thank you for being a friend

Chillin at the Blue Marlin

Lets start with last nite?  The last nite was new years eve!  It was a big night for a few reasons… 1. Last day of the year, 2. Last day of the decade, 3. Full Moon, 4. Blue Moon (when you have two full moons in a month… “it only happens once in a blue moon”), 5. Lunar eclipse (which I’m not sure we actually saw one, I think we only saw a moon dog which Kala told me about which is like a sun dog which is when the sun has a halo around it, therefore a moon dog is when the moon has a halo around it as well- not to be confused with my parents dog moon).  Statistically, a blue moon occurs every 2 and ½ years, a blue moon lunar eclipse occurs every 15 to 20 years and a New Years Eve occurs every 19 years and most importantly # 6. New Years was the last day of my malaria medication which meant that I could finally drink, my liver only felt a little bad this morning, but as Ed told me today when he gave me a beer at Sundowners you have to work up your tolerance again.  And of course, most importantly New Years was awesome because my bomb ass friends Amelia and Marissa came down for a visit.  

luna, lunita, lunera

So last nite, New Years Eve, we had an amazing dinner at the Dive.  I had blackened snapper with rice and vegetables and horseradish with bonito for an appetizer… it was a treat for the last night of the year.  Olaf was excited to have a big group for dinner at his place and the food was delish!  All of us, Marissa, Amelia, Kala, Chase, Massimo, Noelle, and Gabriel (plus Athena and two frenchies- the French guys… more about them later) went over to the Blue Marlin.  It was good to not be tired and to have alcohol again, no more ordering only soda J  We all danced and drank the night away, we jumped between the Marlin, the Dive where the local West End Players were playing all nite and to the dance spot Nova.  Two of my friends might have had a great time with the frenchies, I'm not gonna name names, but I think there might have been some frenchy behavior.  There was no count down at the Blue Marlin, just fireworks going off and then fire dancers on the dock and then Olliebollen (a dutch benigee or donut with raisins… yummy perfect drinking partner).  Happy 2010!

Kala, me, Marissa and Amelia on New Years

New Years Eve day was pretty awesome too!  Marissa was supposed to get her Open Water Certification while she was here, but got a horrible ear infection which burst her eardrum, but I’m glad she was able to fly.  Amelia, Kala, Chase, Massimo, Athena and I went on the first dive of the day.  We went to the Aguila ship wreck.  It was Amelia’s first wreck dive and my first time to the Aguila since I’ve been here.  The Aguila, Spanish for the eagle, lies about 30 m or 110 ft below, it was a cargo ship that ran aground in 1997 in Utila, one of the other islands in the Bay Islands.  After Hurricane Mitch who broke the boat into 3 parts in 1998, the Aguila was moved to Roatan for additional dive sites.  The site is usually very populated with divers, but we had a great group and we saw eels, tons of groupers (a local dive resort Anthony’s Keys feeds them), 4 flamingo tongues and Chase swears he saw a frog fish and I saw a barracuda.  It was great diving with friends only and the dive was awesome. 

The second dive was for our students Athena and DJ at Moonlight.  Athena is just getting her advanced certification and we all think she’ll be back soon to get her rescue and to be a DMT.  She came for only Christmas and now has extended her stay three times, we are super stoked that she choose us instead of another dive shop.  There was a bet between Kala and Chase with Rino to see who she would get her certification with and not only did we win, but she's a cool girl as well.  As DJ would call her she's a NFF- new friend forever.  DJ is our newest student who is the most studious Open Water student any of us have seen and will be a DMT soon enough!  He already makes me look bad. J  Mo was teaching DJ and I was assisting and Kala, Massimo and Chase were helping with Athena with her Peak Performance Buoyancy which is pretty much having fun underwater.  There was picture taking and lots of shenanigans.  All in good fun.  I’ll try and steal some of Kala’s pictures to put them up.  The best part of the second dive… Dolphins!  Big beautiful and awesome.  The last dive of the day was the last dive for Massimo and Gabriel.  They leave on the second for Switzerland and will be missed.  Again more pictures were taken and we drifted along.

Christmas Jaeger Shots

Lets back up now to Christmas, I’m jumping around but you can keep up can’t you?  Christmas eve we had a dinner at our place.  Massimo, Gabriel, Robert, Kala and Lindey came (remember that I live with Chase and Noelle so they were already here).  I was still getting over my fing malaria so the rest of them drank the night away and I got to eat cheese.  I brought lactaid pills with me for those special occasions and I figured that Christmas eve while I had malaria was gonna be the best time.  Massimo and Noelle had a cook off, they are such great cooks.  We had brie, I had brie in a bread bowl with garlic cloves and it was heaven.  For the main meal we had pork roast, fettucini with gorgonzola sauce, fresh vegetables, mashed potatoes and Caesar salad… heaven.  I stayed up really late, almost till 2 am, which is amazing since I have been going to bed at 10 every nites since the malaria started. 

Maxi the red nosed Reindeer

Christmas brought a wonderful gift for me.  Marissa arrived at 10 am.  It was so great seeing her, we became friends through Amelia in Brooklyn back in the day and I haven’t seen her in over 3 years.  Again, it was such a blessing to have her especially with the bursted ear drum we thought she might not be able to make it.  Christmas was low key, but good.  Everyone was supposed to do a Christmas dive, but our boat captain got a little too drunk the night before, as did everyone else but me and decided that it was best not to come in.  Everyone was bummed because they were going to wear santa hats and reindeer antlers, but at least Max had fun with them, they entertained him for a few days.  I was a little dumb and tried to eat the Caesar salad without a lactaid pill… it smelled so good but ended up throwing up all night.  Poor Marissa.  

Amelia came the next day around 5 and we had a nice dinner and then the next day we went to West bay for a beach day.  I was dumb again… didn’t bring my mask and snorkel and bumped my foot against some coral which made my foot bleed.  I probably did more damage to the coral than to my foot which makes me bummed.  The girls made an amazing stir fry dinner and but then I was up all night again with stomach cramps and throwing up.  On Monday I tried snorkeling with Marissa but then ended up throwing up, I decided it must be the medicine for the malaria and I should ask the doctor if he could give me anything.  The next day Marissa and I went to the doctors.  She was going to see if she could dive, her dr had said that she could, but everyone including her sister who is a doctor said that it was unlikely.  I was going because the malaria medication was destroying my insides, eating is hard enough when your lactose intolerant.  The drugs were the cure, the next day I did DJ’s first open water dive.  The night before was rainy and there was a major surge causing us to be bounced back and forth underwater.  The visibility wasn’t that great, but I didn’t feel sick and DJ did great and said it was indescribable is first time in open water.  DJ is a character, he’s very animated, he’s super stoked about diving and was a broadcast/journalist or something like that from Canada so his voice is very unique too.  Oh Canada.

It's been so great having friends here.  It reminds me of a song my friend Randy used to love, or at least wanted to make a cover of the golden girls theme song... thank you for being a friend, traveled down the road and back again, my heart is true your a pal and confidant.  And if you threw a party, invited everyone you knew, you would see the biggest gift would be from me and the card attached would say... thank you for being a friend. dun nuh nuh dun nuh nuh dun nuh nuh nuh nuh.  I'm so glad they came!  It made me getting over malaria so much better and more reason to celebrate the holidays with new and old friends.

 me and Marissa