Jillapalooza

IM IN UR OCEAN. EATIN UR CARDZ.

Belize – Sunday 12/2

I was exhausted Sunday, though I’m not really sure why. We did two morning dives. The weather was looking a bit ominous, and it rained while we were eating lunch at Caprice.

Lunch took forever. Fortunately it didn’t rain on us on the walk back to the condo. We even stopped for frozen custard at DandE’s. This kitty was guarding the door. It didn’t particularly look like it enjoyed the attention from Curtis, but it wasn’t about to budge from it’s spot on the front mat.

We didn’t get back until 4PM. It was a long day. I tried to compute a bit, but I was tired, and when everyone else went off to nap I crashed on the couch. None of us were too motivated to go out to dinner, so we ordered pizza from Pepperoni’s and got dessert sent to us from Red Ginger. I didn’t even get pictures, that’s how out of it I was.

View all of today’s photos below.

Read More →

Gel Polish

I decided to give gel polish a try for vacation. I don’t typically paint my nails when traveling because I hate chipped polish and I can’t be bothered with bringing the required supplies to redo them. Pangie was kind enough to make a house call last Monday to apply the gel. It’s supposed to last two weeks. So far it’s been one and it looks good except for a small chip on my thumb. I wouldn’t have even noticed if I weren’t inspecting so closely.

I probably should have taken a picture on Monday when they were freshly painted, but to be honest I didn’t think about it until today, and they basically look exactly the same anyway, so no harm done.

Belize – Saturday 12/1

We got up bright and early for our first day of diving. BRK made us breakfast and we were at the pier by 9AM.

There’s was a lot of fun things to see at the dive shop while on our surface interval. Martin was fishing for mullets with a net from shore, a stingray was swimming about, and there were sand crabs everywhere!

After two awesome dives, we freshened up and headed to lunch. We wandered down the beach until we came to Estel’s. It looked good, and because we hadn’t eaten there before, we decided to give it a try. Curtis, BRK, and I all had fish tacos. Nick had a ridiculously large double cheeseburger. We also shared conch ceviche.

The weather was perfect, so when we got back to the condo I went down to the pool. There seemed to be a lot of people there, and they were all talking. I find the whole groups-of-strangers-socializing generally annoying because it’s a constant chain of story telling. I ended up going back to the room and chilling on the balcony, which is extremely large and has comfy lounge chairs, so win/win.

For dinner the four of us went to Blue Water Grill, which is actually affiliated with The Phoenix so we got 10% off. Woo! We had ceviche and summer rolls for appetizers. I had the “angel hair pasta with sauteed shrimp, snapper, and lobster in a tomato, garlic, and sweet basil white wine sauce.” For dessert, Nick and I split the chocolate cake. I tried to get a picture, but Nick attacked it with his spoon before I got a chance. I think he does it on purpose because he hates when I take pictures of food.

View all of today’s photos below.

Read More →

Tackle Box, Dive 68

Dive: 68
Belize Dive: 2
Date: 12/1/12
Site: Tackle Box
Avg/Max Depth: 50/87
Temp: 81
TBT/CBT: 0:48/55:59
Buddies: Nick, Curtis, Kristen

The second dive of the day started off with a bang. Rudy speared a lionfish right off the bat, which attracted a pile of nurse sharks. They went into a feeding frenzy, swimming frantically and bumping into us. They were moving so fast I couldn’t get a good shot, so I started up a video. If you hear me giggling, it’s because one rammed right into my butt.

Here’s Curtis’s video of the sharks eating. You can see me getting assaulted around 0:20.

The sharks were with us for the remainder of the dive, and I took about one hundred millionty pictures of them. Was there anything else of interest to look at? Who cares! Give me a nurse shark and I’ll be a happy diver.

Oh, wait. There was this spiney thing that I got close enough to to use the flash, so you can see the colors really well. Makes me want to invest in a super big light so my pictures turn out awesome.

I spent too much time hanging out deep with the sharks, so I had to hang above the group for a while near the end of the dive. Also, no lionfish for Nick.

View all of my photos from Tackle Box below.

Read More →

Boca del Rio, Dive 67

Dive: 67
Belize Dive: 1
Date: 12/1/12
Site: Boca del Rio
Avg/Max Depth: 62/94
Temp: 81
TBT/CBT: 0:45/55:11
Buddies: Nick, Curtis, Kristen

The first dive of the trip went off without a hitch. We saw some sharks, a sea turtle, and a couple of Lizardfish, which are apparently pretty rare. I’m pretty sure they are all over the place, just well camouflaged. They remind me of those autostereograms that were popular in the ’90s, because Rudy kept trying to point them out to me, and just when I was about to give up, BOOM! There they were.



Oh yeah, we’re diving with Rudy again. It was nice because he and Martin picked us up at our dock and brought us right to the site. No unnecessary time spent filling out paper work or sitting through dive briefings. There were no other divers today, so that was nice as well. No other divers = no dumbheadedness.

I always forget how much I despise safety stops until I’m stuck doing one. Three minutes has never felt as long as when I’m suspended in 15 feet of water. I’m always fine while diving, but for some reason I struggle with my buoyancy and keeping my head above my feet while doing the stops.

Here’s Nick looking all serene. Or maybe he’s just sad because we didn’t see any lionfish.

View all of my photos from Poca del Rio below.

Read More →

Home     About     Contact     Disclaimer