Merry Fishmas Scuba Fans! Check out my underwater themed Christmas cards and send them to all your ocean loving friends!

- Get them here at Divesnaps.com

Read the original article here: Scuba Themed Christmas Cards

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The second time we found out the hawker food was even better in Penang, dove the Perhentian Islands, dove with turtles and sharks in Sipadan, and had an amazing experience riding motorcycles in Malaysian Borneo.

This third time, we laid on the beach!

After 6 months in Europe and the UK, we decided to head back to Malaysia to enjoy the tropical climate while Australia warmed up. After a few initial days in Kuala Lumpur, Kelly and I hopped a quick Air Asia flight to Langkawi. It was a short shuttle from the airport to our home for the next few weeks. We had rented a unit unseen at Casa Fina bungalows on Cenang Beach (the main beach in Langkawi). It was a small space, but had reliable internet, hot water, it was clean, modern rooms, and had a small fridge. All we needed at the time, though we were hoping we’d find a place with a kitchen for a decent price after having been on the road eating in restaurants in the EU for the last month or so. After a week or so, we had looked around the town of Kuah and the other nearby beaches and ended up booking the remainder of our time at Casa Fina. It’s nice when your initial online booking instincts end up being right and you don’t have to shuffle somewhere else.

Langkawi is a duty free island. So the majority of people there are purchasing a huge amount of goods from the duty free stores that dot the main streets. It was a great place to buy cheap beer and liquor, chocolates, perfumes, watches, etc. But you had to watch the prices. Just because it was duty free didn’t mean it was cheaper than online options. Mostly, we bought Reese peanut butter cups and a lot of Tiger and Carlsberg beer. ;)

Cenang Beach is approximately 10 minutes from the airport by car and stretches a good kilometer or two down to Pantia Tengah (the really quiet beach). While huge, it isn’t flooded with tourists, or restaurants, or clubs, but there’s a significant occupation of seadoos, jetskis, and parasailing during the day.

There’s a few decent places to eat or have a drink on the beach while watching the sunset, like The Yellow Cafe and our personal favourite Raffi’s bar. At night, Babylon was the place to go for some rasta grooves and cheap beer, or Debbie’s Irish Pub for a pint of Guinness. But all in all, it was a pretty quiet scene. There’s plenty of restaurants along the main road, but opening hours will vary. You’ll find a lot of Chinese, Indian, and Malay cuisine and alcohol licenses will be hit and miss due to the differing religions in the area.

So we worked. And laid on the beach. And hung out at Raffi’s with our favourite bar stars: Bob, Shawm, and Rocky who took very good care of us. And then it rained… So we started hitting up the tourist attractions.

We started off at Crocodile Adventureland! There’s well over 1000 crocodiles in various enclosures. They’re pretty sedate, basking in the sun and rarely moving… until feeding time that is. They put on a few shows a day, but there is this one enclosure with a wooden bridge through the middle and a pool about 3m below with literally hundreds of crocodiles in it. The whole time I was walking on it, I couldn’t help but think what would happen if an earthquake struck or if I ate one too many laksas and collapsed the thing. An employee came along blowing his whistle, and entered the enclosure with a bucket of chicken parts and bundles of fish. After a couple minutes of tossing the bundles to various crocodiles; listening to the ‘CLOMP!’ as their jaws snap shut, he was quite surrounded and backed out of the enclosure while rubbing the croc’s noses with a stick to keep them at bay. They must be well fed because only 10-20 crocs came over for feeding while literally hundreds of others basked on the banks and paid him no interest. We carried on and saw baby crocodiles, caymans, and turtles, as well as a bunch of crocodiles with malformed tails in some sort of breeding/hospital setting. It was interesting, but unguided and without much information posted about what you were looking at, it was short lived past feeding time.

