Author: Bill

Life on this island is different I guess…. more so than I want/can realize. Back in the states….. I always knew if the day held some special meaning….  birthday, holiday, whatever…… not so much now. Maybe it’s the retired life…. not sure, but I was probably ¾ of the way through this day before it dawned on me today was MLK day. Not a holiday that particularly held a lot of reverence to me…. but I always made a mental note of it during the day. Today, was just a day to cut grass. Granted, I never had to worry about cutting grass on MLK day back in the states – but here – get ‘er done while the opportunity presents itself…. and since it is done now, I have already scheduled a couple of dives for tomorrow morning… and Wednesday and Thursday now since I have the mowing out of the way…….

A lazy start to our day….. relaxing with world news [me] and looking for new pictures of our babies and grandbabies on FB [both of us]. A tasty breakfast while we eagerly tuned into our newest series (The 100). Done eating, a smoke, finished an episode before deciding it was time to get something done. I launched into yard work, here and at the ATV yard – while my Queen took off for all things shopping [groceries]. Still ‘Winter‘ here, so we had a nice cool breeze blowing our balmy 86° weather around. I finished mowing with a minimum of sweat, cleaned everything and put it up, ready for the next round. While perusing the internet ( I was looking at a grill I might be interested in) and in between calls scheduling dives and getting my strobe worked on – I got a call from our Damn Neighbor….. she was working on a drink before bedtime (working Midnight shift) and wanted to check in on us before she slid off into the land of slumber. What a delightfully wonderful conversation that was~! She finally ended the call headed for bed and I return to browsing for grills when my Bride pulled in. I went out and hauled in her latest trunk full. Groceries put away, our island Daughter stopped by to pick up stuff Angie had picked up for her, had a drink and chatted a bit before heading back up the mountain to tend with ‘down with shingles‘ hubby Shawn.

More drinks and couch time as we resumed our episode of The 100. I just finished cooking up a couple of burgers for my Bride and here I am. I can’t tell you how excited I am to know I’m going diving tomorrow~! I need to get my gear together and make sure it’s ready….. bump charge camera and lights…… Can’t wait~! PLUS – I’ll have new pictures for you all….. I can’t wait – it’s gonna be a good day~!

Good Night Ya’ll / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / Thankx for stopping in~!

Dammit Emmit….. I alluded to the post with the title and then didn’t mention it….. Yesterday’s post was “3 year island-aversary”. Three years we have been here now on our gorgeous little rock planted here in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Wow….. sometimes it seems like just yesterday we got here….. other times, especially when we are missing our babies and grandbabies it seems it seems like we have been here for eons. Even after 3 years now, we still have our moments when family tugs at our heart strings. I must confess, after the Christmas visit, while seeing everybody during the holidays was heartwarming – it was the only thing warm for us the entire visit and we both agree that will probably be our last ‘voluntary’ cold weather visit back to the states. Our little rock is ‘home’ now and we feel mostly out of place anywhere else and the daily warm weather (every day) just seals the commitment to stay here where it is warm. We both also agree, as soon as one of us get down sick [needing good hospital type sick] we will pack up and head back to the states. Where, we land when we do is still up for debate (my Queen wants FL – I am thinking TN) but hopefully we still have many years to decide that. Money, or more correctly, the lack of it may necessitate an early return – but we are trying to amend our living style to better accommodate us staying here. Kind of hard to get used to when the last 10 years of your life you had more than plenty of it to do whatever you wanted…… kinda spooky how fast it goes when it is not being supplemented with a steady paycheck… Just something else we happily deal with to continue to live here… So, Happy “Island-versary” to us…….

Today was just like the last couple, no diving, no mowing, no doing much of anything other than watching the boob tube. Have started a new series called The 100. We are liking it more and more each episode. It is a 7 season series, so I hope it stays good. Unless I get a call from the island kids saying we’re clearing trails…. the plan is to dive Tuesday and Thursday (Monday is already booked up). The stitches are about ready to come out [dissolvable] and I’m ready to get some new pictures for you all~! Tomorrow, I’m mowing instead of diving. I’ll knock out our yard and the ATV yard. I think my Queen is gonna go shopping tomorrow while I mow…… just another day on the island…… for 3 years now~~~~!

Good Night Ya’ll + + + + + + + + + + + + Thankx for stopping in~!

