Dear All,
Wow what a fun few days I have had. My ankle is still sprained but better. I just returned from my 6th of 6 dives in 4 days (one day off for my ankle). St. George is a commercial cargo ship that was decommissioned and sank off the coast of Dominicus near Bayahibe. We spent about 28 minutes at a maximum depth of 120 feet. pretty deep so you cannot spend quite as much time at the bottom. We swam around the wreck and also swam through the catwalks, down inside the cargo hold, inside the ship rooms, and up a narrow staircase into a school of yellow striped wrasses (fish about 6 inches long). Great great dive. Ive never really maneuvered myself through a wreck so that in itself was a real thrill. I have manauvered myself through some caves while diving off the Similan Islands in Thailand also very cool but just never have done a wreck dive. We did see 3 HUGE spotted moray eels peeking out at us through some coral and several rays and skates and oodles of fish and a strange worm about 8 inches long like a centipede milipede cross. That was fun on the second dive.
Im so proud of myself and my diving skills. My dive buddy was William from Tulsa OK, a wealthy philanthropist whose family runs NGOs in West Africa to help the poor and he helps manage the projects. He also has projects here in DR as well. He ran out of air so Melki our Dive Master had a spare tank just in case at our second of 2 5 minute safety stops. My first buddy was Stephan a nice young father who was on holiday with his wife Sophie and 3 year old daughter Leah from Montreal Quebec. Fortunately the two guys from Czech Republic did not come with us. Thank goodness.
For lunch today I had camerones (shrimp) cooked in a lovely onion, tomato sauce served whole. Here in the DR you chew the top body part minus the legs and spiney front piece and suck the juices out and then spit out the remainder of the hard pieces on your plate. YUM. Last night I met 2 middle aged Italians (lots of Italians here) and joined them for dinner with chef Fidel. We had WHOLE fish on our plates perfectly grilled. (minus the eyes). Just delicious with tostadas, flattened and grilled plaintain, rice, salad, lots and lots of lime.........beer and mamawana which is an apertif or a brandy, rum etc soaked in barks and mixed with honey. I think I already spoke about this, all for $9.00. Not a bad price and..the gentlemen offered to treat me but I decided to treat myself.
The best treat of the night is that they couldnt believe I was 40 years old. They thought I was 25! I know I know you are laughing because they were flattering me and guess what, I could tell by the look on one of their faces that both of them were totally sincere in his shock. Nice touch eh. Europeans get one month holiday. Guess what they do for work? Drive a train and sell train tickets....humans need time to play, visit with friends, explore and BE. US doesnt allow such pleasures. We all work to pay debt and then hope to retire to play only to be too old too poor and too tired to do anything so...play NOW fit it in. Do what you have always wanted to do. Life doesnt get less expensive and we never get more time! So just do it! Europeans have figured it out so why havent we? Well I have but....Im different. :)
Mom comes tomorrow so I am off to meet Jan and Filipe in Santa Domingo to fetch her. Yay!
Not sure of our plan for the next few weeks but will let you know when I can and have access to email.
Besos, xx, G
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