Day 2 in St.Croix: Diving at Sweet Bottom, and moar Christiansted

Date: 09.03.2014

Today was something I was waiting for some days - I had the chance to go diving again! I have to admit, I'm addicted and little bit annoyed I didn't find this hobby when I was younger and did a lot of free diving. Well, now it's time to take back all those lost hours under water :).

Great star coral

Timo didn't feel well, so I booked two shore dives for me and stnz from Sweet bottom Diving, which was located in a expensive looking resort. For me it seemed that most of the tourists were located in these resorts, where they had everything they needed and because of that, they didn't have any reason to go outside and see the towns or interact with the locals. Or bring their money to local businesses - which is really sad.

I got reaaally close to this guy and had my time to take pictures of it because I was first to notice him

My peacock flounder on the move

The diving company had some really sweet place in the resort, good places to storage their equipment, good washing places and also places for dry their and other people's stuff. And of course they were located just next to the wall, so there was lots and lots of beautiful diving places for many days..

Flamingo tongue

Ocean Surgeonfish and French Grunt

We did 2 shore dives with one other guy who worked with the military. I was sooo envious when he told us that he dived at the Bikini Atoll inside of a sunken aircraft carrier some years back.

There was lots of more different species of fishes than  I saw in Vieques, but in Vieques the fishes were much bigger. I would've loved to dive here couple more dives without 'supervision', so I would've had all the time I wanted to explore very nook and cranny.

Sand diver not giving a single F... about me hovering around him

Mmmm... brainns... coral.

Ocean Surgeonfishes

On our second dive we saw a small shark far away, or I should say deeper. Because of that, I couldn't go there to see the guy. I really need some training with nitrox before I get back to St. Croix, so I could see more of The Wall. And I also need a bigger camera - or just the red filter / good light for my current one. I'm still pretty pleased what my 300EUR little camera can do without extra lightning nor filters :).

stnz diving above me

Small shark and me

The image I got of the shark, probably a small Caribbean reef shark

On our last dive we heard that it started to rain on top, so we dived a lot longer along the shore in 1,8-1,5m depth. When we got on top, it flooded. It was pretty funny that you felt more wet above the water than when you were diving. Putting on your dry clothes wasn't really a good idea because there was more water coming down in bigger pressure than any of the showers we used during our trip..

Banded butterflyfish

These guys weren't scared at all, they just hanged around and didn't seem to mind at all.  White spotted filefishes.

It's raining (and yet again, not men)

Ewww it's wet up here, I want to go back down where it's nice and warm...

After the dives stnz was supposed to go and fly with Diamond DA20, but because Joe Biden was just leaving the island (evidently he had a cabin there) he couldn't go yet. We went back to our apartment and I did fell a sleep pretty quickly on my bed.

When I woke up, stnz was gone (called to do the familiarization flight after Biden and his entourage was gone) and halen was watching Netflix in the living room. I asked if he wanted to go outside and photograph some stuff, and in 10 minutes we were out.

There was a little carnival next to our apartment where the kids were playing in a bouncy castle and music was playing. We took some photographs of the nearby ruins, and went to see the same place where we were at a bar yesterday and noticed some really cool liana around the buildings.

The sunset was pretty cool, and the town was somewhat quiet. We were hungry and stnz was still nowhere to be found, so we decided to head back to Angry Nate's and eat some food. When we got our food - stnz decided to show up and ate his dinner with us.

After that we left to drive around the countryside, and of course I didn't have my 15mm with me - so the good weather for taking night pictures was lost yet again :).

Lianas wrapping around few buildings

Day 3: Beach and stars

Date: 03.03.2014

Today we had an off day from diving. When we got our asses off from the bed - it took some time, because I was resting my leg outside, drinking coffee and watching the geckos to do their things and the guys joined me. After that we headed to Esperanza to see the "tourist town" which is basically few beach side bars, small souvenir stores, and a large beach. There is a pier one one side, and it's filled with fish, so it's a great place to snorkel. The guys snorkeld for a while, and I staid at the beach underneath the coconut trees trying to get some sun on my white as... well, everywhere.

Unfortunately they did got bored pretty soon and Eerik wanted to rent scooters. He only got one and after a quick math, I offered to take the taxi back to our apartment and hang there for a while with my scraped knee.

The guys went to see some bunkers with the scooter. The marked road was really an overgrown dirt road, and they came back to the apartment complaining how they didn't feel their balls anymore (yeah, thanks for the info, and I loved to share that info also with you  ;) ), I'm pretty sure the suspension was dying underneath them, poor suspension.

After lying around for a while, we wanted to go to the biolumincent bay to see the glow. Getting a taxi back there wasn't possible, the dispatcher was force feeding me the bio tours and saying that the taxi cannot go nearer than in Esperanza, but fortunately they really could take us to the parking lot where the tour groups met. From there, we started walking (me and Timo) and Eerik played with his scooter.

Unfortunately the bay was pretty silent, except the lights and people around in their kayaks. We decided to head back and take some night pictures of the sky from the Sun Bay, before heading back to Esperanza to visit Carlito to get my Diving log book and temporary diving license.

Taxi service stnz as your service

We sat down at Lazy Jack's and I had a short chat with Carlito what to do next with my longer plan as a diver, before getting a taxi back to Santa Maria and heading back to bed.

Debriefing at Lazy Jack's (by stnz)

I found a 10cm moth, I placed it somewhere dark and safe after admiring it for a while

Day 3 in NOLA: cherry blossoms, graffiti and a bad bday

Date: 24.2.2014

I'm bummed our trip to NOLA was so short, 2 days wasn't nearly enough in the city, especially during Mardi Gras -season. Also I would've wanted to CELEBRATE my 30th birthday, which was the point why I wanted to travel this time of the year - instead of it I sat in planes and nothing else happened. One of my travelling companions got the energy to wish me happy birthday on my Facebook wall and that was it... Fuckin' un-awesome.

Without the sweet girls & guy in the morning, the whole day would have sucked major ass, at least, I can always remember those sweet people who celebrated with me for that brief moment :). Not to mention those almost 140 persons on Facebook and other medias who wished me HBD, it really warmed my heart <3. Thanks guys, it meant truly a lot to me!

After packing our stuff, we headed to the cafe we visited yesterday. I ordered some pancakes and explained that it was my birthday. The cashier immediately told me that my coffee was free. She also explained be about a southern custom to put a safety pin on your shirt with a dollar as a sign that it's your birthday and people would add some dollars to it.

The pancakes tasted awesome, completely different than the ones I've eaten on a earlier trip in some fancy restaurant (I didn't like them at all). While sitting at the table, the cashier came with a safety pin and put my first dollar on it, another waiter came and added one more, and another soon after. I also got some free hugs, which felt nice.

Outside we noticed more cherry trees blossoming and went to photograph them, I'm a bit bummed I didn't get my DSLR out of the car and had to photograph with the Lumix, but you don't always win. I've decided these blossoming cherry trees were my birthday gift.

After photographing the flowers we went to find a geocache next to the cafe, and stumbled upon -once again- some beautiful graffiti.

Selfish selfie next to a beautiful graffiti of a photographer

After this we headed to one of the old cemeteries in French Quarter, more on that next post..

Everyone is hiring, even NOPD is hiring :)