Congratulations to Hazel. She finished her PADI Open Water SCUBA course today and is now a certified diver.
Millions of thanks to Michael Francisco for his skilled, patient and kind instruction. If anyone in SoCal wants to learn to dive, I can say he is an absolute top notch instructor.
I’ve been diving for 30+ years now and hope that Hazel loves her time in the ocean over her next thirty years as much as I’ve enjoyed mine.
A good chunk of the island of Rarotonga is surrounded by a shallow lagoon, protected from waves by the reef. This makes for some great snorkeling, with much of it easily accessible from the beach. Just from the beach we saw tons of colorful reef
We booked two full day private boat tours with T’s Tours Aitutaki. It was a bit of a splurge, but felt so worth it. We had an awesome time doing several extended snorkels, so time exploring the motus and islands. An absolute treat.
I had hoped to do a couple days of diving on Rarotonga and on Aitutaki, but for various reasons we only ended up doing one. Was a super fun day, with Hazel and I doing two dives in the morning, and then Kim joining us
This was a literal bucket list item for me, to swim with whale sharks. I’ve been thinking about it for decades. It was incredible. Hard to capture the size of these sharks. These are juvenile, but whale sharks are the largest fish around. These were
After a great trip to Moorea a few years ago, we decided to head back and visit some of the other islands in the chain. IT was wonderful and included Hazel’s first scuba dives after certification, and Margot really getting into snorkeling. It’s always hard
With our trip being extremely last minute, and Hawaii being busy, just about every activity I called about was booked solid. But I found a discover scuba for two people and signed Kim and Hazel up. When Hazel had gone to Catalina with me to
When our planned trip to the Philippines fell apart and we needed a last minute pivot, I had promised Margot Sea turtles, and that was part of what guided us to Hawaii. This spot delivered for sure.
A nice weekend at Catalina with Hazel. The goal was to get Hazel’s PADI dive certification. We didn’t do that, a combination of mostly fear and slightly rough conditions (to a lesser extent) meant Hazel didn’t get all of the dives necessary and skills done