Where have I been ?

I am often asked by students learning to scuba or fellow sailors "Where have you been ?". To answer this question honestly requires some time. Last July was our tenth wedding anniversary so I made an album in my facebook with the "where have we been together" theme. It took some good memory skills ( well I cheated and looked thru my photo albums) to place everything in chronological order and try not to miss anything. I realized that in my life before and with Kyle almost all our travelling had been in North America. Thus the answer to "where are we going ?" is usually easy to answer..South Pacific..ultimately. It seems the perfect place for a couple of avid scuba diving sailors.
We both traveled quite alot before we were together. Kyle for work and me to try to cure my wunderlust..that is not possible I discovered. I had been from coast to coast in Canada as my family is from Newfoundland and I had friends working in British Columbia on the ski hills. And as a good Canadian I had been to NewYork, Florida, Vegas, New Orleans, Los Angelos and many other tourist spots in the USA.
Once together much of our travel has been to places we can scuba. The list seems long until I add up how many times we have been to Cozumel Mexico. The answer to that 13. Yes 13 times we have been to Cozumel together. And some of these times we were there for 5 or 6 weeks. The diving there is awesome and we have met some of our best lifelong friends there.

Cozumel trip dates :


Feb 2001
Feb & July 2002
Feb 2003
Feb, April & Dec 2004
July & Aug 2005
July, Aug & Nov 2006
July & Aug 2007
Nov 2008
July 2009





Other than Cozumel we made many other memories over the past 13 yrs together. We have traveled to :

 Cancun July 2003
Key Largo & South Beach FL Oct 2003
Georgia, Nashville, Ohio, Indianna, Kentucky & Alabama in July 2004
St Lucia Aug 2004
San Andres Columbia Feb 2005
Ottawa Canada March 2005
Philadelphia May 2005
Cayo Largo Cuba Nov 2005
Havana Cuba Nov 2005

Fort Lauderdale FL Nov 2006
Ocho Rios Jamaica Feb 2007
London England April 2007
Paris France April 2007
Connecticut, New Jersey, and MA in May 2007
Florida Keys Feb 2008
Circunavigating Lake Ontario July & August 2008
Cancun MX Feb 2009
Thousand Islands/ Lake Ontario Aug 2009
Panama Nov 2009

Cayo Coco Cuba Feb 2010
Washington DC March 2010
South Carolina, North Carolina, NJ, NY and Virginia July & Aug 2010
Bonaire Feb 2011
Connecticut, Boston MA, Newport RI July 2011
California - Napa, San Fransico, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe Nov 2011
Varadero Cuba Jan  2012
New Orleans LA July 2012
Santiago de Cuba Jan 2013

You can see why we need to live on a boat to be able to complete our world travels. Besides our 13 Cozumel trips we have taken 31 other trips. Some of them stopping at multiple places. Thus 9-5 life is not really our thing. Life is short and you need to live it in a manner that makes you happy. Traveling, meeting new people, seeing new places, experiencing new foods and diving new places all make me happy. Sailing and diving make my hubby happy. So combining these two dreams seems like the right thing to do. So out into the world we are going ..in 439 days ..July 1, 2014.. we will begin our life on the water. We will spend some time in the Carribbean first to shake things out. Then off we go. Once we get across the Pacific we believe that we will be able to dive and see many of the sites we could otherwise not afford monitarily however our souls can not afford not to. 

A Winter Break In Cuba

2013 was a very very long winter. It is now mid-April and the ice from a major storm is still melting in some places while others are awaiting their power to be fixed. The combination of high winds and heavy ice downed many power lines and poles inthe area. Taking this into consideration I was looking at some of our winter vacation pictures and thought I would share.
This winter we took a trip to Santiago de Cuba. We love Cuba for its beautiful beaches and freindly people. We have journeyed to Varadero, Havana, Cayo Largo, Cayo Coco and Santiago. The diving in Cuba varies greatly from place to place. Santiago definitely tops the list due mainly to its location. It is on the very Southern tip on the Carribean Sea side.

The diving here provides many of the same sea life you would see all over the Carribean. In fact across the water from here in a staright line South is Jamaica.
Dive operators are government run of course. We brought all our own equipment but their rental stuff looked fine. The inital dives are $30 per person per tank but decrease as you dive more. Thus it is not cheap but hey there is no competition.

Beaches in Cuba tend to have the softest white sand. My favorite beach location anywhere is Cayo Largo, Cuba. Walking in the sand there feels like walking in powder(icing) sugar. It is super soft, super white and goes on for miles. No one really lives on this Cayo. They fly staff in and out of the resorts for 20 day "tours of duty". The only exception are a couple scientists who live in the turtle reserve. We helped them release the baby turtles at sunset for their best chance of survival.