Scott's back decides to throw a wrench in everything

By Scott: On Sunday morning I woke up and was feeling very stiff as if I had slept wrong. By Sunday evening it was a little worse and Monday it got progressively even worse until Monday evening I could barely walk. When I woke up Tuesday morning and still felt the same we decided to go to the hospital. They did a CT scan of my back and found a disc protrusion/herniation in my lower back at the base of my spine. I started Physical Therapy the same afternoon and found out that my left hip had also been knocked out of alignment. I had a biking accident about a week earlier and the physical therapist believes that when I landed on my left knee it knocked the hip out of place just slightly and over the course of the week it started impinging on the nerve. The hope is that by putting the hip back in that solves the problem. It could be that the protrusion is actually a coincidence having nothing to do with my pain. I have been off work for the last two days resting and tomorrow I see the therapist again for a follow up. I had been given a prescription for some pretty strong pain medicine and muscle relaxants but since the therapy session haven't needed them and am hoping not to have to use them at all. I will know more tomorrow and hopefully get released back to work. This was very bad timing as this week is final exams for the summer quarter. Katie has been very pleased about getting to order me around while on bed rest and not allowing me to do anything. She gets to take care of me this time.

Swimming in a warm bath

Yesterday afternoon we headed over to the far southern end of Seven Mile Beach where the Wreck of the Gamma is located. August is our hottest month of the year and we hoped that going for a swim would be a refreshing activity. With the water temperature in excess of 85 degrees though it was more like swimming in a warm bath. It is water temperatures like this that create the monster storms when they get into the Caribbean and one reason why everyone here breathed a sigh of relief when Hurricane Bill turned north and headed into the Atlantic. The Gamma is a ship that is beached in about 8-10 feet of water so a part of its structure is above the surface. It is just a few feet from shore so it is an easy swim to get to. You can actually swim into the structure of the boat and around its gutted open insides. The Sergeant major fish love to use the Gamma for laying eggs and it is not unusual at all to see the bright blue colored males swimming around a specific area protecting their eggs. Normally the Sergeant majors are yellow and black but when the males are protecting eggs they take on a blue hue. In the past we have seen several varieties of unusual fish at this location but yesterday it was mostly grunts, chubs and of course the Sergeant majors. We did see a southern ray swim past on his way into George Town but he never slowed to visit the wreck. The two pictures of the wreck are views of the front and rear of the boat. At left is one of the males protecting his eggs.

Swimming with a Turtle

With Katie in Beaumont for her Mom's graduation I went out this afternoon to do some snorkeling over at Eden Rock. As soon as I pushed away from the ladder I ran into a juvenile hawksbill turtle who was in a very playful mood. He swam very close to me and seemed to enjoy posing so I got several great shots and a neat minute and a half long video. Here are some of the shots.

Watching the Coast of Africa

Saturday the 15th is the official start of what is known as Cape Verde season. The Cape Verde Islands are located just off the coast of Africa where the monster storms tend to form from Saharan dust storms before crossing the Atlantic and hitting the warm waters of the Caribbean. Hurricane Dean two years ago was a Cape Verde storm as was Ivan in 2004. We have yet to get a named storm in the Atlantic basin this season so July and early August have been unusually quiet. As of today though we are tracking two storms that are coming off the coast of Africa. The first wave formed a tropical depression early in the week but looks like it will die in the Atlantic. The second storm is still near the Cape Verde Islands but seems likely to form the first named storm of the season later today and may have the strength to get across the Atlantic. It wont affect us for at least a week to ten days but it is definitely something everyone in the Caribbean is starting to watch closely every day.

Katie headed off for Texas today to go to her Mom's graduation and will be there through Sunday.

World War II Landing Craft

Today while Katie finished her final paper I went back to Sunset House to try and find the WWII landing craft that is submerged some 200 plus yards from shore. Today I swam with Adrienne, who is a dive master and the son of Katie's friends Thierry and Marie Claude. He had dived the wreck before and knew where to swim to get to it. We swam out past Amphitrite the mermaid and found the landing craft pretty quickly. It was about 60 feet below the surface and did not photograph well. This evening we went out to Yoshi's to celebrate Katie finishing her paper and her summer class. We used a certificate from our cousins the Spetters and want to pass on again our thanks for a great time with them and for the gift certificate. This Thursday Katie is headed back to Texas for her Mom's graduation from Lamar University in Beaumont.

Mermaid

Off the Sunset House hotel and restaurant on South Church Street is a dive spot popular for a wrecked WWII landing craft and a statue of a mermaid called Amphitrite as well as a wide variety of sea life. This afternoon was very calm so while Katie worked on her final paper for her Masters class on a deck overlooking the water I went for a swim the 200 or so yards out to see the Mermaid. On my way I passed a school of Caribbean squid in to lay their eggs and a turtle looking for lunch. Even though the mermaid is a 9 foot tall bronze statue, the shots arent that great as she is about 55 feet below the surface.