Provo, Turks and Caicos

Wow. 
The first word that popped into my head when looking at the water of Grace Bay, Providenciales - Wow. 

Absolutely the most stunning blue water I've ever seen, whether in the shallows of Caicos bank

 or along the wall off West Caicos,  the hues were amazing.

    Less than 3 hours from Charlotte, Providenciales (Provo for short) is one of the smaller, less developed islands in the region.  With no deep water port, cruise ships don't call, and most of the condos and resorts are relatively small and none would be considered high rises.  Large parts of the island are undeveloped and much of the surrounding water is protected marine parks. 

    Touching down on Provo brings you to one of the smallest, most laid back airports in the region.  A short, though not cheap, taxi ride with one of the islands more interesting characters - "keep your feet on the floor, no smokin or drinkin, and no bags in your laps!" - and we were at our home for the week, Coral Gardens.  Set right on the beach at the center of Grace Bay in the area known as lower Bight, CG has several buildings of condos ranging from the big, luxurious penthouses to the smaller, more budget friendly.  CG also hosts one of two Caicos Adventures shops which offers diving and snorkeling trips plus dive instruction, and a beachside bar and grill, Somewhere Cafe.

    With an 8:30 or so (it is island time, after all) pick up at CG each morning by Matt, one of the DM's and bus drivers with Caicos Adventures, we did 10 dives over the next 4 days, all on the west side of Provo or West Caicos with the exception of our night dive off the beach in front of the condo.  The wall along the west side of Caicos bank makes for oustanding diving.  The highlight for me was the almost constant presence of large gray reef sharks cruising the wall.

   Of course there was plenty of other life to see.  Large nassau and tiger grouper; queen, french and gray angels; 4-eye, banded and long-snout butterfly; queen, princess, stoplight parrots; ocean trigger, black durgon, and queen triggers; schools of silver and yellowtail snapper and schoolmasters; harlequin bass, fairy basslets, hamlets, wrasse, goby, banded coral shrimp, arrow crabs.  Oh, and some very friendly hawksbill turtles.

   Unfortunately, there were also plenty of lionfish to be found.  While they have started to allow limited hunting, all of the DM's and other T&C regulars have noted significant changes in the numbers of fish present on the reefs since the lionfish numbers have exploded.

    As for the rest of our trip (the part not spent underwater), we also had a terrific time.  Of course, a good amount of this time was on boats motoring back and forth between the harbor and dive sites.  While a little windy, we were blessed my mostly sunny skies and temps about 80 every day.  Afternoons were generally spent sitting on the beach with a cooler of Presidente or Turks Head beer.  We ate in a number of nights, with the local IGA having a nice selection to choose from though more local fish would have been nice.  We also had two fantastic dinners out - one at Mango Reef at the Alexandra resort, and one at Hemingway's at the Sands.  The shrimp pasta at Mango Reef was terrific and Hemingway's offered fresh wahoo.  To round out the trip we spent one day just driving around the island.

    Not sure when the next trip will be - starting a new adventure next week as I leave HP to join the new software team at Dell.  I will definitely visit T&C again, perhaps next time hitting Grand Turk to try the wall diving there.  For now, it's back to quarry weekends helping with dive checkouts.

Cambridge MD, Tampa, Charlotte and anticipation - part 2

    Visiting Tampa and Charlotte in the spring, even for a quick one or two day business trip, is a great way to start shaking the later winter blahs.  While temps can cover a pretty big range, by late March you can count on trees and flowers in bloom, usually warm daytime temps and mild evenings, the occasional spring  rain, along with people who have emerged from their winter cocoons walking and enjoying the spring air.

    This edition of the blog will focus mainly on food.  In Tampa, their are a number of very good to great restaurants.  Two of my long time favorites, Bern's for steak and Oystercatchers for seafood are standouts for great food and great service.  On this trip I tried a couple of new places as well and was rewarded with more great food and service at Ocean Prime and Charley's.  All 4 of these restaurants are at the pricier end of the Tampa dining scene so there are no bargains here, but all of them warrant a try if you're willing to pay for great food and service.

    It's hard to describe Bern's if you haven't been there.  It has an old world charm along with what has to be one of the most comprehensive wine collections of any restaurant in the world.  The food is prepared with painstaking precision.  Most of the wait staff have 20, 30, or more years of tenure.  You can tour the cellar - only part of the massive wine collection is here, the rest occupies a nearby climate controlled warehouse - the kitchen - where they grow there own watercress under lamps - and finish the meal in the upstairs dessert room.  I could write pages about this place - but in the interested of brevity, if you love great steaks, great wine, great service and are willing to pay for them, eat at Bern's on your next trip to Tampa.  Located outside of the downtown area in an older neighborhood, you'll swear you're going the wrong way, but follow you GPS and you'll be rewarded with one the best evenings you've ever had.

