auchmeddan

My last day at work was pretty strange, it wasnt like I was leaving to go to another job or leaving the Country so it sort of didnt feel like I was leaving. I have however left, I got an excellent bottle of Ralph Lauren Pink perfume and a $100 voucher for the Beneton group of companies (Shannon’s the best :o). The voucher has already been spent.

Anyway, back to the night out. Everyone there got drunk on ACT (thank you to Dave Bart for buying a few rounds) for the first portion of the evening. I had a great time chatting with everyone, getting emotional, it had to happen eventually, and out of all that came one of the best night out photos I’ve seen. Its of Jill and I, neither of us looking that drunk and it shows our best sides………. See for yourself.

After drinks and most people had left I went to the Coconut Rock Sushi Bar with Tosha and Vernal (thanks for treating me, next one is on me). Its the best sushi I’ve had so far and I even liked the Shrimp dishes. Had a good laugh in there, even saw a grown man crying after he ate slighlty too much wasabi.

All in all it was a really good night out.

My lovely bicycle. Poor thing has been through the wars on its first couple of trips for this year. To see photo full size just click on it.

Went out for my first cycle last Friday (27th Jan). When I decide to go the night before that’s usually it and I go regardless. Got up Friday morning and there was a lot of wind and what looked like rain coming. However, I had already made up my mind so I got the gear on and took the bike out to the car to use the cigarette lighter air pump to fill up my very deflated tyre’s.

I had just finished when the worst squall I’d seen in a little while came in from the west. I opted to run back to the house and wait it out. Left my bike out by the car, no time to carry it back with me. Waited 10 min and everything looked ok for going out. The first half of the journey was surprisingly easy considering I hadn’t cycled in about 9 mths (I came to realise the wind was with me pushing me on). The new speedometer by the school clocked me at 38k going down that hill, yippee!.. I had broken the speed limit.

Got as far as The Reefs hotel and my arms were starting to hurt at the elbows (always happens the first cycle back) so I opted to turn back. The first set back was the wind was now blowing gusts of up to 35/40mph right at me so its equivalent of cycling up a very, very steep hill. I wasn’t going anywhere fast and I was on the flat. The second set back was the hail storm that came from nowhere, I hadn’t even gotten as far as Church Bay yet. I thought I could work through it but it got to the point where I couldn’t see where I was going, that and it was starting to really hurt my bare legs and face so I took refuge in a bus shelter. No sooner had I stopped so had the hail, oh well, onward and upward. What should have been a 30 min round trip took me nearly 50 mins and I thought I wasn’t going to have the strength in my legs to finish. Ok, I didn’t, I had to walk the bike back to the house once I got off the main road, but I cycled most of the way.

Not to be discouraged I decided to go for a cycle today (31st Jan), again it was windy but I figured at least the sun is out and I might be sheltered on the railway trail. Took my camera to photograph those places you never usually stop at. The one to the right is of a view from the small bay at Boaz Island Bridge, the one to the bottom left is of the Maritime Museum at Dockyard. Like before just click on them to see full size version.

While at Dockyard trying my best to get a good crashing wave shot (they were all crap) I realised that the weather was changing. I could see very dark clouds over the place I had to cycle back to and thought it best to get a move on. I had barely left Dockyard when the rain started and like last Friday the wind was blowing right at me, 38/44mph gusts again. Stopped at the gas station to get some Ziploc bags to protect my camera and phone and waited there for 10mins as the wind and the rain passed. I was hoping that was going to be the worst but the whole way back I was fighting the wind and cycling through some pretty bad rain. Of course when I got back to the house the sun came out!!!!!!!!! As the sun was out I got the chance to give the bike a wee rinse, had lots of sand and dirt on it.

I have another cycle planned for Thurs this week, fingers crossed the weather is nice, don’t think my legs could take another beating like this.

Its Thurs on my first week not working, the house is starting to look pretty tidy. Waking up on Monday was really strange, I felt like I should be getting up for something but knew I didnt need to. Didnt get up until 10am in the end, was so slow getting started. I think that I need to try and plan my days so I get at least one thing done every day. Monday was picking up the rest of my crap from work and recovering from the long walk that Dave and I did Sunday (I’m not as fit as I thought I was. Tuesday was spent doing laundry and for some reason going on a 2 and a half hour walk from my house to horseshoe and back. Was very sore and tired after that. Wednesday was spent clearing out my closet, its a big closet and took me about 4 hours and 4 trash bags. Looking very nice now, even organised Dave’s closet so everything is now in order. I cant believe how many blue T-shirts he has.