Our next rainy day was spent at Underwater World, literally across the road from our room. We tend to spend a lot of time in aquariums when we aren’t diving, so the Langkawi aquarium was an obvious must. It’s one of the largest aquariums in South East Asia. Its exhibits are divided into zones (temperate, tropical, freshwater, marine, etc) with a range of birds, reptiles, coral, fish, and many creatures we haven’t seen in the other aquariums we’ve visited.

They have a number of penguin exhibits, stingrays and sharks in tanks which you walk underneath. It’s very cool to see the underside of stingrays and sharks for a change! They have otters, jellyfish, lionfish (STAB! – sorry I can’t help myself after months in the Caribbean fighting their invasion), seahorses, and even leafy sea-dragons which I’ve never seen anywhere else.

All in all, it was a really nice aquarium, but it was oddly broken up every few minutes by stations where people were selling tourist nicknacks. There were also a ton of children running about, seemingly without any supervision since they were ignoring the “DO NOT TAP ON TANKS” and “NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY” signs everywhere. I was aghast when one took multiple flash photos of the leafy sea dragon and I watched it physically recoil next to the “can die from shock due to flash photography” sign. Attempting to explain the situation resulted in me getting my photo taken…

Next up was the Langkawi cable car and sky bridge. We actually had to wait for a break in the rain to do that one. If it rains, they close the sky bridge until it dries. The cable car is a little over 2km in length with a middle viewing station before continuing to the top and takes around 1/2 hour round trip, minus any time spent hiking the sky bridge. The steepest gradient is 42 degrees and it rises 680m from the base to the peak.

To put that in some perspective, the Sugarloaf mountain cable car in Brazil is only 396m high. Kelly had a few freak outs when we’d roll past and bounce over some of the posts that support the cables. As much as it was like a fast lift up the ski hills back home, this was significantly higher and steeper!

The sky bridge itself spans 125m between two peaks with a vertical drop of 700m. Honestly, it scared the bejeezus out of me. I had to shuffle across this thing holding the rail, not looking down, and the movement of the stone rails laid across the metal frame really freaked me out. I’m not a sissy about heights when anchored to the ground in some fashion, but with the fog and wind and… yeah, scary! Both Kelly and I definitely had our moments on this outing, though the views were fantastic when the fog broke.

Lastly, we decided to hit up the night market in Kuah in hopes of finding some hawker food to rival our previous Malaysian street food experiences. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. While the night market has a lot of good food like satay and murtabak, it couldn’t compare to the hawker stalls of Penang and Kuala Lumpur with their seafood culinary bonanza.

We wandered for a while eating fish balls and other appetizers, but didn’t find any laksa, fresh seafood grill or bbq, or decent noodles, and ended up sitting down at a nearby Chinese restaurant for some crispy pork (a rarity in a lot of Malaysia), rice and veggies.

Overall, we struggled to find a lot of stuff to do to occupy ourselves in Langkawi, but at the same time we really enjoyed the slower pace of the island after our time back in civilization. I’d definitely go back for a relaxing beach vacation and would next time rent a bike to explore the other side of the island more thoroughly. All in all, it was a month well spent.

Read the original article here: Malaysia, the third time around – Langkawi

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Shortly, after realizing we were mistaken about the visa requirements and only had 3 months because of the EU Schengen Agreement, I took on a large amount of freelance contract work and costly train tickets kept us from roaming too far.

So we checked out a windmill:

Tried some local beers:

And went to the Heineken ‘Museum’:

We took a canal tour:

Then went on a canal booze cruise with some new and old friends:

We ate a lot of fried food…and pancakes:

Rags came to visit!:

So did some other dive buddies:

…on a tugboat in Urk:

We took an extended weekend and jumped the train to Bruges, Belgium:

There were lots of old people and old buildings:

We went for a local brewery tour:

And of course, we tried some local beers:

We ate Belgian chocolate and mussels and frites:

We flew to England to check out the sites and to shop:

It rained, a lot:

But we had fun:

…with more dive buddies:

We took a train and a ferry to Dublin:

to say ‘Hullo’ to Geoff and Charlotte:

We saw some street performers:

Visited the Guinness brewery:

And had a real pint of the black stuff:

Then my computer crapped out and we had to head back to Amsterdam for backups and a new computer. So I booked the right plane ticket on the wrong day. I’m no longer allowed to book flights.

