Orange Rolls, Temple Fund-raiser and Jokers

I started out Thurs. morning all set to make orange rolls.  Before I could get all the ingredients out and begin the process the power went out.  We quickly abandoned the idea and took Maggie to our local favorite store Umbul Umbul.  Actually that reminds me we picked up a nice new diving gear shelf there on our first day here.  It's sort of like a bookshelf but its a dive gear shelf.  Haha!!   We also went to West End and saw Martine and Mal and Sophia's new dive shop. Its nice, nice location but very small.
While we were out running around we ran into the branch president and Tom and him communicate a little roughly but they can communicate.  We said we wanted to help with their upcoming temple trip and he said well Sat. at 4 pm we have a fundraiser.   We thought it sounded like great fun so we bought tickets (they were selling them for $5) and he said he would see us at 4.  (The ticket even said 4 on it, more on this later)

So Fri.  I tried again on the orange rolls.  Pictures provided because Maggie was cracking up over my lime green bowl, orange shirt, red shorts and shoes.  I said it was carribean baking attire.  I make them every trip for everyone at the dive shop.  I got the dough made, it had risen, I rolled it out and made the actual rolls and just when they had risen enough to put in the oven. . . you guessed it the power went out.  We hadn't played jokers the whole trip so we refreshed Staibs memory of how to play and we were off to try and pass the time while we waited for the power to come on.  The first game was a little rough but then they caught on quickly and Maggie and I quickly took the first game.  The power finally came on and we got the rolls baked and down to Bananarama dive shop.  They are so grateful when fresh goodies arrive.  We then went for a very long snorkel trip taking the staibs way out to the point of the west bay end of the island.  I think we were out about and 1 1/2 hours.  We came home made dinner and Staibs were hooked they wanted to play more jokers.  Girls 3 Men 0  Bwhahahah!!!!

Sat.  We did our last 2 dives in the morning.  We saw a moray eel completely out in the open swimming.  It was way below us and I didn't feel scared at all.  We say the usual things, but no matter how many times I see a turtle swimming out in the open, or find juvenile spotted drum fish
it never ceases to give me a thrill.  Tom helped me with my gear a lot a lot a lot this trip which made the diving easier and more enjoyable for me.

We came home and got ready for the branch party.  We arrived at 4:05 and when we got there nothing was ready, the sister making the food said you're early.  We offered to help but they wouldn't let us so we went outside and met a lot of the kids and a few families.  By about 5:30 they started playing some yard games like wheel barrow race, carry a lime in a spoon with your mouth (I would have done that one but they were all sharing the same spoons, gross)  then they did a sack race and the branch president fell and scraped his face up.  It was pretty sad.  I think he was so embarrassed he never came back to the party.  Anyway at 7pm we got our plate of food which smelled great but was just ok.  We just prayed we wouldn't get sick.  It was a shish kabob beans, salsa and a tortilla and a drink we still don't know what it is.  Maggie kept saying we gotta go we need to play more jokers.  So we didn't get home until about 9, had our leftover orange rolls and played 2 more games of jokers.  Final score girls 4 - Men 1.

Today we went to church and there were a lot of visitors and 2 missionaries spoke.  The translator was having a hard time because it was too fast for him.  So while translating he made a few jokes like ayaya slow down and those of us with headsets laughed out loud it was funny but also a little awkward.  At the end of church the Branch president stood up and pointed out that there were flowers at the front of the church.  they were from Adolfo to his girlfriend because he is out of town.  He even read the card which was something like thank you for a great first month of being my girlfriend.  It was so cute but boy she was embarassed.  I have referred to Adolofo several times.  He works at bananarama.  He is from El Salvador.  He served his mission here and the mormon owners of bananarama said if he would come back he could have a job.  He is an excellent waiter, speaks english and has helped us on numerous occasions.  We really like him.  He spoke last week and is a great member of the church.

Tom just took Staibs to the airport.  Our plans for tomorrow are to go looking for a wood carving of a turtle for our travel souvenir of Roatan.

