Thunderstorm

I took this video yesterday on the flight from Charlotte, NC to Fort Myers, FL. Fortunately, we flew around it and not through it. It was perfectly smooth and made for a good show.

Thunderstorm
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5X2pn2Tj0k)

On the Mainland

It was a long and arduous journey, but I've arrived safely in Naples, Florida. As the crow flies, South Caicos is only about 600 miles from Florida. If only I could have flown directly, it would have taken hardly more than an hour. Instead, it took me 16. So close, yet strangely far away.

There are few things less pleasant than commercial air travel these days. It seems that collectively airlines have given up all effort of providing decent service. Instead they try to wring every last penny they can from you. I was charged $25 to check my bag and $3 for the on-board snack. They've even gone as far as placing advertisements on the tray tables! On top of that, the TCI government charged me $20 for permission to leave the country. They get away with all of this because they know we're captive consumers. We'll keep purchasing their product no matter how bad it is because when it comes to long distance travel, there's nothing else we can do.

Shameless.

But I guess, when it comes down to it, I can't complain because they did manage to get me from point A to point B without any mid-air disasters!

I do, however, always enjoy the island-connector flight from South to Provo. See some of the photos from it below:

Boarding in South Caicos

You can really see the damage that the East Bay resort has done dredging sea grass.

Dove Cay and Long Cay

One final goodbye - looking down at the Center.

La República Dominicana

I've arrived in the the Dominican Republic. It took most of the day to get here, despite only being about 100 miles away. The first flight (to Provo) was 20 minutes and the second flight (to Puerto Plata) was only another 40 minutes. But I had a layover of about 5 hours in between. It wasn't so bad though, because it gave me the chance to walk down the street and get some Chinese food. It's simple things like that, that I really miss living on South Caicos.

Lunch in Provo

The very first thing that stood out about the Dominican Republic is that it is green. When you fly over the TCI you mostly see scrub vegetation on sandy, rocky terrain. But flying into the DR, everything is green, there are plantations and palm trees. It's a far bigger island with high mountains, so a lot of rain falls here, making it much more lush environment. This, however, I expect will have a detrimental effect on visibility underwater (more runoff, means more sediment in the water).

After landing, they led us through an absurdly long maze of corridors to immigration, where they charged me $10 to get into the country! It was a little bit silly how they did it, but there was an official looking desk and the immigration officer wouldn't let me through without paying, so I'm pretty sure it was legitimate.

The hotel I'm staying at offers free pickup for guests who stay longer than a week, the person who was supposed to pick me up from the airport was late. I waited for a while and told at least a dozen people that I didn't need a taxi or a "motoconcho" (motorcycle taxi). Eventually I found a way to call the hotel. Apparently the website for Air TCI said my flight hadn't taken off yet. I wasn't at all surprised. A Canadian who works at the hotel came to get me finally. The place I'm staying at, Rocky's Hotel, is pretty dingy. But I can't expect much when my method for choosing a hotel was to scan the listings for the lowest possible rate.

My Room

After I unpacked, I went into town with three objectives: find the dive center I'll be diving with, buy some cheap sandals (mine broke recently), and find a place to get some water. I achieved two out of three, and I'm feeling a little bit parched at the moment.

The city of Sosúa is a pretty typical Latin American tourist town from what I can tell so far. The exception, however, is that it seems prostitution is big business here. The guy from the hotel told me already that most people come to Sosúa "for the girls." I made it clear I was here to go diving.

The Street

Tauchschule Merlin

I'll be diving with Tauchschule Merlin (Diving School Merlin), a German-run dive center right down on Sosúa beach. They gave me a great welcome, and I'm really excited about diving with them. They told me to meet them back at the shop at 9am tomorrow morning for the first dive. I can't wait.

Playa Sosúa

Tourist Traps

A boat at the beach.

Right around the corner I found a place to get some sandals. I bargained down to what I was pretty sure was a fair price, but after purchasing them I promptly found them for $8 cheaper at another place. Oh well, they were still less than what I would have paid on South Caicos or Provo.

More likely than not, they're knock-offs.

I decided to come back to the room to write this up, and I'll attempt to find some dinner a little later on. My first impression of the place wasn't so good (tourist destinations centered around nightlife don't really appeal to me), but after meeting the people at the dive center, I'm feeling a little better about things.

Breaking Even

I took a gamble not going on the last Dominican Boat, hoping that the next one would arrive exactly when I needed it to. I found out it won't. With some help, I called our contact who crews the boat, and he said the boat was out of the water all week for "Semana Santa" (Holy Week) and he wasn't sure when it was going back in. I was pretty bummed out for a few days thinking that I was either going to have to wait several weeks to go over the Dominican Republic or pay a lot of money to fly.

Then I got an email back from a dive shop I had emailed. I took a long shot and made an unlikely offer; I would give them the rights to use all the photos I take while diving with them if they let me dive for free. And they agreed! They said as long as the boat was going out with other customers, I could go along free of charge! I wasn't expecting that at all. But I guess it's a good deal for both of us - a professional photographer would charge thousands for that much work and me going along with them costs them little. Win-win.

So I started thinking, now that I don't have to pay for diving I can fly over and my budget stays just about the same. Not only that, but I don't have to deal with the hassle of the boat, the long journey, or the seasickness. The flight is 15 minutes to Provo and 45 minutes to the DR, whereas the boat is no less than 18 hours.

This morning I went and bought tickets. I leave on Friday and stay for about 3 weeks. I'm excited to get off of isolated South Caicos for a little while.

Fall?

The change of seasons can easily go unnoticed down here. We don't get any dramatic change in colors or those crisp evenings that smell like Fall has arrived. I almost didn't realize that September is practically over already. Recently the temperatures have been considerably cooler (though certainly still not what I'd call "cool"). It's more like the length of time that the heat is unbearable during the day has shortened. I will say that nighttime is quite comfortable though. The water temperature has remained pretty constant at about 88 degrees on the surface, which is nice.

All this hot weather has got to be making us soft. It'll be a shock to our systems when visit the families this December. We've just purchased our plane tickets for the Winter break. We'll be back in the States from 17 December to 2 January! We're planning to visit Florida (to see my Leitner grandfather), Philadelphia (to see Jessee's family), Maryland (to see my parents), and (hopefully) a quick trip to New York (to see my Matulis grandmother). Our flights make a circuit from TCI to Florida (17 Dec) to Philadelphia (20 Dec) and back to TCI (2 Jan).