Monday, October 01, 2007

good old Antarctica

A friend who is currently living/working in Antarctica sent me these recent pictures.

The first is an aurora and the 2nd is of the lunar eclipse that occured in August.

Scuba in the NW???


I have been scuba diving for 8 years and I never thought about diving in the pacific northwest. I don't even think it entered my mind....well, I somehow stumbled into a great group of divers here and they invited me along for a weekend of coooold water diving. After a bit of hesitation I found myself at the dive shop trying on serious wetsuits and saying the words " I am going diving in cold water". The best part for me was that 3 friends were coming along for the experience. Rob & Alison are longtime tropic divers and this was going to be just as new to them as myself.

The diving was ok...we poured ourselves into large amounts of rubber and survived the 52 degree water temps!! I didn't mind the diving as much as I did wearing all the extra gear! In the tropics you are fine wearing shorts/shirt. Here in the NW you must wear either a dry suit or a 14mm suit, boots, gloves, and the worst part a tight thick hood.

"Sunrise Beach"


Rob, Alison, Me & Cindy
This was great!! We turned our weekend of cold into a reunion. Alison, Rob & I are all friends from Kwajalein. Alison, Cindy & I all spent time and actually were roommates in Antarctica at sometime. So it was so great to all be together and get caught up. Our "beach resort" had bunk beds and it was very familiar to being roomates on the ice.