Friends

This is a picture of my friend, Brenda (second from left) and four of her lovely daughters. L to R - Jamie, Brenda, Amanda, Pam, Bethany. Missing from the photo is Stephanie, if we were going to complete a mother and daughters photo. Harry and I met Brenda when we were newlyweds, late 1980. We spent a lot of time with Brenda and her family in those days (early 1980's) and throughout the years we reconnected for weekends together as we could. Brenda is blessed with 5 girls and 3 boys. Yep, quite a woman. Pam (her oldest) was just a baby when we first met. It has been a joy over the years to watch her family grow up, get married, build their own lives. We share some sweet memories together - some great stories - the kind that make you laugh until you cry. I miss Brenda. And I miss the girls too. Not dissing the boys here, just didn't get to know them before we moved to the other side of the world. I hope someday we get to reconnect and share bits of our lives again.

August UW Weekend

I spent my first weekend in August underwater for a good deal of the time. But why not? It was raining all weekend anyway, so if you're going to be wet, you might as well enjoy the underwater critters. Harry and I enjoyed a nice long 2 hour dive (well, long for me) at Lau Lau and hung out with these two friends.

I finally got this guy to center in my camera frame. He looks great against the deep blue of the ocean.

Thibeau and Wendy joined us for 4 of the dives. They were Wendy's 4 OW scuba dives. Thibeau completed his course a couple months ago.

All 4 of us got to see this spanish dancer. He was in the rubble on the way out to the turtle snacking grounds.

I spotted this little crab in a stolen shell near the rope.

This octopus had himself nicely tucked into the rocks, but not quite hidden from view.

It was fun watching this fish eating an urchin.

Harry and I saw this eel on our 2 hour dive, at about 60 ft.

Harry spotted this gorgeous shell (yep, I don't know its name) but I wish I had taken a photo of the other side too. It was beautiful all the way around.

I actually got some nice photos of the anenome fish this time. They are always fun to watch.

I told Harry to pose for me for his 400th dive of 2009. Yep, he's done that many. And that's just this year. Only 178 for me - in a year and a half. But I'm pretty happy about that, since I only get to dive on weekends.

It's Been A While

I just realized it's been a whole month since my last post. I guess I've been busy with a number of things. I've been learning my new job, which has gone smoothly so far. I really like the new job position, it suits me well I think. Chris and Sarah took a trip to Canada to visit family and have a couple of wedding receptions with friends and family. They were gone two weeks. While they were gone, Harry was gone one of those weeks to Tinian to work at a dive camp for kids. So with my one week alone, I enjoyed some girl time with Connie, went to the spa, read a book. But I didn't get to my blog. I chose an odd assortment of pictures for the post this time. My recent dive photos don't seem to be in my smugmug box, so I picked out some older photos. I guess you can tell by the top picture, I'm enjoying the memories of having my family gathered together at Chris and Sarah's wedding.

I've been enjoying diving, as usual. The photo above is a lion fish I saw at Wing Beach. There seems to be a lot of lion fish there lately. I'm hoping the conditions will be good for diving Wing Beach this weekend. It's my favorite dive.

I saw this little guy in a corner all by himself at Lau Lau. I'm always drawn to the starfish.

And how could you not love a face like this? I never get tired of seeing the turtles, even at a distance. But this one was content to let us come closer for some really nice photos. Well, I guess without more pictures, I don't have more stories to tell. But you can visit my facebook site, I think I have more photos up there. Yeah, facebook has been stealing me away. See you - one site or the other. : )

