end of Cebu to catch the boat to
Malapascua. We made our way down to
breakfast around 9 a.m. and then came back to the room to get our stuff ready
to go.
Our driver picked us up around 9:45 and we headed out on the
approximately 3-hour drive. The northern
end of Cebu was quite different from the last time we were here, which was 2
weeks after typhoon Haiyan. Even thought
it is dry season here now, things are a lot greener than before and most
structures have been rebuilt. You
probably wouldn’t even know the strongest typhoon on record had gone through
here two years ago.
We made it to Maya (the northernmost end of Cebu) and
boarded the boat to take us to Evolution dive resort on Malapascua. Right after we got on the boat, the rain
moved in, which was actually quite nice.
It has apparently been very hot here.
We had a nice crossing to Malapascua and upon arrival were
greeted by the staff who welcomed us back.
We were thinking we might like to do a dive after we arrived, but the
boat had already gone out, so we decided to just hang out and relax. We got a bite to eat at the Craic House (the
resort’s restaurant and pub) and hung out in the furniture in the shade on the
beach, enjoying the wonderful ocean breeze.
It is nice to be able to sit around and not do a single thing—I have to
admit it feels strange, though.
France Days 4-9
Thu, Sep 10 2015 01:27
| Permalink
Geneva to Seyssel
We started
our morning in Geneva rather comically.
I usually let Eric take a shower first, that way he can figure out the intricacies
of how the knobs and levers work before I go.
He had just gotten the temperature adjusted in the tub/shower combo with
the European style half-glass shower screen and went to pull the lever for the
shower when he had a rather rude awakening.
The wand sprayer was aimed directly at him as he stood outside the
tub. Needless to say he yelled with
surprise and by the time he realized what was happening and shut the water off,
he had hosed down half the bathroom.
After I mopped up the water and we
eventually got all our stuff packed up, we met the representative from
Cyclomundo in the lobby of the hotel around 8:30 a.m. to get the bikes set
up. Then we were off on our way to
Seyssel. Even though it was a Saturday
morning, it was still a little tricky getting out of Geneva with all the
traffic. Once we zigged and zagged our
way through town, we finally found ourselves in the countryside fairly quickly. It was a beautiful ride. The weather was a bit overcast but quite
nice.
A little ways out of town we were
trying to pull out of the way of a bus when Eric tangled with a killer granite
curb and went down. Luckily he was not
hurt—no blood or bruises even. The bus
driver was a bit concerned and checked to make sure we were okay. All I can say is I’m glad it was Eric that
went down and not me or lord only knows what would have happened—I’m sure there
would have been some blood and possibly broken bones involved…
As this was our first day riding we
were trying to get the hang of following the GPS tracks and making our way from
town to town. Somehow we missed the café
we were going to stop at for lunch. In
France most restaurants are only open from about noon-2 p.m. and then they close. As well, many of the small towns we rode
through were very tiny with just a few houses and nothing much else.
Needless to say, after a while we
were starving. Around 2:30 in the
afternoon we finally found a lady walking her dog on the bike path and asked
her if there were any restaurants around.
She pointed us to the main highway and after a short trip down the road
we found a hotel with what looked like a restaurant. Eric went up and asked if they served food
and apparently they were closed. So we
ordered a couple orange sodas and I think the woman took pitty on us and asked
if we wanted some sandwiches. So in our
muddled French we ordered a couple cheese sandwiches (I definitely know the
word fromage.) Boy were those sandwiches
good—slices of real French cheese on a huge crunchy baguette.
It’s a good thing we were finally
able to find food, as we had some more hill climbing to do yet before arriving
in Seyssel. The ride from Geneva to
Seyssel has the most climbing of all the legs of our trip, around 2500 ft. over
about 38 miles. We powered our way
through the rest of the climbing with some gorgeous views of the Rhone river
valley and arrived at our hotel at round 4:30 p.m. Our hotel in Seyssel, the Beau Sejour, was
right on the river with a fabulous view.
After settling into our room we
headed down for dinner in the hotel restaurant (dinner was included this
night). I had read reviews that their
restaurant was very good and the reviews were not wrong. We had a fabulous meal and then were off to
bed.
Seyssel to
Aix-les-Bains
Eric got up early and did an 18
mile ride with 3800 ft of climbing up Col de la Biche while I slept in. Once he arrived back at the hotel we headed
on our way to Aix-les-Bains. This ride
was a little shorter with a lot less climbing.
