2/23/08 Neptune Memorial Reef

Saturday morning I made the maiden voyage of the new Jupiter 38. With twin 350 V8 Yamaha's, it will do 55 mph. Probably a little less with dive gear. Jody and David made the first drop on the Sheri Lynn and scootered to the Rio Miami and Dema Trader.

































Leya and I went to the new Neptune Memorial Reef to check it out and give her some scooter time. After reading a bit about it on the website, it sounded a little too cheesy. We dropped on the East buoy and there was nothing there. We scootered to the West buoy and with a combination of "follow the fish" and look for the white sand, we found the reef after 7 minutes.



It was much bigger than I expected and made for an interesting dive. As with all new life, there isn't much growth yet, but it will come with time. The lion already had the purple eggs of a Sargent Major on its side. Leya was posing for a shot. A Southern Stingray alway swam by in the distance and we followed him around for a bit. Leya was having an issue getting the tow cable just right so the scooter would pull her level instead of up or down.




The two column corridors were a nice feature the concrete slabs are decorated with fake corals and starfish. There was a school of grunts, French Angelfish, Plain Filefish.

UP Close with Crocs

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Originally uploaded by tiswango.

The guy was laying in the 4ft gap between the shore and the doc to load the air boats. He looked like he was placed there as part of the operation. While everyone is scared of these creatures, I find myself very drawn to them. In the winter, they slow their metabolism and only need to eat two times a month. What do they do with all that free time?

I just learned that hunt at night and need to warm in during the day to process the food. Their bellies have to stay above 75 degrees to digest the food. If it stays below that the food turns toxic and kills the gator.

What do they do with all the free time? I was meditating on only having to stay warm in the sun and eat twice a month?

No TV, Internet, politics, building, repairing, fixing, maintaining, trimming, mowing, moving, marrying, dating, writing, reading... etc.

These guy do even less than buddhist monks who still have to eat two times a day. Alligators must be the most spiritual animals on the planet.

Powerful Emptiness

A great example of the Taoist principle of Wu Wei or "Action-less Action".

Blue Heron at Shark Valley National Park

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Originally uploaded by tiswango.

Sunday we explored Shark Valley National Park. Click to photo to see all 60 on Fickr. Since my diving has been cut back due to life, I've found a way to get the same "nature high" that I got from diving. Fish Identification was based off the model of Bird Identification that was set up in the early 1900s. I"ve purchased some binoculars "bins" starting with small 7x25 and moved up to a pair of 10x42s. I'm still in the cheap bins category, but they are water proof and fog proof for under $100, I've been watching the sales at West Marine. :)

Bird watching also syncs up with my love of photography and my exercise of choice, walking. I've started writing down goals and ow I keep finding myself doing activities that fullfills multiple goals at at the same time. This is my secular definition of developing a deep soul.

Shark Valley is a 15 mile round trip trail. Since we had the boys we opted for the $16 2 hour tram ride that includes a stop at the observation tower. We all had a great time. This Blue Heron photo was my favorite of the trip. Greg Coley had a D40 with 70-200 f2.8 on the port side of the tram and I had my XTI with older 80-200 with 1.4 converter off the starboard side. We had this trip covered!

We also saw blue herons with their breeding "mullets" on. Snowy Egrets with black legs and bright yellow feet. I also saw my first Glossy Ibis. I missed the King Fisher as we drove by. I learned the difference between the Anhinga and Cormorant as well as they are very similar.

And there were gators everywhere. I've never been so close in the wild. I missed the shot of the mother and babies at the end of the tour. It started to rain and we were starving so I'll have to go back for that shot.

I can't wait until the boys are old enough to spend the day biking the trail!

$10 per car load into the park, good for 7 days. $5 per person to walk/bike in.

$16 per person for Tram

2 blocks West of the Entrance is Miccosukee "Mucco Secco" Indian Tribe with fry bread for Lunch $10 per person

Air boat Rides $10 per person.

Humm, Ebay has a used Canon 400MM f4.5 for $1,100, but don't tell Andrea! I need to start trading some more stocks.

Greg and Sherry Coley Visit

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Originally uploaded by tiswango.

Sherry was in my Gateway Training class in 1997, our first job after fininshing college. Sherry moved back to WI to work for Kimberly Clark and then went back for a Law degree. She was down for a conference in Boca and spent Saturday - Monday with us. Saturday we made a big asado (2 grill fulls of meat) and caught up wth fellow Gateway alum Jim O'connor and his wife Erika. Sunday we went out and explored the Shark Valley Trail in the Everglades National Park and then I made them take an airboat ride for the experience of flying on water. Greg is giving the "Hang lose" at the back of the 2nd row. They loved it!

