Roatan: - Part 1 - The Surprise

It's about 4:45am, September 18, and Jeff is already chattering at me in bed, the alarm to get us up and out the door to the airport not due to go off for another 15 minutes or so.  I am not quite ready for his level of alertness.  Thankfully, we are already about 90% packed and loaded, but we know that the others may not be as low-stress as we are.

We're actually looking forward to the relatively easy flights and being in Roatan by early afternoon.  The last 2 trips have been 20+ and 30+ hours each way, 5 hours was going to be downright relaxing.  However, we also know that there are 4 others going on this trip that we have to worry about, and 3 of them have never been out of the country.

We get to the airport on time, there is some fumbling around, a little confusion, impatience, but overall, no biggies.  Flight takes off, lands in Atlanta, no hitches.  So far, so good.  Oh, there's a flight delay of an hour, eh, okay, so we get there an hour later than planned, all we have to do when we get there is go to the beach.

So, we have about an hour and a half to kill in ATL, we grab breakfast and coffee.  I see my dad start to fumble with his camera, we find out that he's got a full battery, but left the memory card at home.  He figures maybe he'd better go get one while he's still in the States, might be cheaper.  He takes off.

We're all just sitting there, hanging out.  I'm thinking about getting my Kindle out, and I hear "Hey, friend!", look up, and my best friend Dani is strolling casually up to me.
Wait, what?

I'm stunned into silence.  Speechless. 
"Yeah, we've been lying to you for months.  I didn't really go to England." (quick background on that: she'd supposedly been to London with her mom the week of Labor Day, and had been planning that trip for months before, which was why she couldn't come to Roatan for my birthday)
I think my responses are still just blinks, recognition has barely even set in yet.
Um, what?
Where did you come from?
What are you doing here?
Seriously, is this happening?
But this is all in my head, because my jaw is still on the floor and I'm not yet able to form words.

Obviously, the surprise that had been planned, was a success.
I look at Jeff, "Yeah, everybody knew about this but you, I've been talking to her since June."
"Everybody?"
"Yep."
"Wow."

Needless to say, I'm pretty shocked.  Apparently Jeff and Dani had been conspiring for months to get her booked on the trip.  And everybody knew about it, except for me of course!  I had no clue whatsoever.

I was thrilled!  All along, I just assumed that I would be the only girl on the trip, as with most diving related excursions, and now my best friend and Sherice, a friend of Dani's from Pennsylvania, were going too!  Pretty good surprise. 

Anyway, we land in Roatan, and make it to Anthony's Key Resort without incident.  All in all, a great start to the trip!

Up next, the diving, and then, another surprise!

And now for a few pictures:

Flying into Roatan

The view from our bungalows.

Looking across the water to Anthony's Key.

Snow, snow and Indonesia

As the title suggests, there is a lot of snow here! We're fighting with about 14 or so inches, which is nothing compared to other places I know, but it's a lot for us Central Ohioans! So, I'm taking a mental vacation from the snow and posting some Indonesia pictures and talking about the trip. After all, this is a diving blog too! So let's get started.

We flew into Singapore before going on to Manado, so we took the opportunity to spend a day there. It is a lovely city, and I strongly suggest staying a day or 2 if you ever have a layover there. Very cosmopolitan, clean, a lot of shopping, and so many other things to do as well. We got up and took a taxi to the Bukit Timah Nature Preserve and hiked to the summit (it was only about 550 feet!), the highest point on Singapore. On the way up, we saw lots of monkeys, I believe they were black tailed Macaques, and a couple of large monitor lizards.

The Macaques were so much fun to watch, there were babies jumping on each other and from tree to tree, so adorable! Then after dark we rode the Singapore Flyer, the tallest observation wheel in the world. I was nervous, since I'm not a huge fan of heights, but, you couldn't even tell it was moving, and the views were amazing. The top picture was taken on the Flyer.

We then flew on to Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The hour long taxi ride from the airport to the resort was a bit harrowing, but we made it. The traffic laws there are a little, well, not so much laws, as mild suggestions.

Tasik Ria Resort is beautiful, lovely rooms, huge pool, a swim up bar. And the diving was amazing as expected! Spectacular wall dives every day at the Bunaken Marine Park and a really nice house reef.

Saw my first cuttlefish! They are absolutely amazing! There were actually 2 of them, on the Tasik house reef, in about 10 feet of water! We just followed them around taking pictures for like 15 minutes. They weren't afraid of us, they actually just seemed a little annoyed by us, lol. I could follow them around watching for hours, they are just so interesting! They change color and texture instantaneously. Thankfully we saw several more in Lembeh later in the trip, and they never failed to completely fascinate me. I just love sea turtles, they're so serene and beautiful. This one was just hanging out on the reef napping.