It was a beautiful ride along several rivers, on lush bike paths, and
along the lakes. We stopped along the
way at a pizzeria and had a wonderful lunch before making our way into Aix-les-Bains
around 2:30 p.m.
Needless to say we had a little nap
after arriving at our room and then we went out and wandered around the city a
little bit before turning in for the night.
Aix-les-Bains to St.
Pierre d’Albigny
Eric again got up early and did a 26.5
mile ride with 5562 ft. of climbing up Mt. Rivard before we headed on our way
to St. Pierre d’Albigny. I of course
slept in, went down and had breakfast, and then got all our bags completely
packed up and brought them down to be picked up and taken to our next
destination which was Chateau des Allures.
Eric made it back from his ride about 9:40 in the morning. He then sat in the sun in our room to thaw
out for a while. We then decided to walk
down the street to the boulangerie and buy some pastries to take along with us
in case we could not find any place to eat before arriving at our final
destination—we learned our lesson after day one of riding.
At the boulangerie we bought an
apple turnover and a chocolate croissant.
As soon as I stepped out of the boulangerie, I squished them flat as a
pancake in the bag so they would fit in our Cambelback. I can only imagine if the lady selling the
pastries saw me smashing them, she would probably pass out. We returned to the hotel to get the bikes and
then set off on our way to St. Pierre d’Albigny.
Eric had informed me that today’s
ride did not have nearly the amount of climbing, so I was looking forward to a
nice leisurely day. However, I was
obviously misinformed. There may not
have been as much climbing overall, but it was in short very steep bursts, some
about 12% or so. We also did a lot of
“off-roading” on dirt/gravel roads through many vineyards. The countryside was beautiful, I just wish
it was a little flatter… This area was
definitely wine country. Pretty much
from Aix-les-Bains to St.-Pierre-d’Albigny it was vineyard after vineyard.
Before we did some of our final
climbs and “off-roading,” we pulled off the road and sat under a big tree and
ate our pastries, which by that time were well earned. We then powered on to our destination—the
Chateau des Allures. We arrived at the
chateau a little after 4 p.m. It is
located up on a hill with magnificent views of the valley. This was by far the nicest place we would
stay on our trip. The chateau had been
lovingly restored over a three-year time period with original tile floors,
antique furnishings, etc. Outside they
had a huge vegetable garden on one side and an even bigger flower garden and
fishpond on the other side. The chateau
and the owner, Stephen, were simply amazing and I would highly recommend this
place to anyone traveling in this region.
After arriving at the chateau, we
got cleaned up and had a nap before going down to the hearth room at around
7:30 to join the other guests for wine before dinner. There were two other English couples from the
UK and another couple from Amsterdam. Two
of the couples had stayed at the chateau many, many times before. We enjoying talking with all of them before,
during, and after dinner. Several of
them were into cycling as well.
By the time we got to bed it was
nearly midnight. Needless to say, we
slept very well. The next morning we
went down to the dining room and had a fabulous breakfast and some more good conversation
with the two English couples. At around
10:30 we finally set off for our final destination of the ride, Annecy.
St. Pierre d’Albigny
to Annecy
This was the longest riding day of
our trip at approximately 44 miles with about 2300 feet of climbing. This was another beautiful day of
riding. The scenery was amazing. Although there was not as much steep
climbing, we had a pretty strong head wind most of the way to Annecy. We stopped in Albertville at a boulangerie
and bought a couple pastries, which we ate on the spot, and we bought a couple
cookies to take with us. Later we found
a nice park along the river in Ugine and stopped and ate our cookies.
We arrived in Annecy around 4:30
p.m. and fought our way through the crowd of tourists to find our hotel. When we checked in they said they had our
reservation for one night. However, we
were supposed to have a reservation for three nights. Needless to say, someone screwed up. They ended up upgrading us for the first
night to a room overlooking the lake and they said they would get it
straightened out for us.
After we got into our room, we got
cleaned up and we were of course starving.
Most restaurants don’t open until 7 p.m., but I managed to find a
pizzeria about a mile away from our hotel that opened at 5:45. So off we went on a hike across town to get
dinner. When we arrived, we were the
only customers there—the crazy Americans that eat at 5:30…
On our way back from dinner, we
walked around the lake a little bit and then headed back to the hotel to crash
into bed. Eric had informed me that over
the last four days I had ridden 140 miles and done almost 8000 ft. of
climbing. So I decided the next day we
would have to do at least a 10-mile ride so I could get to 150 miles.