    Oystercatchers, at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay, with it's view of the bay and it's offerings of fresh fish
is another must do in the Tampa dining scene.  Tucked into the corner of the Hyatt property away from the hotel, Oystercatcher's features an open kitchen and dining area.  A very contemporary feel along with attentive wait staff and superbly prepared food are the staples that bring me back to Oystercatchers every
change I get.  With a great array of special preparations or your choice of simple grilled, blackened, or pan saute'd, you select from local favorites like yellow-tail snapper, black grouper and others or classic offerings like salmon as well as chicken and steak items.  They had not gotten stone crab claws in that day, but the calamari appetizer was top notch, and the blackened yellow-fin was done perfectly.  Every member of our party raved about how good their meal was.  As a bonus, arrive in time for sunset and you'll be rewarded with great views along with an oustanding meal. 

    Having eaten at both Oystercatchers and Bern's on a number of occasions, I opted to try a couple of new (at least to me) places this time - Ocean Prime and Charley's.

    Ocean Prime is a contemporary, upscale mix between steakhouse and seafood restaurant.  With a solid selection of prime steaks and fresh seafood, OP tends to the more casual side of fine dining with a large lounge area and an expansive patio.  A solid wine list compliments the menu, servers were attentive and knowledgeable, and the overall experience was very enjoyable.  The grilled grouper was outstanding and the caesar salad before lunch was spot on with just the right bite of sardine and garlic while not being overwhelmed by the dressing.  While the location near a local shopping area and amidst a number for corporate office buildings doesn't provide quite the greatest ambiance, once inside you'll be happy you gave it a try.

    Charley's is another great choice for great steaks and seafood.  Sandwiched between a couple of national chain hotels along a relatively busy strip, once inside you'll be reminded of the old style steakhouses that use to dot the american landscape.  A bit darker inside, with wood and leather in abundance, this place harkens back to the days of tux clad waiters and business men closing deals over martinis.  That said, the crowd is generally much less formal, though a number of folks were still dressed for the occasion.  The salt water tank at the back of the lounge area has a nice collection of saltwater tropicals, mostly Indo-Pacific oddly enough.
There was still a 40 minute wait after 8PM mid-week, so make a reservation, but once I had a taste of the bronzed grouper with the cajun/cream sauce I know exactly why it was so busy.

Cambridge MD, Tampa, Charlotte and anticipation

    It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks traveling the southeast.  A nice little overnight in Cambridge, MD to celebrate our 28th anniversay, a couple of days in Tampa for a marketing event and a customer meeting in Charlotte in the last two weeks really has me longing for the warm weather to come permanently to the mid-Atalntic.  Oh, and the completion of an undefeated championship season of 11 year old rec basketball has made for fun Saturdays.

    March 10th marked our 28th anniversary, so along with some flowers and a new Pandora bracelet I arranged for a nice little overnight at the Hyatt Resort in Cambridge, MD.  While a little on the cold and blustery side in early March, this beautiful resort is tucked just off the bay near the mouth of the Choptank River on Maryland's eastern shore.  Even with all of the development of the last decade there is still a sense that driving across the bay bridge puts you in a land of a different time.  Once past the strip malls, fastfood outlets and hotels that crowd the bridge, the land flattens out as you roll past farms and small towns and the pace of everything begins to slow.

  Pulling into the resort itself takes you past a boardwalk trail warpping around wetlands until the drive circles up to the main resort entrance.  The staff wa very courteous as we were welcomed by the valet and several front desk staff.  The automated chec-in kiosk was a bit slow but soon we were armed with two room keys and on our way.  With numerous nautical and water fowl accents the resort fits nicely into the MD eastern shore vibe.

After settling in, we enjoyed a nice appetizer and beverage in the concierge lounge which has a beautiful full picture window view overlooking the water.  The attentive staff of the lounge provided prompt service and a gracious attitude.  We then headed back to the room for a quick cleanup and then to dinner.  We opted for the Water's Edge Grill for an enjoyable late evening meal.  We were even provided a nice little anniversay present dessert.

While not able to take advantage of all of the amenities, the resort boasts a championship golf course, a spa, and a marina, plus two other restaurants.