…without checking with the boss:

We spent a few more weeks in Amsterdam, doing what the locals do. Hanging out in parks, BBQing, dodging bikes and trams. Then we flew to Croatia. Currently, Croatia and Turkey are the only 2 EU countries that are not part of the Shengen Agreement so Croatia would be our haven for a month till things warmed up elsewhere. We decided to spend the first couple weeks in Pula. It’s a medium sized town with plenty of shopping and a lot of resort accommodation on the beaches. Which are in reality really rocky bluffs and rocks, with some more rocks.

The food was okay. We cooked a lot at home, but would go out for a pivo (beer) in the evening or have a slivovica (croatian spirit, kind of like shnapps or brandy depending on the kind) or try a local wine.

We went to the Croatian Film Festival and on another night to the Jack Johnson concert at the Pula amphitheater. What an amazing venue under the stars!

After a few weeks in Pula, it was starting to feel like Kellerman’s resort in Dirty Dancing. Everything near the beach resorts was mini golf and dance lessons, with a really family oriented vibe and kids everywhere.

So we headed an hour North to Rovinj; an old fishing village, and rented a suite 20 minutes walk from the main square. Rovinj was much more scenic with its cobblestone streets, the Esplanade, and the cliffside restaurants leading up to the church which towers over the town.

The food was remarkably better, though I still have little idea what real Croatian cuisine tastes like. Croatia as a whole caters heavily to Italians on vacation, so pizza and pasta was everywhere. Though there was plenty of seafood and we had an amazing 11 course dinner at Monte for my birthday. There was a lot of foams, mousse, and flames involved. In the end, it was around $10 per course per person for what would have easily been a few hundred dollars each at a fancy restaurant back in North America… with a bottle of wine!

After 2 weeks, we took a fast ferry to Venice and stayed just outside the city so we didn’t have to haul all our luggage through the canals. Only 10 minutes away by bus, we’d head into the city each day to endlessly wander the alleys, getting lost in our hunt for cicchetti (Italian snacks, typically served 4-6pm for the way home from work) and a glass of good red wine. One eventing, we found a great little restaurant serving your choice of 3 different platters (meat, cheeses, or seafood) and they even bottle their own beer! Yum.

We flew to London after a few days, to pay another visit to our friends Liz and Jez (Thanks again for the house!) who were busy dodging imaginary hurricanes in New York. While they were away we did some shopping and ate jerk chicken at the Notting Hill Carnival.

After a few days in London we hopped another train… this time to the south west of England. To a town called Newquay on the Cornish coast. Newquay is a quaint little place known mostly for it’s surf. Pretty much everyone who comes here is here for the waves. Being the tropical beach bums that we are, we decided to give the frigid English waters a miss, and contently watch the surfers from the warmth of the pub instead.

With not much to offer other than surfing, we quickly ran out of things to do in Newquay. We had a few more days to kill before our dive trip to Egypt, so we decided to check out Brighton and spend a couple more days on the English Coast. Brighton is less than an hour train ride south of London making it a popular weekend getaway. There are lots of interesting streets to explore, and a great selection of restaurants. We had some really yummy Thai one night and even managed to find a Vietnamese Pho restaurant. It was funny to be loading up on Asian food less than 2 weeks before leaving for Malaysia, but it was a nice change after all the English pub food we’d been consuming over the rainy couple of weeks.

After Brighton we headed back up to London. We had one last night out with Liz & Jez, dropped off some extra gear at their place and jumped a flight to Egypt with our dive buddies from Honduras, Jose and Alex.