Roatan: String of Pearls

Towards the end of the night dive, we swam to a sandy area at about 6m (20 ft). The group all switched off their lights and waited to see if we could experience what the locals call the ‘string of pearls’. We were told that the conditions have to be perfect – no moonlight, no wind and as black as the darkest night. We switched off all our lights and were engulfed in total darkness. I had to remind myself that I was underwater, for it was easy to forget. The reef was still and the only reason I knew the group were still there was because of the soft sound of bubbles. I clasped Tom's hand and squeezed it hoping to convey my excitement at this experience. 

And then it begun. Sparks flew from my fingertips as the micro-organisms burst into life. Think ET’s fingertip – Mother nature came alive! It was as if we were radioactive….. everytime we moved we were shooting glowing sand! The bioluminescence twinkled all around around us like stars in the night sky. I had to pinch myself to ensure I wasn’t dreaming.

The whole experience just got more and more surreal. As if the first bioluminescence cried out to the rest that it was safe to come out and play – the strings started appearing first some then more then hundreds.  Like fairy lights in a vertical string, sequentially lighting up and then going out again – a crazy light show was underway. 

It was one of the best moments of my life. We knelt there mesmerised, spellbound and in disbelief.

We then prepared for take off.  We swam in the dark, through the string of pearls for over 20-30 minutes.  IT WAS AWESOME.  The best way I can desribe it was I felt like I was in space – flying through the constellations in the galaxy.  It really is hard to come up with words to describe it.  I looked on the internet and found some pictures that people admit they have made in photoshop to try and show what it looks like.  Although they give you a hint of an idea thy to picture this times about 100 or 200 and they aren't all the same size, shape, length etc.  They are every where. 

Only 2

Church was awesome.  The branch got these headsets kind of like the temple but its a person translating for you.  So we got to understand everything. The first speaker was our friend Adolfo, Aubri did you meet him?  He is such a great young man and he gave a fabulous talk.  We really enjoy the branch here.
Maggie is doing much better and was able to go to church.  We also went to the firedance show and she seemed to be doing fine.

They have all day of certification tomorrow, we just dive in the morning.


Bug bite count= 42+  only 2 new ones today, YAY!!

The ever so adorable spotted drum fish

We did 2 dives today, the first was pretty ho humm nothing special but we did get to go with Marco, our favorite.  The second dive we saw 2 spotted drum fish swimming together,  we haven't ever seen that before.  Maggie got sick either food poisoning or the flu and wasn't able to do certification today so they are a day behind now.

Bug Bite Count=  Julie Over 40 Everyone else under 10 combined with all of them.

Hopefully a video to come tomorrow of the SDF

1 Spotted Eagle Ray, 2 lobsters, 3 ramorays, 4 turtles, 5 pairs of don all bears tweezers?

So Diving today was fun, easy and slow.  They always ease us back into the diving mode so nothing hard and we didn't take a camera so Tom could focus on breathing, getting his bearing etc.  We did see
1 spotted drum fish, 1 spotted eagle ray, 2 little juvenile eels, the biggest turtle we have ever seen about 4 feet in diameter with 2 ramorays ? don't know how to spell that attached to the turtles shell.  There was a bit of a current and we drifted on our first dive quite away down the coast line.  We are safe but you already knew that.

Staibs did their first day of certification.  They had a few problems but over all I think they did well.
Maggie panicked when she had to clear her mask and went to the surface.  They don't really like it when you do that.

Bug Bite Count:  30

Tomorrow we will again be diving from 8:00 til 1:30

Number 70

Today we are going on a 2 tank dive.  The first dive of the morning will be our 70th Dive.  I will be back to add to this post.

