Hello again!!

Well, I guess it's back to reality! I tried to keep up a computer journal on our trip so that when we got to an internet connection it would be fairly simple to update our blog. Of course it has still taken like 2 hours with all of the pictures. For those who aren't used to blogging, I have put too much for you to see it all on the first scroll down, so you will need to click on the date on the right to see some of my entries. Hope to hear from everyone soon! Love you all!!!

March 11

We slept until 12:15 and checked out at 1:30. We walked across the street to Wendy’s and got lunch. We caught the airport shuttle at 2:00 and sat at the airport drinking Starbuck’s until our flight to Atlanta. When we got to Atlanta, we walked straight to our connecting gate to get seats on the plane to New York that were next to each other. While standing in line, Sandy and Candice walked up behind us – they were waiting for their plane to Orlando (they were supposed to leave that morning and did not leave until the next morning). Once we got to New York, we took a cab (driver was an idiot!!!) to the Fairfield Inn – JFK Airport.

March 12

We began our day around 9:00 with breakfast at the hotel. The hotel had a shuttle to the subway. We had fun getting to know the subway and how to connect. The $7 unlimited day pass turned out to be wonderful! We started by trying to get to the Statue, but there were no more entry passes, so we decided to wait until tomorrow.

Our first attempt at the statue

We went for a quick look around the National Museum of the American Indian. There was lots of pottery. Next Mark decided that he wanted a clichéd American hot dog, and it just so happened that at the next corner there was a hot dog vendor.

Mark and his clichéd hot dog stand

After another trip on the subway, we got off to walk to the World Trade Center to see Ground Zero.

Ground Zero

After seeing “Night at the Museum” Mark was very keen to see the Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately, Rexy decided not to come to life while we were there. We did enjoy seeing all of the stuffed animal life. Next we caught a subway to Broadway to buy Mark some new shoes (he somehow forgot his at Jose’s house on the VERY calm Saturday morning J ). We got some McDonald’s for a snack. During this time, we saw some horsemen police officers and a very snazzy looking McDonald’s. We got to Time Square and Rockefeller Center before the sun set. On our way back to the subway, we passed by St. Patrick’s Cathedral and decided to go inside to warm up a bit. Then we took the subway back to Jamaica Center where we were able to catch the train to the airport then the shuttle back to the hotel. We ordered some room service and I finished writing our thank you notes.

Us at the Natural History Museum

Mark feels like he fits right in :-)

Us at Rockefeller Center

March 13

We tried to wake up early today, but weren’t quite able to. We started moving around at 9:00 again. We were getting very good at maneuvering the subways to the Statue. We still couldn’t go up into the Statue, but we did go to Liberty Island today. The weather wasn’t quite as clear today, but we still got some pretty pictures of Lady Liberty.

View of New York from Liberty Island

After we got back to shore, we went to a Subway (sandwich shop) for lunch. Our only other “must see” for the day was the Empire State Building. It wasn’t too busy so we got up and down fairly quickly. We had to get to the airport, so we caught the subway to Jamaica again and back to the hotel. The guy driving the shuttle was kind enough to wait for us to grab our bags from the luggage room then take up right back to the airport. We were there early enough that they asked us if we might be willing to give up our seats in return for 2 business class seats on the flight that leaves 1 hour later. We said yes – they didn’t need us in the end, but it was a good possibility. We got some dinner, visited the shops, and got a massage before time to get on the plane. Our plane left at 11:30 that night.

View from the Empire State Building

March 14

We spent this day in the air. We had decent seats on the flight from New York to Dubai. There were 4 seats in the middle and we had 3 of them. The guys at the check in counter did that for us since we offered to give up our seats if needed. In Dubai, we had about 6 hours until our flight to Male. We ate dinner – Mark had Dairy Queen, I had McDonald’s. Then we walked around and got a few things from the duty free shops. Then we went down near to where our gate would be, and Mark sat and read and did some things on the computer. Mark let me lie down on the blanket we brought with us and sleep for almost 3 hours. Our plane did not leave Dubai until 2:20 in the morning.

March 15

Still "smiley"!

We reached Male at 8:00 in the morning. We went through customs and got our bags. Unfortunately one of the items we were given for our honeymoon was confiscated (fuzzy red handcuffs), but we will get them back before our flight out on the 28th.

