Virgin Islands Sail and Dive! Part 2

In addition to great sailing, the main activity on our trip was logging some amazing self-guided scuba dives.  When we’d arrived at our destination, it was time for some diving. 

We dove every day, and I wound up logging 8 dives before the trip was out.  I had initially planned to try to do multiple dives each day, but found that the relaxed pace of diving when we felt like, rather than whenever possible, was really nice. 

All six people on the boat were scuba certified, so we’d usually dive in shifts, with 2 couples diving while the third couple stayed on board in case there were any problems.   Thankfully, all of the dives were great and the folks on the boat usually just helped the divers get in and out of the water. 

It turned out that the frequent diving was a good thing, because the shower on our boat had a bad hose and was out of commission by day 2.   Aside from some salt-crystal build-up in the  ears and eyebrows, though, the daily water time kept things tolerable on the boat for everybody. 

The water was in the high 70’s with great (60-80’) visibility.  To make it even better, the dive sites were all pretty easy to navigate and full of vibrant, healthy coral and other sea life.  We saw a shipwreck, turtles, rays, a couple octopus (octopii?),  and all sorts of cool fish.  We spent a surprising amount of time in the presence of large (4-5’) barracudas, who paid us no attention except when I was chasing  them to get photos. 

We saw lots of the cool looking little trunk fish, beautiful angelfish, and goofy looking cowfish.  Overall, the diving was great – especially considering it was all unguided. 

Between the diving, the weather, and the company, it was hard not to love the trip.   Hope you like the pics!  Till next time…

Virgin Island Sail and Dive trip! Part 1

Whew, it’s been a long time since my last blog.   I’ve let lots of cool stuff go unnoted, but I’m finally getting back to it.   At the end of January, Kim and I joined four friends for a totally different kind of trip than we’re  used to - the British Virgin Islands!  I’ve got too many pics for one post, so I’m  doing one for the sailing and general trip stuff, then the next post will be about the (awesome) diving. 

Kim and I started our trip bound not for the BVI, but for  San Juan, Puerto Rico.   We would have had a layover there anyway, so we decided to stretch it out a bit and have a day to show Kim around San Juan.   I had been there a couple of years ago (the blog post is here), so it was really fun showing Kim around.  We did Old San Juan, Fort Morro, a tour of the Bacardi distillery, and more.  Really love that city!

After San Juan we caught a short flight over to Tortola in the BVI where we met up with the rest of our group.  We spent that night at the Treasure Island hotel, then got on the boat the next day.   That was the start of 6 days living on a 44 foot sailboat wearing huge floppy hats, drinking Ting, cruising from island to island, and scuba diving.  No cell phones, no computers, no internet.  Nothing but wind, water, islands, and great company.  It was awesome.  We’d get up in the morning, pick a destination, then hoist the sails and get moving. 

Neither Kim nor I had ever really done any large boat sailing, so we had a lot to learn to make ourselves useful.  Thankfully the other 4 on the boat had all done this trip before and got us  up to speed pretty quickly.  Before we knew it we were cranking on sheeting lines, reefing sails, and getting to know all of the cleats, drums, and other stuff that goes with sailing. 

We had great wind (~20 knots) the entire trip, so the sailing was more exciting than I had anticipated.  When we were under way,  we spent a good amount of time heeled over to the point where the leeward gunwales were  underwater and the waves were splashing up on the deck.   It took a bit of getting used to, but was really fun! 

Once we got to our destination, it was time dive!  We had amazing diving on the trip that’s worth it’s own post, so for now I’ll just leave it at that.  At night we’d find a sheltered bay, hook up to a mooring buoy (harder than it sounds, as you have to fish the mooring line out of the water with a long pole from a moving boat), then settle in for dinner, drinks, and games. 

The downside of the trip came on our last full day sailing, when Kim tripped on the very steep stairs and broke two toes.  Luckily, she’s a tough girl and even managed to get a dive in after that!  

