About sweet things...

Yes, my friends. I am in Buenos Aires, but one part of my heart is on the island and my blog is still alive...
Arriving to my beautiful city during a very mild winter (13°C) but extremely humid (average 80% to 90% humidity every day), the days are perfect for cappuccinos and croissants every morning and spectacular food the rest of the day.
Fantastic for me because I should gain some of the weight I lost. (The day I arrived I verified in my bathroom scale that my current weight is 105 lbs. kind of 10 lbs below my ideal weight...) So with that and the local prices that are much better than in GDT (although higher than last February because inflation is huge while the government lies about it but that is a subject for my traveler log not this one...) I decided to eat well.
However some of the tastes of the good sweet things here remind me of the fantastic brownies and rum cake of the Salt House Cafe. I am not a fan of chocolate except in two things: Ferrero Roche bombons and brownies. I remember the first time I tried those amazing brownies that Phyllis make...

OMG I asked her to prepare a dozen to have in my freezer to henjoy during Xmas and New Year's week... they did not last more than 3 days... and even when they are really big!

So, since the Salt House Cafe is now open on cruise ship days and these weeks there will be some, my advice for you, it is to take your time and go to the café and for breakfast, dessert or just with a very good cappuccino, spiced tea or something like that and have a brownie, rum cafe, bread pudding or any of the other great things (not only sweet stuff: the wraps, sandwiches, salads, lunch specials) together with the iced tea, lemonade, teas, sodas, or beers.
You can also enjoy the things you can find at the gift shop. Two very interesting things for me: 1) The women t-shirts are actual women sizes! not those huge t-shirts only good for sleeping... 2) The little bags that you can prepare with salt stones to make your own potpourri are very nice and the price is excellent: between 3 and 5 dollars. It's on the cemetery road, between the white church with red roof and the Windmills Plaza and yes, there are signs on the road and on the front :)

Vacation ... vacation?

Yes, I know. I said it would be a daily blog but I have skipped a few days... I have been busy studying some things about First Aid and CPR (by the way, very interesting things that made me realize among others, that the more you study about human physiology the most surprised you are about how complicated and yet perfectly balanced the human body is ... but as Seinfeld once said:the human body needs so much maintenance, that if it was a car nobody would buy it ...).

Well, besides the hours for studying there is also the problem of internet that comes and goes, (more goes than comes...), hence the absence of logs these last days.


I have also been watching the World Cup and preparing (just in my mind, still not reflected in the material world...) my trip to Argentina.Some kind of vacation, although it sounds really weird living on this beautiful island and saying "I am going to Argentina on vacation" since it was Grand Turk where I used to come to spend my "what I love to do" time by diving.

However it's a vacation because I go to spend some quality time with friends and family and, of course, going to my favorite restaurants, dancing tango as much as possible and watching the games in some cafés especially prepared for football fans.

Of course, I promise I will bring back some sweet stuff from Argentina (dulce de leche, alfajores, those amazing lemon biscuits) and as I am sure I will be back totally hooked-up on dancing again, I already kind of arranged with a few female friends and one male friend (at least one!), that I will start teaching some tango, at least the basics to those who are interested. But we need some more men who want to learn!!! Remember guys, the most important thing in tango is the "abrazo" (the way man and woman hold each other) and it needs TWO TO TANGO!!! So I hope to have more guys interested when I come back.

It's going to be interesting to go now to my country, moving from the beginning of the summer (starting here today) to the beginning of the winter (starting down there today), to go back for a while to the noises of the city, people rushing to work, all dressed-up (people in Buenos Aires are very elegant) with winter coats and boots and scarfs. And I arriving with my island rhythm, with no chances of walking very fast (and no reasons to ...), with my "diver hair" and, as my Argentinian friends say, this expression of "I used to live here in my previous life...".

But I love to go home. I love staying in my flat and enjoying it. And I enjoy it more because I also know that I am coming back here. I guess that happens to most of us, people who live here, when we travel home for a while. It's knowing that we come back to the island, what makes us enjoy even more to be abroad. Grand Turk is our home too. And it's so difficult when I am in a city to imagine that while the crazy activity lives there, on the island this beautiful quietness waits for me. But then, I just close my eyes, and remember the image of something: a moment of diving, the water or just the view from the kitchen window. And that is enough to go back to the island for a moment.

Many times I say that for me, the ideal way of spending a day would be to wake up in Grand Turk and spending the day here until 6 pm and then to go to Buenos Aires and stay there, going out, spending the night to wake up again in Grand Turk.

