We recently enjoyed a trip to Belize where we spent a week diving at the Turneffe Flats resort, on Turneffe Atoll. The resort is a 30 mile (1.5 hours) boat ride from Belize City. There were only 4 guests (including Erin and I) so we pretty much had the island resort to ourselves for the week. We did 3 dives a day for 6 days, totaling 18 dives at various sites around the Atoll. Highlights include: disturbing a rather large crocodile while walking along the breach, hunting lion-fish (an invasive species in the Caribbean), encountering a pod of melon-headed whales, and the trip to the Blue Hole and nearby Aquarium dive site.
Whitewater action from one of the most memorable rapids of our Grand Canyon river trip. For the best experience, play full screen: click on the small arrows near the vimeo at the bottom right, then the play button. Let me know what you think!
We spent some time this weekend working on the Vegetable Garden Expansion project. This video/movie (I never know which term to use) shows some tractor digging in action. There's no sound and it's speeded up of course, as watching it is real-time might be a bit dull.
The four Eggs! are now four hungry little chicks. Mr and Mrs Robin have been making endless trips to and from the nest with snacks for this rowdy bunch.
During our week aboard the Turks and Caicos Explorer 2 dive boat, Erin and I had the opportunity for plenty of night diving. We've both been night diving before and so we know the drill. Night dives are exciting. Jumping off the back of a well lit boat into deep dark water certainly gets your heart going. It's really dark down there.
You never know what you're going to encounter on a night dive. Most of the day-time (diurnal) fish are hiding in holes or sleeping, while other night-time (nocturnal) creatures come out to play, or rather, feed. One of the interesting things about a night dive is that you can only see what your light is shining on. This focuses your attention and sometimes you actually see more than in the daylight. However, it's very easy to get disorientated on a night dive as navigation, which can be challenging underwater at the best of times, is much harder in the dark.
Armed with a flashlight each, Erin and I jumped off the back of the boat. We'd shine our lights below us, descend towards the ocean floor, and start exploring. There were certainly times when we were a little scared, like when we had no idea which direction the boat was. Or catching a glimpse of sharks in the darkness just out of the range of our lights. And remember you can't talk much down there.
Anyway, I tried shooting some movie during a couple of the night dives. I've never done this before, and lighting is challenging. But if you've never made a night dive before and want an idea what it's like, the movie below may help. Be warned though, night dives are not for everyone.
December continues to be a month of excessive weather. Over the past weekend we received approximately 12 inches of snow, probably more. The storm began on Friday, briefly eased on Saturday, and then continued into Sunday.
Of course the driveway was a challenge throughout. We made several attempts at clearing snow, but in the end, I think the storm got the better of us (this time).
The snow has finally stopped, the sun is shining, but temperatures remain below freezing. That's leading to icy conditions as the snow melts in the sun before refreezing. On a positive note we managed to fit in some excellent snow-shoeing and even some sledding.
Back by popular demand is The Driveway In Action. This sequel to the original post (Part 1) shows the the tail end of another short storm that passed through this morning. Once again, keep a look out for potential drainage problems.
This movie is a Google Earth Tour showing the GPS tracks we made during our kayaking trip to Alaska. Each different track color is a different day. In total we paddled over 100 miles.
If you have Google Earth installed, you can view the tracks (and markers) yourself by downloading the KML file.
There's also a version that can be viewed in Google Maps (link opens in a new window). And a larger selection of photos from the trip.
And finally, there is the complete set of Alaska Blog Posts, although be warned: it’s a lot of reading. :-)
For those of you who don't understand what all the driveway fuss is about, here's a short video with clips taken during a 15 minute rain-shower (storm) that passed through this afternoon. Keep a lookout for potential drainage problems.
During a break from the paving project (see previous post), we decided it might be fun to attempt some dead tree removal. Anticipating that we might need to deal with trees, one of our first purchases for the new house (bought before we even moved in) was a chainsaw. We have gotten good use out of the chainsaw so far – mostly using it to cut fallen logs into firewood-sized chunks – and have accumulated a nice stash of wood for next winter.
For this tree removal project, we decided to take on one of the dead trees that looked ready to topple over. Dan and James (Dan’s brother) first attempted to pull the tree down with a rope, but evidently the tree was sturdier than it looked, and unfortunately for Dan and James, the rope was not as sturdy as it looked. So with some advice from onlookers, Dan felled his first tree with the chainsaw.
The tree fell beautifully and couldn’t have landed in a better spot! The only downside was the amount of work it took to clean it up and cut the trunk into small enough pieces to move. We now have stacks of firewood and probably won’t be needing to fell anymore trees anytime soon.