After last nights high winds and the most irritating squeak I’ve ever heard I couldnt get up this morning. I got some groceries and started this post. I dont think that I’ll be doing much today except typing up my recipies and going to my salsa class later on. The winds are still high and the sea is looking really cool with lots of white caps, got a couple of photos this morning. Just tried to get the photos off Dave’s Canon camera but aparently its too complicated for me so I went out and got a couple with my camera. Have put one below, click on photo for full size version:

Yesterday at 2PM-ish, we started watching Season 4 of “24″. It was Jules idea to watch it all in one marathon session, just like we had with Season 3. We finished up around 08:30am this morning, and caught a few hours sleep. I’m now even more confused than before about what day it is now.

During the show, we paused for around 10 minutes so Jules could open her cards and celebrate her Birthday. It would have been impossible for Jules to have left her cards and presents until she got up today.

Happy Birthday Jules!

Jules made her 100th Dive last weekend, on an eventful day.

We headed out South Shore even though the weather was not good, but it got worse the further we went. The Swells got higher, until we were looking at swells 6ft or more. It seemed like 10ft at the time, but probably wasn’t.

By the time we finally found somewhere we could dive We had large swells, strong surge, OK Visibility, and a couple of large fish (HogFish and Black Grouper). Back on the surface after the dive a new diver panicked and got hit a couple of times on the leg by the boat (which was bouncing a few feet by this point), resulting in a couple of cuts and some stress for the guy. The hang line got caught around the prop, and the anchor line got sheared while there was still a diver out in the water (his own bloody fault for not coming up when he was told to). We then ended up with a DiveMaster in the water without a snorkel or fins…or any good reason to be in the water. Once the Diver and Divemaster were back in the boat, Ondrej was sent back over to find the anchor, but he ran out of air before recovering it.

All in all, it was an eventful morning.

I Finally got out Diving again last weekend, and it was damn cold! I was sitting on the boat shivering between dives. Jules was laughing at me.

Last weekend took Jules to 99 dives, and was the first time we’d dived together in a while. I didn’t take many photos this weekend, but did get a few of a nice sized File Fish and a cute little guy that I think is some sort of Blennie. (UPDATE : Joe identified this for me as a Razor Fish).

We have a dive holiday booked for next June, and we’re both looking forward to spending a week on a small boat in the Bahamas diving with Tiger sharks. We booked with Jim Abernathy’s Scuba Adventures for their Tiger Shark Expedition after I saw a great up-close photo in the back of a recent copy of “Sport Diver”. More info on the trip is available at this link - Shark Trip

There are some other things going on just now that had me more than a little worried that we were going to have to cancel the trip (that we’ve already put a deposit down on) but it looks now like that’s all going to work out in our favour. I’ll supply more news about what’s going on when I know more (but no, Jules isn’t pregnant).

I’ll leave this with a couple of photos of the Razor Fish and a File Fish.

Jules has been doing well with her Dive Master Course, and was out again today - drawing a map of a dive site this time. Jules has really got the right kind of personality for this (the complete opposite of mine) and I think she would make a good instructor. There are five exams still to be completed, which Jules is studying for just now. I’m sure she’ll pass them all without much of a problem.

This course has been really good for Jules as she really enjoys meeting new people, helping them get their gear together, and then guiding them on a dive site. It sounds like Hell to me as I hate anything that messes up my dives (new dive buddies, sand-kickers, people touching the reef, fast swimmers, having to worry about someone else’s air, etc etc). I don’t know how she’s able to do it and keep a positive attitude! It’s very impressive.

As for me - The Hibees won the Derby last weekend and the Dolphins won, so I was happy. There hasn’t been a whole lot going on apart from that.

Well, lost out on both counts last week. We didn’t get to dive Argus Tower due to the weather, and the Dolphins managed to completely blow what should have been an easy win. It was painful watching them self-destruct, but at least Ronnie Brown started to look good.

I was out diving last weekend, and even managed to see Jules on the boat on Sunday, but overall the conditions weren’t great.

It’s cold enough now that I’m having to wear a hood, and the visibility sucked on 2 of the 4 dives. The only dive I really enjoyed was the Lartington, and it’s the only one I really got any half-decent photos on. Below are the resident Lion Fish, a Graysby hiding behind a rock, and a juvenile Blue Tang who was schooling with some yellow wrasse.