On a trip where tight quarters could have made for tough times, it was wonderful to have such an easy-going group.  Ryan was our very skilled captain who managed to get us where we needed to go and keep us upright, Krissy was an amazing cook, Jason was the experienced first mate who caught mooring bouys and kept the halyards and reefing lines straight, and Kim, Suzanne, and I filled in wherever we could.   Thanks to such a great group, it was pure fun from beginning to end, except maybe that broken toe. 

 

 

 

Koh Tao by Kim

 

Hello! It’s Kim, guest blogging.

On Friday morning, we left Surat Thani  on the Southern end of Thailand’s Gulf coast on a coach bus bound for the port. At  the port, we caught a ferry that took us to Koh Tao via a couple other islands. The ferries were run by a company called Lomprayah; they were packed with people but  nice, fast, and air conditioned in the cabin.

We arrived in Koh Tao late Friday afternoon and much to our delight, our dive operator’s site (Crystal Dive) was right next to the port. We got lucky and got a bungalow for three nights in a nice, brand new unit just a few doors down from the dive shop. As a break from our hectic past two three days, we got dinner at an Italian restaurant and then Thai back, shoulder and neck massages. They were great for only 300 baht, but man were they brutal! Our masseuses cracked both of our necks and I thought my head might snap off.

Saturday morning we grabbed breakfast and signed up for the afternoon dives through Crystal.  This place is by-the-book to the extreme – they scrutinized our dive logs and certification cards and might have required a refresher course for both of us, but fortunately we were just shy of their 6 month cut-off from a last dive to require that. Whew – we’ve spent enough money on this trip!

After a quick lunch, we headed out on the boat which was full of mostly students either completing their open water or a more advanced certification. The dive master for our group of 3 “fun” (aka not participating in any course) divers was Richard, a young guy from England who only just obtained his open water certification last September and has logged over 200 dives since then. Having not dove since August, I felt a bit rushed by the operation as they were really quick about getting us geared up and off the boat. Both dives were great for seeing aquatic life – we saw two turtles! My ears hurt a lot on the second dive though.

For dinner, we went to a place called Safari and were surprised by how dead the town (called Mae Haad) feels at night. Where is everyone on a Saturday night? After heading to nearby Sairee  Beach (the more tourist/party area) for a bucket of a vodka mixer and being the only people in the bar, we reasoned that the diving community must be early to bed and early to rise.

After Sunday’s breakfast, we again signed up for the afternoon’s fun dives and were again grouped with Richard, and two other men – one from Ireland and one from California. I wisely took some cold medicine to help my ears and employed Bryan’s suggestion of continually equalizing my ears on my descent and it helped immensely. Aside from a flooding problem with my mask which caused me to surface momentarily, it was a much better dive for me and I focused on staying horizontal, not using my hands, and enjoying the underwater sights! The second dive was to a drop called Twin Peaks which had some  amazing angelfish, coral and stingrays.

We ate dinner at Dirty Nelly’s the island’s obligatory Irish bar (again, it was completely dead) and ran into Andrew, our dive group member from Ireland.

All in all, Koh Tao was a great place to visit and is definitely THE place to go in Thailand if you want to scuba dive. Lonely Planet says it is the number one place in the world for issuing scuba certifications. It’s a shame we don’t have one more day to dive. Perhaps Krabi will offer something…

Diving Weekend

I skipped Wausau again this weekend. As much fun as I have out there, I've felt drawn to other things more strongly this summer, and this weekend was no exception. Instead of the 3+ hour drive out there, I made a much shorter journey with Nick to Stillwater to dive in Square Lake.

Square Lake has a large area designed for divers, with 4 underwater platforms and various other things to discover like the tail section of a plane, a sunken canoe, some fish crates, and other fun things. The platforms even have different things on them, including the "scuba biffy" in case you've really gotta go.

The water was warm and the visibility wasn't too bad. We got to play with lots of panfish and a few largemouth bass, but over half of our time under was spent searching for one of two things. The first was a pair of Fossil sunglasses that was dropped by one of the swimmers above us. He gave us a pretty good idea of where they'd be, and it didn't take us too long to find them.

