August 2005

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Wednesday morning was the same breakfast, only this time with the addition of buttered bread and (unexplicably) french fries. We were joined at breakfast by Klaus (a German drummer) and Laura (a clown — no really!). They were diving with us this morning. The rest of the divers arrived, and it was the largest group we had all week… Angel, Victor (divemaster), Robby, Kim (Robby’s cool friend), Klaus, Laura, and Emil along with Wendy & Drew.

 

 

We boarded the boat and headed out to “Efra’s Wall”, where a section has fallen in to leave a large crevasse to swim around and through. The dive was nothing tremendous (especially compared to the previous day’s dives) and Victor was generally too far ahead of the rest of the group.

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Tuesday morning dawned bright and clear. Wendy & Drew were down at the patio for their standard breakfast — waffles & pancakes. This time, the meal included a piece of plain bread, unbuttered. We boarded the dive boat, delighted to discover that it was just Angel, Robby, Wendy, & Drew on this dive.

The boat headed out to “The Steps”, which is trenches running parallel to the wall. Angel decided that he would dive with us today, and we left Robby happily reading on the boat during our dives. We saw several moray eels (both green and spotted), a load of barracuda, butterfly fish, and two pufferfish,

 



 

We also saw a furry sea cucumber. When Angel saw it, he made a beeline over to it and scooped it right up. We swam down to see what he’d found. It looked really pointy, but was actually extremely soft. Kinda cute in a weird way…

 


 

Angel was diving deepest with Wendy about 10 feet above him and 10 feet behind. Behind her, about 10 feet up and 10 feet back was Drew. We dove about 15-20 feet in from the edge of the wall; it dropped away on our left. Whenever we’d see anything interesting, we’d scream into our regulators to let each other know we were slowing down or stopping to explore or observe. By the time we’d done that a few times, we knew Angel must be getting tired of it — he sees butterfly fish every day, so what’s another one to him? But to us land-lubbers, it’s pretty exciting.

So Angel moved pretty slowly when Wendy started screaming into her regulator and pointing off to the left, toward the wall. Drew had followed Wendy’s pointing finger and was also screaming. Angel rolled pretty slowly, first looking at Wendy then letting his gaze travel in the direction she was pointing. Even from 20 feet behind and above him, Drew could see Angel’s eyes get huge as he saw what we were seeing, sailing in from the blue water.

 


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On Monday morning, we rose at 7:00am, checked in at the dive shop, and sat down on the patio for a waffle (Drew) and pancake (Wendy) breakfast. The plates came out with waffles/pancakes only. Nothing else. It was warm and decent for eating pre-dive. We were joined by Orlando, a diver originally from Ponce (a little town nearby), stationed in Arkansas with the Air Force. Tomorrow he was going back up to Ponce to celebrate his daughter’s birthday with their family, but today he was diving with us.

 


Orlando
 

We met divemaster Robby, a blonde surfer-dude-type from Knoxville and Angel, local-boy shop owner and captain of the boat. Both were younger and cooler than we’d expected (not that we had any expectations going in…). Both were extremely knowledgable about diving.

 


Robby (l) and Angel (r)
 

We loaded our gear and boarded the boat for the 20 minute ride out to “The Wall”, our first dive site. There were only the five of us — Angel, Robby, Orlando, Wendy, and Drew — on the boat.

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Jeanne snapped this picture while we were waiting in the line for the Over The Rhine show in late August, 2005. I thought the composition was pretty amusing.

 


Click the picture for a larger view in a new window.
 

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In the morning, we packed up our belongings and checked out of Costa del Oro. When we went downstairs to the office, there was no one there to help us check out. Finally, we located the lady of the house out near the pool. Despite the fact that she spoke no English at all, we finally checked out and headed over to the Hyatt Dorado Beach for a wonderful brunch that Doug & Kelly’s families hosted. There was a breakfast bar, pasta bar, made-to-order omelettes and waffles, a carving station, cereal, and wonderful fresh fruit. Mimosas flowed like water.

 

 


The view from the lobby of the Hyatt
  

Doug & Kelly arrived at the brunch about an hour late (they’re on Puerto Rico time, after all). It was amusing to watch Doug & Kelly attempt to enter through various sets of (locked) doors before one of the hotel staff finally opened a door and admitted them to their own brunch, to gentle laughter and welcoming applause from the guests.

Wendy & Drew sat with Mel & Rob, Todd from Vegas (hey Todd… did you pick up Guild Wars yet?), and Michael & Lovey (neighbors of Kelly’s family). We had a great conversation with this group of nice people, and Michael gave us much better directions to La Parguera, which worked out beautifully.

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From regular site contributor Jo. Thanks Jo!

All I have to say is “Go Bucks!”

You might be from Ohio (pronounced O-hi-uh), if:

You think all Pro football teams are supposed to wear orange!

You know all the 4 seasons: winter, still winter, almost winter and construction.

You live less than 30 miles from some college or university.

You know what a buckeye really is, and have a recipe for candied ones.

“Toward the lake” means “north” and “toward the river” means “south.”

You know if other Ohioans are from southern or northern Ohio as soon as they open their mouths.

You can spell words like Cuyahoga, Olentangy, Bellefontaine, Tuscarawas, Wapakoneta and you know which letter is doubled in Cincinnati.

“Vacation” means spending a day at Cedar Point in the summer and deer hunting in the fall.

You measure distance in minutes.

Your school classes were canceled because of cold.

Your school classes were canceled because of heat.

You’ve had to switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day.

You know what should be knee-high by the Fourth of July.

You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition.
For example: “Where’s my coat at?”

You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.

You think of the major four food groups as corn, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.

You carry jumper cables in your car.

You know what ‘pop’ is.

You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
(Amen!)

You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightgown.

The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page but requires six pages for sports.

You know which leafs make good toilet paper

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