Chris is calling me 'Freckles'

The sun has done no favors to my normally pale skin. I am 'Freckle Girl!' And, I appear to be developing a strange second line around my entire lips. Is it a blister? Did I get collagen injected under duress? Do I have a strange tattoo spontaneously appearing? No one knows but my lips are getting fat. Chris is (jokingly) refusing to kiss me just in case the 'big lips' disease is catching.

We did our final two dives today and they were INCREDIBLE. Stupendous. Amazing coral

reefs. Awesome fish life. And no big anything. We saw a few turtles, a bunch of barracuda but no huge things (like eagle ray or shark). It didn't matter though. With 81 degree water and 60 foot

visability and a small group of just 4 very experienced divers, it was practically heaven in water. We just floated - our last dive was an hour long. And in fact, between all 7 dives this week, and the last dive an hour long, we literally error'ed out my dive computer. It was so angry with us for not doing an 8 minute ascent with a 3 minute safety stop from the bottom that it just beeped and beeped at us with a big flashing 'Error! Error!' It won't work again for a day to ensure I don't dive again. The other couple we were diving with both had dive computers that said we were just fine (we did a 5 minute ascent with a 3 minute safety stop) so we felt comfortable surfacing before my computer said it was okay.

We also visited the Aloe Vera Farm and the Butterfly Farm. Our flight leaves tomorrow at 3 and we are going to get in one last trip to the Butterfly Farm before we return our rental car. Today, we went to the national park, toured the caves and visited the natural bridge and an old gold smelting factory. That plus the two dives made for a busy day. But my husband didn't quit - he took $100 and took it to $150 playing Blackjack. My hero ...

See you all soon. We're both excited to be coming home.

And Then He Left Me

Chris is typically a great dive buddy, very conscientious and aware of where I am at all times. He's an engineer so that seems to translate to detail oriented and hyper safe.

That is, until you get him underwater in the dark. Then, he turns into a dreamy diver, unaware of anything, including where his partner is.
We did a night dive tonight. The dive itself was incredible and the conditions could not have been more perfect - no current, little wave action and decent visibility on a wreck dive from the 2nd World War.

The exciting thing about diving at night is that different creatures come out at night. We saw moray eels swimming (typically, they stay holed up in their caves), rare teensy red crabs (the size of a nickel) and mindblowing biolumenscent squid. And, when you turn your flashlight off, the biolumenscent plankton 'spark' all around you when you move - the more you move, the more neon green sparks fly all around you.

It was an incredible dive - definitely one of the best I've been on.

Except for my wandering buddy. When you're underwater, you can literally see your flashlight beam in front of you. There's not much else you can see. And when your buddy (AKA Chris) doesn't keep track of you, you find yourself alone in the pitch blackness wondering which way is up.

He left me not once, but three times (!!!). He insists that I simply was too slow and couldn't keep up.

Chris's story, by the way, is vastly different than mine. He blames losing me on ... me. I say he was being an inconsiderate lout.

Either way, it was a magnificent dive - truly one of a kind and I feel so fortunate that we were able to experience a night dive with so much unique sea creatures and a calm, clear night.

We dive tomorrow at 9 a.m. - our 7th dive of the trip. I can hardly wait...

Beach & Aloe Time

We snorkled Baby Beach this morning and now we're headed to the Aloe Vera Plantation.

Night dive tonight.

More details later ...

=)

Scuba Diving with the Cattle

Argh! Despite getting recommendations, I still ended up booking us on the cattle boat.

Our first dive yesterday was a disaster in planning. I have never dove with an organization that does 1 divemaster for 10-12 people. It's not very safe to have 12 divers under the water with just 1 truly experienced, will-save-your-life divemaster. But, this group does it.

And when I questioned it, they implied that I was asking it because I was a new diver. I casually shot back that I had been diving for 16 years and you don't have to be new to want to be safe.

So, Chris and I were extra careful with taking care of each other above water and watching out for each other under water. My tank had its O-Ring blow out (above water) and on my 1st dive, my regulator quit working so I had to breathe off my backup regulator for the 2nd dive. The O-Ring is what keeps the air from leaking out the back of your tank and instead, flowing into your regulator. Neither of these occurrences made us feel very good about this dive outfit.

The actual diving yesterday was okay. We saw some barracuda, giant pufferfish, a nicely submerged wreck, and (best!) a very very large stingray. Viability wasn't very good - 25 feet max. The water is warm (81 degrees).