2/9/08 Saturday Dive Report

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Originally uploaded by tiswango.

David Buhilinger has a suprise for me, but the joke was on him. He purchased a Gavin over two months ago and we haven't been able to get it out on a dive. He said it was balanenced and ready for action. We decided to run it on a recreational dive to break it in. We booked Fathoms of Fun Ancient Mariner trip for a run. With a little research, common dives sites become much more excited when you see what else is around?

I thought I copied the map made by Pavan at Dixie Divers into my logbook. I forgot so I made a crude one with Dale the Dive master to find the Berry Patch and then the Merrit Barge. I need to make a new map as due to hurricanes and rust.

We dropped and did a few laps around the AM. David learned that 1.5lbs is not enough for the Ocean, it was quite bouyant, but manageable so we continued the dive. There are poles in concrete between the AM, Chuck-A-Luck ribs, and the Berry Patch. It was simple to navigate the 2 minute cruise. It woudld take about 5-7 minutes to swim depending on your pace.

The Berry Patch is a beautiful little wreck. It is complete grown over and full of fish and packed with grunts. The fish look at your like your a stranger. 50ft further west is a reef line that tops out at 40 ft. We headed south to follow its sloping edge.

I started to lose faith as we hit the 4 minute mark of scootering. I was willing to go 7 minutes, but at 5 we hit the Merrit Barge. This is another great site where the panels have fallen off the sides and the "X" support brackets are exposed. Well grown over and teaming with life. It was a pretty dive site and teaming with fish.

We headed back and double checked our times along the way so I could update a map. We missed looking for the C-note. I guess we'll save it for the next dive. We returned to the AM at 40 mintues and saw we were the last team in the water and headed up.

The second dive was on the 2nd reef line. It was fun to go up and back on the reef for 3 times to take it all in with the big picuture. We had a great day of diving with flat seas, sun, and no wind. An A+ day of FL winter diving!

Butterfly Garden

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Originally uploaded by tiswango.

Andrea wonders where I get these ideas and the passion to follow them? So after reading up on bird watching, I got hooked on the idea of butterfly gardening. I'll blog more on the birds later. I've been reading up on books, reviewing plant lists, making drawings of the free land around the townhouse in attempts to plan, plant, and landscape a nice butterfly garden. I love the ideo of soul or purpose to the plants besides pretty and low maintanence. Our last trip to was to take a look at their butterfly garden and cross reference the plants on my list to see what they look like and how big they get. Descriptions in books and pictures only go so far. I really like the read pentas pictured here. With my camera I got distracted by all the butterflies. This one would not stop moving it wings! Now I have to work on the ID of the butterfly. I believe my obsessive complusiveness from fish id has mutated into bird and butterfly id. :)

Uniforms for Daycare

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Originally uploaded by tiswango.

Now that the boys are 1, they go to next level at daycare. That also means hard soled shoes, no more formula in bottles, and they have to wear uniforms. I was 30 minutes late to work, but I had to get of good pic of the two of them on the first day. The uniforms are $30 each which is more than we spend on any clothes. Luckily they are huge so the boys will have lots of time to grow into them.

Everett and Nathan's First Birthday Party

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Originally uploaded by tiswango.

Wow, the first year done already! My friend Mike H. keeps reminding me that I'm on the "fast track" out of diapers in 2.5 years. I keep focused on that great advantage of twins. More work now, but more fun later! After diapers I hear the next milestone is 4 years old as the kids can dress and care for themselves. Travel is supposed to also be much easier. Andrea and I are researching the infant passport process as someday (hopefully next year) they boys will be going to Argentina to meet the rest of the family.

But the party was a blast. We had about 60 people come including most of the godparents. My sister flew in Friday night and left Sunday morning, but enjoyed one whole full day with the boys.

Thankyou to everyone who gave money for the 529 college savings plan. The money should be worth $7K in 18 years compounded at 8%. *Grin*

Thanks also to the people who didn't listen and brought more toys. I have as much playing with them as the boys due! My resolution of no toys with batteries died after the first three months.

The clown was a big hit with the younger kids. We had the whole park dancing.

Props to my wife for planning and impletmenting a great party!

Roy Lichenstein at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens

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Originally uploaded by tiswango.

After two trips to Fairchild now I've still not walked thru the galery to see what is on the walls. Sever 15ft plus tall statues and 8 6ft tall works adorn the garden. It is a fun treasure hunt to find all on them in one trip. Its not as good as the Chihuly exhibit (which still has a few leftovers around) but its a nice contract with the pop art and nature. Others have said it looks like it doesn't belong there. I certainly see where this opinion comes from, I happened to like the art as it stands out against the natural background.