Dominican Republic~ day 6

During our snorkel trip, we were on the boat with several scuba divers.  We talked to them about diving and they insisted that if we had never been, we needed to go, what a different experience it was!  Matt was concerned about his ear pressure issues but I was gung-ho and ready to try it!  When we got to shore, we booked a scuba trip for the next morning.

Thursday morning we got up and headed back to ScubaFun to prepare for our scuba diving adventure.  We got our gear and had a simple training on how everything works, what to do in different scenarios, then we were headed out!  It got real when the boat anchored and we started putting on our masks, inflatable vests (BCD), weight belts, tanks and fins!  Holy heck was all that equipment was heavy!

Remember how I was the "gung-ho" one about scuba diving?  Wellllllllll, that all changed once I deflated my vest and starting sinking down into the water.  As soon as my mouth and nose were under the water, I panicked, big time. Our instructor, Sam, helped me get back to the surface where she made sure I was ok.  Just had myself a little freak out, but I knew I could do this.  Sam waited until I was ready, then we went down together, she made me keep my eyes locked on hers and helped me stay calm and BREATHE.  Boy, is that the most counterintuitive thing, to breathe under the water!  I love this picture that Matt took~

Yay!  I made it!

We practiced a few exercises in a shallow-ish area, such as clearing our mask, recovering our regulators (the thing that goes in your mouth) and two ways to clear your regulator, then we were off to explore!  We did what is classified as a "discovery dive," which is for people who aren't certified divers.  We hung out about 30-40 ft below the surface, which is the max depth for discovery divers.

Our first dive was to a reef with some artifacts from a shipwreck.  We saw rays, urchins, a flounder, a MASSIVE hermit crab, eels and a little squid.  There were a few old cannon balls and a cannon resting on the sea floor.

If you look closely ^^^ here you can see a flounder

^^^^      an eel

Second dive was to an actual sunken ship, the Atlantic Princess.  Again, this was literally right out in front of our resort!!   The descent was much quicker and easier this time, although I had to keep reminding myself to BREATHE.  I swear, with every breath, I was filling my lungs to capacity and then blowing everything out!  Bubbles bubbles everywhere!!

the ship behind us here

The instructors filled plastic water bottles with torn pieces of bread.  When you get under the water, you let the water into the bottle then squeeze it out and fish SWARM!!  Can you see Matt in the crowd of fish below??  No thanks.  I'd probably have a heart attack if a fish touched me!

Give the camera to Sam to take a pic of us and of course she takes a selfie!

Flattering, I know

It was like a whole other world down there!  It's so quiet under the water and it's amazing to just glide through the water and see all the life below the surface.  And time flies when you're under the sea!  It was hard to believe we had been diving for 45 minutes!  I'm SO glad that we went scuba diving even though it was waaaaay out of our comfort zone!  I'm afraid that *just* snorkeling will never satisfy again!

When we got back to the resort, we spent some time on the beach with an endless supply of fruity drinks, then took out this little catamaran.  It got zooming pretty good when the sail caught the wind just right!

along the beach at our resort

One of the things I loved was that during the day, everyone is in beach attire but once the sun sets, everyone cleans up, dresses up a bit and heads out to dinner.  We tried several of the restaurants at the resort but this night was our favorite. (foggy lens due to the humidity)

And my hair, OOOOOOHHHHH my hair.  Once I stepped outside into the humid air, it's like it had a mind of it's own!  Fuzzy!

Dominican Republic~ days 4 & 5

Tuesday morning, the day we got to sleep in, ahhhhhhh.  We lazily ate breakfast, packed up our things and travelled about 2 hrs to an all-inclusive resort in La Romana for the remainder of our stay.  At this point, I was still pinching myself that we are in the Caribbean, and we have the rest of the week to play and relax!

The lobby of the resort was completely open air and you could see straight out to the ocean.  Incredible!  I've never seen anything like this!  We couldn't check in until 3 pm so we hit up the buffet.  There were FLAMINGOS in the courtyard!!!  Once we got to our room, we got into our swim suits and headed down to check out the beach.  After a little while, we went back to our room and got dressed up for dinner.