Beat out the Kardashians

I forgot a funny story.  So while we had no water, we had used all 3 toilets in the house which couldn't be flushed.  It was getting a little smelly and I said we have got to flush.  Since we have a cistern under the house, we took flashlights and I held the light while Tom crawled to the cistern and scooped out water in a small bucket and poured it into a 5 gallone jug.  When he was done and we were walking back up to the house I felt something on my clothes and let out a scream you would have thought it was a snake.  I looked down to see some stick a burrs clinging to my dress.  I started cracking up and said oh I would be the most entertaining Survivor contestant the show has ever had.  Tom said forget survivor they could just follow you around everyday and you would beat out the Kardashians.  Still laughing pretty hard I said I am going to take that as a compliment.  He very quickly says (laughing pretty hard himself) oh I totally meant it as a compliment (NOT) You probably would have had to be here and see it but it was all pretty funny.  It's all fun and games to us and we love whatever adventure comes our way.  Its a great break from the hectic life in San Diego.   Like I always say, its glorified camping we are doing here.

Bug bite total so far = 20.

No water, No air conditioner, no power - WE LOVE IT HERE?!?!?!

As you probably know we cheaper out and flew out of vegas because it was something like $500 cheaper per person.  It was a LONG trip.  The flight was shorter but the layover in Houston was 3 am to 10 am I thought I was going to lose my mind I was so tired and couldn't sleep.  I did watch some fun Amazing race though and got to see Gdansk Poland, and not just Gdansk but Mormons in Gdansk.  That was really fun.

We finally arrived and at first they said they didn't have a car for us but when she realized it was us, (very good repeat customers) she scrambled to find something.  It wasn't what we wanted, its a bit of a gas hog but better than no car.

We always go straight to the 2 grocery stored.  We try to get most of our stuff at the local store but there is a bigger americanized store we can find almost anything.  While we were there the power went out.   It was find for shopping they have sky lights but there was no power to run the registers.  Evidentaly the power has been going out a lot lately.  Some problems with the Power creators (both people and machines).  So we finished up just about when the generator kicked in and we were able to check out.

We got to our house and immediately started with washing dishes, bedding etc. everything that has been sitting for 9 months.  I can't stand the thought of sleeping or eating off of things that have been sitting for 9 months.  I was fortunate enough to be able to get our sheets washed and dried before the power went of AGAIN.  It was sweltering hot, but we had a lot to do so we sort of cleaned in the dark with flashlights and were grateful we had clean sheets.  We had cold cereal for dinner (and it wasn't healthy ceral, it wasn't even lucky charms, it was my least favorite, captain crunch, oh joy) We have a water filter and we always set that up first so we also had some drinking water.  We did not have water to shower though. When we don't have electricity we don't have water because the water is pumped to the house with a pump that uses electricity.  So, we had about 1 gallon of stored water from last trip and we used that to sprinkle shower.  Yikes after being in airports, and sleeping on the floor of the airport, yes I was that desperate that I slept on the floor.  It was GROSS but I was desperate.  I did manage to get about an hour of sleep.  Anyway we were so exhausted I went to sleep at 8:30 and slept until 8:30 the next morning.  I had taken PMs and between them, the exhaustion and the heat, I really had trouble waking up.  Tom kept telling me get to get up and I just couldn't.  Finally we got up and had cold cereal, not much else to have with no power.   When we were up and about we learned that the rest of the Islands power had been restored but our street.  How does that happen??  Well, it turns out all the on again off again power situation burned out the transformer that services our street.  They worked on it all day and then told us they couldn't fix it and it was the Home Owners Association's responsilbity to fix it.  So we held an HOA meeting in the street and decided we wouldn't and couldn't afford to buy a new one.  The Pres. called RECO (The roatan electric company) and told them they had to fix it.  Tom and I left to go snorkeling.  It was fun we cooled off, at dinner at bananarama and when we were coming home we were following a back hoe (I didn't even know they had those on the island) and a truck with a transformer in the back.  We pulled into our driveway to see all the neighbors out watching to see if we would have power by bedtime.  (its about 6:30 at this point).  The neighbors across the street (the ones with power and the ones storing our meat in their fridge) offered us a shower, we decided to wait it out so we could shower at home.  Sure enough at about 9:00 they power came on!!  You wouldn't have thought it was new year's eve.  There was cheering and yelling and whistling and there were only 7 of us without power.  But let me tell you, its pretty miserable sleeping without air.  I mean I think San Diego is miserable without air but Roatan is 10 times worse.

So we have a shower, we have air conditioning and all is right in the third world.