That's when the second item became lost. Apparently when I came up and took my mask off to tell the guy that I found his glasses, my helmet cam fell off. I had never worn it scuba diving, but figured it might be fun to try out. Since I wasn't wearing a helmet, I had it hooked to a head strap that came with it. We searched for a very long time, but never found it. I'll have to head out there again soon and try again, but for now it's gone. : (
It really sucks to lose, but on a lot of levels I was shocked that I was able to have it for so long without losing or breaking it. It suffered several kayaking rock blows, spent some time snow kiting, went snorkeling and more. If I can't find mine, I'm definitely getting another.

On a happier note, Kim also did some diving this weekend, although not with me. She did her classroom and pool training for her certification and it sounds like she had a great time. She'll do her open water dives later this month, then she'll be fully certified and ready for some diving!

Engagement Dive

Here's the video from our dive trip in Jamaica. As you can imagine, I had some pretty un-ordinary requirements when I was trying to book the dive. I contacted 3 dive companies with my idea, and Everett from Resort Divers was the only one who said "No Problem, Mon." This turned out to be good fortune, because he and his staff were amazing. Friendly, patient, professional, and completely committed to making the dive awesome. I truly can't recommend them highly enough. I wanted a video of the dive, so Everett hooked us up with Steve from Video Vacations, who was also totally into making my plan work.

Everett and the dive instructor were already informed about what I wanted to happen, so while Kim was in the pool doing the Discover Scuba training, I had about an hour to fill the videographer in on the plan. This was key, because the videographer was the one who had the treasure chest and would have to hide it for us on the dive.

As you can see from the video, everything went great. I really could not have done it without the ideas, enthusiasm, and help of the dive crew. Also, I have to note that the quality of the actual video from Steve is great. I had to shorten it and shrink it significantly to make it YouTube-able. That's why the image quality is now low and the editing gets choppy in parts.

Big thanks to Everett, Steve, and everyone who helped with the dive. If you're in Jamaica, go with them!

Cenote Cave Dives

While I was down there I did one of my favorite dives yet - a Cenote cavern dive. We did 2 tanks in the Chac-Mool Cenote, about 45 minutes from Cancun. The dives are known as much for the amazing light show coming from the cave openings as for anything else. It really is breathtaking to come through a tunnel and see beautiful shafts of blue light. It looks completely unreal and you'd swear it was the special effects for some movie.

The water was very warm - 75-78 degrees according to my computer. Most of the dive was freshwater, but there are places in the caves where the saltwater from the ocean backs up the river and lingers. Because of that, we crossed the Halocline (division between salt and freshwater) several times. Each time we would go nearly blind because where the two waters converge becomes very blurry and hard to see through, like olive oil trying to mix with water. One diver said it reminded him of looking through the heat waves rising off hot pavement, only more intense. The other crazy thing about crossing the halocline is that your bouyancy changes drastically. You are almost twice as bouyant in the saltwater as you are in the fresh, so you had to take care to keep from rising into the ceiling in the saltwater or descending into the stalagmites in the freshwater.

Speaking of Stalagmites, there were only a few of those, but there were lots of stalagtites hanging from the ceiling. most were small (under 1'), but there were a couple rooms where they grew to 10' or more. It was pretty cool. There was even one huge room (maybe 80' feet long and 40' high) that had an air pocket at the top. That's the photo you see of me floating with my mask off. That air pocket was at one of the farthest points we entered. It was pretty cool.

Cancun Reef Dives

While I was there I also did three dives on the reef just a couple miles out from Cancun. I wasn't expecting much, but all three dives were amazing. The coral was bright, colorful, and healthy and we saw lots of cool critters, including a green sea turtle, barracudas, a yellow ray, and tons of reef fish.

To make it even cooler, my first reef dive was with Kim, my brother, and two of my nephews. They were all doing a "Discover Scuba" class and I tagged along for the open water portion. All of them did great, and Kim's even talking about getting certified now! The only catch was that Kim's rental mask kind of tugged her face into a constant look of shock... It made for some great pictures, though.

Puerto Rico Trip

I just got back from a short trip to Puerto Rico! I had decided that I wanted to spend my recent birthday abroad, and decided that I would go to wherever had the cheapest airfare. The only restrictions were that it had to be some place I hadn't been, and it had to be outside the continental US. I wound up in Puerto Rico, and had a great time. I spent most of my time in/around San Juan and on the small island of Vieques, off Puerto Rico's Eastern shore.