We definitely enjoyed our stay, leaving there very relaxed.  I would definitely visit again.

Fun with PC's!!! A slight diversion from the travel life.

    Are manufacturers ever going to figure out how to build quality into their products?  HP hasn't figured it
out yet - here's a brief account of further HP personal computer hell.  In the first episode, the primary hard drive in one of our home computers failed less than a year from purchase.  After 3 weeks, half a dozen phone calls and several levels of management I still didnt' have a replacement.  Eventualy they blamed "not having that size HD" in stock - WHAT?  The eventually agreed to let me by one at a local
office supply store and send them the bill for reimbursement.  Why they didn't just send me the next avaialble size is mystifying.

    Now for the current episode.  Shut down my PC before our anniversary overnight.  The next afternoon it would not turn back on.  An hour on the phone gets me to "seems like the motherboard is dead, we'll ship you one and have a tech come out to install" since it's only 6 months old and under full warranty.  5 days later, tech installs new motherboard and nothing.  Next up is to wait for an empty box from them to pack
and ship my PC off, with 7 to 10 day turnaround time. 

    For the record, this is two mid-to-upper end HP desktop PC's each with a major system failure at less than one year, including one that resulted in $700 for a HDD recovery service to get the data off of my wife's dead drive.

Virgin no longer

It's been just about 24 hours since the motor clicked on and the first drop of ink was punched into my right shoulder.  While still a bit tender, it looks so wicked I can hardly believe I waited till mid-way through my 49th year to get my first tattoo.

What started as a hypothetical discussion 4 years ago, days after my Open Water dive certification, has now come to it's awesome realization.  Over the last 4 years as the dives rolled by I continued to gain a more and more profound appreciation, awe really, for the life in our oceans.  I pondered whether to get a tattoo, when it would make sense, where to put it and what exactly it would be: reef scene, ship wreck, diver and flag. 

As the pictures I took underwater began to improve, the idea of basing the tattoo on something I had shot underwater began to take shape.  See some of my images here: Underwater Pics at Heresyourshot.com
Once I found the artist and decided on the time, we discussed two ideas: a reef scene with a combination of corals and fish, or perhaps a single fish or set of fish.  Reviewing some of my pictures with Uncle Pauly we ultimately decided on doing a flight of rays. 

With some sketches in hand and some last minute thoughts, what had once seemed so foreign - I never really thought of myself as a "tattoo guy" - now seemed a very natural expression of my love of diving.  Using this picture as the initial basis:

Pauly researched rays, looked at many photos, and had sketched out an awesome representation.

From first drop to completion was just a bit over 3 hours.  While it stung a bit more than I expected, the excitement and anticipation of seeing the completed work made the time fly by.  While still a bit tender and a bit red, I can't believe how great it looks after one day. 

Sweet.

Dive Control Specialist certification at last

After a year of waiting and wondering what was taking so long, I finally received my Dive Control Specialist certification today.  I am now officially a dive professional.  SSI Dive Con is a combination certification for Dive Master and Assistant Instructor, and qualifies me to assist in classroom and pool instruction, teach scuba skills update, and lead divers underwater.

Suffice to say that after passing the DCS exam a year ago, I've been a bit frustrated at not having my c-card.  Seems that all of my paperwork got lost somehow, got resubmitted (or so I thought after I signed everything again), yet still month after month rolled by, all the while being assured that everything was fine.  Turns out the final piece to this puzzle was the DAN (Diver's Alert Network) Emergency O2 Provider class - it's just no one told me I needed this until last week.  So I tracked down an instructor, took and passed the class Tuesday night, turned in my paperwork today, and VOILA - I get an email from SSI with my dive professional credentials.

Next step in my pro dive career will be to take the OW (Open Water) intstructor's course.  Meantime, I'll dive as often as possible - next up is the Turks and Caicos islands the first week of April.

4 Days in South Beach

What a great spot to shake off a bit of the winter cold. Blue water, sunny skies, temps in the 70's - what more could a weary winter warrior from the northern climes want in February?

Located on the beach just south of 5th street with an art deco style exterior and large by South Beach standards rooms, the South Beach Marriott is a terrific choice for a home-away-from-home in sunny south Florida.  It's easy walking distance from the heart of the art deco district and the fun of Ocean Drive's night life but far enough to provide a quiet, relaxing atmosphere when you're ready to just chill.  Nicely appointed rooms, a great outdoor bar/cafe overlooking the pool and ocean, and friendly attentive staff made for an excellent stay.

