Diving interlude

Greetings from San Pedro, Belize, C.A.!

Steve and I are on an adventure full of sand, salt water and some crazy weather--all of this is fantastic, even if there are no ponies in sight.

Steve at the Aquarium site within the Blue Hole

And what are we doing here? Why, enjoying our other intense and possibly dangerous hobby--scuba diving. What am I doing this very second? Digesting a fine meal and trying to stay awake for at least another hour because falling asleep at 7 p.m. while on vacation seems so very lame. It may, however, be inevitable after diving today in post-storm seas and knowing we head out at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow for a full day of diving. Late-night partying at the local disco seems unwise, or it does for me as I prefer to be fairly well-rested, coherent and alert when I'm headed underwater.

Dive shop mid-storm. The boats had all been moved to the other side of the Caye for the storm duration.

We did miss one day of diving thanks to Tropical Depression Two which smacked into Belize with high winds, storm surge and a lot of sideways rain. If it had made it to Tropical Storm level, it would have been TS Barry, but it went the land route and is staying at TD level and dumping large amounts of rain on it's way west. On it's way through here, it blew things around, uprooted sea grass and knocked over part of the dive shop's dock.

Heavy clouds and sunrise over tanks--on the way to The Blue Hole

Luckily, we had at least gotten some diving in before the storm hit--two dives Saturday and the epic awesomeness that is the Great Blue Hole Sunday in the rain that preceded TDT. Incredible experiences that made sitting out yesterday mostly almost okay and gave us an adventure-filled day with our wacky and entertaining group of fellow divers. Golf carts are a great form of transportation, even in the rain, and you can in fact catch air at ten miles an hour. Who knew? No, I was not driving.

Tomorrow, we head out to Turneffe for a three-dive day with lunch and hopefully some sunshine. My skin does not yet look like I've been in the tropics, but a tan was only one of my very minor goals.

The major goals of diving as much as possible and absorbing copious amounts of warm salt water through my skin are being met to the very best of my ability. Staying awake much longer, however, is a goal rapidly slipping away from me tonight.

More soon, I hope--then back to the horses when we get home.