And we made it

At least as far as Matt & Jodi’s house.  Both sets of couples had some very interesting times getting there!!  Jodi and Matt headed out early in the morning to catch the fast ferry to St. Thomas; however, the customs computers in St. Thomas were not working, so they had to proceed to St. John.  Luckily, they didn’t have to take their bags and baggage off the ferry in St. John; however, they did still have to get to St. Thomas with enough time to check their bags and get on the plane.  That was another ordeal in and of itself.  Apparently, they had to go through immigration/customs twice!  Because they were on the ferry!  With the number of lines in their path at the airport, they had a very slim window for getting their bags checked in with the one hour window.  Jodi said they got their bags in within a minute (or a few minutes) of meeting the cutoff.  That would have given me pause for concern.  And I had my own concerns.  Their ensuing flights were fairly uneventful, and they wound up arriving a little early to Houston, about 20 minutes ahead of schedule.  This was good because there was a 17 minute gap between our two flights arrival times, and our flight out of Puerto Rico routinely arrived at least 20 minutes early, as it did today.

But getting to San Juan was an experience in and of itself!  We were in a little Cessna, just as we were over 4 years ago.  They weigh all of your baggage, and then ask for your weight so that they can plan placement in the plane.  Apparently a few folks underestimated the weight, as the pilot began eyeballing us and putting the “really big guys” up front (bummer, I enjoyed sitting next to the pilot before), and we were in the 3rd row.  The pilot gave us the briefing, and we were off.  It’s a short flight, and although we didn’t make it out in time, we had a sufficient buffer of about 1 1/2 hours.  And we needed just about every minute.  

But back to the flight.  Early in the flight the pilot made a major sharp turn that had the women on the plane grabbing at seats and husbands.  He explained that the tower had issued an immediate turn command because we were in the flight path of another plane, which was about 500 feet (I think) above us.  So despite the prediction of no real turbulence, we had a bit.  Then, as we were landing in Puerto Rico, the flight traffic controller made the pilot change runways, ordering him back up to 3000 feet to re-approach.  That takes a while in a Cessna!  So we landed, and had a little less than an hour before our scheduled flight left.  Thank goodness for the GOES program, immigration took very little time, and we waited for our bags.  Our pilot stuck with us, and then loaded our bags onto the re-check ahead of the others in front.  And then it was a dash to TSA.  We were waved into the pre-check line, but when we approached the check in point, it was closed off (no reason given, it was done as we were standing there), and we had to go through the regular line, so it was time to take out the baggie with liquids, the computer, and then take off shoes/belts/etc and walk through the scanner.

Wayne’s bag was scanned 3 times, opened, had several items pulled out before the TSA finally realized that they were looking at his empty camera housing.  Go figure!  And there were more than a few TSA agents just sitting around, to  include the management folks.  I finally found an airport as bad as BWI.

We touched down about 1/2 hour before Matt & Jodi, and then proceeded to wait.  And wait.  And wait. Matt and Jodi had their bags before we did, and Jodi’s mom picked them up.  They proceeded to wait in the passenger pick up line, but had to leave and do the loop around the airport.

Still no bags.

Turns out there was a luggage jam in the conveyor shaft leading to the belt, so our bags were not coming out.  They announced (after 45 minutes) that this was the problem and that they would be diverting our luggage to the next carousel.  But another flight was having its bags off loaded there, so we were to be behind, and there were still bags jammed in our conveyor passageway.

Finally, without warning, our bags started arriving on the original carousel. We got those, went out, let Jodi know we were ready, and we were picked up and on our way to the Zajac home in short order.

We finished up the adventure with margaritas (and a run and coke for Matt), and some interesting hijinks from Sylvester and the newest member of the house, Lola.  Snowflake was down for a second, and then dashed off!

All in all, a trip to remember.

Good night all!

Another fine three tank day

I thought it was going to be a second 4 tank day in a row, but mother nature and freezing cold hands won out, and I succumbed to wine with dinner!

