effortless

Remembering our dives in Fiji last fall... I've felt that my time underwater has been easy and effortless for some time, but it was only on this trip, some 300+ dives in, that the time above water, getting geared up or down, that the rest of it has felt just as easy and effortless.

good times

Happy times with old friends and new, more free time than I've had in a year, more time with the boyfriend than I've had this year, some quality reading time, extra sleep, pretty dives with great coral, fish I'd never seen before, and a sea snake, which I haven't seen since 2003.

Back to reality and I was actually ready for it this time. I've got my dog back. My co-workers missed me, my CEO gave me a raise and told me that I've been working hard and doing a good job, and there is so much going on to jump right back in and keep having fun. Also, I had a one day work week, and tomorrow, I landed a sweet reservation for dinner, just in time to wear one last rented dress before I send them back in.

dive nerd

Went on two dives yesterday and was inordinately pleased that a friends and his friend separately expressed admiration for my air consumption and buoyancy control. Only a diving nerd would care.

the heavens wept

Pouring rain when we woke up, and even though we came here to dive, we were relieved that the storm is strong enough to cancel the dive this morning. Room service, reading, and napping sound much better than trying to put on a damp wetsuit and getting on a rocking boat on rough seas right now. Secretly hoping the second dive is cancelled as well, and then all I've got the rest of the day is lunch, massage, yoga, and dinner.

afternoon agenda

It's only 2:30, and we've accomplished a lot: breakfast, two dives, and lunch. Now I need to spend a couple hours in the hammock, reading and napping until afternoon yoga, then a couple more hours of flopping around the room, then dinner. No yoga tomorrow, so I'm getting a massage after diving, instead. Life is so good.

nothing like it

There is really nothing like a hot shower and a dry towel after two morning dives.

dive dive dive

And tomorrow, we hit the water for the first time since December 2013, the longest I've ever gone between dives. There is nothing quite like flying like Superman while breathing like Darth Vader.

t minus four

Fiji is coming up so soon! I've been checking off errands and to do lists, testing out luggage weight (keeping checked luggage under 33 pounds is a challenge on a dive trip), trying to get things at work to a decent pause point, and realizing that it's been a longer gap than usual between trips for us. Can't wait. Diving! Sun! No meetings! And I'm even going to try the free yoga classes, but may just end up reading novels the whole time.

happy new year

Happy, indeed. The last couple weeks had lots of frabjousness:

• A last-minute failed test and successful resuscitation of a cranky old underwater camera strobe, just in time to take it on the trip
• A three-star meal at Sushi Mizutani in Tokyo: uni that made us forget why we don't usually like uni, needlefish, otoro to make your mouth weep
• Another three-star meal at Ryu Gin, also in Tokyo: resident owls in the waiting room, an introduction to cod milt, perfectly cooked mackerel that tasted nothing like mackerel, a tangerine dessert that was the love-child of pop rocks, sherbet, and pie
• Two nights at the Four Seasons in Tokyo, which may be the best hotel ever (lovely rooms, excellent staff, and they even bring you and your 150+ pounds of dive gear and luggage to the train platform)
• Baffling but funny ads on the train
• Two nights at the Ritz, where we could watch the sun set behind Mount Fuji
• Reunion meals with my host sister from Japan, a law school friend, and a friend from my Zurich days
• Hot ginger ale in a can from a vending machine, both strange and delicious
• A reprieve from winter, complete with swimsuits, flip flops, and sunscreen
• 20 dives in Palau, where we reveled in being in the water again (has it really been over two years?), saw mantas on our first dive, lost count of the sharks, and saw the strangest crabs on our night dive
• Stars in the sky, phosphorescent plankton in the water
• A hilarious Christmas Eve with the other guests, including attempts to translate joked from English to Chinese to Japanese and back, an impromptu sumo contest, and experimental drinks made with sriracha
• One of the oddest people we've ever met, and will remember forever through a series of catchphrases
• Not a single episode of puking, despite taking minimal Dramamine and going on the boat every day
• Zero email access for over ten days
• Island puppies who loved to lick the salt water from our dive gear
• Lots of reading (twelve books in eighteen days), bringing my year-end tally to 114
• Upon returning, a dog completely overwhelmed with joy and excitement, and parents who have decided that they love this new dog
• A couple of light work days, to ease back into the idea without too much strain, then a weekend to forget about it again

deja dive

We're dying to go on a long trip without email, and we're dying to go on a dive trip. Looks like we're combining the two to go back to Palau in December, with a brief so in Tokyo?

count the days

I made a few donations on Tuesday as a kind of pick-me-up, and it made my day better. Today, I got around to checking my paper mail for the first time in a couple of weeks, and CORAL had already sent me a thank you packet, including a calendar with some great underwater shots. I've gotten thank you notes before, but this was even better. Donate, help save coral reefs, and get a calendar to hang up at work.

transition

I don't think I've ever had a harder time making the mental transition from vacation back to work. Positive side effects, however, have been that I spent some time researching and donating to charities for disaster relief (I'm recommending the American Red Cross and the International Medical Corps, which both have at least 90% efficiency in use of funds) and also got my vacation pictures sorted and uploaded (they're on Facebook, if you want to take a look).

trip list

Because I wasn't posting while we were in the Philippines, here's a list of things that would have made this blog:

• Business class makes a huge difference when you're taking six flights, two of which are over ten hours long.
• The long-haul flights didn't have to make any refueling stopovers.
• We caught an earlier flight once we got to the Philippines, so that we arrived six hours early to the resort in Dumaguete.
• The outdoor shower in our room in Dumaguete was actually quite nice. I have no idea how they keep an outdoor shower so clean in the tropics.
• The dive shop in Dumaguete was run by Swiss guys, so it was the most organized dive operation I've ever seen. 
• Dumaguete has the most amazing muck diving (diving in small, sandy areas to look for tiny, mindblowing critters that are sometimes the size of a fingernail clipping).
• Despite the fact that I can get seasick in a swimming pool, for some reason (I am guessing magic), I experienced no seasickness the whole trip -- not on dives, not on the week-long liveaboard. Nothing.
• The mangoes. Oh, the mangoes.
• There were small scuba tanks available on the boat, which meant that for the non-strenuous dives, I was able to tool around with a less cumbersome tank on my back.
• I racked up another 25 dives.
• I made it through seven books.

countdown

Eight days until we go to the Philippines!

business class

We have booked everything for our dive trip (which is in three weeks!) to the Philippines, and because Boyfriend doesn't like long flights, we decided to book business class flights the whole way. This is the first time I've paid for business class (as opposed to getting bumped or using miles), and I intend to enjoy every minute of it.

philippines

Looks like the trip is going to happen in a month! Two weeks of diving in the Philippines, and we are so close to booking. Just the thing to motivate another session at the gym after work today. I think I can manage a total of a dozen cardio sessions before the trip.

big plans

We've begun planning our next big dive trip in earnest. Looks like a liveaboard in the Philippines in March? I convinced Boyfriend to use my dive travel agent that I've used before, and he now agrees that a good dive travel agent is awesome.

unlikely combination

The ChromeOS netbook, when brand new, smells ever so slightly and inexplicably of some combination of neoprene and other scents that I strongly associate with dive gear. So basically, it's a gadget (one of my favorite things) that reminds me of diving (another one of my favorite things).

recharge

Nothing like a fantastic night dive with mantas swooping and flipping around my head for 40 minutes, then a shower to wash the ocean away, then a solid nine hours of sleep, and finally waking up to an inbox that doesn't have a single email that requires immediate reply (yet). I'm sure stuff will start coming in, but for now, my vacation continues...