Author: Bill

Slept in a little bit [until ALMOST 07:00] and rolled out to a reasonably cool day with gorgeous blue skies (and intermittent island rain showers) and a nice casual start to a Saturday morning. I had a DSD to shoot pictures for this morning, but it wasn’t until’ noon~ish, so I got to relax and comfortably get all my morning stuff out of the way. I also had ample time to charge up my camera and my batteries for my lights. I have recently got my shipment of rechargeable batteries for my lights…… there was another lesson I had to learn pretty quick – rechargeable batteries work  nothing like conventional batteries…. they don’t ”hold” a charge like regular batteries….. but live and learn……. everything charged and loaded into the truck – I headed into town for my photo-shoot.  A single diver although he had his gorgeous girlfriend with him that wanted nothing to do with getting underwater……. he filled out his paperwork, got sized for his gear and we were soon off for a dive. This particular Instructor was new to me, and had a style I was not quite used to – but we made the dive work while he managed his student and I floated around getting pictures of the event. Recent ‘storm’ activity here on the island made visibility under the water a friggin’ mess… but I did what I could to get a decent picture. Visibility in the water where we were at is usually like bath or aquarium water….. today – not so much. Hey, ya gotta play the hand you were dealt. The dive went reasonably well and I’m satisfied the student was happy with his adventure. I ran home, did a quick edit on his pictures and had them back at the shop [on a flash drive] within an hour and a half of the dive.

While I scurried to get my gear rinsed and hung and get picture editing done, my Queen mentioned she saw a car on FB that she would really like me to look at….. okay – let’s figure something out. Some where between editing pictures, dumping them into a hard rive, dropping said hard drive off at dive shop… we also managed to look at a cute little white Sebring convertible. My Bride took it for a test drive, I crawled my big ole fat nash [as far] under the car as I could to look for oil leaks. Me trying to load ‘CASH APS’ on my phone, didn’t work – him trying to load PayPal on his phone, mostly worked…. we finally negotiated a payment and my Queen now has her a new [to her] car…. a convertible no less, like she used to have. The roof doesn’t work – but I’m sure we’ll get that fixed so my Queen will be happy. Car has a trunk on it it that you could get [I’m guesstimating] at least 4 bodies in it…… as long as my Queen is happy with it – I am happy with it….. and I negotiated a price I’m happy with……. geeez what day….. there is a LOT more to the day… but I’m at my limit – so…………

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

Job isn’t finished until the paper work is done~1

Ready to go~!

Up to a fairly early start to my day while my Queen snoozed in a little bit. I’m good with that as I know the sleep is good for her – plus – it gives me the time to start the morning to myself…… while she admittedly, is not a chatter box in the morning, I still like the ‘wee‘ hours to my self to wake up. Just a me thing. Woke up – morning stuff out of the way…. I decided to launch into some yard maintenance while my Bride was doing her breathing treatments and had some plans for breakfast. When I went to pay rent the other day – I asked the landlord if it was okay if I did some of my own yard maintenance versus waiting for ‘her guy’ to do it. I think her guy may be a Grandson or some other family member and I apparently just offended the hell out of him the last time I got ‘caught’ doing my own yard stuff. I explained that I enjoy mowing the yard [I really do] and that the exercise was good for me [as I patted my belly]. Once she heard that and I understood I didn’t expect a reduction on rent or anything like that…. she was fine with it and even told him (as he mysteriously appeared during the conversation) that I was ‘saving him some work’)….. So I launched into my yard work, fully satisfied in the knowledge I was doing it ‘legally’. For the next 2 hours [with a time out for breakfast] – I mowed and weed eated… weed ate…. I used the weed eater to trim everything…… however you say it. Now the yard is gorgeous and I’m happy with the job I did.

My Bride decided we needed to go to Blues tonight and catch up with friends from there. Another friend was scheduled as the entertainment for the night so we wanted to be there to support him as well. So I got a quick shower [the old fat boy worked up a pretty good lather out there doing manual labor] – and in what would eventually be discovered as a brilliant move on my part, I made me a sammich…. a dang fine sammich if I say so myself….. chopped hammed, a couple of slices of a right fine tomato and a pile of lettuce with ‘just the right amount of mayo’ to seal the deal…… it was so fine….. how fine was it ?? SOOO fine – I made a second one and washed everything down with a bottle of Spark. Well let me tell you what…. the evening at Blues was wonderful, we chatted, drank [a LOT] and just had a wonderful time. At closing, we helped close the yard up and I drove home without any fear of staying in my lane or ‘not making it’….. Yay~!! Back home safe and sound, the plan was to weeny out of posting anything tonight, yet – here I am almost at my limit… Had a wonderful face time chat with our oldest Granddaughter who [we just found out tonight is going through some medical issues] and hopefully helped her feel a little bit better about the struggle in front of her. I don’t have a heckva lot of new pictures for you tonight, so a little skimpy there.  I do have a DSD tomorrow I’m shooting [professionally] – so I should have new underwater pictures for you tomorrow night…….