We found this cute little hermit crab in our room!

Wednesday morning we booked a snorkeling excursion to Saona Island.  Elder Anderson had recommended we contact John at ScubaFun in Bayahibe, which is right down the beach from where our resort was.  We met up with several other people and boarded a speed boat.  We stopped practically right in front of our resort (wayyyyy out from the shore) to snorkel first.  It's always such a surprise when you put your face in the water and see fish right there!!  We got back on the boat and made the rest of the trip out to the island where we had lunch.  There were ladies with briefcases full of jewelry, trying to sell to  all the tourists.  There were also guys with wheelbarrows full of fresh coconuts that they hack open with machetes, waiting for someone to buy.  I got anxious, I just wanted everyone to leave us alone!  We did end up buying a couple souvenirs for the kids and a coconut to drink.  I'm probably in the minority buuuuut not a huge fan of (warm) coconut water.

These fish are everywhere!  (sergeant majors)

On the way back, we stopped at this shallow natural pool.  The water was SOOOO clear and there were gigantic starfish just lying on the bottom.  

This might have been the night we ordered room service for dinner.... and Matt swore we'd go out later and have a second dinner, but nope, I'm pretty sure we were dead on the bed.

One funny thing..... we realized that we weren't going to make the rest of the week with the clean Gs that we packed, we had them laundered for us at the resort.  They brought them back all individually hung up on hangers!!!  They were probably like, what the heck are these???!  haha

Dominican Republic~ day 3

Today was our working day!  We had to wake up WAY early for Edgar to pick us up at 4:30am to drive to Boca Chica where the San Francisco Giants training facility is.  I wasn't really sure what to expect, but this is what I learned:

Baseball is like a religion in the Dominican Republic.  These Major League teams start aggressively scouting boys from South America and the Caribbean when they are just 12-13 years old.  When they are 16 years old, they bring them to the Dominican and start training them.  These young men eat, sleep and breathe baseball.  Each major league team has their own "academy" facility.  The boys live in a large dormitory lined with rows of bunk beds.  They practice every day and play games within the developmental league there.  The players continue on in hopes of making it to the minor league and potentially even the major league.

The Giants have 50-ish players here at the training facility.  Some of the young men have never received eye care.  Matt's job was to check their vision and get them the correction they need to help them on the field.  I got to be one of his lovely assistants, measuring pressures and being his scribe.  Very few of them spoke or understood English, which was difficult for me if I needed to communicate with them.  I just used simple commands like "mira," "abre sus ojos," and "aqui."  At first the guys were kinda unsure, but you could feel them relax once Matt started joking with them a bit.  We whipped through all the ball players by 8am.

They had a baseball game to play so we got a resort pass for the day and literally laid on the beach for HOURS.  We didn't pack our swimsuits that day so we just found some chairs under a canopy and sat.  I dozed while Matt watched a movie on his iPad.  We ate lunch at a place on the edge of the water called Boca Marina.  We ordered our fruity drinks, of course, and ordered a sampler platter with fish sticks (not the frozen kind!), shrimp, calamari, french fries and chicken.  We also ordered a salad, which was delicious and the most green food I'd seen since we'd been there!  We also had mozzarella patties with marinara.  I think we may have been the only ones there, everything was great!

Edgar came to take us back to the baseball complex so Matt could check a few more players again and get them fit for contact lenses.  There were just a few of them that needed minor correction but that tiny bit can make a big difference in accuracy for a pitcher or catcher.  I think most of them were in denial and resistant to the idea of contacts but seeing the smiles on their faces when they realized how much it helped was awesome.  Most of them were able to get the contacts out and put them back in with ease.  Professionals already!  Now, just hoping that they'll actually USE the contacts!

These boys made me feel short!

Matt with Anthony and Edgar

Once we got back to the hotel that evening, we took a stroll down to the grocery store to pick up some essentials like ice cream and Oreos!  We showered up, FaceTimed with the kids then crashed for the night.