The next morning after breakfast
the hotel told us they would later be moving us to another room for the next two
nights. We went out and wandered around
town for a while, did some shopping, and then came back and got our luggage moved
to the new room. Following that, we set
off on our 10-mile ride around the lake (on the side of the lake we had not
been to yet). After returning, we went
out and got some lunch and headed back to the hotel to relax for the afternoon,
type up the last three days’ of blog and download lots and lots of photos.
Our riding totals for the trip
ended up being 151.9 miles with 8351 ft. of climbing for me and for Eric, 169.6
miles with 12,105 ft. of climbing. All I
can say is I had better come home lighter after all that riding…
Annecy
We have been relaxing and enjoying
ourselves the last few days. We have
wandered around town, window shopped, taken pictures and of course eaten a lot
of really good food and pastries. I’m
sure by now I have more than likely gained back all of the weight I lost riding
here.
The highlight of our stay in Annecy
was our paragliding experience today. We
arrived at 3 p.m. in Talloires at the paragliding school and were whisked up
the mountain side to the take-off point for our approximately hour-long flight
over the valley. Neither one of us had
ever been paragliding before so it was an amazing experience. It was very peaceful floating above all the
trees and mountains. Eric got lucky as
his instructor caught some really good thermals and they soared high into the
mountains and actually went above the mountain tops.
Tomorrow is our last day in Annecy
and we will head back to Geneva in the afternoon to overnight for our early
morning flight back home on Saturday.
France Days 1-3
Fri, Sep 4 2015 11:55
| Permalink
Day 1, 2 & 3 Geneva, Switzerland; Chamonix, France;
Italy; & back to Geneva
Day 1
We arrived
in Geneva around 8 a.m. and then made our way directly to Chamonix. I had book our stay at Hotel le Faucigny in
Chamonix, France. The drive between
Geneva and Chamonix was beautiful.
Everything is so green and lush with the towering mountains surrounding
the valley. We arrived to perfect
weather in Chamonix. The sun was shining
and it was just right to have on a light sweatshirt. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and
asked if we could get an early check-in as normally check-in isn’t until 3
p.m.
While we waited for them to prepare
our room, we wandered around town checking out all the shops and of course
taking tons of pictures of the scenery.
Chamonix is a huge tourist town in the summer and a huge ski resort town
in the winter. There are outdoor
sporting goods stores and tons of eateries and bars of all types. Mountain climbing, hiking and mountain biking
are big sports here along with paragliding/parapenting.
The hotel was able to get our room
ready by around 11:30, so we went back and got settled in the room and had a
nap before heading out for lunch. We had
lunch at a restaurant that was actually cantilevered over the L’Arve
river. We decided to have fondue for
lunch—which was very good.
After lunch we went back to our
room and relaxed for a while before heading out for dinner that evening. For dinner we went to a restaurant further up
the valley from Chamonix. Both of us
were still full from lunch but we could not pass up the amazing fresh food here
in France. We both had pasta for
dinner. Eric had penne with morel
mushrooms and I had mushroom risotto with crimini mushrooms and truffles. Needless to say, both were excellent and we ate
way too much. Fat and happy, we returned
to our hotel and walked around town a bit to try and wear off some of the food
before we went to bed. By the time we
got back to our room it was close to 11 p.m.
I think we finally got to bed
around 12:30 in the morning with the plan to get up early the next day to take
the teleferique (big cable car) up to Aiguille du Midi which is miles above
Chamonix. The weather forecast was a bit
sketchy and was predicting rain in the afternoon, so we wanted to get an early
start. We woke up at 6:30 a.m. and
looked out the window to see nothing but clouds surrounding the mountain. We decided to give it a go anyway. We got dressed and got all our layers of
clothes together to take with us and headed for the ticket booth.
We got to the ticket stand early
and they were not open yet, so we headed to the boulangerie to get something
for breakfast. After having our yummy
French pastries we headed back to wait for the ticket counter to open. The first cable car departs at 8:10 a.m. We bought our tickets and were on the first
car up the mountain. It is a very, and I
mean VERY, steep cable car ride up the side of the mountain. Once we got far enough up the mountain we
were actually above the clouds and the view was magnificent. We got off at the top and it was
FREEZING. We put on everything we had
with us and were still freezing. I had
four layers of clothing on my torso, heavy wool socks, an ear warmer, and two
pairs of gloves and my hands were still frozen.
