St. Thomas - 1st dive day (logged dives 21 and 22)

OK. I am still waiting to get copies of photos from the manfriend.

But in the meantime, I need to get moving on this whole blogging thing before it gets too far out of my recent memory.

We flew from LAX to Boston on the red eye then on to St. Thomas, getting there mid-afternoon on Nov. 10.

The first night was spent at the Marriot at Frenchman's Reef, which is a huge hotel/resort/timeshare complex.

The view of Charlotte Amalie from the room at the Marriot.

The view overlooking the main pool as a
Royal Caribbean ship heads of of Charlotte Amalie.

Sunset from the Marriott.

We were pretty exhausted, and after some free rum punch we were also tipsy. With pretty much no sleep on the plane, I fell asleep by about 8 p.m. that night.

The next day we got up and went into town to have breakfast at place called the Delly Deck. MF had yummy blueberry pancakes.

After that we headed to Coki Beach to meet with Peter of the Coki Beach Dive Club for the first of our four days of diving.

MF took photos on the first dive. Once I get those I will post the good ones. For now, here are just a few and the details of the first two dives:

Calf Rock, off of St. Thomas, USVI

Nov. 10, 2008

Logged dive: No. 21

Max depth: 40 feet

Bottomtime: 50 minutes

Apparently, according to Peter, visibility had not been great in the few days before we got there.

It was only about 40 feet.

Um. Yeah.

Seemed pretty good to me.

Though the boat can take out six divers, MF and I were the only ones that afternoon. We had Peter along with Derek, a new divemaster learning the dive sites.

We saw lots of sponges and reef fish and coral.

I was worried about the new housing leaking, so I took it down on the first dive without the camera in it to make sure it was really water tight.

Anyway, while we were on this dive we saw a nurse shark sleeping under a dark ledge.

There also was a hawksbill turtle. MF may have got a picture of it, but it was not inclined to stick around and pose.

It was a nice, easy first dive with a lot to see.

We then had short boat ride to the next spot.

Stragglers, off of St. Thomas, USVI

Nov. 10, 2008

Logged dive: No. 22

Max depth: 30 feet

Bottomtime: 60 minutes

So after the first dive it looked like the camera housing was going to be OK, so I took a few pictures on the second dive of the day.

I love the textures and patterns of the various corals and sponges and various strange living things underwater.

This looked like a reverse starfish. Not quite sure what it was. But it was interesting.

Our dives were in the afternoon, which meant by the time we were done, we could check into Bluebeard's Beach Club, where we would be spending five nights.

This is the same place I stayed in July, so I did not take too many new pictures of this place.

Click on this link of you want to see pictures of the place from July.

The room this time was a studio type on one level. There was one large room with a sofa/dining table area and a bedroom area. We had a kitchen with mini fridge, stovetop and microwave. We didn't cook anything, but made use of the toaster for bagels and the fridge for our supply of beers, milk and juice.

The sun was starting to set just after we checked in, so we took a quick dip.

MF does the sunset float.

What a beautiful sunset. I took this one from in the water.

After our swim, we got ready and went to dinner and rum punch at Iggies at Bolongo Beach Club.

So, that was pretty much the first full day in St. Thomas: diving, eating and rum punch.
It was a good start to a great week.

I will have much more to post on this, but this is it for now. I still need to get through more photos and even some underwater video. Woo hoo!