Our first dive site today was Flintstones - we were blessedly on a tinder with very few people, so I thought there would be no issues with rolling off the side.  Ha!  I’m a classic at causing myself pain!!  I tried rolling off the boat away from Jodi, managed to then hit the side of the boat, and then totally tangle with Jodi.  What a klutz.  But no harm came to Jodi.  We really wanted to dive The Chimney, but a smaller boat has its own attractiveness.  The site is covered in boulders, and is thought to resemble Bedrock of the actual Flintstones fame.  We saw a few rays, but not a lot of big stuff.  Matt found another pufferfish (he is batting 100 on this trip) and engaged it in videography.  We also saw a few whitespotted filefish, in their orange phase, and the very beautiful (but not aggressive) Queen Triggerfish.  Spectacular colors.

The second dive of the day had us going in separate directions.  Matt and Jodi did an exploratory dive off of West Dog, and Wayne and I headed to Dolphin Rocks.  We were a little too slow to get our fins on the appropriate boat.  C’est la vie.

The dive at Dolphin Rocks was amazing - the bottom of the sea was virtually carpeted with soft coral.  There were some great swim thrus, and we wound up doing our own guided tour, as Marcus’ tank was only at 1100 psi.  

Wayne spent some time trying to photograph me at a swim thru, but I was photo bombed by an exuberant parrotfish.  We finally managed to get it done, and then I took Wayne’s picture.  Hijinks abounded galore.

Dive 3 was a plane wreck at Coral Gardens, off the back side of Great Dog. It was a fun dive, although not in my top 10 of all time.  When we emerged after an hour, I was a shivering mess.  Both Wayne and Matt asked if I was planning on doing the night dive, which I was when we started dinner.  About 3/4 of the way through dinner I put my very cold hands in my hubby’s armpits.  He proceeded to tell me he wouldn’t be offended if we didn’t do a fourth dive.  I think if it had been nitrox, or a better dive site, we might have considered going back a final time.  As it stood, I told Jodi I wasn’t sold on a fourth dive, and decided to cash in my option to stay on board and have a little wine.  Infinitely better choice, I think!  And somehow, I do not think that Marcus was upset in closing the dive platform early.  He was out to bed very shortly after dinner!!

We are down to one diving day left, with only two dives tomorrow morning.  There are a number of people who will be leaving on an early plane on Saturday (not us), so it looks as though the diving is scheduled to give everyone 18 hours of down time before flying. 

Sweet dreams to everyone out there tonight!

Sorry to have to say goodbye

This morning started with a 6:22 am dive of the Coral Gardens (Airplane).  Much, much warmer this time around.  Nothing quite like a little bit of sleep.

The dive deck actually opened at 6 am, so we caught Wayne a little off guard in updating his dive log and his photos.  The garden eels were out in force this morning, but I was unable to find any more pipefish.  We had spotted a Cosmocampus albirostris (aka the whitenose pipefish) the day before at the airplane (two of them actually), but they did not deign to join us this morning.  Instead we had many barracuda and baby jacks, along with much larger jacks hanging out at the mooring lines.

It was good to see the life swarming around us.  Jeff tagged along with us because he was hunting lion fish (they are an invasive species that is wiping out much of the indigenous fish population).  He speared the sucker, but it bounced off his head, and the lion fish disappeared unscathed.  Perhaps next time.

Matt continued his positive pufferfish streak - spiny porcupine fish seem to be his specialty!!!

Dive two, our final dive of the trip, was the Aquarium.  It is known for having a lot of life, and it didn’t disappoint.

We saw a juvenile gray angelfish, a turtle, a trio of spiny pufferfish, a number of barracuda (to include a six footer at the end of the dive), a pair of squid, and a lone spotted eel wedged in the coral head.  I really wanted to stretch out the dive, but we only made it 70 minutes (and the crew really wanted us out in sixty).  We did our safety stop on the hang line of the Cuan Law, and got quite the ride going back and forth in the current.  Overall, very enjoyable diving, a fantastic vessel, remarkable crew and good company this dive trip.