We then went to the other side of North Sulawesi to the port city of Bitung, on the Lembeh Straits. We stayed at the Kungkungan Bay Resort, it was absolutely beautiful. We were in a beachfront bungalow all to ourselves. It was like staying in paradise. And the diving? Oh, the diving... I think the pictures illustrate it pretty well. I fell completely in love with muck diving in Lembeh. It's like a treasure hunt on every dive. I can't wait to go back!Oh, and this is Jeff vs. the clownfish. These little guys can be nasty! They kept bumping the camera, our masks, and one of the little buggers even bit my finger when I ventured too close to their anenome! Needless to say, by the end of the trip, Jeff and I were both pretty irritated with this particular species of "Nemo" fish!

So, there's a wrap up of our Indonesian vacation, we logged 25 dives over 13 days, and took around 1300 pictures. The above are just a few, and you can see a bunch more on my Flickr page, if you're so inclined, just be warned, there are about 150 of them!

I have to say, looking at these pictures did make me feel at least a little better about having to go outside in the 30 mph winds, at least temporarily. Stay warm wherever you are!

We now return to your regularly scheduled blog posts...

Sorry for the delay, lets get back on the blogging track. This post will be just a quick catch-up post on what's been going on for the last month I've been MIA!
So, got back from our fabulous trip to Indonesia last Tuesday, still recovering from the 13 hour time difference and the 30+ hours of travel time, each way. Man! Talk about jet lag! I'm actually surprised that I feel as close to normal as I do. I've heard it takes a day per time zone, it's amazing the effect that flipping your days and nights has on your body. Oh yeah, not to mention the dramatic climate differences! The first couple days we felt like we had the flu, hot, then cold flashes, stomach issues, insomnia mixed with exhaustion. Fun stuff. But it was so worth it. It was an amazing trip! Stunningly beautiful, both topside and underwater. The culture and people were wonderful. Food (for the most part), was FANTASTIC. I'll give more detailed info when I post pictures over the next couple of days.
So that was 2 and a half weeks of January, from the 10th through the 26th, so what else have I been up to? Well, not much, so don't get too excited! Before the trip, was mostly prep work. Getting packed (roll up spacebags are a Godsend!), filling prescriptions (OMG, the expense of this that you don't account for when you plan a trip), scuba and camera gear checkups, lists, lots of lists, document compiling and finalizing everything. Overall, everything went extremely smoothly! Considering we were going to the other side of the world and all!
Since we've been back, I've been shockingly ambitious and motivated. I have major motivation issues, as mentioned before. But I've just been wanting to knit and sew and cook! Especially cook! I think I've been inspired by both the Indonesian food and the angry chicken and Smitten Kitchen blogs. I've also been trying to eat more naturally, I'm not doing perfectly, but I'm trying! That's one of my goals, to eat more natural, less processed food. The food in Indonesia was all from scratch with no preservatives or chemicals. Not only did it taste better, but I felt better. All the swimming and exercise probably helped too!
After work yesterday I hit Whole Foods for some produce and other miscellaneous items. I want to make the local hot sauce that we ate on absolutely everything, from fish to french fries! It's called Dabu Dabu and it is super simple. I also want to learn to make Nasi Goreng and Pisang Gorang. Basically fried rice and fried bananas. Yeah, not low calorie, but better than cheeseburgers and Wendy's Frostys!
Well, I'll be posting pics soon from our trip and tell you how the Dabu Dabu turned out!

Christmas and Other Happenings

First of all, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and spent it with people you love! I had a great Christmas and it was only mildly stressful! We got all the wrapping done on the 23rd. Except for pair #2 of the French Press Slippers (more on that in a minute). We celebrated with Jeff's mom and stepdad and his brother's family on Christmas Eve, had lunch and watched Up with the nieces. What a cute movie! Sadder and more serious than I expected, but I loved Doug the dog! I worked on the slippers during the movie and when I got home that evening and stayed up to sew them up. I popped them in the washer Christmas morning, and gifted them to my grandma later that day! Of course, they were still a little damp, but she loved them anyway. And no, I didn't get any pictures of them, cause I'm awesome... lol! Christmas Day was the busy one, we were out at my parents' by 10 for presents and Christmas lunch. Then to Jeff's dad and stepmom's by 1:15. Then on to my Grandma Norma's by 3:45 and on to my Grandma Patty's by 5. Finally got home about 8:30. Exhausting would be a good description of that day, but it is always fun, if a little crazy.
Also, Santa was pretty darn good to us this year. I got this strobe for my SeaLife DC800 for our trip, a Kindle, an electric kettle, and a MacBook(!!!). Totally shocked about the Macbook, Jeff had asked his mom for a laptop for Christmas, so we could keep in touch with everyone while we're gone. BTW, is Skype not the coolest thing ever!? Anyway, we were expecting like a $300 inexpensive laptop, that didn't do much of anything except get on WiFi, and she gets us a MacBook!! Don't get me wrong, that's what we would have eventually got ourselves, but we did NOT expect her to get us one. She did say that this was the last present we would be getting for birthdays, holidays and such for the next couple of years! LOL!
Unfortunately, Santa also brought me a cold, blah. But, I'll take it cause everyone was so generous to us with their gift giving this year, it seems only right I've got to take a little bit of bad with a LOT of good!
Other things going on:

