Table Rock, SC

Update

We've been enjoying our time in SC. It's great to be back. I'd probably post a few times, but I've been too busy fishing.

I bought a new telescope for 'the kids' and thought I'd share a few photos of our searching. Sometimes the kids are excited, and other times, they complain and want to go watch TV. What can you do?

Saturn in motion - 30 sec exposure 

Half moon from the trailer-porch! 

Sky probing in Texas. 

17 day old Texas moon. 

Saturn...hopefully more impressive with my next telescope!

Distant storm from the trailer park. 

Jupiter and 4 of it's moons

The best, shitty trip home from Djibouti!

So…it’s way overdue, but I promised I’d explain my fantastic trip home from Djibouti…

The trip started like any good day in Djibouti. Sweaty. The sun gave no indications that it was the best day ever in Djibouti. It was still hot. The day before had been spent packing and there was still one package left to send. I had planned to stay up super late and start getting adjusted to the new time zone. I woke up late, ate breakfast and got my last packages to the post office.

After a spending the day sending goodbye emails, shipping, cleaning and getting packed; I was ready for the flight home. I had an average steak-night in Djibouti and sat around 11DN. After a beer it was finally time to get ready to go sit at JIB for 3 hours.

Security was awesome and I got in quick. I was dying of thirst and didn’t know what to do. I remembered that I had been given 5 euros by some random guy for trading seats on the flight to Paris (on the way to Djbouti). I insisted that it wasn’t necessary, but he said he was grateful and I needed to have a beer on him.  I thought I would just have a souvenir but it turns out that I would indeed have a beer on his dime. It just took 6 months to get it. After a beer I made it through the next part of security and snuck into the first class lounge.

We boarded the plane and I was fortunate enough to get the seat that the movie screen didn’t work. Great! I swapped seats for the trip to Jeddah, but had to go back when the plane filled up. I was starting to feel gross. I assume that it was something from the pizza the day before or something, but it was not good. They sprayed the plain with ‘non-toxic, non-harmful to human’ insecticide when leaving Jeddah. By the time I got to Paris, I was completely miserable. I stopped in the bathroom and instantly knew that this trip home was not going to be pleasant.

After 3 hours and at least as many trips to the bathroom, it was back onboard for another 12 hour flight. This flight, however, I was the ‘seat buddy’ from hell. I probably made 8 trips to the bathroom. It was terrible!

We arrived early and I finally broke the news to Katie. I was dying (not literally of course). I rode the shuttle to the Embassy for what was supposed to be an afternoon and evening full of happy hour, BassPro and BBQ. What we had instead, was TV, bathroom exhaust fans and Katie going on a trip to get some Pepto Bismo. I think this point, Katie thought I was dying.

The next day, I felt better, though it would take a few days to get back to normal. I can’t believe that I managed to spend 6 months in Djibouti without getting some stomach issue, just to arrive back in the US unable to get more than 20 minutes from a bathroom.

It’s still great to be back! I’ve spent the last couple months spending time with Katie and the kids, fishing, and enjoying the fact that it’s not quite as hot in SC (it’s pretty close this time of the year though). We’ll be attending to the usual Labor Day weekend dove slaughter this year! I’ll try to post more, but no promises.

Back in South Carolina!

It's been an interesting, busy and fun 2 weeks. My laptop's motherboard was killed by a couple drops of Listerine that happened to leak out of the bottle AND the Ziploc bag after re-arranging everything so Paris' security guys could take away my dive multi-tool...Hence the lack of a finale post for my time in Djibouti.

After 24 hours of miserable but on-time/early flights back to Texas, a week of good times with friends and family, and 27 hours of driving (including 3 hours of sitting on the highway); we're back at Parris Island AND WE HAVE wifi! That means we should make a few posts about our adventure full-timing.

It's late and I'm tired from the drive. More to come soon!

Memorial Day Overnight Dive Trip and Beach Camping

It is finally approaching the time when I will be able to remove the temporary label from the blog and I will finally return home to my family. But, before that happens, I must spread the word of my last adventure in Djibouti.

For my last adventure, I went on an overnight dive trip. After weeks of flopping back and forth over what I would do for our great two-day weekend,  an opening for the dive trip came about and I jumped in.

We left Camp Lemonnier Sunday morning and headed down to the fishing pier. There, we loaded up on the Farragallah and set sail for our first dive site. It took a couple hours to reach Shark Island which got its name from the shape of the pile of rocks that make up the island, not from any sharks swimming around the island. It’s located on the windy side of Ras Eiros and is a nice reef surrounding a tiny pile of rocks. This trip we mostly dove from the mothership rather than skiffs. At the far end of the reef there was an enormous school of tightly packed Ehrenberg’s Snapper. The dive ended and we headed towards Lake Ghoubet.

At Lake Ghoubet, we anchored at our dive destination and camp site. We made a sunset dive and a night dive with sleeping turtles before finishing up the evening with drinks, food and sleeping on the beach. I think I can speak for everyone when I saw that we were sleeping on cots rather than fighting for sandy beds with the crabs. I was also pleasantly surprised the temperature was bearable and by early morning the wind shifted and had an occasional chill to the air.

 

A small group of us headed towards The Crack to set the buoy and check the conditions. Along the way, we saw a pod of dolphin playing on the glassy water. With the lack of wind, I could tell that this tour of The Crack would be much better than the last trip. We dived down and found our buoy tie off point. After a quick swim through The Crack, we surfaced to find the Farragallah waiting for us. We briefed, suited back up and made another dive tour. We found a giant Eagle Ray and a Manta Ray waiting for us. The dive was great and I followed it with a quick trip to search for a lost weight belt and a knife while getting the buoy. No luck with the search and we headed to one of the best dives in Ghoubet.

 Our final dive would be at Red Virgin. This one is full of life and lasts forever. Finally, it was time to return to the surface and have a late lunch. The remainder of the day would be spent sailing back to port. It was a much better trip into the wind than it had been the day before baking in an oven driving with the wind.

It was a great trip and I could not have asked for a better way to spend Memorial Day. Or…at least spend Memorial Day over 8,000 miles from home…in Djibouti.

Here are a few photos from the Farragallah. The wind block you see at the front of the ship is the galley (cut down 55 gallon drum full of charcoal).

 

Memorial Day Overnight Dive Trip

Coming soon...

What a tease!

busy

Sorry for the lack of posting to the few people that actually read this. It has been busy (work) the last couple weeks. I did manage to lose $80 at the Casino yesterday. No millionaire dream come true for me.