Following the dive, we went to Spring Bay Beach and enjoyed a barbecue hosted by our crew.  Brats, BBQ chicken, and all sorts of other goodies abounded, plus Red Strip beer, ginger ale, water, and Pepsis.  It was White Rock ginger ale, made in NY, so a throwback to my youth.  The water was beautiful, but the sand on the beach was VERY hot!!  And I think my torts professor would have been amused by the warning disclaimer below:

From there, we took a taxi to The Baths, the most photographed location in the BVI.  It was quite lovely, but I had dumped my shoes earlier on the trail, and Wayne did the gentlemanly thing, volunteering to rescue them.  It took a little bit, but I waited for him at the Poor Man’s Beach Bar, and got ready to order up some margaritas.  Jodi had a spill right at the outset of our excursion, but made it gamely through.  Jodi is not only a bringer of good luck (see the Palau trip blogs), but also of good spirit and cheer.  Always, always a pleasure to travel with her and Matt.

Dive recovery occurred during the afternoon and evening.  I don’t think our gear has ever been any drier on a trip home.

Dinner was festive, one of our fellow passengers donned the uniform (he was majorly crushing on Maddie) and served us dinner with the rest of the crew, and he and his brother helped to raise the Cuan Law’s sails for the last time of our trip.  Sigh.  We are headed back to Tortola, where we will berth for the night before taking off for Houston.

Sweet dreams!

On to Ginger Island

Another busy day on the Cuan Law.

Jodi tweaked her back last night, so she opted not to do one of our favorite dive sites that we had done the last time we were here, Disappearing Rock.  We went down wreck alley, which is a quadruple wreck site consisting of the Marie L, a cargo boat intentionally sunk in the early 1990s; the Pat, a tugboat sunk a few years later that now lies up against the Marie L (Wayne knew the site as the Marie/Pat);  the Beata (sunk in 2001) and the Island Seal/Joey D (sunk upside down in 2009 due to a poor sinking effort). There was also a large colony of garden eels slightly around the wrecks, and we had no shortage of rays (sting and spotted eagle varieties).

Dive two took us to Carval Rock, which is between Cooper and Ginger islands.  We descended to see a grey reef shark checking us out almost immediately - and s/he kept coming back to the dive site while we were submerged.  

We also saw a juvenile yellowtail damselfish, which was quite stunning.  As they get older, the yellow tail develops and they lose quite a bit of their sports.  Apparently I was lucky to get this picture, as the juveniles tend to hang out in fire coral, which can be less than pleasant.

One thing Wayne and I are noticing is that there appear to be fewer flamingo tongues than were here the last time we visited.  I was lucky enough today to find a fan coral on which there were five of them, but that has not been the norm.  I wonder if it is a direct effect of the coral bleaching.  The coral can go from vibrant to nonexistent across a site.  Lots of fish still live in the burned out coral, but the visual effect is quite grim, creating a stark landscape.

Four of us entered the water for an afternoon dive at Ginger’s Backside (aka Alice’s backside, Alice in Wonderland is a dive on the opposite shore of Ginger Island. A huge coral reef runs the length of the island starting at about 15 ft under the boat and falling away to the sandy bottom at about 60 ft. We went out at 60 feet of depth, and then came back at about 25 feet looking for a mooring buoy.  We overshot the mooring buoy and the boat, but were pleasantly surprised by a grey reef shark near the end of the dive.  The further east we went on the dive, the bleaching of the coral was really bad.  We had a good amount of current at 25 feet on our way back, but it wasn’t unmanageable.  When I hit 1000 psi, I signaled Wayne, he ascended and got a heading on the Cuan Law, and we returned.

Our fourth dive of the day was back at Ginger’s Backside.  We saw a big slipper lobster, a giant jack, ghost crabs galore, a small conger eel (nowhere near the size of Percy the killer moray of the Deep fame!), and a baby octopus.  All in all, a nice day of dives.  

Making our way back to the boat was easy - the bright lights of the trimaran created an underwater glow.  That was good because you cannot see the strobe under the boat until you are right on it!

Sweet dreams!!

Setting sail for the Rhone

We had our first early morning dive today, splashing into Squid Reef at 6:46 am.  Not quite sunrise, but close.  Unlike the name implies, there were no squid to be found on Squid Reef, not even for ready money!  The most beautiful fish that I saw on this dive was the Indigo Hamlet.  I could watch it for hours. There was a lot of life, but we were at the mercy of our decompression algorithms on the dive.  We are definitely planning on using Nitrox on the first dive on the Rhone today.  There were a lot of jellyfish on the way up, many babies, and one large one just hanging out by the skiff.

