Capturing the Moment

  Miami is a few thousand miles away but the draw of baby Catalina is great. It had been too long since we had hung out with Nate and Kelly (read about their Oahu visit , and us visiting Miami ).  I had just flown in from running trips off the coast of British Columbia and was ready for some friends and family time in Vermont.    During the visit our good friends Mary and Jackson came over and brought along their dog Rolo to play with Neka. All of us had worked in Southern California and out in Maui, so it's great to reunite with some fun adventures around the world. Proud Mama    We spent the day hiking around Jeffersonville, VT, exploring waterfalls, and drinking, snacking, and birdwatching our way down the river in canoes. Catalina didn't come along for the canoe ride but she was up for some serious hikes.  On the knife's edge Rolo, Jackson, Mary, Me, Kelly & Nate    The second day we hit the ground running with a...

Kelly looking pumped Heidi hovering over the colorful reef   I realized recently that I've gone scuba diving all around the world, on four different continents, but the closest I have come to diving in the Atlantic Ocean was Puerto Rico...which is still pretty much the Caribbean. This all sounded pretty crazy to me since I grew up in Savannah, GA right on the Atlantic Ocean! But I also grew up not hearing about anyone diving in the murky, organic ocean water there. Even though I have spent countless hours and days playing in the ocean water of the Atlantic its underwater world has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Nate and Kelly to the rescue! Fish and diver Shark heading towards Nate    While Heidi and I were planning our Florida road trip to see our friends in Miami, Nate mentioned a possible shark dive while we were there. I had definitely heard of a muck dive spot in Jupiter called the Blue Heron Bridge but a shark dive was news to me. It didn't ...

  After finally convincing Nate and Kelly to make the move out to Maui, just as Heidi and I were switching islands to Oahu, they were finally able to island hop over to see us on our new island. We only had two and a half days and I wanted to make it count so we crammed a lot into their quick Oahu visit. We had great weather, beautiful sunsets, fireworks, exploratory snorkels, and surf sessions. Eternity Beach Makapu'u Lookout   These pictures are from our exploration of the southeast coast of Oahu. The beautiful bay pictured above is a tiny stretch of beach called Eternity Beach. It was made famous by a movie in the 50's called 'From here to Eternity', starring Burt Lancaster. The cave goes from the beach all the way back under the highway. The pics below are from an overlook high above Makapu'u beach. The offshore island behind us in Rabbit Island, which did have a bunch of rabbits populating it at some point. Can you find Heidi, Nate, Kelly,...