As suspected, it was late enough when we got back to the house last night…. and due to working [not drinking] I was just too tired to try and write anything. Blues had a (COVID) capacity crowd last night, which is half of their normal capacity to allow for social distancing, but the line up to the bar to order drinks and food was in place all night long and only once until the last half hour did that line ever go away. It kept the bartender and an occasional helper and me as bar back hopping – all night. My Bride contended with multiple little issues like making more sides and helping keep tables clean and allowing me the very occasional smoke break (2 smoke breaks in just over 4 hours), so we all earned our keep last night. The band from the states (Mama’s Blacksheep) drew in the crowd and we did our very best to keep them sated with drinks and food. It was a joint effort by a bunch of folks and it went off [mostly] without a hitch. I started the afternoon off a little bit sideways, by tripping over the water spigot and snapping it in half while rinsing out a cooler. After being soaked in a fountain of water until it got turned off….. luckily there was a plumber at the bar that had what we needed to fix it and we were soon back on track, although I spent the rest of the night with very wet feet. It was obvious when I got home and peeled my socks and shoes off to let my poor wrinkled old feet finally dry out. Neither of us had an appetite, so we settled for a couple of drinks as we settled into our respective seats to give our old tired backs a rest. We each got a shower….. one of us got a nice long hot shower, the other one got a short lukewarm shower……..   😉  before collapsing into bed. That was Midnight. I don’t remember much of anything else until about 06:30 this morning…. and even though I had to whizz bad enough I could almost taste it – I stayed in bed until almost 08:00 “lounging” until I couldn’t take it anymore and finally got up to answer nature’s call.

Took it easy all day today. My Queen made a tasty breakfast and we didn’t do much else other than watch TV. We finally finished the series RECTIFY…. weird series and didn’t care for the way it ended, but a mostly entertaining 4 season series. We nuked up the last couple of pieces of pizza from several nights ago and made that our dinner while we found and have started another series. This one is called The 100 – recommended by one of my readers (sorry, don’t remember who) – just started the 3rd episode and so far interesting~! It’s 7 seasons, so interested to see if it holds our interest for that long. Talked to the dive shop today about getting back in the water. My bandages fell off last night after my shower and the ‘wounds‘ look pretty good….. so about time to get wet~!

Good Night Ya’ll * * * * * * * * * * * * * Thankx for stopping in~!

Against my desires – I opted not to dive today, heeding the advice of the young man that cut around on my face yesterday. Now, here towards the end of the day… I’m kinda glad I did. While I really wanted to go diving, the cut places don’t really hurt, but they are a little puffy and I somehow believe that soaking them in salt water…. well, ocean salt water would not have been a good move. So it’s been another really lazy kinda day.

We decided to do Polly’s for breakfast, which was delicious as always and we have pretty much just lounged all day. Chatted with island kids about some things going on in their world. Shawn has managed to come down with an apparently, full blown case of Shingles and is out of commission for a while but is expected to come around soon. Cynthia has asked for a little help tomorrow and I’m gonna run into town and help her with that tomorrow morning – before coming back, cleaning up and heading out to Blues tomorrow afternoon.

We are working tomorrow evening up at Blues – I am going to bar back and not sure what my Bride is doing yet. They have a big name band (for the island) playing and they usually draw a sizable crowd. Not sure if that is going to apply with COVID conditions in place now – but guess we’ll see. Either way it will probably be either too late or too drunk to write when we get back, so probably no blog tomorrow night. Been watching RECTIFY all day….. our new series….. weird but in a mostly interesting kind of way.

Good Night Ya’ll ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Thankx for stopping in~!

Up a skosh early this morning to spend time with my Queen before she lit out for work. Got her on her way, made me a tasty sausage and egg sammich [only had 1 egg…. dammit emmit] – but it was hot, good and filling and enough get me on my way for what I hoped was going to be a busy productive day…… I headed for mid-island for my Doctor’s appointment. Showed up and sat in the parking lot until called in….. some paperwork and Doc was soon sticking needles into the side of my face. I can say at this point, with all certainty… me and Doc have entirely different opinions of what a ‘small pinch’ feels like….. but after 8 different pokes and one dose push that was probably a little faster than intended (it burned like fire for about 20 seconds) Doc said he’d be back in about 10 minutes to do the procedure. Back and becoming quite ‘chatty’ Doc cut, dug and stitched 2 different places on the side of my face. One ‘barnacle’ got removed because it was raised and turning color – the other was strictly cosmetic and since it was in such close proximity to the first one, he agreed to go ahead and take it off too. I’ve never had anything done like that before (that I was awake for)……. an odd sensation really, having someone cutting on you and even weirder – sewing you back upon the side of your face. It really wasn’t all that bad – but it’s not something I’d like to do every day…… still numb and a couple of bandages and I was on my way…. onward to the VA Center.