We stayed outside as long as we could snapping pictures and then decided
to take another cable car from Aiguille du Midi across Mer de Glace (sea of
ice) to Helbronner Point in Italy.
We are very glad we took the
gondola to Italy. This is Europe’s
highest lift that offers spectacular views of Mont Blanc (Europe’s tallest
mountain at 15,771 ft. and the Alps’ highest point.) These private gondola cars sail across the
glaciers for three miles with no solid pylon.
They are propped by a suspended pylon that stretches between two peaks
1300 feet apart. It was a spectacular
ride and well worth the money.
After snapping around 200 pictures
we made the return journey from Italy back to Aiguille du Midi and then down
the mountain back to Chamonix. The cable
car wasn’t nearly as packed on the way down and the clouds had actually cleared
just enough that we could get a view of Chamonix as we came down from Aiguille
du Midi. We made our way back to the
hotel and then headed out to look for some lunch as it was predicted to start
raining in the afternoon. We found a
really good Italian restaurant with amazing pasta and again we ate way too much
food. After lunch we headed back to our
room as it was beginning to look like rain.
We had a relaxing afternoon in our
room napping and downloading pictures.
We were so full from lunch we did not even go out for dinner. We decided the next day we would just sleep
in and then get up and wander around town some more.
The next morning we got up and looked
out the window to see the sun shining and a perfectly clear view of the entire
mountain. It probably would have been a
better day to make the ride up to Aiguille du Midi, but it was still a great
experience even with some clouds the day before. We got busy and got all our luggage organized
and then wandered down to the boulangerie on the corner near our hotel to grab
something for breakfast. I had a
chocolate muffin that was amazing.
Everything looks so good it is hard not to order one of everything. If I lived here I would probably be 300
pounds very easily. After enjoying our
pastries, we walked back to the hotel to check out. Check-out was noon at the latest and we did
not need to head back to Geneva until around 3-4 in the afternoon. So the hotel stored our luggage while we
wandered around town some more.
We left Chamonix around 4 p.m. and
made the approximately 1 hour trip back to Geneva. We managed to find the hotel and get checked
in. Somehow we lucked out and got an
executive suite instead of a standard room. The room was about three times the size of our
room in France. We spent the next few
hours getting all our bicycle gear together to start the first leg of our four
days of riding the next morning. So far
the weather has been beautiful and I am hoping it will stay that way.
Grand Cayman 6/8 - 6/9/15
Wed, Jun 10 2015 05:30
| Permalink
Grand Cayman 6/8-9/15
We hung out at the condo in the morning in order to let the
rush hour traffic die down before we headed out to go diving. We finally set out around 10 o’clock or
so. After we left the condo we weren’t
very far down the road when I got a bunch of flack from the back seat
passengers for running over a bunch of crabs on the road as they were crossing,
obviously on a pilgrimage of some sort.
Our first stop was at Diver’s World. Dick and Zane wanted to get a red filter for
their Go Pro and Kati did some souvenir shopping. After we got done shopping we made our way to
today’s dive site at Dive Tec. Just
about the time we arrived there it started to pour rain. We had decided we were all hungry so we would
eat lunch there first before our dive.
They have a very nice restaurant there where they serve very healthy
organic and locally grown food selections.
Right after we got set down to order it really started to
pour rain. It rained so hard you could
barely see past the end of their dock.
Zane ordered a milkshake and the rest of us ordered smoothies and I
think everyone would agree with me that those were the best smoothies
ever. Dick ended up ordering two and
Eric had another one after the dive as well.
The food was amazing. Eric had
the chicken Panini and Kati had the chicken wrap, of which Zane ordered another
after the dive. Kati’s wrap came with
sweet potato fries and Kati and I agreed those were the best sweet potato fries
we have ever had anywhere. They were so
good we got two orders to go as well.
Dick had the grilled cheese sandwich, which was very good (including the
weeds) and I had a very tasty falafel salad, which was super good.
After we got done with lunch we got all geared up to dive
in. We each did our giant stride off the
pier and headed out to find the 17 ft. tall statue there (similar to the
Mermaid at Sunset House) called the Guardian.