The diving today was much much much better but still, the Red Sail Sports was a joke. 1 divemaster for 12 divers, 2 blown out O-Rings on tanks and again, a faulty regulator (this time not mine). We have one more pre-paid dive with them and then we're switching dive operations.

Today, we dove the south side of the island - the waves were very choppy and getting in and out was a serious struggle but the dive was worth it. The first dive was 'Skalahein' where we saw some amazing, incredible coral formations and some baracuda. And the second dive that we did was 'Sponge Reef' which had many coral formations and we also saw 2 mating octopus (who got angry and inked our dive master). There were a few squid that floated by. Visability was about 50-60 feet and both Chris and I really enjoyed these dives.

We're scheduled to do a night dive tomorrow and then we'll switch dive outfits for our last dives on Friday. And right now, after Chris finishes his nitrogen-induced nap, we're off to explore more of the island via car.

And no, I didn't take the underwater photos on the blog. They are from various other diving sites on the 'Net. I just wanted you to see the types of animals we saw ... =)

We got a Car

We got a car! Yay! We are no longer stuck at the Marriot all day, all the time. We can come and go as we please.

We explored the island with no map yesterday and ended up at an old lighthouse that was one of the highest points on the island.

There are geckos everywhere, some quite large (like larger than my calf).

There were signs all over the place for this Calibrasis place so we went and it was like a deserted rock garden. There wasn't a person in sight. We climbed every rockpile in site, despite the ominous warnings.

We couldn't scuba dive yesterday because of visibility. We were scheduled to dive this morning at 8:30 (and prepaid for a package already with 'Red Sail Sports') only to receive a call last night that our dive had been rescheduled to 2 p.m. because they had overbooked the 8:30 dive with cruise ship people. Frustrating but the fish will be the same this afternoon as they would have been this morning and the visability shouldn't change much between morning and evening. We're diving the easy 'West' side of the island this afternoon - the Blue Reef and Pedernalis. Pedernalis is a super easy wreck dive that has fairly poor reviews but it will be good to get Chris back up to scuba diving speed since he has not dove in over a year.

And in other typical trip news, I just received an email from the Marriot stating they are thrilled to be CANCELLING our reservation to stay Wednesday through Saturday so we need to go deal with that now. And after we fix that, it's off to explore the island this morning before our dive.

Sunny today. And we're headed to town to find a dive outfit that the Marriot doesn't recomend. I think it bodes badly when the Marriot will let you train in the pool for 45 minutes and then scuba dive ...

This is us on the bus. It's $1.25 to get to town. That includes no air conditioning, standing room only and touching knees with the other person seated across from you.

Bingo

We played Bingo today. That was the highlight of our entire day. It rained most of the day. We were stuck in our hotel room. The one time we ventured out, we got the sun for twenty minutes and then the skies opened up and it poured.

I'm a little despondant.

Really? If I wanted rain, I could have just stayed in Washington state!!!

And, it's raining. A lot.

We are huddled in our hotel room, watching the squall.

2 hours of sleep in 24 hours

Bless you Continental. I know that we were flying for free on airline miles. And, I know that I have no status with you. But really, did you have to punish the entire rest of the plane because I have bad flight karma?

We arrived at the airport with over 2 hours to spare. At the kiosk to check in, the kiosk gave us the choice to (1) miss our connecting flight in Houston because Seattle was now 3 hours late or (2) choose a new flight that would actually arrive EARLIER than our original flight.

I chose the new flight. I'm no dummy. I had no desire to be stuck in Houston an extra day.

Unfortunately, the kiosk neglected to mention that the 1 p.m. was actually on Sunday (an entire day later than our original arrival date) and we would have 3 transfers (including the dreaded Newark).

My smart husband got our original (late) flight back and we proceeded to wait 4 hours for our

now-late flight. He slept. I watched our bags and listened to the growing hysteria as the flight continued to be pushed back. Judging from the stories I heard waiting to board, at least half of our flight missed their connections because the Seattle-Houston leg was so late.

We finally took off around 2:30 a.m. I slept for two hours. Chris got a few hours more. We made our flight with about 10 minutes to spare to get to Aruba.

First thing we did? Go read by the pool on the beach!

View from our hotel room

And now, we're here. We've refused to sleep or do anything remotely to admit that would we're both exhausted. Instead, we've read by the pool, walked the beach multiple ways and marveled at how built up this little island is. It's sort of sad how many high rise hotels are here compared to the actual size of the island.

We're going to go explore the island tomorrow, on foot and via the bus.

The weather thus far is incredible - 93 with a fast breeze so you don't feel it at all.

XXOO to you all.