The day started going classically downhill from there. They said I had to have the registration to the car in my name to give me the plates. The BMV says they can’t get me a new registration without plates….. Ah yes – bureaucracy….. Ya gotta love it. I guess I could have went ahead and slapped myself upside the head…… I wouldn’t have felt it~~~  😉  Not in the mood to argue or fight the system….. I said thank you and took off. Since I was fairly close – I stopped in at Blues to let my Queen know that I survived the trip to Doc and that I was giving up on the plates. Even though Blues wasn’t open for business at the time – I sat and had a beer with Jim. By then they opened for business, so I stayed and had a beer with a couple of the regulars. The beer was starting to bloat me, so I switched to a cocktail and chatted a little more before heading back to our end of the island. A quick stop at the Post office….. got a dandy little box of goodies from Stephanie to help aid me in my effort to quit smoking…… Lord knows I’m gonna need all the help I can get. My Queen finally home, a couple of drinks, a bite to eat, chatting with my Mini-Jeni and ready to wrap this not entirely successful day up. I took a couple of pictures today, but not enough to justify hooking up the phone and downloading them yet…. so more older fish pictures you may not have seen yet.

Good Night Ya’ll – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Thankx for stopping in~!

I was going to skip tonight as well…… yesterday [and today] were mega boring and I couldn’t see trying to  come up with something just for the sake of running my gums. We wound up binge watching one short series (10 episodes) yesterday which is part of the reason I didn’t write…. Series was called Reckoning….. it was all over the place and mostly stupid so am not recommending it. Today was a lot like yesterday… only watched a couple of [really stupid] movies. So still nothing to talk about and no new pictures for you.

Gonna go see Doc tomorrow and have the couple of barnacles taken off my face while my Bride does her day of labor a Blues. I’m also gonna run by the office of Veteran Affairs and see if I can get free license plates and if I do – run them out the BMV and see if I can get Angie’s car titled, registered and plated once and for all. So a little something to do tomorrow besides watch the boob tube. I’ll see if I can snap a picture or two while I’m at it….. for now – some older ones.

Good Night Ya’ll ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Thankx for stopping in~!

Slept in just a teeny tiny bit this morning and woke up comfortably in an almost chilly bedroom. The nights are amazingly chilly now and with a ceiling fan over top of us and a floor fan on medium pointed right at us – out thin little blanket feels wonderful. Slow easy start to the day. My Bride made a right tasty breakfast for us and we sat and got caught up on the world happening around us. By noon, the sun was up, bright and a little warmer than it has been the past several weeks. It felt good and helped speed up the drying process of the fairly heavy dew that had settled on my lawn that was in now need of mowing. I finally drug out the lawn mower, the weed eater and gasoline and set about getting our yard back in shape. Stopping for the occasional cigarette with Angie as she brought me out a bottle of water, spark and rehydrate. For probably the first time since we’ve been back – I worked up enough of a sweat that it was starting to drip… and it felt wonderful. It took me almost 2 hours, but that also include multiple smoke breaks….. something I don’t usually do once I start mowing. The drinks being provided at each break was nice though and helps ensure I don’t get so light headed in the evenings.

Came in and settled in on the couch for some boob tube…. we have finished our last couple of series, last one being The Queen’s Gambit [interesting series about Chess players]. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. So with no new series in mind yet- we watched the movie The Coldest Game  (oddly enough also about Chess)  and The Midnight Sky with George Clooney. We almost quit in the middle of the first one because it was getting boring, but it marginally picked up and we finished it (I’d give it a 5- out of 10) The second was much better – I’d give it a strong 7+ out of 10 (I didn’t like the way it ended).  The sun is now setting (we’re 2 hours ahead of you now) the air is cooling off and we’re still relaxing. Will probably go on the hunt for a new series to start watching.

Going to try and get license plates for my Queens car tomorrow and the island kids are talking about maybe making a Pier dive tomorrow afternoon and asked if I was interested in joining them……. if I’m done with my running…. absolutely~! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve dove the pier or with the kids……. sounds like a plan~!!

Good Night Ya’ll . . … . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thankx for stopping in~!

