La Isla Bonita

Lenore and I just returned from a very fun 30th anniversary Caribbean Cruise. We sailed out of Miami and visited Grand Cayman, Roatan, Belize, and Cozumel. Hurricane Matthew had just decimated Haiti on 4 October and then headed to Florida and the Southwestern US. It appeared that the storms wouldn't affect our ports. But, as the sailing date of 8 October approached, we weren't sure that our boat would sail or that our flight would be able to get us to Miami.

As it turned out, there wasn't much impact on Miami. The storm was passing North Carolina about the time we had to connect through Charlotte. But, that airport is far enough inland that it only had minor impact on the weather there. Overall, we were only rained on for about an hour's worth during our visits in ports.

This was our third Cruise in 18 months, and the second on Carnival Glory. The worst part is getting onto the ship. The best flight for us to take is the VERY early Saturday morning flight. As such, I didn't get very much sleep and then was without my meds until after dinner on Saturday. It wasn't horrible, but I need to plan better in the future.

There were two days at sea, Sunday and then Friday. The Friday was probably the least pleasant of the whole time because, even though it was sunny, the wind was pretty strong. I was tempted to ask the captain to slow down to minimize the wind:)

Grand Cayman was our first stop and also the shortest port stay. We just took a taxi to some part of Seven Mile Beach and sunned ourselves and went snorkeling. Left hand drive, English speaking, quaint. Did not see a McDonalds. But, saw KFC, Wendy's, and Burger King. The cabbie was quite proud to point out the expensive Hotels and resorts where the famous people own property and visit. It started to rain near the end of our planned stay. So, we packed up a little early and went back to the ship.

I think we had dinner to ourselves the first evening. But, for the rest of the trip we were seated with a nice, friendly couple from the Indianapolis area: Lance and Patty Allen. It was fun to have people to chat with.

The next stop was the Mahogany Bay resort on Roatan. We (Lenore) spent about an hour and a half shopping when we first arrived. I just cooled my heels and chatted with people. I was doing a pretty good job of watching the weather forecasts and such. Right before going to the beach, a lady asked me if we were going to get anymore rain. I said, "no, I think we've seen the worst of it." Then just as we got to the beach, it started to rain hard. Many of the people left for shelter. We found refuge in the outdoor locker area and were determined to wait it out. It rained steadily and hard for about 45 minutes and then cleared and was actually quite pleasant. We snorkeled a bit right off the beach. Then we noticed a pier off to the left that extended into the water about 100 yards. We found much better snorkeling there and both had a great time.

The next day found us in Belize. Our plan for the day was to go on a cave tubing excursion. We did not book this through Carnival. We found a better and less expensive tour on the internet: cavetubing.bz. There aren't many beaches in Belize. They are mostly on the islands. So, this activity seemed like the thing to do.

There was about an hour drive out of the city to a National Park. The city and environs are fairly impoverished looking. But, the park was quite presentable. The cave we floated is found on the Cave Branch river. (Belize is formerly British Honduras, so they speak English, but, they drive on the right hand side.)

After the float, we were served a very nice, simple lunch at the tour headquarters. On the drive back to port, the tour guide pointed out the local LDS Chapel.

Our last stop in Cozumel we took a taxi to Ocean Beach resort. They have a bit of a racket going on. The taxi fare is only $15 one way. But, once you get there you have to pay $17 per person to get in the resort. No big deal. They also try to sell you on all sorts of other stuff, (trying to separate you from your wallet) but, they aren't pushy.

While sitting on the beach next to a young black guy who was going to school in North Carolina (I think) and some of his friends (they all were from another boat) one of the vendors approached him and asked if he wanted his picture taken in a Mexican sombrero. He said, "that sounds racist." I couldn't contain my guffaw. I'm pretty sure he was trying to be funny. The vendor had no clue.

The water here was very warm. I would guess in some spots close to 90 degrees. We did a lot of snorkeling while still staying within the “safe” area.

While on the boat we saw frigate birds and vultures and dolphins, and very early in the morning we saw many small birds flying around the balconies, probably feeding on insects.

We had several hours available once we returned to Miami and we considered going to the beach. But, the weather wasn't great and we had our bags to worry about. So, we just went to the airport VERY early.

Cozumel

Cozumel

Saw this fish in Roatan. He was about two feet long.

