More Scuba Trip Photos

Here's a few more photos of the trip.
Here's Judson and Michelle before the trip. They had no idea really what was in store.

Here they are gearing up. It was quite a process to get everything on.

20 minutes later he's finally ready to go. :)

Below is Alan. He had been geared up and was waiting for them in the water.

They're off and ready to go!

A few of the coves we dove in.

We did get some good time to just lay back and chill. :)

Captain George even did a bit of fishing while we were there. He did a bit with a pole and most of it with a spear gun. We did get fish tacos on this trip! Yay!

Oh.. so we did swim in Great White Shark infested waters near Santa Barbara Island. I mean they are already shark infested waters, but when you say "Great White" that makes a difference. The advice they give is, just make sure you swim faster than you're buddy. ;)

Catalina Dive Trip - The Adventure

So we made it back!
I wasn't so sure at times. We had a bit of a rough time leaving to drive down there. Poor Alan had one of the worst nights at work ever and pulled an all-nighter to drive down to Bountiful. We took 2 separate cars and drove the 10-11 hours to San Pedro just outside of L.A. The other car ended up going a bit too fast and got a $150 ticket. We then had to go pick up one of the members of our gang at a hotel in L.A. We then got separated and lost on our way to the port. All in all I was so glad to finally make it to the port and get our stuff on the boat.

We got to the island Thursday morning and got everybody in the water. That first dive is always a bit nerve wracking. We had a lot of new ocean divers in the water and their skills ranged from competent to scary. We had one diver lose his snorkel before getting in the water. It started to sink and he decided the best way to retrieve it was to jump in after it. (Even though there were 3 other divers in the water that saw it and were getting ready to go after it.) He didn't really think about putting on his mask and making sure his other gear was in order. Well when he oh so ungracefully jumped into the water, he also lost his mask. If he wasn't going to die on his first dive, I was about sure I was going to drown him.

After everybody made it back alive after the first dive, things got a bit better. We still had a few scary divers, but they seemed to survive just fine and I stopped caring.

One of the highlights of the trip was being able to see my youngest brother, Jason. He's 17 and has been working at a scout camp on Catalina Island for the past 6 or 7 weeks. He was hoping our boat would get close enough to the camp that he could come out and see us. On Thursday, we were one cove to the north. We gave him a call and his camp director drove him out on a motor boat. We got to visit with him for about an hour. It was so cool to see him. He's grown up a lot!

This is him showing us his tan line. That white strip is where his watch has been. He also told us that he's gained 25 pound of muscle. He's been working out everyday to get ready for water polo this next year. He's already having to beat the girls off.

There was over half of his family on the boat. There was me, Judson and Michelle, and Alan on the boat. I think it meant a lot to him to see us. He's been a bit homesick. He's almost done though, only 3 more weeks to go.

We got to go out to another island besides Catalina Island. We went to Santa Barbara Island where they have lots and lots of sea lions. It was one of the coolest things to dive with these animals. They were very friendly and playful. They would come up real close to see what we were doing and then flip and swim away as if they wanted us to play.

Lots of lobster were to be found in every crack and hole. Too bad lobster season doesn't start till October.

There was a cave we were able to dive through. It was cool, but a bit eerie too.

As always, we saw a quite a few bat rays. They were pretty big. Probably 3 foot wingspan.

Below is a 19 tip star fish. I haven't every seen one like it

If you look closely you can see the angel shark hiding in the sand. This is one of the many reasons I don't ever stand on the bottom of the sea floor. Not only are there sharks hiding in the sand, but stingrays and halibut.

It was a good trip. I loved having my family there, but I am glad it's over though. It's nice to be back and to sleep in my own bed. It's also nice to not have to worry about divers being stupid. I think if I go again I will go as a regular customer and not as a dive leader assistant. That way I don't have to care who's being stupid.

Catalina Dive Trip

Tomorrow I leave for California to once again do my yearly scuba trip to Catalina Island. This will be my 4th time on this trip. This time around though, I've got family coming on the trip.

We will be on the boat for 3 days and basically just eating, sleeping,
and most importantly, diving. Weather should be nice and hot, which is good because the water will be cold. We don't wear thick wetsuit just for looks. ;)

Weekend Fun

A group of us got together and went to lunch and a movie. We were celebrating Emily and Stephanie's birthdays. We went to the Gateway mall and went to Rumbi's Grill and
then saw Toy Story 3. Fun was had by all!