Spending a week on a liveaboard from Marsa Alam down to Fury Shoal, chasing hammerhead sharks, leopard rays, guitar sharks, and hunting for huge green turtles and dugongs 3 times a day (Unfortunately, we didn’t find a dugong). It was a great week of diving, relaxing, and we met a bunch of folks from Wales and Australia. Shame we didn’t get to actually see much of Egypt through. We went from plane to boat and back to the plane with little more than a few hours of Egyptian soil beneath our feet. The Red Sea was wonderful though. Quite warm, I ditched the wetsuit for most of our dives. I haven’t been able to do that since our first trip to Roatan in 2009! Think I’m getting acclimated to the tropical life? ;)

Returning to London, we then called an end to the European/UK leg of our adventure and boarded a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a month before we continue on to Australia. While I feel like I missed out on visiting a lot of Europe because of our visa silp up, I still feel like we did a lot considering our office hours. I’m looking forward to going back in a couple years to explore the rest.

Read the original article here: 5 months in Amsterdam/London/Dublin/Croatia and Egypt – The Pictoral Recap

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2011 was my fourth Queen’s Day and somewhat of a reunion between me and 3 friends who all celebrated our first Queen’s Day ever, together, 10 years ago. Sarah, Liz and Annette have been celebrating together ever since, but unfortunately for me, getting back every year has been a little harder. While I lived in Amsterdam I was able to partake in Queen’s Day twice and in 2006 went back for my third. During that trip I made a promise to come back for our 10th anniversary, so when 2011 rolled around I knew I had to be there.

For those of you who have never been, or perhaps have never even heard of Queen’s Day it can be tough to convey the sheer magnitude of this country-wide party, particularly what it’s like in the city of Amsterdam. For months leading up to it, I had been trying to explain things to Mike, but I don’t think he truly understood what he was in for, until he was standing in the midst of it all.

Like every year we gathered at Sarah’s apartment for a hardy breakfast of bagels and orange cocktails (establishing a good base is essential for surviving Queen’s Day). We donned our orange outfits and posed for the obligatory photoshoot, before taking to the streets.

Once you get past all of the orange, one of the first things you’ll notice on Queen’s Day is the vrijmarkt (free market), which is what we North-American’s would essentially call a garage sale. Except, it’s everywhere… One giant, city-wide garage sale. Every piece of available sidewalk, park or street corner will be filled with whatever unwanted household belongings the Dutch can gather up to try and sell. Everything from cassette tapes and dishes to ceramic statues and second, third and even forth-hand clothing. It’s pretty likely that people have been selling the same crap every year since 1970. On our first Queen’s Day, Sarah bought some ridiculous kiddy pool that she carried around with her all day. I think Annette finally made her throw it out 8 months later.

In addition to selling their wares, you’ll often find the Dutchies embracing the arts. Usually by dressing up their children or pets in ridiculous costumes and encouraging them to perform all manner of dance and acrobatic routines, all for a few measly coins. This year’s highlight perhaps being the cat, made famous by dutch film and television, who would pose with you, for the bargain price of €2.00.

As the afternoon wore on we pressed further into the heart of the Jordaan, one of the most popular neighborhoods for Queen’s Day celebrations. The crowds growing thicker by the minute, both on the streets and in the canals, we eventually managed to meet up with some friends of ours from Roatan. Small world I know, but the 4 of them happened to be in the Netherlands, outfitting a tug boat, to return to the Caribbean, so we invited them out for the day. Finding people in the crowds of Queen’s Day can be a difficult task at best, so I was pleased when we finally managed to meet up. Sarah, of course, wasted no time at all, outfitting them with what always seems like an endless supply of orange.

We pressed on, taking in the sights and consuming copious amounts of beer and assorted orange cocktails. Eventually we made our way to a house party, for a short-lived but much needed break from the crowds. A chance to rest our feet and mingle a bit without fear of getting separated in the streets.

From there we carried on. Towards Dam Square and eventually the Red Light District. We ate poffertjes, crochets and friets. We drank more beer and we walked. As expected events started to blur, day turned into night and before I knew it another Queen’s Day was over.

