dunefreak

Thanks, Vic. It was pretty cool, but this is pretty much a daily thing for Anna so it wasn't anything new for her. I still can't believe the "double push" worked so well for us. They pushed and wham...we were up! They didn't even demonstrate it for us first. They said, just float on your stomach and keep your legs straight. Fuggin Jamaicans. Gotta love em. It worked perfectly. That's some funny shizz. I thought that pic looked like I was saying, nah! Get outta here!!! LOL Thanks R. It was such a good trip, we will probably be going back pretty soon. We've been staying in contact with some friends that we made while we were there. Nice. What town is he staying in? Thanks Woods. This place is highly recommended. When you stay at a place like we did, you never run out of sh*t to do and there is never a reason to even leave the resort. Yep, it was really cool and not cool at the same time. hahaa I was ok with it until the trainer purposely slapped the water in front of his face and the shark snapped it's jaws at him. That made me realize how quick and powerful these guys were.

Thanks Terry. Yep, this one will be a memorable one for sure but we plan on many more. Thanks Eddy! We totally recommend Jamaica. We'll be going back there sooner than later. You definitely have to do the all-inclusive thing. It makes it way more stress-free while your there. Thanks Neal. The dolphins were alot of fun. I had no idea we would be able to do the "double push" so easily. You just float on your stomach with your legs kept straight and as soon as they come up and push you...bam your up! That was a trip. We were in awe every time we saw the hills with all that lush green vegetation and trees. Everyday when we were walking through the 4th floor hallways of the hotel (which were all open-air and outside with a great view of the island), we couldn't help but stop and look at the view. Jamaica is a gorgeous place or sure. Jackass Thanks Jason. Absolutely. RIU is the shizznit! That is the same resort that Julie just stayed at in Cancun and she said it was badass down there too. I don't think you can go wrong no matter where it is. This isn't the only reason why I got certified, but it was definitely the reason why I finally had to get it knocked out. I am so glad I did too. What an experience! We booked our whole trip through bookit.com. One of the search options when booking a trip is for all-inclusive. Make sure you check that box. You will be very surprised how affordable these trips are on that site.

I know tatooedwhtboy works for Direct TV. Maybe he can help?