After we found the Guardian we headed along the mini wall and came
across a large green turtle. Right after
we turned around and started to head back in Eric and Zane came across a small
hawksbill turtle who was very cooperative.
Eric filmed it a little bit and then I spent quite some time filming it.
After our dive we got all our gear rinsed off and packed the
car back up in order to head back to the condo.
We wanted to make sure we got back before the rush hour hit as we had
made reservations at Casanova by the Sea for dinner to celebrate Dick and Lou’s
54th wedding anniversary.
We made it back to the condo ahead of rush hour and we all
got cleaned up for our special night out.
As there were six of us, we took two cars to go back downtown. We then regrouped at the restaurant. When we made our reservation we had asked to
be seated out on the patio as it is right over the water and has a wonderful
view of the sunset and the tarpon feeding next door at Rackam’s.
Shortly after we sat down and ordered our meals, the harpist
came over and played a beautiful song for Dick and Lou to celebrate their
anniversary. We all picked a meal that
included some type of pasta and everyone very much enjoyed their choices. The food at Casanova’s is very good authentic
Italian. We had some really good bruschetta,
bread, and wine along with our amazing meals.
The clouds also cleared just enough for us to enjoy a lovely
sunset. After the sun had gone down,
around 7:30, they had the tarpon feeding next door at Rackam’s. I don’t believe it was as dramatic as Zane
was expecting. Little did he know that a
short time later the waiter at Casanova’s would bring out a tray of fish parts
and let him and a few of the other customers feed the tarpon that were hanging
around right in front of the restaurant.
Following the fish feeding, we all ordered our
desserts. Kati, Dick, and Zane ordered
the Apple strudel, Eric and I ordered the chocolate cake (of course), and Lou
ordered the lemon sorbet. Needless to
say, all our choices were amazing.
Following dessert they also brought us complimentary lemoncello. Following our wonderful meal, we all waddled
out to the car (each with our box of leftovers for the next day) and drove back
to the condo fat and contented.
I think after we got back to the condo everyone was pretty
tired so we all headed off to bed.
Today was our last full day on Grand Cayman and our last day
of diving. We headed out a little after
9 a.m. in order to avoid the morning rush hour and made our way to Sunset
House. When we arrived we got the
premium parking spot right by the dive shop and set-up point. I think there was only one other car in the
entire parking lot at that time.
We got checked in, rented our tanks, got everything set up,
and jumped in the water. Of course by
now we are all finally pretty good at the setting up and getting in routine
(now that it is time to leave). On the
way to the dive site Kati, Eric, Zane, and Dick had decided they wanted to do a
“special underwater video.” They decided
they wanted to dance to the song YMCA underwater. Each one was assigned to do one of the
letters. We had decided we were going to
do this routine on the second dive, but about three fourths of the way through
the dive, after seeing the mermaid, Kati settled down in a sandy ravine and
broke out into dance.
I saw her and started video taping and shortly thereafter
Dick and the others spotted her and joined in.
It was rather comical to say the least.
After the comedy routine was over, we continued our dive. Toward the end of the dive, after Zane and
Dick had headed in, Kati spotted some squid.
I started video taping them and spent quite a bit of time with them as
they were VERY cooperative subjects.
After our dive we rinsed all our gear and laid it out on the
wall to dry as we had our lunch at the bar as Sunset House. Of course right after our food arrived, a
dark ominous cloud appeared and we had to run out and collect up our stuff to
put in the car before it got drenched again.
Following our lunch, we headed just a short way down the
road to our final dive site for this trip (which was also the first dive site
of this trip and one of Zane’s favorites), Eden Rock. When we arrived they were actually extremely
busy, especially considering there were no cruise ships in town today.
We got our tanks rented and geared up and dove in for our
final dive of the trip. There are
actually two dive sites at this location, Devil’s Grotto and Eden Rock. The first time we did Eden Rock, so this time
we did the Devil’s Grotto area. Shortly
after dropping down the group decided to do the second take of the YMCA song,
which was again very comical. Kati has
decided that Eric actually has some pretty good moves—at least underwater.
Following our YMCA production, we continued on with the
dive. Every time we have been to this
site we have seen something especially interesting and this time was no
exception. The highlight was a VERY
cooperative sting ray who had no issues with me filming it vacuuming the sandy
ocean floor for its dinner. We also saw
a couple very pretty filefish and a large group of blue tang foraging around
the reef for algae.
