Outstanding Visibility

We had such a great weekend, I thought I would just do a quick blog about it. Saturday and Sunday were fantastic in Grand Case, with great visibility, hardly any wind, and some fantastic diving.

Saturday morning we went out to Tintamarre where Chris said the vis at Japanese Garden must have been over 100 feet. Then over to one of my favorite dive sites, the Tugboat, and again, good vis. Not as good as on the eastern side of Tintamarre, but still good. In the afternoon I went to Creole Rock and Turtle Reef with a group of snorkelers. We really had a fun. We would see something big... like a barracuda or an eagle ray or a turtle and my group of relaxed snorkelers would suddenly pick it up about 10 notches and I would be racing behind to keep up with them. Sara, whose in the 7th grade, may have been little, but this made her cut through the water like a pro!

For me it was a really nice afternoon because I was surrounded by so many people who live really close to where I grew up in NY. There was Sara and her dad from New Jersey, Jennifer from Brooklyn, Tina from Manhattan, and then Chris from Mamaroneck, NY. Mamaroneck is really close to where I grew up... Croton-on-Hudson. I love those conversations:

"So where are you from?"
"NY."
"Me too... where?"
"Westchester."
"Me too... where?"
"Croton-on-Hudson, you?"
"Mamaroneck, but my cousins live in Croton now."
"Really, what are their names?"

With all the travels that Chris and I have done, we can truly say that it is a small world. Like Ingrid, who we worked with in Thailand coming by the shop one day to ask about buying some diving equipment. She looked at Chris, and Chris looked at her, and they said, "I'm sure I know you." And voila, reconnection made. We worked with Ingrid on a tiny island in Thailand called Koh Lipe, lost contact once we left, and found her again in St. Martin. She's been here over a year now! Weird, huh?

Anyway... wasn't I talking about diving and great visibility? These blogs are dangerous, as I feel like I am just typing away and can't imagine that anyone takes the time to actually read this (besides my parents of course). So I end up babbling on and on.

Yesterday I had loads of fun on the boat with some Advanced Open Water students... Eric, Julius, Sam and Peter. We did the Underwater Navigation Dive and all four succeeded in navigating a beautiful square. I had to make each length of the square a little longer than normal as I didn't want them to be able to see where they started, I wanted it to be from compass use and fin kicks only. Then we went to Sec de Grand Case (also known as Turtle Reef) for the Search and Recovery dive. The visibility was also so great that I really had to hide the object they had to search for well. I did a better job the second time, and it took Julius ages. hee hee. Then we went for a little wander around and saw three baby turtles. The babies are just too cute!

Then in the afternoon I went diving again, and Creole Rock was just amazing. These three gigantic Horse Eyed Jacks came through. I mean big, like 2 feet from top to bottom.

I am in the office this morning, hence having the time to blog, but the divers are off to Tintamarre, so I will let you know how it went when they get back.

Have a great week everybody!

(this blog was written by Sally :) )