So no surprise, we moved. We were a little sad to leave Provo but that lasted about 30 minutes. We love our family and friends there. We will miss our old apartment (it was really difficult moving from a 2 bedroom, nice, large duplex to a studio apartment in a high rise with college students for neighbors) and our old eateries (Bruges and Sodalicious, I love you). For the most part though we had outgrown Provo and were ready to move.
Moving for us meant throwing out a TON of stuff (did I mention we live in a studio apartment now?) packing the remaining stuff in our cars and a Penske and driving 10+hours to Walnut Creek to stay with Dan's parents. Dan's parents flew out to help us drive the 3 vehicles which was so nice of them and then on top of that they let us stay with them while we were homeless for 3 months.
The drive was long and pretty gross through Nevada but once you hit California it's pretty gorgeous. A few David Sedaris books on tape and old CD's combined with lots of caffeine were the real MVP on that drive.
Once we got to our final destination we got to move all of our stuff that we didn't need access to for 3 months into a storage unit. Once we locked that baby up we were off on our homeless adventure. By the way when I say homeless I don't mean we lived on the streets. We traveled and stayed with family but we didn't have a place to call home for a long time.
Our first trip of the summer (post moving) was to Belize! Remember Dan's saintly parents who helped us move? Well, they also took us to Belize for a dive trip for Dan's graduation present. It was easily the best diving I have ever done, which means about nothing but Dan agrees and he's been diving half his life.
While most of our trip was diving we started off our trip with a mini tour of Belize. This included the Belize Zoo and a visit to Mayan ruins. At the zoo we were able to do a jaguar encounter where we sat inside a cage in the jaguar exhibit and the zoo keeper had the jaguar jump on the cage and play around us for about 10 minutes. We got to feed him (the jaguar) some meat and he licked the guys heads (something about potentially scalping people with long hair prevented us women-folk from getting our heads licked). The Mayan ruins were very cool and we were able to climb some and see the sacrificial tables. The sun, travel exhaustion, and man-eating bugs prevented us from doing too much else.
After our mini tour we took a boat to the atoll we were staying on and did 3 dives a day for 6 days. It was glorious. Our day consisted of waking up, going to eat a light breakfast, dive 1, break 1, dive 2, break 2 and lunch on the boat, and dive 3 and the boat ride back to the resort for a quick nap/relaxation and dinner. We saw so much amazing marine life. Sharks, eagle rays, eels, fishes, turtles, octopus, shrimps and crabs. It was truly incredible. We even got to spontaneously dive/swim with dolphins. It was an experience I will never forget.
As I mentioned earlier Dan has been diving for half his life so he's pretty skilled and relaxed under water. He's pretty much a fish. Because of his ability to dive without struggles our dive masters had Dan do some lion fish hunting on our last two days. Lion fish are native to the Pacific Ocean where they have natural predators. They have moved to the Caribbean but do not have predators yet so they devour the reef fish and destroy the natural eco system. By hunting the lion fish it eliminates the problem and the dead lion fish is usually eaten by a grouper, eel, barracuda, or shark therefore creating a natural predator to create a balanced eco system. Dan really got into it and it made diving really fun for everyone because it would turn into a game of find the lion fish. Sometimes it was really difficult and there weren't too many. Dan was getting between 3-5 each dive (shooting/killing at about a 75% rate) but on the first dive of the last day we went to a dive site that was INFESTED! Dan alone probably killed 15-20 in 45 minutes and he was shooting/killing at about a 90% rate. We were also able to keep some of the killed ones to make lion fish ceviche (didn't eat that). I really love diving. As someone who has always loved marine biology being able to interact directly with the ocean is really a dream come true. I look forward to diving and learning more in the future.
Anyway, hooray for pictures!
Moving for us meant throwing out a TON of stuff (did I mention we live in a studio apartment now?) packing the remaining stuff in our cars and a Penske and driving 10+hours to Walnut Creek to stay with Dan's parents. Dan's parents flew out to help us drive the 3 vehicles which was so nice of them and then on top of that they let us stay with them while we were homeless for 3 months.
