Rode the lift 14 times. Almost 13,000 feet vertical. About three hours total time, but only one hour actually going downhill fast.

Crosscountry skiing is such good exercise!!

I had never EVER done tropical diving before. I have been going to the California Channel Islands where I didn't have to wear a hood for some of the dives on the southern islands, but a 3mm wetsut? Wow.

Roatan! The water was 80 degrees. The last couple dive days were rain and wind, so we were cold on the boat. The last dive it actually felt good to jump in the water. My computer recorded minimum dive temperatures as surface temperatures. Ha!

The visibility was great. There were some drift dives on gentle currents. There was a river of Creole Wrasse that was out o site. There were squid. There were grouper. The coral was, on most sites, still quite healthy. There was grilled whole fish, ceviche to beat the band, and excellent fish tacos. Breakfast was HUGE every day including fresh ripe papaya and pineapple. Oh wow. And plenty of Salva Vida!

Sunset on the beach early in the trip before the rains came:




Grilled Whole Fish:



After the rains came:



Ceviche:

Looks like a wonderful trip, @mtaratoot! Thank you for sharing the photos.

Curious: What are those on the plate with your ceviche? Plantain chips, or something like that?

@mtaratoot

If you liked Roatan, you're going to love Bonaire. My favorite Caribbean dive site to date, against which all others are measured.

Maybe Fiji will be better. It's on my bucket list. Just not in the near future.

We saw a few lionfish. If hunting were allowed, I'm sure someone in our group would have clobbered them. There's no spearing allowed in the Roatan Marine Park. I bet they have lionfish roundups as organized events, but in general - nope; can't do it.

What I found amazing is what color they look underwater (black) until you shine a light on them and they turn red.

Maybe next time. Although, I don't want to give up a dive day to go take a class just so I can clobber lionfish. I only saw about a half dozen of them. If I did shoot any, I'd leave them for the eels to eat.

I have a pole spear, but it's way longer than three feet. I think it would be fun to shoot a Hawai'ian sling. They look pretty neat. The pole spear is SO easy to reload, but you have to get pretty close to get a good shot. That reminds me: I should go to the jetty to get some rockfish.

I know some people who have run Victoria in kayaks. Sounds nuts, right? There's a line on extreme river right. Apparently, hippos are a real threat.

The joy of social distancing. My neighbourhood has several seniors. I've offered assistance but so far everyone is doing well. Not sure that "proves" that social distancing works but we'll see...

A smiling breakfast!

I hope no-one hassled you re: Kung-Flu self isolating...

I had a fun afternoon yesterday.

I've been taking my canoe down to the river about a half mile from my house to ferry across and fish. It's been fun, but I wanted something different. We can't do shuttles right now because you would be in the same vehicle. I thought about driving about ten miles upstream (have to go a couple miles downstream first to get to a bridge to cross the river), paddle back down to the river a half mile from my house, then use a bicycle to go get my truck. There was one minor logistical issue if I took my canoe, but I could do it by carrying my dolly in the boat. I also know that there's an extremely low chance I'll get run over, and I don't want to put any more pressure on the medical response community, so I never did it.

But yesterday, I attached the wheels to my canoe and started walking upstream on this side of the river.



It's about two miles to another little access in a huge eddy right near where a side channel comes back into the main stem on the upstream end of town. So my first activity was a two mile "walk." Actually a drag... To the water.



A little gear change, take apart the cart, and lower the boat to the water. I hope in and start the second part - a paddle back to where I normally start and stop.




I did make one stop about halfway on a gravel bar to stretch my legs, shore fish a bit, and look for cool rocks.





Then I got to the take-out, hitched the boat back to my waist, and hoofed it home.



Fishing was slow. It got really windy; a front was coming through. I had gone out to target bass, specifically smallmouth. They are spawning, and the hens like to bite things. The wind blew me around so much and put the fish off the bite, but it was still a good day on the water. I did find one spot at the edge of an eddy where I could hold in place - I used my throw bag and a couple wraps around a rock. I could toss small spinners on the seam of the eddy, and I caught a few cutthroat. That was fun.