It was great to be back again. To celebrate with old friends and new. To have one more Queen’s Day together the four of us. I’m not sure where we’ll all be come next April 30th, but you can bet I’ll be reminiscing about the great day we had this year!

Read the original article here: Koninginnedag / Queen’s Day 2011

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1. The great blog catch up of 2011

At Cara a Cara, you descend a line to approximately 20-25 meters to a coral ridge that shelters you from the current. Thankfully, the day the 8 of us went there was no current, so we were able to swim freely with the sharks when they weren’t feeding. The dive master brings down a sealed bucket with a fish head in it. The sharks will swim around you until the bucket is opened at which point, they fight for the fish, then quickly disappear back into the blue. Total dive time was approximately 40 minutes and we saw somewhere between 10 and 14 (Caribbean) grey reef sharks..

Read the original article here: Shark Dive Video – Roatan, Honduras

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Pretty much all of the dive shops or resorts on the island can book the Shark Dive for you, but if you’re short on time it might be a good idea to book this in advance, especially if you’re coming in high season, or on a cruise ship day. We purposely booked on a non-cruise ship day, and got really lucky as our group of 6 were the only ones scheduled for that day.

We arrived at Waihuka Dive Center on a beautiful sunny morning. We’d had quite a bit of rain over the previous few weeks, so the clear skies and calm waters only added to our excitement. After a few quick introductions we set up our gear and headed inside for a detailed briefing of the upcoming dive. The staff at Waihuka are professional yet friendly, and take their time to explain everything so you know exactly what to expect..

The dive site, Cara a Cara, which translates to ‘face to face’, is just a quick 10 minute boat ride from Waihuka’s shop in Coxen Hole. Usually there is quite a bit of current so a line is used to help you descend down to a sandy patch at the edge of the reef at about 18m (60ft), which backs on to a coral wall . The day we arrived however, we had near perfect conditions and no current at all, so we back-rolled in and descended without the line.

As we neared the sandy patch there were already several sharks swimming about. We all lined up, kneeling with our backs to the wall, snapping pictures as the sharks swam in front of us. After about 5 minutes the divemaster gave us the signal that we could swim freely among the sharks. In total there were about 12-14 Caribbean reef sharks swimming right up and around us, each about 2m to 3m long. It was amazing to see them swimming so calmly among us, and I could hardly believe how close they came, often within a foot or two before veering off in another direction.

After about 10 minutes or so of swimming among the sharks, the divemaster called us all back over to the wall, and the pulled the pin on the bucket of fish heads he brought down with him. This set the sharks into a feeding frenzy as they each tried to get in for a bite. One was so intent on getting a little snack that the bucket got stuck on his head. With in seconds it was all over and the bucket was empty. The lucky few who managed to get a bite darted off happily while a few others stuck around in hopes of more. As the sharks started to disperse we spent a few more minutes swimming around with them while the divemaster and Alex searched around the bucket looking for lost teeth. I was too busy getting in a few last minute pictures, but Alex managed to find two teeth and was nice enough to share with me.

As we ascended up towards the surface it was smiles all around. Our safety stop was filled with big expressions and enthusiastic double OKs, and as soon as we broke the surface, multiple cries of “Oh my god! That was awesome!” filled the boat. We all climbed back on board grinning from ear to ear enjoying the sunny ride back to Coxen Hole.

Read the original article here: Roatan Shark Dive with Waihuka Dive Center

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When we last left you we had just returned to Roatan for another 3 months. We’d had a great 4 months in Mexico, but were happy to return to Roatan… to familiar faces, and great diving. Work had become busier than ever for both of us and we just sort of fell into a routine. We spent our days working at home, and then usually wandered down to the dive shop for a couple of after-work beers, followed by happy hour at the local beach bar. From there it was either dinner at home, or dinner out… or often a communal cooking night, or BBQ with friends. On weekends we’d go diving, and hang out at the beach, and spend our evenings much the same way as any other night.