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

Me doing my photog thing~!

When you see a nice close up of something [like a shark] THATS how close I am to it…………..

Up after a delightful nights sleep and woke up to electricity and internet (even though I had to reset the modem again – which has become an almost daily ritual) Fairly early, my Bride got a ping from Blues asking if she could come in and work for a little bit. The curfew had been lifted and a lot of places that were planning on being closed opened up and Blues was one of them. So she made us a tasty little breakfast and was soon on her way to work – once again leaving me to entertain myself. I fired up some music on the boob tube (the silence is deafening with the ringing in my ears, so I have to have some kind of background noise) and then did the dishes from our breakfast. While doing said dishes, I got to noticing, the kitchen floor was filthy. Understand the house we live in has had the same floor tile since it was built [loooooong ago] and apparently has not had a lot of care taken care of it, so any wax or sheen the tile had is now loooooong gone and it doesn’t take much for the floor to get dirty. Especially when we are trampling in and out the last 4 days from smoking and dragging in that mess with us from all the rain. The little rug we used to wipe our feet on apparently had all it could stand and wasn’t doing a very good job of cleaning our flip flops when we came in. So once I finished up the dishes, I went and grabbed the mop and bucket, filled it with hot soapy water and commenced to cleaning the floor. That led me to going getting one of my drills with a nylon brush on it and working on some of the really bad spots. I also sacrificed a new scratchy sponge thingy and ”boogied” around the kitchen with that scrubbing pad under one foot. Not really classy looking – but it worked. Truth be told, I probably need to get a floor buffer with a cleaning pad on it to really  get it nice and clean – then seal it with mop and glow or some kind of wax….. but it looks a heckva lot cleaner than it was. I cleaned the mop and hung it out to dry although a lot of intermittent rain showers made that a challenge, including our little rug, which I power washed the best I could and hung to dry.

Rest of the day I sat and paid bills…. always fun to do that….. My Queen finally came rolling in and we settled into drinks and a movie. Last one was called Full Count albeit mildly predictable and wasn’t terrible. Angie is now working on last nights dinner [again] while I get my stuff done. I may try to get the yard mowed tomorrow as it is supposed to be the only dry day we’re supposed to have this week. I also just got contracted for another photo-shoot for another DSD on Saturday – so Yay~!

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

Up after a much better nights sleep (with fans and conditioned air) we rolled out to a mixed up kind of day.  The National Weather service said we were ‘probably’ going to be hit with a small hurricane….. I think that falls somewhere in line with being kind of pregnant. My Queen was scheduled to work today and had not been called off, so she was gone by 08:30, leaving me here to my own devices. She took off and I made me a wonderfully delicious breakfast and sat and enjoyed it while I perused the wonderful world of FB. Geeeesh what a cluster…… mess~~ I eagerly looked forward to being ”trapped” in our humble little abode and affording the opportunity to find my self in the midst of an [at least Cat1] hurricane and getting some fun pictures of it for you. With the exception of about a 15 minute period where the rain came down sideways [essence of Forrest Gump] and I scrambled around to close the shutters to keep everything from getting soggy [including our bed]….. our ‘storm’ was pretty non-descript. Meaning… I have been through a HELLVA lot worse back in Southern Indiana….. a little bit depressing, although I may come to eat those words in time to come.

So – no weather to act a fool and get pictures for you (I was imagining shots from the Weather channel where those fools were out battling hurricane force winds) I relegated myself to listening to music and cleaning up my hard drive of stuff that no longer matters. An hour or two into that and a ping from my bride told me she was on the way home. Yay~! She got here, I unloaded the car again of what I thought was entirely too many groceries, she made us drinks and we were soon back into our comfortable routine. Started a movie I think we have both seen, but it was interesting so we stayed with it until the neighbors got home and ‘came a callin’. Fast forward a couple of hours…. dinner sat on the stove uncooked [spaghetti – Dammit EMMIT] ‘several’ drinks…….. the neighbors finally headed back to their place…. dinner was shelved in the fridge for tomorrow…. I made me a couple of chopped ham sammiches, as I was on the edge of stupid at that point and here now I sit, trying to make sense talking to you all….. How I’m doin’ ???