We all very much enjoyed this site as the last dive of our
trip. I think the Gebhard family will
have fond memories of this site for a very long time being that this was where
both Zane and I did our first ocean dives.
Following our dive, as we were checking out at the dive shop, we learned
some very sad and unfortunate news. Eden
Rock may not be around for much longer.
There are plans to destroy this entire reef in order to build a new
cruise ship terminal. This is another
example of the sheer stupidity displayed by some in the name of a few extra
dollars in their pockets. This reef is
truly and irreplaceable treasure.
After rinsing all our gear and packing up the car we headed
back to the condo. Luckily we were able
to make it back before evening rush hour.
We unloaded the car and set everything out on the back patio to dry out
so we could pack it all up the next day for the trip home. We didn’t have to worry about finding dinner
tonight as we all had our leftovers from Casanova by the Seat. As we all ate our dinner we enjoyed watching
the videos everyone had taken today, especially the two productions of the
underwater YMCA. It was a fabulous way
to end our last full day in Grand Cayman.
Grand Cayman 6/7/15
Mon, Jun 8 2015 07:15
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Grand Cayman 6/7
Today was another relaxing day. We all got up at our leisure and sat around
and chatted for a while. We had some of
the leftover peanut butter pancakes for breakfast. Then Dick and Zane drove the tank we had
rented yesterday back to Eden Rock to return it by 8:30. Dick and Eric had used the tank to test out
Dick’s equipment in the swimming pool at the condo—which worked out very
well. While Dick and Zane were returning
the tank, the rest of us wandered over to the office and talked with the
owner. We also got to pet Calilo (the
cat) and Mango (the dog). The owner also
shared some of her photos of the destruction from hurricane Ivan with Kati and
Lou.
Zane and Dick made it back and after they returned it began
to sprinkle so we all headed back to the condo.
We had some more time to visit as we did not have to head out until a
little after noon. We had booked a two
tank afternoon dive at Ocean Frontiers for Eric, Sheila, Zane, Kati and Dick
and had to be to the boat by 1p.m. We
all got our gear together and headed down to the east end a little early. On the way we stopped and took Kati and
Dick’s picture by the elderly people crossing sign.
We arrived at Ocean Frontiers and got all checked in and got
our gear down to the boat. On our boat
was our group and three other people, which made it very nice. The first dive site we went to was called The
Maze, which was a nice spot for everyone.
It is right along the wall, but the top of the reef is at 40-45 feet
which made it perfect for Zane as his max depth is in this range. This was Zane’s first experience on an ocean
going boat and he got a little green around the gills on the ride out. So as soon as we got to the dive site he got
in the water to alleviate the motion sickness and then he was fine.
Everyone had a very good dive and Zane got to see his first
shark. Actually we saw one or more
sharks on both dives we did. Once
everyone was back on the boat, Zane again had the effects of motion
sickness. So the captain of the boat was
nice enough to return to the dock so that Zane and Dick could get off before
the second dive.
After dropping off Dick and Zane and unloading some of the
gear at the dock for our surface interval, we then headed out for the second
dive. The second dive we did was just a
short trip from the dock again and was a much shallower dive. We again saw sharks on this dive along with
barracuda, several lionfish, and the other usual suspects. Toward the end of the dive we also saw a lot
of fish spawning.
After the second dive we returned to the dock to join Zane
and Dick at the bar to have a couple drinks before returning back to the
condo. Lou had another lovely day
enjoying the peace and quiet back at the condo, reading, enjoying the view, the
ocean breeze, and visiting with the neighbors.
After returning to the condo we unloaded all of the gear
from the car and took it out to the back patio to dry out a little before
bringing it in or the night. Zane took
the opportunity to jump in the pool and swim around while Lou and Kati visited
with the neighbors and I started dinner.
I got some whole wheat vegan drop biscuits mixed up and put in the oven. I left Eric in charge of checking them when
the timer went off as I wanted to go take a shower and clean up. Just as I got out of the shower I heard the
smoke alarm in the condo going off. I
ran downstairs to find Dick and Eric trying to get the smoke alarm to go off by
opening the back patio door and fanning the detector. I thought maybe the biscuits had burned, but
they had not. It must have just been
something burning off in the oven as it was set to 450—I doubt it gets used at
this temperature much here.