We were on a sea plane scheduled to leave at 9:50, but it didn’t leave until 10:30. It was quite cool! We saw other islands and stuff from the air that we would have missed if we’d been on a boat. The plane brought us to the island on which we are staying the next 2 weeks – Velidhu. When we arrived (11:30), our water bungalow was not ready yet, so we went to bungalow 142 to relax and freshen up. Within 5 minutes of being in that room, Mark and I were both passed out! The porter came to tell us our room was ready (12:30) we woke up and went to our bungalow. The guy who comes at night to turn the bed down knocked on our door at 7:45 and woke us up. We dressed and went to supper. Our waiter for the duration of our stay is Ali Waheed. He seems nice. After supper, we went back to the water bungalow and went back to sleep.

March 16

This morning we woke up at 6:45 and went to breakfast. We took a walk around the island. It is so beautiful. There is coral all the way around. Around 6 – probably more – black-finned reef sharks spend the day swimming around the dock that goes to the water bungalows. It only takes about 45 minutes to leisurely stroll around the entire island. There are so many pretty fish, and lots of sting rays. They are only babies though, the big ones are out further. Next, we went back to the bungalow and took a nap. We slept until 6:00. Then we got up, walked to reception and signed up for the island hopping excursion. After supper we came back to the room and watched movies. We have obviously slept too much the past 2 days because we couldn’t get to sleep until around 4:00 in the morning. The one movie channel has some strange movies on at that time of night… “Sharkman” and paranormal movies.

Doesn't it look relaxing?!?!

Baby stingrays - hundreds around the island!

One of the 20 or so blacktipped reef sharks around the island.

Can you find the octopus here? This is under our bungalow!

March 17

We’re still happily married !!! (Mark: very)
This morning we finally felt rested enough to do something other than sleep. We took our snorkelling equipment with us to breakfast. I have taken a liking to freshly squeezed orange juice in the mornings. After breakfast, we headed to the beach where we could do some snorkelling. It took a while to figure out how everything was supposed to go, but after a while off we went. We didn’t snorkel for too long since we had not been in the sun much yet and we didn’t want to get sunburned. We went to the restaurant for lunch. On the way back, we walked past the spa and decided to see what the honeymoon package included. It sounded nice, so we signed up for that afternoon. Until 4:30, we decided a nap would be nice.

We got to the spa on time, and we began an experience to remember! We started out in an area that had a small, cool pool, a shower, and a steam room. We were left there for 30 minutes to begin relaxing.

We had robes to put on when the lady knocked on the door to get us. We then went into a massage room with 2 tables. We got simultaneous full body massages. They were definitely meant for relaxation and not deep tissue, but they were good (Mark: They were the most dodgie massages I have ever had!!! – but Julia looks great in that loin cloth they gave us to wear!!!). This was followed by a wrap with some oatmeal looking substance. It was very cooling, but then they wrapped us like in a cocoon. We don’t know how long they left us, but Mark and I were both ready to finish up by the time they got back (I got quite Closter phobic, but if you moved it was very hard to get back situated like you were before). When the ladies got back, Mark and I were shown to a shower where we could get all the junk off of us. They finished up the time with some fresh fruit and flavoured tea. We knew that dinner was close, so we took the fruit back to the room and put it in the refrigerator. After dinner tonight, the resort hosted crab races. They had people who went and gathered up hermit crabs. For $5 entry fee, you could choose a crab to race for you. We chose 2: #37 and #62. They raced 10 crabs at a time, and the winner of each race went on to the final race. Well, we were disappointed when neither of our crabs won their race, but then they said that there would be a second race for all the crabs that had lost the first race, and the “winner of the losers” would also get a prize. So, the second race began – it was pretty much impossible to find your crab amongst all the others, but we had chosen the smallest runt for one of ours. So we got excited when a really small one won…and it was #62. That was quite cool! We won a bottle of Rosé. What a great ending to a great day…

March 18

The morning dawned beautiful as usual. Today, we went island hopping. Now when you hear the term “island hopping” what do you envision? 5 or 6 islands where you can snorkel and look at cool reefs? No – the first place we went was interesting. We went to an island where native Maldivians live. We got to see how they make the boats, their schools, mosques, shops, etc. Then we were able to shop at a few places. Mark got a set of Maldivian coins, and I got 2 outfits.