For now, that is possible only when dreaming. But one day...
See you tomorrow. I have to go back home to pack.

About swimming...

Sunday at noon, after watching the "sweeping the floor" process at Blue Waters dive shop while talking with Audrey, I came home inspired and started sweeping my own deck floor that was completely covered with sand, dust, leaves and more..
It took me quite a while since it was a really hot day, the deck is large and there was a breeze working against me but after a few minutes I got the rhythm of it until I felt that someone was looking at me. You know. That thing that you feel without even looking... There he was. A kid about 5 years old, standing by one of the tables on the deck looking how I was trying to clean.
There was a group of kids on the pier. A couple of them in the water, another on the beach, and this one in my house, just looking around,observing me, saying hello. This is the kind of things that you can see here and somewhere else would be unacceptable. I asked how he was. He said ok and continued walking around checking if the areas I had already swept were clean or not and when he was tired he went back to the beach.
Really nice kids. Very polite. All of them said goodbye before picking up their shoes and leaving the beach.

It's the first time I see them swimming here but I have seen kids playing on the beach close to SandBar and Sunset Cabana. However many of the kids around here do not know how to swim. It sounds absurd, living on an island but that's the way it is.
It sounds weird for many people because in most of the countries, swimming lessons are part of the basic training as a safety measure. But not everywhere.
I know that Jazmin and Daniel are teaching the kids how to swim Sundays afternoon close to Sunny Side, just because they want the kids to learn. And they enjoy to see them improving their skills every week and not being afraid of being in the water. I find that amazing since they are opening one extraordinary door for those kids.

I also know that last year there was a special program for local school kids, so they could learn how to dive. I saw them diving with some of the Oasis dive masters. But, for that, they have to know how to swim first.
I hope eventually swimming will be part of the basic education also here... Or someone starts a program to teach adults too. We'll see...

Sometimes there are so many suggestions, so many things that can be done on the island to improve quality of life that it drives me crazy not to be able to do much about it.

But well, I have to go now to get some internet connection to send emails and things like that. I try to write off line now, so I suffer the mosquitoes around me just for a few minutes while pasting the texts and sending them...

Have a great evening and see you tomorrow...

Island dogs.

When I started living in Water's Edge, I received together with the house a dog: Paws. Brent and Neilda had had Paws for some time and had taken care of him through all the process of chemotherapy since Paws had cancer.
They told me that Paws liked to be around other places but he had been in the house lately.
The first days I was here, Paws stayed with me but when he found out that I was a vegetarian and he would rarely get some meat... so he moved out. He decided to go and stay most of the time at Grand Turk Diving where Chris gives him all kind of treats and a lot of attention too.
He comes to see me every evening and Sundays though . He is a lovely dog.
Around one month after I moved, my friend Jo-Ann left her dog with me for a few days, and then other dogs started to come to my place and hang out with him and Paws. Tipsy (Donna's dog), Princess (German Lisa's)dog and Steve (everybody's dog) came almost every evening around supper time Bto see if they could get some leftovers or just to play with the new guest.
But the new dog in the neighbourhood went back home and the rest of them, stayed around, being some kind of personal security service for me. They are around the house, on the beach, on the deck at different times of the day but mainly they stay here at night, except Tipsy that sleeps at Donna's. Every time someone is close to the house, or the pier, they start barking like crazy. It's really good to have them around since they act like some kind of alarm system although sometimes they overreact... They also bark to almost every person on a bicycle, making them almost fall sometimes or at least to get really scared, specially if they do not know the dogs. They also like to walk with me or any other person who walks. They escort people, sometimes for almost one hour...
Dogs on the island are very different from the dogs I had ever been with.I had many dogs before but none of them was like these ones. These dogs have a very independent life. They have owners but they do not belong to anyone. They decide where they are going to eat, sleep, hang out.
Sometimes they go to spend a couple of days in a different house and then they come back. They choose what to do and where. So I had to get used to that too. Not to get so attached to them even when they are so cute and loving. All of them have a very distinctive personality and an special way of asking what they want.
Sometimes I find a dog or a cat, that was hit by a car or something like that (last weekend in a single day I found two, dead on the same road) and I wonder what is going on here about respect/love (or lack of it...) to animals. Not only with dogs and cats. I have seen very cruel things done to horses, cows, donkeys... It's like many people here consider that animals are just objects to play with... I can't understand that. But I guess that has to do with education. At home and at the school, right?
If you do not teach your kids to respect life in any form, if you do not act with respect and love, if there is no education at school about this, how can we change that? And a kid that does not respect animals will become an adult who doesn't and this adult will have kids who will look at him as an example... so something should change now. I have hope. I think that changes are possible. It's a matter of starting with a little step.
See you tomorrow.

