Natural

Last night, John, Darryl and I did a completely different dive, a night dive on the reef we call Natural. I've done night dives before but this was the first on Natural. And just like SCUBA diving is entering a whole different world, diving at night is a DIFFERENT different world. Natural is a beautiful reef in the daylight and just amazing at night. Different critters are out and about so you see different things. And because your field of vision is pretty much limited to what your dive light shows, you vision tends to focus on smaller details.

Last night was a nearly perfect night for diving. No waves, a flat, calm sea, a bright half moon that gave us a little ambient light even at 60' and surprising for Natural, virtually no current. That made the dive easy and made possible to check out the little things like the decorator crabs, the cuttlefish, a good size moray eel, a big barracuda, and the corals and sponges with things extended to feed.

I do love diving. I'm glad I'm finally getting better at using my air so dives last longer. There is just so much to see down there.

Birthdays

We missed a couple of birthdays in the last two weeks. Our son Steve had birthday last week. Happy Birthday, Steve. We love you.

Our good friends Darryl and Billy also celebrated birthdays. We celebrated Darryl's birthday in a small way (more to come) at Ola Lola's. Billy is back home in the States but we celebrated for him in his absence. Happy birthday, Darryl and Billy!

Farewell, Doc

Last month we said good-by to very good friend. Lin "Doc" Andrews succumbed to cancer. Doc was a veterinarian with the US Department of Agriculture. Originally from the mountains of Montana, Doc lived here on the island for more than 25 years. He was a musician, a fine, fine jazz bass player. He was a surfer. Jobos was his favorite surf break. Some days he only had the strength to paddle out and just sit in the lineup, then catch one little wave to take him back to the beach.

As family and friends gathered on the beach, tossing flowers into the surf, several surfer friends paddled out and released part of his ashes into the waves at Jobos. Doc is now forever part of the lineup at the break he loved so much.

Farewell, Doc. We miss you.

Kaiden is here!

Last week we welcomed our latest addition, our fourth grandchild, Kaiden to the world. He's nearly a week old already and cute as a bug.

The proud parents - especially Papa Miguel - are so happy they could bust!







Kennedy wasn't too sure about this whole big sister thing when she first met Bebe Kai. But it didn't take her long to become a protective, caring and comforting big sis. At least for a while.





I can't believe I'm so far behind it's taken nearly a week even to mention Bebe Kai. I could claim that I was sick the whole week Bebe Kai was born and only functioning on bare existence level (that's true). But that hardly seems to matter in light of this beautiful amazing wonderful new life coming into our lives. Even though I didn't get to see him 'til he was two days old, I got to watch the amazing play of emotions as Kennedy met her little brother first time: jealousy (why is my daddy holding that OTHER baby? Who is that anyway?); protection ("stop, daddy, stop!" when Kai cried as he got his diaper changed); gentle love ("It's okay, Bebe Kai" with a gentle touch on his head). "Priceless" doesn't even begin to cover it. Words like "awesome" and "amazing" and "wonderful" and "incredible" are trite and flat and do nothing to describe the tremendous joy that threatens to explode my chest.

You WILL read more about Kai and Kennedy (and their parents) soon.

Monster from the deep

Actually, it's just a really cute little seahorse.



These were taken on a dive at Crashboat Beach a couple of weeks ago.

No words for it

Awesome. Amazing. Wonderful. Beautiful. Fabulous. Incredible.

Those are all good words. But they don't come close to capturing the feelings on our dive at the wall at La Parguera last Sunday. Our friends Darryl, John and Trevor and I headed out early and headed out for the southwest corner of the island on the Caribbean Sea side. (Here in the north we are on the Atlantic.) We had a date to go diving with Paradise Divers.

We were all geeked but I think me most of all. This was my first boat dive, my first wall dive, my first dive to 100 feet, and it was the certification dive for John, Trevor and me to become certified to use Nitrox, a different blend of breathing gas.

The good people at Paradise loaded our tanks and gear on the boat and we headed out into what passes for calm water in those parts. On the trip out to the dive site, the first thing we notice is the water color. The water in the Caribbean is a totally different color from the Atlantic side, that deep beautiful Caribbean blue. And clear. Crystal clear. We anchored in about 65 feet of water and the bottom was clearly visible. From the deck of the boat we could see fish swimming below us.

We anxious to get in the water so we quickly geared up and jumped in. As soon as we got in the water, even before we dropped to the bottom, it was obvious why this is one of the "must do" dives in Puerto Rico. Because the dive site is a mile or more off-shore and there are no rivers nearby dropping sediments, visibility is great, 100' or more pretty much all the time. There is also very little current, usually 1 knot or less. These combine to make a beautiful easy dive.

Not that the dive is without challenges. As we swam away from the boat, the bottom gently sloped down to about 75'. Then the bottom just dropped away plunging 150' or more. One of our goals for this dive was to reach between 100' and no more than 111' (The 111' mark is the bottom threshold of the Nitrox mix we were breathing.) In one of those quirks of instruments, according to my depth gauge, I was safely at 100'. According to the computer recording my dive, I hit 112', the absolute safe limit. But all is well.

We did a second dive to about 65' on another reef about half a mile away. So much life! There are seafan coral you can play hide-and-seek around. Absolutely amazing. For some reason that made sense to me at the time (but doesn't now) I didn't take my camera on the second dive. I'll quit kicking myself for that soon.

It was a great day. Thank you Darryl, John, Trevor and Paradise Divers. Not one of us can wait to go back.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCOOTER!

Today is our baby's birthday. Our youngest is 25 today. How did that happen? BTW - that's her on the left with her girlfriend Kasey. Sara, we love you and miss you. Happy birthday, baby girl!!!!!

After the robbery

So the robbery was just over two weeks ago. Honestly, I just haven't felt like writing, about the hold-up or anything else even though there is a ton of stuff to write about. It's time to move on from that too.

One note about the robbery: We've heard from "unnamed sources" that the robbers were arrested in a drug bust in a house near here. Apparently they a part of a gang operating in the area. At least some of the gang is now in jail and the police are looking for others. Score one for the good guys.

Thank you to everybody for you support and good vibes over the past couple of weeks. They are appreciated and welcomed and have been much help. Thank you.

Okay. Back to life.