I might do this again, but it was a bit of a challenge to tow the canoe. I had to keep it close enough behind me to keep the ends from dragging that every now and then the boat would bite my ankle. Oops. But it IS doable.

I did hitch up my canoe today, but I did something different. I drove it somewhere first.

I put all my stuff in my truck, and I put the canoe on top. Oh my, that cart strapped to it SURE makes it heavier and more awkward, but I did leave it on since I was going to use it before putting in.

I drove through town and parked at the second to last paved parking space near the river. I took the boat down and put my stuff in the boat. When the load was balanced, I tied the bow line around my waist and started walking. I walked across the river and up to an old quarry pond near the bypass.








I hopped in the canoe and fished around the quarry a little while, then paddled into the East Channel. I worked my way down to the river, and none of the fish even bothered me. All this is part of where I usually paddle from home across the river. The difference was that once I got to the river, I went downstream just under two miles, and that's where I left my truck.



I observed some groups that I judged not to be observing our physical distancing guidelines. I tried to give them wide berth. I loaded up my boat, came home, mowed the lawn, took a shower, fed the cat, made a martini, and walked over to my neighbors to enjoy it in their front yard 12 feet apart.

I'm not sure I'll do it again. Driving down there to do this river section. Instead of the neighborhood, I have to walk on a highway. Most of the extra portion of river is not so scenic for a number of reasons. If I really want to paddle farther, there's a place I can take out that's maybe less than a mile from home. I might piece that together with the two mile upstream hike and end up with a decent river float and three or so miles of dragging a boat around.

I posted this in another group. If you're a member of both, please excuse the repeat.

I took a friend out paddling. He's also my fishing buddy. He's been wanting to try out one or both of my whitewater canoes, so off we went. I fished a little bit while he paddled around, then we tried to go all the away around the island.

The water is up a bit, so the place I couldn't get around last time was passable. I would make a move, find an eddy, duck in, and keep an eye on him over my shoulder. All was good. Then I made a move he couldn't quite make, but he doesn't have muscle memory yet. He keeps thinking about his other paddle craft (board and sit-on-top kayak). It took me two tries. I sat in the eddy and looked at it. I could see the ONE spot you had to hit to get to a little eddy behind a log (and just in front of another one). Well, I hit it on the second try, then turned on the power to get up to the next eddy. He got out and dragged the boat. Fine.




We looked at the next (last) obstacle. I didn't see how I could get past it. He tried. There was a deep spot that wasn't obvious from looking. I tried, but my initial idea of NO-GO was correct. So we dragged over maybe ten yards or so of river rock to get to the other side. As long as we were out, we stretched our legs. It looked like trout water, so I took the rubber worm off my line and put a 3/8 ounce Vibrax spinner on and made a few casts. Well... wild cutthroat. I wish I had taken my trout rod; it was too easy to drag it in with my bass rod. But I figured the bass rod & reel are cheaper and I'd feel less bad about losing them (I was in a boat I usually don't fish from, and I didn't know if I might need to give my entire attention to rescuing my pal). Next time! Made a few more casts, and got another one. Nice. I put the rod down and started bringing him to shore by hand - I want to take the hook out without even taking it out of the water. As it got to shore, tension on the line slacked, and he spit out the hook. Perfect!

Well, it started raining again, so we got back in the boats. The rain didn't last, and we practiced some eddy turns and surfing a tiny wave on the way back down. When we got back to the ramp, I asked if he wanted to try the other canoe, so we played around with that, too.

Thank goodness he wanted to go. It kept me from raiding the pantry and gaining another pound!

If I remembered to turn my device on before we left the ramp, we would have appeared to start and stop in the same place. No way to start where this map suggests: