Deepavali Dive Trip
Keith and I just returned from our Deepavali dive trip. We had Monday Oct 19 off work as a public holiday so we left the previous Friday night for a three day weekend of diving in the South China Sea and relaxation on our favorite boat, The Empress. We dove a couple of now familiar dive sites but has a couple of new adventures. On one dive Keith spotten a 6-7 foot nurse shark napping under a rock and getting cleaned by a remora. The shark didn't fit under the rock so his massive tail was sticking out. On our next dive we had the highlight of the whole trip.. our first manta ray sighting. We were diving new small island called Damar. We started out w/ our whole dive group diving around a group of pinnacles (rocks that don't come all the way to the surface) but Keith and I ventured off toward the island. At one point I looked sideways and the manta ray was swimming straight towards me. I was so stunned and excited that I didn't even think to clang on my tank for Keith's attention, I just started shrieking underwater. The manta swam right above me and then gracefully swam out of sight. Keith spent part of that time adjusting the apeture and focus on the camera but hopefully his efforts were worthwhile.

October 7, 1998
We sure are getting antsy to go diving again. Its been 4 weeks since we've been and we've got a week and a half to go. Don't know what we're going to do when monsoon season gets here. Or maybe we do - we booked a week on a Mike Ball live-aboard diving the Great Barrier Reef for the week after Christmas. And we'll be going through Sydney for a few days first. We sure will miss everybody this Christmas, but we hope to see you in March.

October 4, 1998
Unfortunatley, we have had some problems getting the new site up and working like we ahd hoped. We do have our Bangkok travel journal posted, but that's all until we can get the bugs worked out. Don't worry, we'll get everything working within a week so don't lose faith.

December 15, 1998
We sure are getting anxious for Christmas. We did get a photo of Kim and Rich's new dog, Bailey. Which of course made us remember one of the worst things about being in Singapore -> it would be very hard for us to have a dog here. Here's a photo entitled "Wings" of Bailey.

Wings

December 6, 1998
Well, we a great, but not very traditional, Thanksgiving weekend. Some friends of ours, Cas and Michelle Norman, came down from Japan to visit and we had Thanksgiving dinner at the American Club. So we did have turkey and stuffing and all the trimmings, but its not the same as home-made. Immediately after dinner, we left for a 3-day weekend in Bali with the same friends. We had a great time just relaxing and enjoying the sun, even though we were still getting over a couple of nasty colds. We spent one day in a rented van with a driver wandering around the island shopping, which actually was sorta fun (gee, can you tell it's Keith writing this?) Although we did have quite a bit of stuff to lug back on the airplane.

November 8, 1998
Today we had a great deal of fun going to Underwater World at Sentosa (an island park connected to Singapore.) We signed up for a "Dive with the Sharks" tour, where we got to gear up and dive in the aquarium tanks with all sorts of big fish, rays and sharks. A lot of fun, but it could also be a little nerve-racking. We dove for about an hour and took a roll of film with our underwater camera, as well as having a friend of Jill's from work, Connie, take pictures from the tunnel underneath the tank. We are very much looking forward to getting the pictures developed - check back next weekend to see the pictures.