Got home yesterday morning after another 2 tank dive. Couple of nice big sharks but they were apparently not in the mood to be photographed and kept their distance. Several other fun sea creatures to occupy my camera lens as I swam around in 79° water that felt much cooler than 79°. It’s that time of year the water is starting to cool off and as we become more and more acclimated to our climate – the cooler than warm air and water is starting to feel to us. Just before our ‘Christmas winds’ laid down, we actually draped towels out of my truck over our shoulders while we stood outside and smoked. That was an air temperature of bout 76° but still felt really chilly to us. Of course, that 2 week blast we got back in the states over Christmas probably didn’t help us any. The winds have laid down and it is our usual nice and warm weather during the daytime now. Anyhow – I got back from the dives and my Bride offered me a drink, which sounded good. They tasted even better than they sounded and was going down a whole lot easier than they probably should have, so by about 6:00pm, I was pretty much shot. I vaguely remember having some Gusto’s pizza that my Queen went and fetched for me and it seems like we finished the series the Queen’s Gambit [highly recommend!] but everything else is kind of a blur until this morning……. hence, my not writing anything….. you’ll have that every now and again…… guess I should say I’ll have that every now and again…………. today was mostly a day of ‘recovery’ taking it easy and doing a whole lot of nothing.

I did finally break down and watch part of a Colts football game this afternoon, until Angie nudged me off of the couch and said we were going to Blue’s to celebrate Debs birthday. Angie had ran and picked up a small cake and some plates for the occasion….. so we made the big trek to mid-island to Blues. we gave Deb her cake and a quick rendition of happy birthday, then sat down for a couple or three drinks. My stomach still not quite right, I wasn’t in much of a drinking mood and that, saddled with the fact there were only a small handful of people there, we both agreed it was time to head back to the house. Back safe and sound – I am trying to get something in my belly and hoping it stays there. Not sure what tomorrow will bring….. hopefully sleeping in and another easy day….. although I do have to get the yard mowed……. always something in this tough retired life  😉

Good Night Ya’ll * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Thankx for stopping in~!

P1080037  <—- Video

P1080062 <—- Video

Couldn’t get the candles to stay light – so Angie had her blow out her lighter  😉  Island ingenuity……..

Another day of wandering around under the waves in water that is JUST about to become to cool to be comfortable. Up early and on the boat by 08:15 and a long motor to our first dive site. Captain Morgan, which is a favorite because of the topography…. I was the first over the side of the boat and Lawsy was that water brisk…. woooo-weee. It only took a second to adapt to it – but it was a chilly second…. Fun dive, with some [small] Lobsters….. a couple of uncooperative sharks but still lots to look at and take pictures of. Every shot I take is a learning lesson for me and I’m starting to get excited as I am beginning to understand what I need to do and where to set my strobes for the picture I want (before actually taking the picture).  I did manage to find me my most favorite critter (Giant Green Moray Eel) and got a couple of nice shots along with a video for you all. I just hope I kept it short enough to load on here……….

Please be aware – I have been drinking for the last 4 hours and it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open…… My Bride made me a drink as soon as I got home and I have been drinking regularly since….. yes – she held a gun to my head and made me drink. Even with a Spark and a big ole plate of spaghetti…… my get up and go has done laid down and quit…… so if this winds up short – you’ll know why……. as if that should be a big surprise to any of you by now…….

Stepped outside for a smoke with my Queen  to watch a gorgeous sunset in process and to [hopefully] wake my happy a$$ up a little bit….. only to watch our whole end of the island grow instantly dark and quiet. Yup….. our power company [WAPA] at their finest… no, wind, no rain, no adverse conditions of any kind…… and we lose power….. Ahhh Island Life. I’m typing now on battery power and hopefully get power and internet back in time to send this out tonight……

I did manage a couple of shots today that I like/am proud of and will put them up here……. I have decided [with my Queen’s blessing] that I need to dive again tomorrow… so hopefully more fun pictures for you~! For now, here in the quiet darkness of our humble little abode… I may crash early in preparation for 2 more dives tomorrow…… dammit emmit……   😉

Good Night Ya’ll – – – – – – – – – – – – – Thankx for stopping in~!

JUST back from Blues and not in the mod or condition to write much of anything…. a fairly nondescript day anyway.

Doc said the barnacle on the side of my face id mostly likely benign, but wants to take it off “just in case” – have to set up that appointment…….

Stopped and Blues for “a drink” afterwards…. and well – – you know. ………..

Supposed to dive in the morning – so need to crash soooooon……… More tomorrow.

Good Night Ya’ll + + + + + + + + + + + + + Thankx for stopping in~!