Next we went to a reef around an uninhabited island. That was neat. We snorkelled for about 15 minutes. Around 12:00 we went to the uninhabited island for a buffet lunch. It was nice – they had umbrellas and cushions for us under them. We stayed there for over 3 hours. Now for some this was paradise, and it was pretty, but we were expecting more activity based things for the trip. Lastly, we went to the resort on Nika Island. It was very pretty, but once again, not what we were expecting to do. By the time we got back, it was very obvious that we were both seriously sunburned on some areas of our bodies (nowhere dodgie). Our feet and below the knees had to be the worst. My face was a bit red, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the tops of my feet! When we got back to Velidhu, Mark went to the scuba place to see if we could take a scuba training course, and when we could start. We ate a small supper, and came back to moisturize ourselves properly.

March 19

Well, as Mark and I could barely move our legs this morning, we decided to take the day off. We went to breakfast. Then we came back to the bungalow to relax, sleep, watch tv, read, play on the computer, etc. At 5:00, we went to the diving school to watch an introductory video (Chapter 1) for the scuba course. Right now we are only signed up for tomorrow, and we’ll see how we like it from there. After a short supper, we came back here to get to sleep early and put on more lotion!

March 20

Well, we have begun a 4 day course in scuba diving to be open water qualified, which means we can dive up to 18 metres. We started the day with a quiz on the video we watched yesterday. Arnaud is our instructor. He showed us all the equipment we will be using and went over what we would be doing in our first visit to the water. We got suited up, and walked out to the water. We started by just practicing breathing from the tank. We went to a very shallow depth to practice breathing. We did well, so Arnaud took us a little deeper. Here we practiced some things to help us in emergency situations. Then we dove around the reef and went down to 12 metres looking at fish and the reef. I’m glad Mark was comfortable in the water, because I guess I wasn’t so Arnaud kept me at his side which made me much more comfortable. We had a break for lunch, so Mark and I went to the bar where you can order a la carte items. We both got a chicken sandwich that came with fries. It was very tasty!

We met back at the diving school at 2:00 for the afternoon dive from a boat. This was a bit more interesting than the morning dive. The dives from the beach have no current. This one, however, did have one. We got near the reef, and were still in the current. This didn’t bother Arnaud or Mark, but I started getting nervous. So Arnaud slowed us down a bit, got us to the reef, and let me just sit there and breathe a bit. Then we went around the reef for about 30 minutes. There were puffer fish, clown fish, angel fish, and many more that I have no clue what they are called. When we got back, Mark and I watched the video for chapters 2 & 3. We got diving manuals, and for homework we’ll do Chapters 1 & 2, which should be easy since it covers mainly the same things as the videos we watched yesterday and today.

One group that we’ve become friends with are Dave, Leslie, Gavin, and Emma. Leslie and Dave are a bit older, but are lots of fun. Leslie’s sister, Maureen, lost her husband before they came and the funeral was at 2 in England, so we gathered on the beach at 7 to have a drink in honour of him. I was introduced tonight to a fun non-alcoholic drink called a Pussyfoot. It’s so good! It is made with orange juice, pineapple juice, lime juice, and grenadine syrup. We stayed there until time for supper. After supper, we decided to call it a night since we had had quite an exciting day and were tired. We also had to do our homework when we got back to the room.

March 21

Scuba diving today was even better than yesterday! I have to admit to being quite nervous about going out again today, and thought if it didn’t feel any better by this afternoon, I would probably not do it anymore. But it was much better. I think Arnaud could tell that I was a bit nervous, so we took things really slow this morning. We didn’t even actually go out to look at the reef. We stopped at about 6 meters and practiced different emergency situations. Mark and I both did really well. We did “push ups” without using our hands – only our breathing (Look, ma! No hands!). We practiced what to do if one of our air tanks ran out, what to do if we lost our mask, we swam for a bit without a mask, we filled our mask and blew air out of our nose to empty it, and we practiced what to do if our mouthpiece started blowing out of control. Lastly, we kind of played around a bit. We laid back on our tanks and blew air bubbles that formed a ring, and we did “matrix moves” and back flips without our fins on. Then we went back up to the diving school. Today we started washing our own equipment. This will be good for if we ever decide to get our own equipment.
We ate lunch again at the Lighthouse Bar. I enjoyed the chicken sandwich yesterday, so I opted for the same today. Mark got a chicken burger. We got back to the room in time to change back into our swimsuits, put on sunscreen, and go to the diving school to get on a boat. I was very hopeful that the dive this afternoon would be less stressful than yesterday’s…and it was! It was so beautiful. There was hardly a current at all, so I felt in control of myself the entire time. While we were diving, we saw lots of fish. We also saw a white-fin reef shark, but they aren’t harmful to humans – and he was quite a few meters below us. We stayed down for about 37 minutes. When we got out and back onto the boat, we got to see some dolphins jumping about 50 meters away. Mark also saw a big manta ray turn over on top of the water. One the ride back to the resort, there were 2 dolphins that swam alongside the boat for a few minutes. After washing our equipment, putting it away, and watching a video, we went back to our room to shower. We relaxed a bit, and I did the homework for tonight while Mark took a nap. I didn’t want to sleep before dinner because I never feel 100% after a night time nap. After supper, I was SO tired that we came back to the room, and I was probably asleep within 15 minutes of being back in the room!