Comfortable with the fact the ‘storm’ is well past us now and we didn’t even get a decent rain out of it…. I’m gonna put up a couple of some dive pictures for you and try and finish our movie……. just kiddin…. probably heading to bed shortly after I get this done. Curfew in effect on the island now from Midnight tonight until noon tomorrow,,,so can’t go anywhere….. but we’ll see what the day brings…………….

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

After a mostly miserable nights sleep…. we lost electricity about 11:00pm due to an AWESOME thunder and lightening storm last night. No electricity means no no A/C or fans…. and even though there was a nice cool breeze with  the rain….. laying there in bed listening to the thunder roll across the Caribbean Sea [forever] – it was stuffy and too hot to sleep (unless you were in bed and already asleep…….)   😉    I got up and opened all the shutters, but it didn’t help very much. Thankfully, just after an hour or so , the juice came back and I got up [again] and closed all the shutters and fired up the A/C  again. Sleep at last…. 01:20~ish……back up by a little after Six and at it – ready for a busy day…… or at least that’s what we both expected. A couple of more red flags from ‘Dude’ and I cancelled the car transaction…. just too many things not lining up…. playing the hunches.

Finally got a call from Home Depot and said they were on their way…. LOLOLOL… a half a dozen phone calls later and the delivery crew finally showed up. What a joke…… Home Depot should be ashamed of themselves for employing delivery people like that. However – the wash machine was finally delivered and I set about to unbox it and set it up.  I had forgotten, most new washing machines do  NOT come with water connection hoses, so I climbed into the truck and ran up to ye old hardware store for a ‘Y’ connector, a couple of hoses and an extension cord and before long, my Bride had her new wash machine connected and did a trial load to ensure it was working…. it was – so Yay~! By then it was close to 2:00, hot and breezy – so we relegated the rest of the day to watching movies. First one was pretty drab…. the second one was based on the actual events of 9-11 and was called United flight 93. That one struck a nerve has we watched…… I think the whole country needs to watch that one to remind them of that fateful day. My Bride made us a pork chop and some veggies[very tasty] for dinner and is now in the middle of watching The Jersey Boy’s…. the the acting so far leaves something to be desired – but a great sound track~! So batting 500 on the day – but hey, I’ll take it~! On this island – that’s doing pretty good~!

Just got a ping from the dive shop saying tomorrows dives have been cancelled due to impending weather.  Oh yeah….. guess I should have mentioned that we have a storm brewing in the lower Atlantic that is expected to develop into a hurricane – and currently is heading right straight at us……….Dammit Emmit.  My Bride is working at Blues tomorrow… so since I am not diving…. I’m thinking maybe heading to Home Depot and looking at generators….. after all, if we lose power for more than 6-8 hours – I’ll need ice and be able to keep my beer cold~!

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

Rainbow Parrot fish

P7250197   <—— Twinkling lights from under the pier at night video~~

Up early after crashing early last night. Waiting for the ping from dude with the car to say meet him at the BMV. I’m sure most of you reading this have dealt with the BMV somewhere in your lifetime and that you know what kind of headache and frustration that can be. Now sprinkle that equation with a healthy dose of Island time and you will just begin to understand my trepidation of having to go there, but I wanted to get my Queen her car so I was ready to jump in with both feet. Dude ( Dudes name is Unnga…. just a lot easier to call him Dude)  finally pinged me and said they were having trouble finding the paperwork they needed…..not a good sign….. so trying to be patient…. I said no worries…. pinged me a little bit later, still having trouble [more red flags]….. I told him I did not want to waste my day sitting around waiting on something that might not happen. Call was finally made about 1:00pm that paperwork was ready, but probably best to just wait until tomorrow (code for we still ain’t found what we need yet. Again, trying to be cool – I said okay – I’ll meet you at the BMV tomorrow morning at 08:30…… if he’s not there – or there and don’t have everything we need for me to take ownership – I’m just gonna tell him to stick it in his……. place where the sun don’t shine. A tomorrow transaction also complicates things in that my Bride’s new wash machine is supposed to be delivered tomorrow morning as well and she will need to be here at the house for that – so I am going to have to navigate the BMV and car stuff by myself and then figure out how to get the car back to the house. I’ll worry about that after/when I take ownership. Soooo…. if everything falls into place – a big day for my Queen tomorrow…… new car, new wash machine…….life on  the island is returning to some form of normalcy…… maybe.