The ups and downs and the beauty...

Sunday evening, after spending a couple of hours downloading stuff and using skype, I came home hungry, tired and ready to finish my day with a simple but tasty dinner according with the celebration of Her Majesty's birthday so I prepared some porridge, bread with butter and Marmite and enjoyed my meal while watching episodes of Fawlty Towers (and no, I am not kidding. I loooooove those three things:porridge, Marmite, Fawlty Towers).

However, as a consequence of (probably) the number of bowls of porridge I ate, Monday morning I woke up with some kind of stomach ache that stopped me from going to dive so around 9.30 I went for my daily walk with the morning heat and everything.

When walking in front of Sunset Cabana I noticed the number of birds that were around the pond and remember that last summer, around August, one morning I woke up with that feeling that something unusual was happening. And it was true. I went to the window of the apartment where I lived, in Pelican House, and look outside. There they were. Three beautiful flamingos were walking with that elegant unique style...

As fast as possible I took my camera and went downstairs and I realized that there were more flamingos around. All of them with different shades of pink. There were also two pelicans that seemed to be "patrolling" the pond. They did not look very happy about the flamingos being around... It was a fantastic show beside my house. Amazing.

With all those memories in my head, I took some minutes this morning to watch the birds around the pond and just enjoy them. It's so fantastic to have this. I mean, never ever getting used to these wonderful things that the island has. Not to take anything for granted. Any little thing that we can see here every day, every time that we see this amazing turquoise water, or the flamingos, or the birds, or the magnificent sky at night I feel how lucky we are. We live in a place that most of the people dream of.
And I am not naive. I know that living here is not easy. But every day, I remember the "up"s of this place because they allow us to deal with the "down"s.
I am posting a couple of the pics I took that morning of August 2009. The flamingos are already here, I saw them this morning at the salina. There is beauty everywhere here. It's just a matter of taking the time to notice it and then some extra time to enjoy it.






See you later or tomorrow.

Football and the Queen's official birthday

I apologize in advance with my British friends but I can't avoid finding funny to celebrate an "official" birthday, that is different than the real one... but it's the Queen privilege, of course.

Anyway the point is that because of this celebration yesterday there was a nice parade in Grand Turk (unfortunately I had left my camera at home... but there is a video in YouTube of the one of 1998 and ... it is exactly like the one I saw yesterday so you can take a look at it ).
I found the parade on my way back home from my friend Graham's house where I had been watching football like a total maniac since 10 am when my Argentinian team won the first game 1-0 (and makiing me suffer a lot....).
During the "surface interval" between the half-times, I was checking the wall posts of friends in different parts of the world. A friend of a friend from England, still with the pain caused from the events of the World Cup in 1986, made a funny comment about Maradona. He said: "Forget about the Hand of God. Maradona has the Belly of Buddha now" LOL.

In the afternoon I watched England-USA. Interesting game. No comments about the embarrassing moment of the goalkeeper... it was enough that the fans were not supportive at all.
But football is like that. Not always the final score shows how the game really was. In any case, I had a great day since I missed watching football so much.

Among the few things I miss of living here, football is the most easily solved I guess. Since by getting a cable service I would be able to cover it. The others are not so easy. One of them is that I miss dancing a lot. Why aren't there places to dance? I remember that place La Policia a couple of years ago. Salsa, merengue,...
Now, no way. I miss dancing Latin music, rock, tango, no matter what. The Dominican bars play just bachata. Forget it ... I am talking of music you really want to dance. Sometimes Saturday nights at Bohio there is a possibility of dancing but not always. I am talking of a real place for dancing... I don't know, with music of the 80's of the 70's during a couple of hours, another couple of hours with Latin music, something like that. That is why, when I go to Buenos Aires, I go dancing at least 3 times a week. I have to "re-charge" with a lot of dancing and I do it also at home here on the island, alone. So, open to suggestions about how to solve this soon... See you tomorrow again, people

There is a first time for everything ...