Grand Cayman

Cozumel

San Clemente North (Huntington Beach) 2016

Our annual summer vacation to the beach took a course change this year. Since Poppa passed away and Becca and Megan bought a house in Huntington Beach and wanted us to stay with them, we went there. We called it San Clemente North.

They have a very lovely house about a mile from the beach just barely off of Brookhurst. We had a somewhat smaller contingent. Sarah and Sajid didn't come and the Taylors were in Europe. But, Ameer brought two friends Corey and Marshall. Ailsa also didn't come because she had already spent six weeks in Orange County doing an externship and was back working at the bankruptcy court in Salt Lake.

We also didn't go for quite the whole two weeks. We arrived in the afternoon on Wednesday and didn't go down to the beach until Thursday. And then left a week and a half later.

Megan is the Director of Research and Development at the Orange County Water District. Her workplace is actually quite close to their home. It just so happened that our Saturday there they were having and open house for families. So, we went and received a custom tour.

It was quite interesting and I learned some things:

The end product waste they dump into the ocean is still less concentrated than sea water; Desalination (evaporation or otherwise) is still more expensive and energy intensive than their process; The end product purified water is not directly consumed. (In some other places in the country it is.) But, is pumped to holding ponds where it is allowed to filter into the aquifer; and Ground does not filter out salts. Thus, the need for their process.

I only took my road bike (no tandem) and only rode six times for a total of 194 miles. But, I enjoyed myself a lot. I rode down to Dana Point the first day in town. I had forgotten how much up and down this ride is. A total of about 2000 feet of climbing. I also rode the river trail into the Anaheim Stadium and the back bay into Irvine and Bushard and PCH going north into Seal Beach and the San Gabriel river trail. The one I liked best was this last one.

With my cycling this year I had two main goals: break 20MPH pace for the year and do the most miles. At this point it's pretty certain I won't make the first. I tried putting on a lot of miles in April-July. I thought I would eventually start picking up speed. My pace suffered in June and I think I am just too old to do that much training. I might have made the pace goal if I hadn't piled on so many miles in June. So, my strategy now is just do moderate miles. That's why I didn't go nuclear with riding in California. But, I don't have enough year left to recover what speed I lost in June.

I usually enjoy watching a lot of the Olympics when I can. This iteration, it was a little problematic. The Smiths aren't that keen on watching sports. Although we did watch some. And NBC's coverage wasn't very good. They only showed select events and would waste lots of time in inane special interest stuff so that you really only saw a little of the actual sport. We did have fun though.

Some of the other evenings we watched some movies. Some were very good. A couple were horrible (Dan's taste).

I only surfed a little. I should have gotten up early and gone down to Doheny or Old Man's on that last day. But, I went for a bike ride instead. If I had people to go with me…

Ameer and his friends did surf a couple of times. But, they left on the Tuesday so we only overlapped a couple of days.

I did a little bodysurfing in San Clemente. But, I was surprised at how easy it is for me to get winded and run some risk of getting into trouble. So, I decided I have to really be careful at my age. The waves did pick up the last two days, and 30 years ago I would have been all over them. Water temps were good the first few days and then went fairly low. Also, not inviting.

One thing we noticed about the difference between north Orange County and South: at San Clemente the beach is a little protected from wind (maybe because of the cliffs?) and so the water is not horribly blown out as it was a couple of days up north. However, that wind also makes it so you can lie in the Sun for quite a while without getting overheated.

Stuart and Kendra, and Toni came over the first Friday evening and we had a really good time visiting with them.

Maddie Porter got married 12 August and we missed the sealing and the reception in Utah because of our travels. But, there was a reception in San Clemente the last Friday we were there and so we were able to make that. It was at a lovely house just up from T-Street and it was fun to see everyone, especially Julie and Blake LeSueur. I haven't seen them in probably at least 10 years and had forgotten how much fun they were.

A fun picture from the reception with a comparison from several years ago (you have to click back and forth.): Here

We went to Kim's ward on the one Sunday we were in town.

Rather than only go to Huntington Beach, we went one day to San Clemente, two or three days to Newport (here at 61st street) and the rest at Huntington.

Megan and Becca have purchased a number of cruiser bikes so people can ride to he beach. It was fun and convenient. And, most days we used them.

Recent Trip to Saint George

Paradise in January