Still LOTS of underwater pictures to share with you, including my awesome close up shark pictures. I have a 2-tank dive scheduled with my favorite dive shop Wednesday – so I’ll be adding even more underwater pictures to my collection for you~! Until then – please cross your fingers for me that everything goes smoothly tomorrow….. hells bells….. I’d even settled for semi-smoothly. Thank you~~~~~

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

Sorry about missing yesterday and not even a heads up for you. We spent a really casual morning with a nice breakfast while I waited to head out for a two-tank dive with our local dive club. While I was waiting, I got a ping from our island kids asking if I was interested in making a night dive with them. I’m  not really a fan of night diving [for multiple reasons] but it had been a while since I’ve made a night dive, I enjoy diving with the kids and it would be a chance to see what my lights could do at night – so I agreed to it. By then it was time to load up for my club dive. I like the shop we were going out with – it’s just that they charge a lot more than other shops and I am trying to make the most of the money I spend on dives….. but they offered a nice ‘rate’ for the club members and being a member of the board I usually try to attend those dives. As it turns out – our first dive site is my most very favorite dive site – Armageddon~! It did not disappoint~! I struggled with my lights for a little bit – but three big Caribbean Reef sharks stayed close and gave me ample opportunities to practice my photography on them. Keep in mind when you look at these pictures – I did not use my zoom lens for any of these shots….. the sharks were just coming in nice and close…. which is just another reason that is my favorite dive site~! It is a short dive because of the depth – but still worth every minute and still my favorite site. Our second dive was much shallower and much longer, but to me, a bit of a let down after my shark encounter, but it gave me lots of time to practice with my camera. Finally back at the dock and I had just enough time to run back to the house and get a quick charge on my camera, before hustling back and bailing off of the dock with the kids and doing the night dive. I thought managing the camera and lights was a challenge while diving….. trying to do it in the dark adds a whole other level of challenge and aggravation. I still enjoyed the challenge and did manage to get several good shots that I think you’ll enjoy. It may take several days to get them all up here but at least they’ll all be different underwater stuff. So – busy, busy day for the old fat boy….. it was close to 10:00 by the time I got back to the house and I was just to pooped to do much of anything other than get a drink, a shower and a bite to eat and collapse into bed…….

Went and looked at a car for my Bride today…. nice little 2007 Honda…. 2 door, which is what she wanted…. in pretty good shape. Agreed on a price and supposed to go get it titled and licensed tomorrow….another busy day… hopefully a calm easy day……

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

Manifest

P7240105

Up a smidge earlier than I cared for, but I was preparing to go diving with my most favorite dive shop and I knew I was going to have two dives to do nothing but play with my camera…….. morning stuff out of the way – I loaded my gear, made me a cooler [of really cold beer], gave my Queen a kiss and jumped in the truck and was gone.(BTW-that also included a bite to eat and a bottle of Spark)….. Salt River, where the boat was docked – has been jammed packed with that nasty a$$ Sargassum….. bad enough, it has also killed several hundred [if not more] fish and between the smell of the Sargassum and the dead fish…… you couldn’t hardly breathe……. nasty, nasty stuff…… but we finally got everybody loaded and were off. The North shore was a challenge today as 8′ swells out on the open water were prevalent…. but the Captain did his usual good job navigating them and we soon at our first dive site. The water felt amazing as I fell in backwards off of the side of the boat….. visibility was close to a 100′ and away we went. The farther the dive went – the worse the ‘vis’ got. That happens now and again and just something you have to deal with. Second dive was mildly better and the sites were awesome. By then, everybody on the boat knew I was experimenting with my lights and they all happily lined up and let me try different shots with them. Wonderful two dives, even though contending with tons of Sargassum, BIG waves and sketchy ‘vis’ added extra challenges. Still a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours looking at that kind of beauty…….

Back at the house – my bride and I discussed her doctors visit. Doc seems to think my Queen may be borderline diabetic….. another obstacle we will face together…. more as that develops…….

While we stood outside and drank and smoked…. we watched 2 Iguana’s mealing on some Mango’s we had pitched over near the fence for just that purpose. One of them was a big old dude and looks for the world like a small Dinosaur….. I took a bunch of pictures of him using the zoom lens on my phone…. but the more he got used to me – the braver each of us got as I tried to get a close up with out ‘zooming’….. lots of fun until he got tired of me and went on his merry way.  Still waiting for my camera to charge, so not sure if I’ll get the dinosaur pictures up tonight or not…… but lots of fun underwater pictures for you to fill the gap. Another 2-tank dive tomorrow with a whole different crew in a whole new environment….. should be interesting to say the very least….. but there will be more pictures~!!