I had a rather ungainly fall when the skiff banged into the Cuan Law - I had been propping my tank up on the side of the skiff, and was more than a little off balance.

The first dive this afternoon (well, the only dive this afternoon) was on the RMS Rhone Wreck.  It is most famously known as the wreck on which The Deep was largely filmed.   We wound up doing a live entry direct descent to the bow, and had a leisurely tour of the ship.  The great barracuda was hanging out in the bowsprit as promised, and we swam by the ship signaling cannon, and through the open hatch from “The Deep.” The boiler was in pieces, and schools of snapper were plentiful.  After we went by the water reclamation area, used to create fresh water to cool the pipes, we went up to the stern where we saw the water pump, the disco flooring, the lucky porthole, and Captain Wooley’s silver teaspoon, which we touched for good luck.  

The RMS Rhone was a British packet ship owned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSP). She was wrecked off the coast of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands on 29 October 1867 in a hurricane, taking the lives of 123 people. 

On the day of the sinking, the Rhone's Master, Robert F. Wooley, was slightly worried by the dropping barometer and darkening clouds, but because it was October and hurricane season was thought to be over, Rhone and Conway stayed in Great Harbour. The storm which subsequently hit was later known as the San Narciso Hurricane and retrospectively categorised as a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale. The first half of the storm passed without much event or damage, but the ferocity of the storm worried the captains of the Conway and Rhone, as their anchors had dragged and they worried that when the storm came back after the eye of the storm had passed over, they would be driven onto the shore of Peter Island.

They decided to transfer the passengers from the Conway to the "unsinkable" Rhone; the Conway was then to head for Road Harbour and the Rhone would make for open sea. As was normal practice at the time, the passengers in the Rhone were tied into their beds to prevent them being injured in the stormy seas.  Just as Rhone was passing Black Rock Point, less than 250 yards (230 m) from safety, the second half of the hurricane came around from the south. The winds shifted to the opposite direction and Rhone was thrown directly into Black Rock Point. It is said that the initial lurch of the crash sent Captain Wooley overboard, never to be seen again. Local legend says that his teaspoon can still be seen lodged into the wreck itself. Whether or not it is his, a teaspoon is clearly visible entrenched in the wreck's coral. The ship broke in two, and cold seawater made contact with her hot boilers which had been running at full steam, causing them to explode.

The ship sank swiftly, the bow section in 80 feet (24 m) of water, the stern in 30 feet (9 m). Of the 146 people originally aboard, plus an unknown number of passengers transferred from the Conway, only 23 (all crew) survived the wreck. The bodies of many of the sailors were buried in a nearby cemetery on Salt Island. Due to her mast sticking out of the water, and her shallow depth, she was deemed a hazard by the Royal Navy in the 1950s and her stern section was blown up (thank you Wikipedia!).

We entertained ourselves between dives by watching The Deep.  Back in the 1970s, it was a scary movie, but by today’s standards quite tame.  We laughed quite a bit watching dives taking place while wearing long pants and a collared long sleeve shirt.  

Our night dive was on the stern of the Rhone.  We did another live entry direct descent, where we were exposed to a wicked, wicked current.  The dive time was limited to 45 minutes, which was a whole lot of work.  We were greeted by squid, 3 turtles and an octopus, and parrotfish dotted the sea floor.  We ascended the mooring line at the 45 minute mark, did our safety stop, and then ascended, pulling ourselves along the side of the boat on the surface.  We were pretty jammed in, 10 people, which made for an interesting exit and reentry. 

After this, I was VERY tired, but I did manage to log my dives today, and start doing some cursory editing of photographs.  So far our 3G SIM cards are working quite well for the iPad, not a bad investment.  We shall keep the cards, and see where else we can use them in the future.  We now have a set for Costa Rica, Okinawa and BVI.  We did have London SIM cards, but I think it is better to buy the unlimited cards from the airport when you arrive.

Good night all!