It was fun to hang out with the girls! I've decided I work with too many guys and it's so nice to have some girl time every so often. :)

Flu

So Rowe has been sick for the last week. He's had some horrible flu. Poor little guy. Well I've been over at their house quite a bit this week and well I got what he got. Though mine was a toned down version, it still wasn't fun.

Gosh...why does he have to be so darn cute, you can't help but pick him up and hold him every time you see him.

Bow Hunter Safety

So...I may or may not have mentioned that I took a Bow Hunting Safety Class a few weeks ago. Random, yes. Let me explain.... A guy at work wanted to take the class with his son, but they had to have at least 10 people to hold the class, so he was recruiting. I figured I could take one for the team and attend. It was only for a few days and it was only $6. I'm always up for random so I signed up. Yes, I know I don't hunt and I don't have a bow. So what? They said they would find a bow for me to use. Plus...what I really wanted to do was learn to track animals so I could sneak up real close and take pictures of them. That would be my kind of shooting.

Anyway...long story short. It was an interesting class and more fun than I had expected. The last day of class, we got to go out on the range and practice shooting targets, play a game where we saw how good we were at judging distances, and track a blood trail. More importantly we got to shoot at a plastic deer. You have to shoot it in just the right spot so that it will bleed out and die. If you hit it anywhere else you just wound it and it's game over. This sweet spot is just behind the front legs. That's where all the vital organs are.

Attached is a picture of my shot where I nailed the arrow in the sweet spot. I impressed both of the teachers and all of the guys in my class. One of the instructors was like "You can't do better than that, you nailed it!" The guys were a bit shocked that they had just been out shot by a girl, who has not shot a bow since I was 18 and that was like scout camp. :) So I'm just saying...I totally rocked.

Southern Food

I just wanted to mention some of the yummy food we had while on our trip. This will just give you a taste of all the wonderful, southern food we had. This is more of the store bought stuff, because I was too busy eating the homemade stuff to take pictures.

This is what I like to refer to as "Happy Juice." Sundrop and Cheerwine are soft drinks that you can't find out West and oh how I miss them.

We both love breakfast food, so when we found an IHOP, we were pretty excited. Especially since on several occasions the places we were staying at didn't seem to have restaurant near by and we had kind of hard time finding food.

Another southern favorite would be "hot dogs all the way." Basically it's your basic hot dog, chopped onions, chili, and coleslaw on top. Sounds a bit strange, but oh is it tasty! Here's some chili sauce that is meant for that very thing.

We stopped and ate at a cafeteria type place and was able to get a smalls sampling of all things southern. We've got hush puppies, coleslaw, collard greens, candied yams, peach pie, and green beans soaked in butter. For whatever reason they didn't have any banana pudding so we had to go find that elsewhere.

I wish we could have stayed in town a bit longer when we saw this. They just don't have proper Pig Pickin's out west.

This doesn't really have anything to do with food, but it is a common site.

This was an awesome trip and one that I'm so glad that I made. I definitely don't want to wait another 6 years before going back. Thanks everybody!

Asheville

From South Carolina we headed back up to North Carolina to see Asheville.
The mountains were beautiful!

We actually didn't make it to downtown Asheville, but we visited the Biltmore mansion and all that there was to see on the huge property. The first day we checked out their Antler village. There's a winery tour you can take, different gardens, stables, and little shops and restaurants.

They had all sorts of stuff in their gift shop. Here I am my second time at the wassail tasting table. Oh my it was good stuff!

The winery tour was quite interesting. It takes place in the old dairy. They show you how wine is made and how wine is made to have different smells and tastes. Quite fascinating. At the end of the tour everybody has the chance to taste any type of wine that is made on the property. We of course opted for the non-alcoholic grape juice. It was probably the best grape juice I've ever had.

The next day we took a drive up the Blueridge Parkway. It was beautiful and I couldn't help but think of the movie, "The Man From Snowy River." These I believe are the Smoky Mountains.

After the Blueridge Parkway, we went to see the Biltmore Mansion. It took us a good 3 or 4 hours to do the house tour. It was massive. It cost a pretty penny to do the tour, but it was well worth it. The history was fascinating. Plus we got a package deal with our hotel, so it worked out ok.