Sunday, May 26, 2013

Maldives diving

For Amanda's birthday we took our first live-aboard. It was Maldives low season so the visibility was very poor, some of the poorest we have dived in however the threatening weather only produced one terrible day with sun for the most part, through the rest of the voyage. Not good enough however, for fishing or a beach BBQ.



Our purpose was to swim with the whale sharks, along with 50 or so other people. It was pretty unpleasant for us, and I can only imagine what it is like for the whale shark. Luckily, we found one shark with nobody else around and enjoyed a 15 minute swim with just the three of us.


 
The boat was Dhoni Stella (when we surfaced and wanted our pick up I loved giving it a little Stanley Kowalski - "Stellllllaaaaaaaa!!!!" ). 
 


Tough times.



Tough times indeed.


Ari Atoll western edge.

 
Getting up and close with the locals. This guy was little and therefore nervous which then made me a little nervous. We're diving again in a few months and am hoping to get more hands on.
 

Monday, May 6, 2013

BBQ piggy!


I can't believe that it was only 1 year ago that the first pig on a spit was cooked for Amanda's birthday. The weekend's party at Nathan and Juwon's was the 5th pig for the year, not forgetting the lamb.


JCLE Asia 5

After 7 months of very hard work in addition to day jobs, my JCLE group presented to extremely good response from senior management. Some great friendships were developed - the kind that comes from facing adversity together while enjoying your self along the way. Shanghai, Bangkok, Nagoya and finally HK.

Michael Wix (trainer), Kevin Farley, Kerrigan Xie, me, Qiong Sun, Shilpa Marwha, Hisayoshi Iwamistu, Arie Lukkassen, Kathryn Aitken (trainer), Vikhna Sivalingham, Cyrus Daboo and Tom (trainer).