Jules has started Dive Master training, and as a result is having to study/work at the weekends when she gets the opportunity which leaves me without my Dive Buddy. It’s kinda weird for me, as we have always dived together.

This weekend was also the first time taking out my new toy, the DC500 underwater camera. I took it out Saturday and it completely failed to perform! Once I got it home it told me the battery was low. I supposed it must have been turned on somehow in the bag and drained the battery, but I would have expected an auto shutdown after a few mins of inactivity. It was very unfortunate, as we dived the Marie Celeste on Saturday and saw several very large black Grouper. They would have been great for photography!

The conditions were also pretty rough Saturday, with lots of swell on the surface and some decent current on the first dive. The afternoon was even worse than the morning, and there were quite a few people suffering from seasickness. Amazingly, I was not one of them.

Sunday was my first day diving without Jules. I went out with Eric and Tina and acted as their dive guide. If you knew how little attention I usually pay to navigation, you would realise how funny that is!
Fortunately, the first dive was on the Lartington. It’s a very easy wreck to navigate.

As soon as we got off the boat (I raced to get off first) we went down and I headed straight for the bow. I had a good look inside and was a little disappointed that the Lion Fish wasn’t there. We went on a tour of the wreck, and then I headed back to the bow again near the end of the dive.
This time when I stuck my head in to look for him, I almost head-butted it as it was hanging on the wall right over the entrance. Oops! Eric and Tina were able to see him before he swam back into his little chamber off in the side.

On the way back, I spotted a Graysby and Coney resting near a small rocky overhang low down in the sand. As I got close the Graysby moved off, but the coney wasn’t keen to budge, which made me hopeful there was an eel in there. After I stuck my head down for a look I saw something pull back a little into it’s hiding place, and after a moment realised that I was looking at a well camouflaged octopus, hanging upside down under the ledge. I snapped a couple of photos, and was just lining up for my 3rd photo when the Coney came back and “road blocked” the entrance. I guess he felt I had harassed his hunting partner enough, so he played his body between me and the hole, and rested his fin on a rock for balance. I snapped a couple of photos of him, and if you look carefully at the picture below you can see the eye of the octopus directly above the Coney’s eye.

I got a little lost on the 2nd dive at the Constellation, but recovered in time to get us back to the boat with 10 minutes of the dive left. We did spend a lot longer on the reef than I intended, but at least we got to see a 15 strong pack of Barracuda cruising around.

Jules is training again next weekend, so I’m diving with Tina. Hopefully Jules will be able to join us again soon.

Well, there was no hurricane. Nate was downgraded to a Tropical Storm, and we saw some wind and some heavy rain. And that was that.

Over last weekend we got in 3 dives and finished our Rescue Course. The highlight of the dives were the Smooth Trunkfish (we saw them on every dive) and the Moray Eel I spotted on the Darlington. I may never have noticed it if it hadn’t been for it’s 3 Coney bodyguards I first caught sight of it slipping over the reef and down under a rock.

We hung for a while and watched the little guy breathe (he was about 18 inches long) while the Coneys gave us dirty looks. They obviously wanted to get back to hunting with it.

The Rescue course wrapped up on Sunday, and Ondrej used Vlad’s camera to take some photos, which are up on his website. In between sessions I took off my mask, and managed to catch a tiny little Sergeant major in it. Ondrej managed to get a photo which, although it is a little out of focus, shows how small the little fella was.

Jules has now signed up for the DiveMaster course, which will take quite a bit of time to complete. Jules has been studying books the last 3 evenings, preparing for her first pool session tomorrow.

Oh, I almost forgot. Before we went out diving I was hanging my feet in the water off the back off the dive boat’s swim platform down at the dive shop in Somerset. After a few moments a Scrawled Cowfish came up to investigate my feet. I found wiggling my toes would sometimes draw him or his partner back. I was telling Jules about it a few minutes later, and dipped my feet back in the water. Sure enough, he came back up almost immediately, but this time he moved closer and closer to my foot, his mouth opening and closing all the time. I moved my foot to protect my little toe (as it was obviously what he was aiming for) and he moved in and nibbled the side of my foot. He was quite intent to get me, so much so that his horns were out of the water when he bit! It was a weird feeling, as the mouth is big enough that I could feet a bit of my skin inside it. It was quite a funny sight….wish I’d had the sense to have my camera close at hand.