Turtle Dive !! June 20

After a group dive earlier in the day, Harry and I came back later in the afternoon for a nice long, relaxing dive - in search of turtles. Harry strapped a 100 on me so we could stay out a bit longer for our search. There was one in the normal turtle hangout, and we took some pictures of him. On the way out to a deeper site, we ran across this anenome fish guarding his territory.
And Harry spotted this little shrimp near the small anenome fish. Can you see him? He's mostly clear, with some pink and big blue and black eyes.
I came across this scorpion fish (I think). He was laying on his side, very odd.
But eventually we spotted this turtle heading out to deeper feeding grounds. So we both followed, to see where he would go. He didn't seem to mind having us along for the journey. He was just looking for a snack.
Well, he finally found his snack, and parked right there for about a half an hour, just letting us hang out with him and take his picture. Harry actually got a great video, too. But isn't this just the best? I love this picture.
Here is Harry, happily filming away.
And here's my view from overhead, watching him enjoy his green munchies.
He stopped eating to just look at me for a few seconds. I was smiling back at him. This was just so great.
I moved back a ways, trying to get a nice shot of his whole body. He was very handsome or pretty as the case may be.
And here's a nice turtle exit. Time to go up for some air. Did I say this was just great? What an awesome turtle day.

Wing Beach June 21

Last Sunday, Harry and I did two dives at Wing Beach with Don, one of the new OW graduates. Near the crevice, we kept seeing these two fish following us - one blue fin trevali and one snapper. They were both good sized fish, and fun to watch.
Here is Harry taking a picture of Don, while exiting the crevice on our first dive.
I caught this guy playing King of the Hill on the way back to the rope.
This eel was in the coral lining the cut going out from the rope. He was very cooperative for photos.
I don't know what this is - some kind of flatworm I think. But it was very pretty.
Wedged between two big rocks, I saw this shell partially broken with a crab peeking out.
This was the arch over the crevice. I don't usually swim up that high but I was keeping myself between Harry and Don, so I got to see more things that I usually don't spot at the bottom of the crevice.
Near the cut, there were many lion fish. This one was very big and had nice coloring for photos.
I found some shrimp in one of the holes near the cut.
I think this is a nudi, or maybe a flatworm. Either way, it was really pretty. The blue was neon underwater.
This was just outside of the crevice. I found this beautiful orange fan coral and another really pretty red fan coral. Wing Beach dives are awesome.

Island Life June 2009

We always start off the month of June with Sarah's birthday, June 1. This year we had a nice birthday brunch at the Hyatt.
And I guess the rest of the month will look like I spent it all underwater. But that's where I take most of my photos, I guess. However, these photos are Harry's. I stole them because I can't find mine on the smugmug site. The picture above is a section of soft coral under the pipeline. It's always so pretty under there.
Here I am watching some fish. I think this was at Obyan. I've got my camera ready. Now if I could just get those little guys to hold still. Ha.
This is the little known sport of pipe surfing. Want to join?
We spotted some spanish dancer egg ribbons at Lau Lau. Very cool.
We saw this guy way out near Lemuria. He looked like a moth. Very weird fish.
Another "Mr. Ugly" fish. I think it's a stone fish.
Very lovely nudi.
Fish school at Obyan. Sunday, June 7 was the best visibility I've ever seen at Obyan. I felt like I was swimming in an aquarium. It was so beautiful. And it was our 29th wedding anniversary. Great day.
This looks like the shallow corals at Wing Beach. They are also very pretty all lit up in the sun.
Ok, guess I'll check out for now. I'll write another post when I can get my pictures off smugmug. I got some great ones this weekend. Harry and I spent a fun half hour with a turtle and we got some great photos and a really cool video.

Recent Underwater Photos

I've been neglecting my blog a bit, as I've been caught up in facebook. But the underwater adventures continue. Here is some of the beautiful sightings of late. Enjoy. Two very pretty clams - one from Lau Lau, one from Obyan.

Nudi sighting at Lau Lau. The awesome "aquarium" view of Obyan. I was really excited to see this spanish dancer right at the rope at Lau Lau. It was about ten inches long. Very cool. Fran caught this shot of Harry surfacing from one of our boat dives on Sunday. I did four dives on Sunday, two at Obyan with Harry's students and two boat dives in the afternoon - Spotlight and Wing Beach Arch. Very good dive day.