Yes, no doubt about it. And this is the first time for me, that I watch the World Cup without my Argentinian friends around. Even in 2006, when I was living 75% of my time in Honduras.
But that year, I was working with a group of Argentinian consultants so we met for all the games to scream, curse, laugh and cry sometimes (yeah, of course...) around the giant TV at home or at the Marriott hotel. No matter the time of the day. We re-scheduled all the work meetings to be able to watch all the games. Yeah. Football for Argentinians (for South Americans in general) is a very serious matter.
We all think we know more than the coach, which in this case (for this World Cup) is absolutely true, since Maradona was probably the best player that ever existed but as a coach... he sucks...
I am no exception and while watching the games, I stand up and start giving orders to the players screaming at the TV running a high risk of having a heart attack...
This time, I will travel to Argentina for the second round (that I hope we will reach...) since I was not able to get a ticket with a reasonable price for an earlier date.
So, tomorrow morning, at 10 am I will be in front of the TV but this time without the other "coachs" to discuss the players' performance but my heart will be with them and, of course, with the players too.
I remember that a few months ago, I found this young guy on the island, wearing an Argentinian T-shirt, the formal one and I felt so moved that I took a picture of him and I apologize in advance to him.
I said: - Listen, just in case. I am sorry if we do not perform very well in this World Cup. I promise we will have another coach in the next one and that Messi will play at least in a couple of games. I hope he does or I will have to give some explanations to this kid...

Well, I go now because Mitch just arrived to play with the band at Salt Raker's and I want to come back for Friday night fun...

Il y a des croissant à Grand Turk ...

I have to admit that yesterday evening, when I came back from the Reef Check dives in Salt Cay, I was quite tired. And on top of that, I had to spend like one hour and a half detangling my hair full of knots with the little bit of leave-in conditioner I had left...
Because of that, when I finished the hair painful process, Cee's was about to close so no chances of buying bread to have with my feta cheese, potato, spinach and black olives salad.

But it was a blessing in disguise because I went to the new bakery to buy bread (they work until 8 pm...) and besides buying bread I found out that they make croissant and they are really goooooood. I bought a package of 10 croissant at usd 5. Of course, I ate 5 croissants in like 15 minutes...so now I better stay away from the bakery in the following days.
Of course I felt the moral obligation of letting you know, my dear friends, that there is hope: croissants can be bought on the island and we do not have to sell our gold to get them ... See you tomorrow...

Reef Check in Salt Cay

After the first test dive on Monday and three successful survey dives in GDT sites yesterday (Mama Nature a.k.a Middle Reef, Chief Minister and Wind Mills), today we went to Salt Cay.

This time with Blue Waters Divers boat in the hands of Daniel, we arrived in Salt Cay in 33 minutes and after loading the tanks on the boat we went to the first site: Three Pillars.
After the surface interval (very well used to have some snacks and water/juice and rest) we started with the second site survey that was located very close to the first one: Shark site, wishing that the name was only an anecdote and not a descriptive note...

We did this second one in about 45 minutes. It shows that we (us, the rookies...) are getting better at this or at least we are getting faster ...
We used the opportunity to stop and take a look at the recently sunk airplane (just sunk this morning...) that will become a new dive site and the boat sunk around one month ago.

Back to the shore to leave the empty tanks around 2.30 pm in a few minutes we were ready to go back to Grand Turk and this time the ride was about 24 minutes. I guess it was a record for Daniel.

It was a very nice day and we took pictures of the Salt Cay Reef Check team. Here 2 pics. One taken by the team leader Marlon and the other taken by me.
Fernando is in the picture but he was doing the Reef Check in Grand Turk the first day. Today he went to Salt Cay to help in the "airplane sinking" stuff.
Tomorrow we will do the last dive in Salt Cay and the final assessment to close the activities. Jody (the Environmental Officer) told us that, ideally this survey should be done 4 times a year, but they usually do it twice
since there are not enough resources. Let's hope this year we can do it more than twice...
See you tomorrow...

Counting fish and other things...

Today the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources started the Reef Check programme.
Like 5 seconds after Audrey from Blue Waters told me about it and asked me if I interested in participating, I said yes! and this morning at 8.30 we started with the brief and training at the National Museum followed by our first dive.
We met again at Grand Turk Diving and after organizing the teams, we left to the dive site in 2 boats. We went to Black Smiths Rock and it was more a practice to see how well (or not...) we (the volunteers who were doing this for the first time and the experienced ones...) could do.
After the dive we had a short meeting to talk about the mistakes we made, the possible alternatives to avoid them in the next dive, and to compare results such as number of groupers, % of damaged coral, etc. Also to ask questions.
It was really interesting and I am excited about continuing tomorrow. The plan is to work on about 4 sites in Grand Turk and 3 in Salt Cay in the rest of the week.