Anna and I just celebrated our 10 year anniversary in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We were there for a whole week. It was the best vacation we have ever taken. The place is gorgeous and everything we hoped it to be and then some. We stayed at Club RIU resort on the beach. It was all-inclusive so didn't have a care in the world for the week we were there. All the food, alcohol, beach, and entertainment you could handle...all included. The weather was amazing aside from the humidity at times which we weren't very used to, but the ocean breeze took care of that. Every day it was 78-85 degrees, morning, day, night...didn't matter. The beaches were so damn nice. Crystal clear water, white sand, and palm trees with coconuts. The staff raked the beaches daily and the place was very top notch and high class. The nightime entertainment was very impressive. They had themed shows nightly and the performers were Cirque-quality or better at times. I could go on and on in detail about our whole week there, but instead I'll just touch on a few of the memorable moments and things we did. SCUBA! We went SCUBA diving a couple times while we were there. This was, by far, one of the most thrilling things I have ever done. There was so much to take in when we went our our first dive. There is a whole world down there that I could never appreciate until now. I was blown away and the vastness and beauty of the ocean. The visibility was amazing and the water temperature was warm all the way down. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pics because our camera is only rated to 32 feet. Anna went as far as 135ft and I hit about 100 feet. That is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. What a rush! I have a another new hobby. Dunn's River Falls. These falls were kickass. We had our own private catamaran boat take us over there. It rained for a few minutes on the way, but it felt great. Even the rain is warm down there. Along the way our boat staff pumped us full of rum punch. What better thing to do right before we climb some waterfalls, rocks and raging waters right? haha Anyways, the pics speak for themselves but this was such a blast. We hiked up and them came back down the falls instead of taking the ramp down. Then we stopped near a really cool reef to do some snorkeling on the way back. I dove down and saw a stingray and swam with it for as long as I could hold my breath. I managed o snap a quick pic of it as well. The beach: man o man did we enjoy the beach. We got plenty of R&R daily on the beach. Every time we went down there we fell asleep. It was paradise. Don't let some of the pics fool you. The only reason we had our phones with us was to use them as mp3 players with our little bluetooth Jawbone Jambox. They remained in airplane mode the whole time. We didn't use a phone or computer for 7 days. It felt great to disconnect from the world. We also did tons of snorkeling right there out past the boat bout line in the reefs. There were plenty of fish, anemones, sea urchins, and underwater plant life and corals. Dolphin Cove: We had a hookup to check the place out. One of Anna's co-workers at the Mirage worked with the director at Dolphin Cove in Jamaica as a trainer years back and he arranged a VIP tour for us. We were able to check out the whole park and participate in all the activities they offered. Eric (the director) showed us around, treated us to lunch, and was able to talk with Anna a little bit about the business. Who knows, maybe we'll move to Jamaica one day now that she has a contact there. haha Anyways, again the pics speak for themselves, but we pet and fed the dolphins, swan with the dolphins, held and snorkeled with the stingray, and also held 6-7 foot sharks in our laps and swam/ snorkeled with the sharks as well! It was crazy. The town of Ocho Rios: We made friends with all the scuba peeps at the scuba hut and Shawn, one of the dive masters, was generous enough to bring us into town and show us around. Good thing too because we had no idea where to go and where to avoid. It's crazy how different their world is. The drivers are nuts down there. They have their own language when t comes to honking. Everyone is always honking but it has meaning to it all. 1-3 honks mean different things according to Shawn. The place is very poor. They have over 50% unemployment so there are people just chilling and standing around town with nothing better to do. Gas is $112-120 a gallon JD. That is about $1.15 US though, pretty cheap. The conversion rate is about $82JD to $1 US. Everything else other than the cheaper fuel seems to be priced about the same as US. All the kids getting out of school were is uniform. We hit up the market and they were even more pushy than in Mexico. We left there pretty quick. We felt bad for just browsing. The vendors kept saying, please come in and see what we have, no charge for looking. Some of the shops weren't too bad, but everyone seemed to be selling the same wood artwork, mugs, bracelets, t-shirts and jewelry in general. The people and culture: Jamaicans are some of the happiest and friendliest people we have ever met. And no, it's not because everyone down there is high and smokes weed all the time like many people think. Many of the locals and staff we talked to had never even tried it. Yes, it is very much illegal down there just like it is here. Those people are very in tune with each other and the island. They are happy to be alive and live everyday with such a positive attitude. It's awesome. I wish more people in the US would embrace this attitude. Everyone we ran into was friendly and wanted to make sure we were having a good time. I mean everyone. Even the vendors and drug dealers who roam the beach. After turning them down numerous times, they still just chatted with us about Jamaica and whatever and hoped we would return. We'll definitely be going back. By the end the trip we were speaking like Jamaicans with phrases like ya mon, no problem, respect, feelin irie, and shortened words of slang like de and dat that seemed to just flow. Here's a couple hundred pics from the ~1800 we took

And here I thought this guy went through alot of honey while at the dunes. I'm thinking, why the hell does he need so much honey and where does he need it pumped? Onto a giant biscuit or something.

NICE! This is a very good relief to read. Finally, this whole lizard thing is done with. I think the Barstow BLM (especially Roxie) and Dr. Presch (sp?) deserve a huge thanks from the dune community for everything they did with handling this matter. Thank you, guys!

VOTE!

Donnie, this time 2 years ago (10-3-09), doing what he does on comp,

Very nicely done! Glad you like those skat~traks. You can't go wrong with those paddles. We need to hook up this season and show you some good lines out there.

Damn! Congrats you guys. Can't wait to check it out.

Bitchen! Nice work, Dale.

You scored, Jason! That thing is clean.

