Vacation Report

We're back from our vacation in St. Croix. Overall, we had a great time scuba diving and were able to do two dives a day for five days. I actually felt like a good diver on this trip (as compared to some of the earlier trips we have done). I didn't have any trouble maintaining neutral buoyancy and I didn't use more air than my husband (which was generally the case in the past). This time around, my husband actually used more air than me (because he was wielding the underwater camera and it takes extra effort to take good pictures). I am truly proud of myself and my husband because we actually had a problem underwater and knew how to handle it without panicking. We were down around 40-50 feet after about 10 minutes of diving and all of a sudden, it was taking extreme effort to suck in a breath of air and even then, I was only getting my lungs half full. I quickly kicked over to my husband, gave him the out of air signal, and pointed to his octopus (his extra regulator). After a moment of confusion (my husband was like "really? you really need my air?") and a moment of me wanting to kick his ass, he gave me his octopus and we slowly surfaced. It turns out that my tank wasn't turned on all the way, which explains why I had air for the first 10 minutes of the dive before it ran out. Once we fixed the problem, we went back down and had a great dive. But I was SO proud that I remembered my training from 1994 and even more proud that I didn't panic and either try to steal my husband's air or pop up to the surface. And I'm so thankful that my husband remained calm and was there, as my buddy, to protect my life. I've learned my lesson about "full-service" dive shops and will, from here on out, always double-check that all of my gear has been properly set up.

Here are some scuba diving pictures to enjoy:

The rest of the vacation was slightly less pleasant. Ian was very cranky for the entire week. I think he missed home, especially all of his toys and he probably also missed the activity that daycare provides him. I'm also pretty sure that he wasn't a fan of the heat and humidity because his mood always seemed to improve once we got back inside the air-conditioned condo. The flight home from San Juan to Boston was really quite bad. Of the 3.5 hours of flying time, I think Ian cried for a total of 1 hour. He was just so over-tired and didn't want to sit in his seat. And yes, we were those people on the plane with the screaming child. I felt awful and stressed and wished there was something I could do to make it better, but I was helpless. But Ian did enjoy playing in the pool and on the beach and I'm glad we were able to do that with him.

I think it will be a really long time before we take another vacation like that. We will hopefully have another child soon and then traveling with 2 will be even harder and so I think we'll wait until the kids are a bit older for the more adventurous travel. Instead, we'll stick to visiting my parents in Florida. :-)