Along with a great hotel its important to have great things to do, and South Beach is stocked full.  First, there's the water.  On this trip we took an afternoon to do some fishing, but sailing, sight seeing tours, and diving are all among the water based fun to be had from Miami down to Key Biscayne.  After dark the fun moves from the water to the strip.  Great restaurants abound: local favorite Grillfish grills fresh fish to order in their open kitchen and serves an amazing whole red snapper; national chains like Fogo de Chao and Ruth's Chris live up to their reputations as beef lover's paradise; numerous restaurants line Ocean Blvd and offer al fresco dining throughout the year.  If your in the mood for more casual fare, head to Lucky Strike lanes and enjoy the upscale bowling and billiards and enjoy the food along with a full assorment of adult beverages.

For after dinner fun, Mango's is an experience you don't want to miss.  Fresh made mojito's compliment the bikini and fish-net clad young ladies who serve them while you enjoy the stage show of young, athletic dancers who tango and salsa the night away giving way occassionally to the Michael Jackson impersonator.  With this and the myriad of other night life spots to sample, don't be surprised when you wander back to your room and the clock reads 4:30AM.

And certainly not least is the beach.  When the weather starts to warm up, the sights, sounds and smells of the beach from salt air and suntan lotion to bikinis and volleyball, South Beach has something for everyone who enjoys relaxing in the sun on a white sand beach with the gentle sound of waves inexorably calling you to unwind.

South Beach awaits

Next up is a 4 day trip to South Beach.  Staying at the Marriott South Beach for meetings, plus
an afternoon on the water fishing and an evening at the lanes.  Can't wait to be back in the warm weather, just wishing it was a month or two from now and I'd haul my dive gear along.

Really starting to get the itch now - been 3 months since I've been underwater and probably another month till my first dive trip of the year.  You can see a few of my pics at:  Here's Your Shot Photography

Winter in Scottsdale

Sunny days in the mid 60's perfect for golf; cool, crisp evenings with a sky full of stars.  It's no wonder people flock from all over to enjoy the mild winters of central Arizona.

Just spent 3 nights at the Scottsdale Marriott @ McDowell Mountains.  The hotel sits in a great location near the McDowell mountains in north Scottsdale.  The unexpected Mediterranean style, all-suite hotel is adjacent
to the TPC Scottsdale Champions course and close to several other world class courses like The Boulders and Grayhawk. A great complimentary rate at the TPC was all our group needed to set aside an afternoon for a great round of golf in the desert.  Between the scenery and wild-life you could be forgiven for asking
for a cart just to spend a few hours driving around the course.

The expansive lobby hosts great dining in the Zambra Grille and the well provisioned Agave bar, both of which open onto a partially covered patio that overlooks the pool as well as the TPC Champions course.
The Zambra staff were courteous and attentive and the food was very good, with the salmon garnering great reviews. 

Many of the spacious 2 room suites have a private balcony or patio and boast spectacular views of the mountains and the golf course.  Settling into my room after check-in, I opened the door to my patio and was
delighted by over 2 dozen gambel's quail roaming the open terrace below.  The sitting room holds a couch and chair for relaxing, a mini-fridge and a work table and chair along with a flat screen tv.  Another flat screen in the bedroom and a separate tub and shower in the bathroom round out the suite.

While there are many choices for accomodations in and around Scottsdale, the Marriott at McDowell Mountains has become my favorite home-away-from-home in the area.

Superbowl Sunday

Not that we need much of an excuse to throw a party, but the Superbowl certainly gives us one.  Making the Bobby Flay wings from "Throw Down" along with a bunch of other munchies while root on the Pack to dispose of the despised team from Pittsburgh!!!

Of course, libations are a necessity, and margaritas are the drink of the day.  Patron tequila and our favorite mix from Jimmy Buffet will have everyone in high spirits.

Signed, Cheesehead for a day!

Valley of the Sun for work and fun

I've traveled to the Phoenix area often over the last 10 years and look forward to each trip.  Headed out for work next week, I'll enjoy the Southwest cuisine, the nightlife of Old Town Scottsdale, and an afternoon of golf at the TPC while enjoying the outstanding service and staff of the Scottsdale Marriott @ McDowell Mountains.  There probably won't be any side trips this time, but the area makes a great base for exploring Arizona.  Tuscon and Saguaro National Park beckon to the south, the enchantments of Sedona call from the North while local sights such as Taliesin West and the Botanical Gardens make the Valley of the Sun a great get away.

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