It is so good to do something like this while diving. I felt something similar when last year I participated in the "coral move" diving sessions to help building the artificial bio reef. After this kind of activities, the dives change because you start observing the marine life from a different perspective, paying attention to different things, details that were unnoticed before... For example, i
t's impressive the number of gorgonians you can find in a rectangle of 5 meters by 5 meters (sometimes more than 100...) or sometimes you find 8 flamingo tongues in a rectangle and none in the other one...
Well, more info will come in the following days... I have to take a nap now. It's a bit rainy now, so a perfect time for that :)

Diving ... Getting better every day... and every night

With the proximity of summer, days are getting hotter, mosquitoes wilder, rain more frequent and ... diving better and better :)
The waters are warmer every day, the viz close to perfect and I am sooooo ready to leave my 2mm wet suit and start wearing my skin!
We are all so into diving that also unusual things are happening (besides the manta rays that, of course, I never see...): one day last week, we were ALL at Tunnels at the same time: Grand Turk Diving, Blue Waters and Oasis. I spent the whole dive counting divers just in case because we crossed with Oasis' people a couple of times.
Also simultaneous night dives. Besides the amazing night dive that I had last Tuesday with my friend Jo-Ann and Smitty, there was another Thursday (I missed that one). The same night BWD, GTD and Oasis went for night dives but in different sites. I am not sure but I think they were Middle Reef, Mc Donalds and Library.
So you guys, the ones who are not on the island, come down here and join us that the weather is perfect and the diving, the best...

The price of living in Paradise (well part of the price...)

Reading the comments about a previous entry of my blog, I realized that sometimes we are kind of used the high prices on the island... And I just remembered my last time at the supermarket (s) and the bakery a couple of days ago: 6 oranges, 6 carrots, 3 potatoes, 1 bag with spinach, 4 heads of broccoli, 1 spray to kill cockroaches, 1 can of sliced vegetables, brown sugar, 1 bread, 1 muffin, oats Quaker (the smallest box)= 47 dollars.
I wonder why people do not grow vegetables here. I never asked but I guess it would be very good to start finding out... With these prices, I think it is totally worth it to give it a try... At least it would be good to try with things like tomatoes (impossible to buy since there are either sooooo expensive or sooooooo impossible to eat) or oregano, basil, etc.
I have to go now. I am using Internet at Salt Raker's and everybody is starting to order dinner.. Better go to feed the pets, take a shower and change to be ready for Friday's night with Mitch's band music and talk with friends :)

Rain and cappuccino in Grand Turk

Sorry I was not able to post this yesterday but I had to spend some time looking for Spot (one of Donna's beautiful cats) who decided not to show up at sunset, so I had to go later to feed her and that took my internet time, but "kids come first" :)
Anyway, I was really happy yesterday about all that rain that let the cisterns full of water.
Also it was different to enjoy the morning dives, feeling how the lightnings illuminated the underwater scene but did not distract us from our main goal: be totally present while diving.
On the boat, waiting for Tim who had gone underwater again to look for the weights that one of the divers had dropped, the situation was quite different. It is not very nice to listen to the thunders and see the lightnings in the middle of the sea, no matter how close the coast is... Underwater I feel really safe, on the boat .. not so much... Better be diving.
Once Tim and the weights were back on the boat, we went back to shore for the surface interval, that I used to have a hot cappuccino (USD 4) at Joan's Place (by the way, and related to my previous post, this place has not only a sign in front of the café but also on Pond Street!).
See you later...

To sign or not to sign...

It always cheers me up when I find a new sign on the island (for a store, for example) since, as we all know, it is not usual and it makes more difficult to give directions...
I found the new bakery about 2 months ago, following a friend's directions and, in the last 50 yards, asking around. As the bakery looked like any of the other houses around, I just followed the smell of the muffins and that was enough to find it... But a few days ago, they put a sign on the front :) so now, directions are: Take Pond Street (South-North) upto the Court House, turn to the right and on the left side you will see the store with green walls and the sign that follows...


By the way, the bread pudding is really good at usd 2.50 and it is a big one. They do not have it every day but just ask the nice lady than is there most of the time, when they will have it. I asked today and tomorrow after 1 pm they will have some. The flan is good too. Not so good the muffins though. A little dry and I haven't tried the bread so far.

Have a nice evening and see you tomorrow. I have to go now because I am going to my night dive.