So after taking a snapshot of our new friend “Moo”, we decided to find something to eat. We were pleasantly surprised to fine a nice Japanese Restaurant that didn’t involve us putting in a quarter and punching buttons to get our food. Maybe few years down the road this dish will be served from a vending machines as well?

Stay tuned to see what else we’ll come across. 

Ciao!

Last week was the first time that I took my camera for two of the dives that we did. The bottom of the lake looks very interesting and sandy but actually is sill that is very soft and easily stirred.

Bottom of the lake

Its very quiet but you can still have fun. Well the conversation is a little different… or should I say even non existent.

Conversation or is it a dance?

There is a lot of interesting things underwater. You can run into a staircase leading to the surface, or maybe leading to nowhere.

Underwater Staircase

So what do you do when you encounter a stairs totally covered with Zebra Mussels except the steps at a depth of 50 feet? Well You can do a lot of things… You can sit on the stairs for example, you can walk the stairs, you can just hold on to the stairs…. Or you can try running up the stairs as my friend Ed demonstrated which did not really worked.

Running up the stairs does not really works

OK, enough talking, dancing and running… Lets just observe and enjoy the views. The world underwater is very different and you never know what you are going to run into. The lake that we were diving into is a 50 acre lake with depths up to 120 feet. It is spring-fed from and underground aquifer that filters trough limestone to provide pretty decent visibility. There is a variety of interesting fish and aquatic life including Rainbow Trout, Largemouth Bass, Bluegills, Palomino Trout, Koi, Yellow Perch and Goldfish. While we were exploring the lake we run into a school of Koi fish that was hanging around a big steel structure of an old pump house. There were all the colors that we could imagine, from an albino Koi to all shades of yellows, reds and oranges.

Koi Fish just swimming around the structure

So lets just stick around for a while and try not to disrupt their habitat, lets see how close can we be without the fish being scared off. Well we just stayed by the structure and let the fish choose how close to us they wanted to be.

Koi up close

Albino Koi

Yellow Koi

There was one yellow Koi Fish that was a lot bigger than any other fish…. I know everything underwater looks closer and bigger. But that is only when you have nothing to compare to. In our case we had other fish to compare this guy to.  Just take a look at the size difference.

Big Koi Fish

How is that for a comparison? This guy was huge. I had a lot of fun diving and looking at those beautiful Koi fish.

Till the next time.

The most southern point in the USA

Elevation 10,003ft

The softest sand ever.

The most southern point in the USA.

Black Sand beach, Hawai'i

Snow on top of a volcano.

Aloha!

Renata

Hope this helps Carol.

Renata

Yes, we were away for a while. We just returned from the gorgeous Caribbean Islands. While we were there on business, we still managed to squeeze in few days to relax and take in the sun.  We had a blast. We snorkeled with turtles and stingrays, we saw shipwrecks on the bottom of the sea, we flew above tree tops and enjoyed fresh fruits of the islands such as raw cacao bean, cinnamon, and coconuts. 

Here is a map of the places we visited while there as well as some pictures to give you a visual representation of what we saw, what we experienced and enjoyed. 

Click on the image for bigger view. 

Condado Palm Trees

Please check back often as I decided to update all of our past travels including some exotic places as Hawaii and cultural center of Dublin Ireland. 

Hope you enjoyed it. 

See you soon. 

Renata

Let M & R Photography capture all the moments you wish to remember .