Man, I leave for a week and nobody gets the DPOM started? Hurry up and post up a pic. We'll have to start voting like tomorrow. lol Post up a pic now. (only one) The winner's dune pic will be posted on the homepage after the contest is over. The member's screen name will be posted up with it as well. You may also post a caption or description included with the pic. Please limit posts in this thread to pictures only. Dune Pic of the Month- Rules 1. The picture must be YOURS. Do not go surfing the internet looking for one to submit. You cannot post any copyrighted pics. 2. The picture must not have any watermarks or logos on it. 3. The picture must be at least 600 x 600 pixels. It will be displayed on the home page if it wins the most votes so therefore we would like it to be a decent size picture. 4. The picture must abide by the terms and conditions (rules) of this board. 5. Post only ONE picture per contest

Lever up = choke on

Lookin good, Dale! I like the arched cage.

Thanks Terry. hahaa oh yeah I will be very cautious, but then again I'll have the experienced scuba-monkie with me too to keep me in check while were down there.

Oh yeah...tonight was my last scuba session. I am officially SCUBA certified!

Jackass. That's not what he meant. The feed show has nothing to do with the mermaids. And Anna is one of the safety divers, not mermaids.

Nice. We'll check it out and let ya know.

I don't agree. I won't be buying any used gear. Used gear that just sets gets old, degrades, and needs to be reinspected, rebuilt, and recertified. Seals dry up, hardware gets old, etc. We bought some used gear once and had to cough up about $300-350 to get it in working order.

Anna dives and swims with them daily. I just read this to her and she says you were being a retard.

No, I don't know what happened to that plan. We just went out to the same place as yesterday, but we ventured out a bit farther this time. Nice! Yeah I can't wait to get into some clear ocean with some cool sh*t to see. With all the traveling we plan on doing over the years to come, I am stoked to finally get certified. I want to go check out all kinds of places now. I think the going rate for most classes ranges from $250-350 to get certified. My instructor (Anna's boss at the Silverton) provided all the gear for me. I agree, it's way to cool to share the experience with Anna. She was so pumped to hear I took to it very easily and loved it. She would have been crushed if I hated it, just like if I brought her to Dumont and she hated the dunes. That would bllllow! haha Fortunately neither one of those is the case though. We both got lucky.

Badass pics, Andy! I can't wait to get down to the Caribbean and do some diving down there. Very soon! Today I completed my 2nd day of open-water diving. We went pretty far out from shore this time and deep enough to feel the thermocline at about 40 feet deep. It's crazy to hear the sound of boats above/ nearby. super nice out there this morning...about 76 degrees. Water was nice and warm too. Jerry woohoo 2nd open water dive Jerry hey a friggen fish Get back here dude. Come kick it with us! underwater self portraits haha Doing compass exercises Beautiful Lake Mead Doing some more swimming around. Very murky waters when the lake floor gets stirred up. Jerry scored a buck!

I am in the process of getting SCUBA certified. I've done one pool session for a few hours, and now as of this morning I got my first open water dive completed! We dove for about 2 hours down to about 27 feet. Jerry, my instructor, has been amazing. He says I have been doing very well with all the exercises. I originally thought I wouldn't take to it very well because I have never been much of a water person, but there isn't much to it. I am very comfortable with it and look forward to doing some dives in some amazing waters soon. Here are some pics from this morning. damn it's early. The sun wasn't even up over the mountain yet. ahh there's the sunrise Jerry tying off our dive bouy me and Anna posing in our goofy masks. It was really cool to be able to share my first open water dive with her since SCUBA is so much a part of her life. ok here I go... regulator recovery exercises Anna me and Anna more swimming around buddy breathing exercises "I'm okay!" Then as we're talking about what were going to do next, a giant group of triathlon swimmers (at least 20-40 total) comes right at us. So we just descended until they passed to make it easier on them. I bet since they were wearing swim goggles they were able and surprised to see us below. haha Another exercise: clearing my mask after filling full of water on purpose Some fish we saw below... Jerry Heading back with the dive bouy. We were using the buddy breathing method while swimming as more practice. Bud Light fish Good times!

Thanks for the pics, Eddy! Very nice SCU's and Funco's in there. Sweet.