The Good:
1)Bioluminescent Bays
2)Genuinely friendly people
3)Endless beaches for everything from surfing and kiting to snorkeling and laying out
4)No passport necessary
5)No currency exchange
6)Mass Transit that's cheap or free (but see The Bad)
7)Perfect weather
8)Cell Phone Service (I wasn't even roaming)

The Bad:
1)No Hostels or hotels under $70/night
2)Mass transit is largely limited to the San Juan area and Ferries

San Juan
The San Juan area is made up of Old San Juan (which is the oldest permanent settlement in the territory of the United States), two resort areas (Condado and Isla Verde), and some residential areas. Old San Juan is a beautiful mix of old buildings, modern shops (including restaurants and stores from all the big designers), and beautiful vistas. Additionally, you can take a free ferry ride across the harbor to the Bacardi rum factory. The tour was free, fun, and interesting, and you get two free drinks with it. I definitely recommend it.

Nearby, around the barrio of Isla Verde, are great beaches and spots to kitesurf. With nearly constant 15mph winds and warm, shallow water, it would be a fantastic place to kite. I tried to set up a session through Kitesurf PR for a day's worth of riding. My contact their was very friendly and helpful, but called me the morning we were supposed to go out and said that there wasn't enough wind. He said the forecast didn't look good, but he'd call me if that changed. He didn't. By 2:00 there were perfectly steady winds in the 10-15mph range but my phone never rang. Tried calling their number, but got no answer. So, no kiteboarding for me.

Getting around the San Juan area was easy. The city buses were quite an adventure - they were driven as if they were Ferrari's, so you had to hold on to something even if you were sitting down, but they were straight-forward to use and they were free. Ferry service across the harbor was also free and arrived frequently. Getting around outside of the San Juan area required that you either 1)rented a car, 2)paid large sums to take a taxi, or 3)attempted to use the unscheduled and confusing Publico minibus system. None of these options was very appealing to a traveler on his own, but luckily I found there was another way to get out to Vieques Island. There are charter flights from San Juan for about $50 each way. Since that was about 1/2 the price of renting a car for 3 days or taking a cab, it was definitely the way to go.

Vieques
The Island of Vieques is about 8 miles off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. The US Navy used a large part of the island for artillery practice until 2004, so much of the island is still undeveloped. The island is known for it's pristine beaches and its bioluminescent bay. The "bio bay" is a large shallow bay on the South Side of the island that has the highest concentration of dinoflagellates in the world. Dinoflagellates are microscopic critters that glow when they're disturbed. There are so many of them in this bay that the water literally glows whenever anything moves it. I took a kayak/swimming trip out into the bay and was absolutely amazed. The paddle, the kayak's wake, even the fish swimming underneath you all glow as they move through the water. To make it even cooler, the swirling water that follows the movement also glows, so everything has an amazing tail of light following it. If you dip your arm in and then raise it up, you'll have streams of light running down it. It's totally amazing and definitely in my top 5 coolest things I've ever seen. Unfortunately, my camera housing leaked on this trip and my old water camera is now finally dead, so there's no pictures.

The second thing I did on the island was go diving. I got in with a young group of German and Spanish folks who were about my age. They spoke excellent english, and we all got along great. Two of the girls in the group were new divers, so the dive was an easy one. The visibility wasn't great, but we saw some lobsters, an octopus, a HUGE eel, and some turtles. Unfortunately, the dive camera was dead, so I have no pictures. :(

I stayed in Esperanza, a small tourist village on the South side of the island. It's an extremely laid-back place right on the water with pristine beaches just a couple steps away and great snorkeling right in front of the the hotel. At night, you can sit on the piers and watch spotted eagle rays and tarpon swim by beneath you. Great Caribbean atmosphere and incredibly friendly people.

Good Times
On the whole, it was a fun and relaxing trip. I'd love to go back and do some kiteboarding and some more snorkeling. Definitely a nice break from reality