CaptainOrange

7:30am Got up and headed for the dive shop. My G+ crew will recognize this optimistic video clip. Headache and stuffiness better but not gone. I decided to give snorkelling rather (than scuba) a try. This was a good plan for a number of reasons. The first reason was that I did still find it difficult to clear my ears, particularly on ascent. It's not a very big deal snorkelling because you don't go to the same depths and therefore there is much less equalization pressure on your ear drum and sinus cavities. Leaving the Keys The other reason that I'm glad that I snorkelled instead is that I was violently sick to my stomach 25 minutes after getting in the water. If you are down at 30 or 40 feet at the time, this can become tricky. You probably remember that I had this same problem early on in Honduras. There is one small difference. I took anti-nausea medication in advance this time. It just didn't work. I don't know if it is because I am immune to this ...

I'm sick and tired. Literally. Sick with a cold, aches and nasty cough. Tired both because of said cold and because of my battle with garden pests. Chemicals would certainly make the job easier, but hand-to-hand seems so much more honourable. 16 on one leaf was the most I encountered. Smaller than these. At this time of year, caterpillars are our main foe. They particularly like our red current bush and Wendy's columbine. Last year they drove us to despair by consuming many baby bean plants and our beautifully maturing broccoli. I sent the girls in as a first line of defense. The insect hordes were as stars in the sky. Innumerable. Leora and Anwyn plucked as many as possible off the leaves, arms weary with exhaustion, and drowned them in a bucket of water. Hundreds from one bush. Then I sprayed the leaves to try and dislodge and discourage any too crafty to be caught. This morning I went out and counted another 150 or so plunging them to a watery death. Thank goodness I...

Flower for my girls at home :) Mostly going to take the day off from everything: diving, writing, whatever. Log entry for yesterday (day 3) ... Seasick ALL DAY! I went on the boat (with gravol) and lost it. There were 6ft seas, but I didn't see anyone else fighting with breakfast. I felt pretty wretched and slept a lot until evening. I admit to being a bit embarrassed, but everyone has been really great about it. Trying for the mainland ;) Sunrise So today is sun, sun, sun. Maybe I'll take pity on the hummingbirds who are having all their food stolen every night and take a few photos. There was a playful sunrise this morning. I felt great. Went for a short run and played with some shore life. Oh, and I've just been adding to the photo album .

I've got a photo album up . It's big and getting bigger (I've kept it to 70 pics so far). No dive photos, yet. And, they will probably go in a separate album anyway. Set an alarm for 7am. Woke up at 5 to disable a fan that was causing me to be too cold. Yes I'm aware of how ridiculous that sounds what with the temperatures that most of you are dealing with. But, there was air conditioning involved! Does that make it better? Woke at 6. Too light to sleep. After breakfast, I head upstairs to an orientation session. The first 10 minutes are a sales pitch for a company that flies people around the island at low altitude in an open-air plane. It's prohibitively expensive, so I just tune out. The only thing of consequence I learn is that anything we want to buy at the resort goes on a room tab and all the “tipping” happens at the end of your stay in one envelope for the entire staff except for the boat captains and dive master, who are tipped separately. It keeps us fr...