We never intended to abandon the blog we just got caught up in all this routine… which after 2 years on the road, was actually really nice. Unfortunately, routine doesn’t really make for the most interesting blog posts. Sure we were having a great time, but we just didn’t have anything new and exciting to post about. So we let things slide. And the longer we left it the harder it became to get back into it. We were enjoying life, and didn’t feel like taking the time to document it online.

We vowed to catch up on things over Christmas in Canada… but as you can see that just didn’t happen either. We were busy meeting up with old friends and family, and just enjoying the holidays at home.

After Christmas we returned to Roatan, for yet another 3 months, and picked up right where we left off. We were in a new apartment but other than that, things remained the same. We worked, we dove, we chilled. Unfortunately, the blog suffered.

But… we’ve now moved on! After a somewhat sad a tearful good-bye we’ve finally left Roatan.

New adventures await… so stay tuned, I promise to be more diligent.

Read the original article here: The great blog catch up of 2011

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Read the original article here: Merry Ho Ho everyone!

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The first cenote we dove was called ‘The Pit’. An hour drive from Playa del Carmen towards Tulum and then down a rough dirt road into the jungle, you arrive and quickly put on your gear to hide from the mosquitoes. There’s a 2 minute walk to the lip of the cenote which is about 10-15m across, then prepare yourself for an 8 meter drop to the water below. If I were to do this site again, I’d insist on having my gear lowered down by the pulley system, or I’d even throw my gear down separately. Kelly got a nice bruise from a regulator to the nose, and when I jumped in the crotch strap on my BCD was none too kind.

Once you’re in and gear checks are complete you rapidly descend down to 35m where there’s a cloud of hydrogen sulphide separating the freshwater and saltwater halocline. The cloud is created from rotted vegetation and smells of sulpher as you pass through it. At 40m you’re supposed to be below the cloud but it was unbelievably thick with nearly zero visibility on that day, so we weren’t able to find the human bones and pottery shards that are supposed to be laying along the bottom of a crevice.

Just to add some excitement to our near blind adventure, it was then that I realized I was ‘narced’ for the first time. Nitrogen Narcosis is vaguely like being drunk underwater with a feeling of elation, impairment, and numbness. Narcosis generally occurs when diving deeper than 30m and is caused by the increased solubility of the gas you’re breathing at greater depths. There’s no real danger to divers who are narced as long as they’re aware of the situation. Ascending to lesser depths reverses the condition, so I made a ‘drinky-drinky’ motion to Kelly, letting her know I was a little tipsy and we started to climb back above the acid cloud. Still, it was an interesting minute or two trying to determine which way was up and out in near zero visibility while my head spun round and round. :)

Emerging from the cloud, looking up, you’ll see the most amazing rays of sunshine filtering down from above. We rejoined our group and did a multi-tiered ascent, exploring the various cave pockets, tree roots, and stalactites. After a safety stop, we surfaced, attached our gear to the pulley, then climbed up a section of the wall, back to the lip of the cenote. Whew! That one was quite the adventure.

Our next dive was just a few minutes back along the dirt road at Dos Ojos (Two Eyes). While The Pit is exactly that, a big pit… Dos Ojos is a huge series of interconnected cave systems. Popular with both snorklers, cenote divers, and cave divers there’s a well marked rope system that leads cenote divers through the caves. It’s a significantly shallower dive at around 8-12m as you swim between stalagmites and stalactites, peering back into the dark caves with your flashlight and wondering what might live outside the reaches of it’s beam. It’s spooky, but amazingly beautiful at the same time. Watching the sun filter down as you enter a cavern that opens up above. Swimming through openings carved into the rock over thousands and thousands of years by the slowly moving waters. There’s even these low pitched echoes thrumming through the water. My guess was it was cars passing above us and the sound coming down through the stone. After 45 minutes we were back at the entry point and my teeth were chattering. That freshwater gets cold! I highly recommend a 5mm+ wetsuit if you’ve got one.