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

Meech

Caribbean Reef Shark

Lion Fish

‘Four Eyed’ Butterfly fish

Fan Coral

Smooth Trunk Fish

Don’t know what he is, but he was huge

Drum Fish

I slept in a little bit this morning after staying up to get in a couple extra episodes of Night Shift, my latest series I have been watching. A very slow [enjoyable] start  to the day this morning with with absolutely nothing to do but take it easy. My Bride eventually made us a tasty breakfast. I did the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen and emptied out the garbage.  Woo-hoo—- exciting huh ?  😉  Hey, not every day is going to be a tropical adventure…….. I eventually ran the garbage to the dump, checked mail and secured my position for this Saturday afternoon for a two-tank club dive with a local dive shop. It’s fun to go out with other dive shops once in a while and see how they do things on their boats. It is also a great way to dive at dive sites that you don’t normally go to. Each shop kinda has their own little spots they frequent, so while I’m not a big fan of crowded boats – I am looking forward to the dives with this shop and some of the members of the dive club…. it is also another opportunity to play with my new lights.

I have another two-tank dive in the morning. Angie has some blood work to get done and a Doctor’s appointment [just some follow up stuff] and I figured that be the perfect time to dive. So I’m diving in the morning as well. Back to back two-tank dives~!! Woo-HOO – now that is exciting~! So I should have plenty of fun pictures for you for the next multiple days.

We spent the afternoon watching movies…… one noteworthy one called Gridiron Gang….. I would recommend it to any of you all who read this… a couple of others that were pretty non-descript…….. That’s about it….. puttin’ up the rest of the pictures from yesterdays DSD (the really good ones!)

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

Trumpet Fish

Fun with an Urchin

Flounder

Sand Crab

Up early because I wanted to be sure to get my morning stuff out of the way and have plenty of time to review camera technicalities before heading into my first bona-fide paying job as a DSD photographer. Manuals and notes reviewed, triple checked to make sure I had everything I needed to complete my task. My Queen left a half or so before me for her new job every Wednesday prepping food for Blues Backyard BBQ – I bid her farewell and then loaded up the truck for my gig. I wanted to get new batteries for my flash, as I used up most of my batteries experimenting last night and wanted to start the dive off with a new set. That turned into cluste…. calamity, but I finally got me new batteries and the flash was working properly. I took a couple of obligatory shots of prepping for the dive and we moved into the water. All the photo shoots I did during the Dive Master/Instructor training gave me a really good insight to what/when/how I needed to be for this and in came in very handy~! As the dive moved away from the shallow clear water we were in, to the deeper, bluer water, with cloud cover and shadows – I knew I needed to start using my flash. Engage flash….. flash not working….. dammit Emmit~! Fiddle with this, flash still not working….. dammit… fiddle with that….. flash still not working…… DAMMIT~! STOP…. regroup…. think through the process I did the night before….. flash is working~!!  YAY~!! Flash is to bright…. easy fix – -flash not bright enough…. dammit – easy fix. Gots to tell you…… there are SOOOO many more things to contend with when you’re using that kind of equipment….. wow. The dive continued whether I was ready or not – so I scrambled to keep up and analyze my issues with the flash….. but it was working and before I knew it – I was changing  sub-modes on the camera and adjusting flash intensity for clouds and shadows…. all the while keeping up with my two eager new divers while they followed the Dive Master. By the end of the dive, I was adjusting flash angles, intensities and sub-modes like I knew what I was doing. I dang  near felt like Jacque Cousteau there for a hot minute.

With the dive finally over – I headed out to the solitude of the house to rinse my gear, get a quick shower and start loading pictures. My heart about bust out of my chest when I saw the preview panel – because in that one glance – I knew ‘I got it’. It’s funny… looking at the preview panel of pictures, you can see exactly where I got the flash started and then figured it out — the pictures just got better from there, and the last dozen and a half pictures or so, needed hardly any editing what-so-ever. Feeling pretty proud of myself, I delivered the flash drive to the customer and came back to the house to revel in my own satisfaction of a job well done. I put some of the pictures up on the dive shops FB page and have been getting a lot of good comments and likes on the pictures. Having no where to go now but getting better – I hope to start booking a LOT  more gigs like this one~! I hope you like these pictures ½ as much as I do……….

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