The drive was long and pretty gross through Nevada but once you hit California it's pretty gorgeous. A few David Sedaris books on tape and old CD's combined with lots of caffeine were the real MVP on that drive.
Once we got to our final destination we got to move all of our stuff that we didn't need access to for 3 months into a storage unit. Once we locked that baby up we were off on our homeless adventure. By the way when I say homeless I don't mean we lived on the streets. We traveled and stayed with family but we didn't have a place to call home for a long time.
Our first trip of the summer (post moving) was to Belize! Remember Dan's saintly parents who helped us move? Well, they also took us to Belize for a dive trip for Dan's graduation present. It was easily the best diving I have ever done, which means about nothing but Dan agrees and he's been diving half his life.
While most of our trip was diving we started off our trip with a mini tour of Belize. This included the Belize Zoo and a visit to Mayan ruins. At the zoo we were able to do a jaguar encounter where we sat inside a cage in the jaguar exhibit and the zoo keeper had the jaguar jump on the cage and play around us for about 10 minutes. We got to feed him (the jaguar) some meat and he licked the guys heads (something about potentially scalping people with long hair prevented us women-folk from getting our heads licked). The Mayan ruins were very cool and we were able to climb some and see the sacrificial tables. The sun, travel exhaustion, and man-eating bugs prevented us from doing too much else.
After our mini tour we took a boat to the atoll we were staying on and did 3 dives a day for 6 days. It was glorious. Our day consisted of waking up, going to eat a light breakfast, dive 1, break 1, dive 2, break 2 and lunch on the boat, and dive 3 and the boat ride back to the resort for a quick nap/relaxation and dinner. We saw so much amazing marine life. Sharks, eagle rays, eels, fishes, turtles, octopus, shrimps and crabs. It was truly incredible. We even got to spontaneously dive/swim with dolphins. It was an experience I will never forget.
As I mentioned earlier Dan has been diving for half his life so he's pretty skilled and relaxed under water. He's pretty much a fish. Because of his ability to dive without struggles our dive masters had Dan do some lion fish hunting on our last two days. Lion fish are native to the Pacific Ocean where they have natural predators. They have moved to the Caribbean but do not have predators yet so they devour the reef fish and destroy the natural eco system. By hunting the lion fish it eliminates the problem and the dead lion fish is usually eaten by a grouper, eel, barracuda, or shark therefore creating a natural predator to create a balanced eco system. Dan really got into it and it made diving really fun for everyone because it would turn into a game of find the lion fish. Sometimes it was really difficult and there weren't too many. Dan was getting between 3-5 each dive (shooting/killing at about a 75% rate) but on the first dive of the last day we went to a dive site that was INFESTED! Dan alone probably killed 15-20 in 45 minutes and he was shooting/killing at about a 90% rate. We were also able to keep some of the killed ones to make lion fish ceviche (didn't eat that). I really love diving. As someone who has always loved marine biology being able to interact directly with the ocean is really a dream come true. I look forward to diving and learning more in the future.
Anyway, hooray for pictures!
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| My view for 10+hours minus the trees for most of it. |
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| Storage units are the best and worst all at the same time |
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| First stop in Belize |
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| Inside the cage looking out |
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| While the zoo keeper was distracting him we got to pet the paws and tail. Terrifying and amazing at the same time. |
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| Head licking |
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| Outside of the cage looking in |
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| Mayan Ruins! |
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| The resort |
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| Dive boat |
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| After a long day of diving, sitting on the bow of the boat while driving back was a dream. Especially when we saw Dolphins (3 times!) |
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| Mangroves - always looked for manatees but never found any |
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| Preparing the lion fish for eating. Also our dive master Jay |
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| Don't touch the spikes! |
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| Happy divers that just swam with dolphins and Dan's beard. |
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