A few weeks later we decided to do another day of cenote dives. Our first dive took us to Cenote Angelita (Little Angel), just outside of Tulum. Similar to The Pit, it is a wide, deep, sinkhole descending down to 2 shelves. One at 60m and another at around 35m. After a short walk from the truck, there’s a small jump of a couple meters into the water. We dove down on the side going down to 35m, descending through the hydrogen sulphide cloud. This time we were able to get below and look up at the swirling mists above. And even from above the cloud, there’s an amazingly spooky view of root systems on a little island surrounded by clouds.

Our next dive was at Grand Cenote. Similar to Dos Ojos, it was shallow and through many interconnected cave systems. Good buoyancy and fin control is necessary on these types of dives. One of the other divers was kicking up a lot of silt and we had to wait for it to settle so we could see where we were going. At one point we got into a nice bowl cavern and turned off all our lights, just watching the natural light play in the water.

All in all, we had 4 great dives and I’d highly recommend cenote diving around Tulum, Mexico. They were feature dives for each of us and a really nice change of pace with stunning views to be experienced and captured.

So, if you’re not claustrophobic and are diving Cozumel. Take a day off the reef and head towards Tulum for an underground experience you won’t soon forget. Pack your warmest wetsuit. Don’t forget your torch. Keep an eye out for freshwater cave monsters… and I’m sure you’ll be glad you visited Mexico’s cenotes.

Read the original article here: Cenote Diving, Tulum, Mexico

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The first day back, we were just sitting at the dive shop, watching what little traffic there is go by. Adapting back to ‘island time’ hasn’t been hard. It’s nice to be back among the familiar faces in the West End. We made a lot of friends the last time we were here and though many people have come and gone, there’s still a bunch of dive buddies and party pals we’ve reunited with over the last week.

Also, the scuba diving is so much more our style than our Playa del Carmen/Cozumel experience and it’s way more convenient. We can drop in on the shop at the last moment and head out on any of the scheduled dives that day. I’ve missed these near vertical wall dives and even though much of the reef is now densely covered in algae, I’m noticing so many more small critters than before. Although that could be from starting to dive wearing my contact lenses. ;)

Kelly and I scored a great place to stay while we’re here. We met a couple who own a condo in the West End on our previous visit, and when we mentioned coming back they offered it to us at a steal. It’s a fully furnished 2 bedroom, 3 bathroom with 2 balconies, hardwood floors, a well stocked kitchen, and an essential hammock. Needless to say, we’ll be very comfortable for the next couple months.

We stopped in Fort Lauderdale for a few days on our way here. It was a novelty to be back in ‘normal’ society for a while. We went for a good steak, rented a car (first time driving in over a year), and did a ton of shopping. We both got fitted for new wetsuits in preparation for the rainy season dives. Kelly has a new wide angle lens and a dome port for her underwater photos (a very belated birthday gift) and I got a small underwater HD video rig (a slightly belated birthday gift). It’s changed how we dive a lot. We used to be at the back of the pack, letting the silt settle and seeking out the small creatures. Now we’re right up front, fighting for the best unobstructed shots of stingrays and turtles.

It was a logical choice for us to come back. We were looking for good diving, but with the coming hurricane season we were wary of much of the Caribbean. Luckily, Roatan is just outside the hurricane belt. As we’ve already seen numerous times this season, they most often pass north of Roatan. We get a few days of rain and choppy seas as they go by, and it’s not to say that Roatan never gets hit… but we’re pretty well sheltered from the most of it. In the meantime, it’s still smokin’ hot and will stay that way for at least another month before we start carrying our rain gear around with us.

Much like the last time we left Roatan, it’s a wedding that will be pulling us away again. We’ll be headed home to Canada at the end of November. Straight to Whistler for the wedding, hanging around Vancouver for a while, then off to Kelowna for Xmas, and back to Vancouver for New Years. We’re looking forward to coming home for a bit. It’s been over a year since we last saw our families. Though adapting to a Canadian winter again will be… interesting.

Then comes a brand new year, who knows? Maybe we’ll still be caught in the vortex.

Read the original article here: The Return to Roatan

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