• I have my first Scuba student! My best friend Dani, is well on her way to being a certified Open Water Diver. We got all of her pool skills done this week and she is studying the book. She'll take the test next time she's in town, and we'll do her open water dives when it gets warmer this summer. It was really a lot of fun, and I'm glad my first student was my best friend. Took a lot of the anxiety out of it!!
• We leave for Indonesia in 2 weeks! So the packing and stressing has begun for that. I'm just now starting to feel a little nervous for the trip, it's a LOOONNGG way away! But so excited, I can't believe we're getting to go to the other side of the world a second time! Sorry for all of the exclamation points, but I am crazy excited!

Think that's all for now

Let's try this again...

So, I've been completely absent from blogging for quite a while, I've written dozens of posts in my head over the past several months, just never actually got online and posted. I'd like to try to post at least a couple times a week, and with at least some relevant content, either working out, knitting/crafting, dogs or diving must be discussed in each post. We'll have to see if I can do it! So, let's play catch up:

• Working out: I was running, and was building my strength and endurance. I was running 3-4 times a week for about 4 weeks, then I tore my quad. Couldn't run for 2 weeks, so I got lazy, and hadn't worked out until last night. Had a little bit of a headache, and it was raining, so I did one of the more strenuous yoga workouts, and I can definitely feel it in my muscles today, so that's a good thing! Plan to either run or do the Jillian Michaels DVD tonight depending on the weather.


• Knitting/crafting: We're now into the Christmas crafting season, so I have a butt-load of projects all going on at once, but no pics! I'm working on mittens for a friend, 3 (or more) pairs of felted slippers for family. Not to mention the couple of things that are languishing on the needles for myself. On the positive side, I've finished several projects; 2 Clapotis', one for me and one for my mother-in-law, my Monkey socks, well, I think that's it... Also on the crafting front, I want to make homemade scented bath salts for family and maybe sew a couple of bags too. We'll see how well I do! (FYI, all the knitted project info is on my Ravelry project page )


• Dogs: Well, we're now a one dog household. We said goodbye to the old man Dexter on October 30th, 2009. His quality of life was steadily declining, he was really starting to struggle to catch his breath, and we made the decision that it was time. We will always miss him, and it is certainly quieter around the house without him. Murphy has done well adapting, she's more spoiled than ever (thanks to the husband!) and we can now get a puppy fix at Jeff's mom and stepdad's house. They got a 13 week old chocolate labradoodle about 3 weeks ago, and she is super cute! She loves Murphy so much, but Murphy is not so sure about this crazy little thing that keeps stealing her toys! It's pretty funny to watch, especially since it wasn't so long ago that Murphy was that crazy little toy-stealer!


• And Diving!: I am officially a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor!! I took my Instructor Development Course in August and September, and passed my Instructor Exam October 18th. It was stressful, but an awesome accomplishment and I am just thrilled! Of course, there's not much teaching to be done in the winter, but I have several people lined up for spring when the water starts warming up, so I'm very excited! Also, we have booked a big trip coming up soon in January. We're going to Indonesia to dive! I'm pretty excited about that too if you can't tell!! We leave January 10, will be spending a day and a half in Singapore on the way there, and then onto Manado, North Sulawesi for 7 days of diving around Bunaken island. Then we head to the East side of the island to dive Lembeh Strait for 5 more days! It should be absolutely amazing! We'll be gone 17 days, which is crazy, but we are so excited! We are waist deep in the preparations, everything is booked but there's just so much to plan for. We went to the Travel Medicine Clinic at OSU to get vaccinations and prescriptions and info for going to the other side of the world, so we're getting there, but there's still so much to buy and pack.

Well that's a good catch up, be back soon!