Happy Anniversary!

Yes, still sharing adventures in life, love and happiness, and going strong!! Karyn and Ron celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary this morning with a marvelous scuba dive on the reefs about 2 miles north of West End. It's an area we call "Dog's Head" reef, from the contours of one of the coral formations there. The conditions were rather agreeable, with a light breeze from the east, and maybe a 1'-2' chop on the water; once we'd checked the set of the anchor, we had a lovely, relaxed dive -- good visibility, little if any current, with lots and lots of fish life. (In contrast to Bermuda, where the reefs were dramatic, but had little if any fish life.) There was a huge southern ray buried in the sand below us as we descended to check our anchor site; you could only see his outline and his two eye watching us intently as we swam past. The reefs north of West End are slightly healthier as there is less silt and leafy cover on the coral.

Heading out from Old Bahama Bay to go diving

Yesterday, we dove about a mile west of the OBB jetty, in unbelievably calm and clear conditions -- quite the change from last winter's constant cold, rough and choppy conditions! A great start to our time here!! Unfortunately, though, the reefs near West End are very overgrown with this leafy bottom cover; at one time the reefs must have been spectacular, but not so much now. Due to the blasting, digging and dredging for the expansion of Old Bahama Bay/Ginn Sur Mer on the south side of the point at West End the past couple of years, there is a thick layer of silt on the reefs off OBB, which allowed this leafy algae/ground cover to grow on the reefs....depressing. That and all the lionfish that are everywhere, which are crowding out the lobsters.

The best anniversary gift was that Ally flew in yesterday from Baltimore to join us here for Oldfields Thanksgiving break. We're hoping it will be a fun 10 days together! It's great that the school has such a long break for the holiday, which allows the boarders a decent amount of time for travel as well as time to spend at home (many of the girls are from overseas). Ally doesn't have to be back until December 1st! After her arrival, Ally and Karyn spent a quiet couple of hours at the OBB pool while Ron was out lobstering (with limited success this time!).

It was an enjoyable family movie night after a superb dinner of Ron's crab cakes, salad and steamed green beans. (Those of you who have knowledge of Ron's crab cakes know what we are talking about! Ally was in heaven!) It wasn't a late night: after all Ally's travels, she was tired, and so were we from our diving and all that healthy sunshine. Life is good!