auchmeddan

Edinburgh appears to be in the grip of a real summer at the moment, with the temperature hovering around 80 degrees. It’s been great to have the heat without the humidity we got used to over the last few years!

Jules and myself celebrated our 9th Wedding Anniversary last week with a late lunch and (more than) a few drinks in the city centre, and we ended up out with friends on my birthday. It’s been a nice relaxed trip home so far as the huge amount of time we have means we don’t feel the need to rush to do anything. It’s given me a lot of time to read and relax, although I am looking forward to going to see the Hibs this weekend.

Things will get a bit more hectic for us in the last 2 weeks in August when the Edinburgh Film Festival runs as I’ve booked us tickets for 12 movies, but I’m really looking forward to that as it’ll be the first time I’ve made it to the Film Festival in seven years. Until then, I’ll be happy if we keep going at the same slow pace.

Too vague? OK. It’s The Final Countdown. I only have a few days left at work, and it’s less than 2 weeks until we leave Bermuda.

Jules is boxing items to ship to NZ, selling the TV and Car, and sorting out the clothes we need for Palm Beach/The Bahamas and Scotland (are there two regions on earth with more opposing definitions of Summer?). I closed my savings account today and moved our savings to the bank, copied our passports and Residence visas, and agreed to sell my bike this morning.

It’s getting a bit hectic now, but I can see it coming together. We’ll be gone before we know it.

First, this is the photo I meant to post the other day.

I’ve got a bunch of vacation days and Time-in-Lieu to use up, so I’m taking next week off to relax and dive. I’ll hopefully end up with a lot of photos to put up in the photo gallery.  Although I’m finishing soon I feel like I need a week off as I’m getting kinda bored now that I’ve handed over all of my clients to other engineers.  Between now and then, I’ll be relying on Howard Stern to keep me sane at work. 

I’ve had toothache on and off for the past few weeks, with pain that has varied from a constant dull throbbing to extreme stabbing. Despite an attempt at a temporary filling a couple of weeks ago, I had to rush into the dentist last week when the pain was bordering on unbearable (with painkillers).  In about 3 seconds flat I agreed to have the tooth extracted. Fortunately, it’s right at the back so it’s not one anyone would notice. 

The downside of having the tooth extracted is I had to pass on diving this weekend as I didn’t think it was wise to expose the wound to either pressure or (bacteria-filled) sea-water. Jules did get out though, and saw more Black Grouper than I could have aimed my camera at.  Typical! 

To make up for my house-arrest we went to Flatts on Sunday to feed the fish some crackers, and we ended up feeding the ducks as well.  I was able to lure one of them pretty close, as the photo below shows.  It wasn’t diving, but at least I got out and near nature for a while.

    
       

 

About 3 weeks ago I went out with Anson Nash of the Bermuda Conservation Society, who was looking for a volunteer to assist with the inspections of the dive moorings.  We pretty much covered every mooring on the South Shore, right up to Castle Harbour.  He checks that none of the lines are fraying, and changes the pick-up lines on most of them.  A couple of them (Shell City and Hangover Hole) had the entire mooring Changed.  While it seems like quite a difficult task it didn’t take Anson very long to do it - He would prepare the mooring line on the boat and then dive down and attach it to the cleat on the reef.  It Was pretty interesting to see and be involved in, though I didn’t do much apart from hold his tools and pass him plastic ties.  One of the moorings we went to was Southwest Breaker, and Unlike the others it also needed to have the buoy changed as well as the pick-up line.  When we were out there diving last week I said to Michael “I helped change that”.  He just laughed knowing that I had very little to do with it.  I Was only out the one time but it was nice to know I was able to help, even if it was only as a dive buddy.

I’ve pretty much fallen into a routine of going to the gym twice a week and diving the rest of the time.  Mondays and Thursday I go to an Aerobic Kick boxing class followed by Pilates.  The rest of the week I’m out diving with Bluewater, helping out with the trips they have on.  I mostly guide people around the dive sites but I’ve helped Tracy a couple of times with some Lesson and dive folks.  Doing this you get to meet a lot of different people, and I spent one of my weeks diving with Sandy and Bruce, a couple originally from Zimbabwe who are now living in London.  Ondrej managed to take them to a different site every day which is pretty good going as there are regulars that they tend to go back to time after time. I’m learning a lot and I’m becoming a much more confident diver.  I Wanted to be very comfortable in the water for our Shark diving trip in June, so “mission accomplished” I think. 

I Still dive on the weekends but I don’t guide or assist with lessons and just go diving with Dave.  Its much more relaxing as we tend to just hover around the reef looking out for anything that would be good to photograph.  Dave does the picture taking, while I guide us both around the site.  I Was at Cathedral Caves on Wednesday but didn’t really get the chance to investigate the caves, would like to go back with Dave and have a better look and maybe get some cool photos of it.  The one I did manage to see was beautiful, it was a narrow tunnel that opened out into a huge open cave that had light coming through from a gap in the rocks.  Its really hard to describe how spectacular it was.

The rest of my 58 days here are more than likely going to be spent in much the same way, with a little packing here and there.

I got into the water for the first time this year on Sunday, when we went snorkelling at Church Bay. Jules has already got a dive in this year - the benefit of her being available during the week if the boat happens to go out.

The water is still very cold just now (by our standards anyway) so we were both snorkelling in full wetsuits, but the advantage of the cold water is good visibility. After we were finished snorkelling we found a shallow, sheltered pool of water that was harbouring a number of juvenile white/silver fish and some juvenile sergeant majors (photo below).

I was supposed to be studying this weekend for my 2nd MCSE upgrade exam, but the weather was too nice to stay at home.

I looked out the window this morning and wasn’t convinced that it was a good day to go and play volleyball. However, I had already emailed Michelle to say I’d be there and I hate it when people say they are coming and don’t turn up so I thought I should head on out there. The wind was blowing pretty strong down our way, lots of white caps. I figured if its blowing from the west, the wind on Horseshoe beach wouldn’t be that bad as it faces South. At least the sun was out???.

When I turned up just after 2pm I thought they’d be well under way but I guess the weather had given most folks second thoughts about turning up. In the end we had 10 people, perfect number. There were lots of missed chances and sand dives (mostly from myself and some from Franco). We also cant forget the shots that you never in a million years believe are going to go over the net, got one of those

We had played maybe 3 or 4 games (and somehow I’d always ended up on the losing team, oh well) and the dark clouds had moved in. We thought we were going to escape but unfortunately not. Some of us stuck it out hiding under our towels where others ran to the shelter of the Lifeguard station. The rain only lasted 5 mins and so back to the game we went and yes I was still on the losing team (maybe next week). With the heavy rain then the sun coming out we got a beautiful Rainbow. Mark Quesnel stopped the game to capture it, just have a look at the photo.

After a couple more games the rain stopped us for good and as we all rushed to take the net down and run for our scooters, cars it really started to pour, thunder and lightning the works. Still it was a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon, hopefully the weather will be better for next weekend.

For some reason the SuperBowl BBQ turned into (what we like to call) a “Canadian BBQ”. This seems to involve ridiculously large flames. See pic below of Mark attempting to burn off his eyebrows

Jules deserves a ton of credit for preparing food, and making a huge pot of Chilli which went down very well with everyone.

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.