March 22

Today dawned even better today than yesterday! We woke up early without even an alarm. Mark finished his homework while I tidied the room a bit. We were able to have a relaxed breakfast because we were there for longer than 10 minutes. Ali has gone to Male, so we have another waiter named Fazeel for a few days. 9:00 came and we were at the diving school. We discussed Chapters 3 and 4 from last night and took the quizzes on them. We checked all of our equipment, put on our wetsuits, and went to the beach. We only spent about 15 minutes underwater this morning. We practiced a few things to help us with our buoyancy, practiced an emergency ascent, took our equipment off and put it back on while underwater, and we practiced a bit with a compass. Next we went to the surface and practiced some rescue techniques for helping our buddy. We got out and washed our things again and went to the room to rinse off. By the time we got to lunch, my stomach wasn’t feeling too good, so I just had french fries for lunch. Mark had the grilled garlic prawns (shrimp) for lunch. Once I had some food in my stomach and a little bit of sprite I felt much better. We got back to the room, changed back into our swimsuits, and got back for our next dive.

This afternoon’s dive was great. Arnaud took our underwater camera for us and took a few pictures of us and of the sea life. We are going to rent the school’s camera tomorrow which will take digital pictures that we’ll have tomorrow night. We went down to 20 meters today – a little more than our 18 meter certification. There was some beautiful life down there. We saw a huge black eel and a white one too. There must have been 2 or 30,000 fish swimming around where we were. Every time a school passed, there were at least 200 fish. We can’t wait for our dive tomorrow morning! We are going to take the Nitrox tanks so we will have a bit more air so we can stay down a bit longer. We decided that since they had a wetsuit that fit me very well here that we would go on and purchase one. It’s really cute. After washing our equipment, we were supposed to watch the video of chapter 5, but someone already was using the dvd, so we’ll watch it tomorrow. We still have homework tonight of reading chapter 5 and doing the questions.

March 23

Today we only did half a day of scuba diving. The last chapter of the book had a little bit of new information and the rest of it was kind of a “sell” of the PADI course. So Arnaud didn’t make us watch the dvd that we missed yesterday. We went down to 18 meters this morning using Nitrox – which has a bit more pure oxygen in it to allow for a longer dive. We took the diving school’s underwater camera to take pictures while we were down. We say a huge sting ray, a moray eel, and a lion fish. Our pictures can show how the colors diminish underwater. We have 2 pictures of the same lionfish, one without a flash and one with a flash. You can see how it looks greyish, but is actually quite red. When it was time to come out of the water, we practiced an out of air situation where Mark shared my alternate air source while we were coming out of the water. We took the final exam for open water certification and passed. Tomorrow we are going to do our deep water adventure dive.

We got back around 12, took a shower, and went to the Lighthouse Bar for lunch. We didn’t have a lot of time, so we both ordered a chicken sandwich and a sprite. We went directly to the seaplane jetty to leave for the dolphin safari. That was lots of fun. We saw so many dolphins. We did a little videoing – hopefully it won’t make us too seasick to watch it. We ate dinner and joined Leslie, Dave, Gavin, and Emma after dinner at the bar for “Comedy Night”. The word comedy should be used lightly. I guess the guys here have a different sense of humor. It was a little humorous, but not too funny. We stayed until around 11:30 and then excused ourselves for the evening.