12/26/2005 - I'm Back!!! Merry Christmas

Its been a long long time since i write in my blog, but as most of you know i've had a good excuse...Gabriel and i are proud parents of Sebastian...he is now 6 weeks old and i can't believe how fast the days are flying by! Thank you everyone at MDL for all your best wishes...i have been reading the blogs even if i haven't found the 10 minutes to blog myself.

Gabriel and i have already taken out little Scuba Bubba on his first diving holiday! We travelled about 4 hours from where we live to Merimbula and spent a week at the dive center. We had a great time and i even managed 45 minutes away from Bubba to do a dive. It was great to get back in the water! The vis was shit, the water cold, the entry and exit points a nightmare, and the dive quite short but i didin't care...it was just nice to be underwater again!!! we are hoping to go bak again early next year and do some more diving, i can't wait!

The last few days have been strange for us. This time last year Gabriel and i were living and diving in Thailand...when the Tsunami hit. Although we weren't affecetd directly, it changed a lot in our lives, so much so that we got engaged. My thouhgts go out to all those people who were affceted in any way by this natural disaster, and i can only hope that the next year brings you all the chance to remember Thailand in a positve way. We still have very fond memories of our little Island paradise, and hope one day to return there with Sebastian to show him this beautiful part of the world...you never know maybe he'll end up doing his Divemaster Training there like me!!??

Anyway....A very Merry Christmas to you all.

Will write again soon

Bebecca

9/28/2005 - Wish i could show you the video......

Hi again!

Well again no diivng to blog about, but almost!?

Yesterday i saw the sweetest thing i've ever seen.....its school holidays here in Australia and Gabriel is running a school holiday camp a few days a week for local kids in our small town. Of course, it all revolves around water....swimming, water games, safety etc. BUT....he decided to teach the kids snorkling (I can never spell that word!!). So, off we went to but 20 kids masks and snorkels niot really sure if it would a success or not....well let me tell you i have never seen anything so cute.....there were 20 kids (the youngest being about 5) all with masks and snorkles on making their first steps towards becoming divers!!

Gabriel was great with the kids, and especially the little ones (5-6 years old) all loved him and his crazy methods of getting them to breathe using their snorkles and masks....they were touching noses underwater, looking for sharks in the pool and the funniest thing looking at themselves in Gabriels favourite SCUBA mask that is mirrored!!!

It was such a sucess that he's doing it all agian today with another group of kids.....Maybe in summer  (if it ever arrives here...) we can all venture to the lake near we live to do it all again.

So, other news...well still just waiting for the arrival of the SCUBA Bubba...its only about 4 weeks until the big day and we can't wait. I finish work this week and then i guess the waiting just continues......it seems now to be taking forever!! We have also discovered this week that my best friend who we were planning on diving with early next year is also pregnant....PERFECT we have a baby sitter for our first dive trip with the bubba!!!! Look out Sydney here we come........

Hopefully i can get Gabriel to post some photos of him and his snorkling kids.......

Until then...take care and sfae diving

Bebecca

9/12/2005 - Diving Weeeknd with Gabriel...

Well, we're back from our weekend diving in NSW....as it turned out it was a little bit of the weekend from hell! It started raining the night before we left and is still raining as i type this now....not good when you are travelling with a hyperactive 6 month old German Shepard puppy!!!

So, we get to NSW after 4 hours driving in the rain and decide to stop at the first beach we see to let Salsa (our puppy) go for a run. The beach is beautiful and the sun even starts to shine...so we walk along the beach for a bit but then we turn around again i can't see the car. I mention this to Gabriel and we agree its just out of sight...we keep chatting and walking until we get a little closer and i say there's the car..but i thought we parked on the other side of the road??? Gabriel runs along the beach (with the ever helpful puppy in hot pursuit!) up the sand dunes to discover the car had somehow moved itself. It had crossed the road and parked itself against a log on the beach side of the road...thank God for the log otherwise we'd still be there trying to dig the car out of the sand!! How? We have no idea.....bizarre.

After deciding we had no idea what happened we went to check into the place we were staying...i can only describe it one way..it was a trailor park. BUT, i was convinced to give it the benefit of the doubt so jumped out of the car to meet our host, who joyfully told us he had double booked our unit.Not to worry though, he was cleaning out his caravan for us to stay in....how nice!!! Our romantic last weekend before our baby is born was to be spent in an old mans caravan....and did i mention it had started to rain again??

So, off we went to find the Dive Centre. This is the only good part of the whole story. We find Merimbula Divers Lodge and they tell us we could stay there for $25/night (in great apartments) but not with the dog..silly me for bringing the dog! But, the guys there are great, so we give them our regs to service, and book a dive for the next day. We then try and amuse ourselves and the our dog in the pouring rain to avoid returning to the caravan!

To cut a long story short..it rains all night, the bed sucks, theres no yard for the dog, our lake side unit is a musty caravan where we have to walk through 2 farms to get to the lake, and in the morning it is still raining. We decide to cut our losses and leave for the comfort of our own home! Luckily though we return to the dive centre for our regs and Gabriel decides to go for a quick shore dive with the DM from the dive centre. Although it was a chilly 13 degrees, the dive sounded pretty spectactular....reef sharks, rays, and all sorts.

But...it is still raining...and now lightning and thunder too. So we amble home to arrive to a thunder storm and no electricity in our house! By this stage we had to laugh!

Gabriel is sure to blog about the actual dive a little more sometime soon, but we are planning on returning in the summer, without the dog to do some diving with the guys in Merimbula....we may even drop in and see how our little caravan is doing??? God it was bad!!!

Anyway...hope everyone else had a better weekend!!!!

Happy Diving..................

9/7/2005 - Back to Diving.....

Well, its been a long time since Gabriel and i have been anywhere near a dive centre and this weekend we're off to experience the hospitality of a New South Wales Dive Centre. I'm excited about it even if i can't dive...i know that Gabriel is dying to get back in the water and it will be nice just to see his post dive smile again...its different to any other look he has, and probably what i intially fell in love with!

We are taking our 7 month old puppy on her first holiday with us. Not sure how that will go, but it will nice for me to have her to play with whilst Gabriel is diving. The car will be full, with diving gear, and dog gear...God knows how we will cope when we have to also take our baby.........

We only have about 6 weeks to go until we get to meet out little Scuba Bubba and i think we're both getting incredibly excited about it! Gabriels office is now complete with Cot, Musical Mobiles, Diapers, and Teddy Bears! Not really the perfect working environment but i think secretly he will be happy to share his room with his baby??? I can just picture the two of them now....

I'm still at work, but only 3 weeks to go until i finish. I was going to apply for another job to start in March but have decided that my priorities now are not to work but to look after my family. So...there are no real future plans to return to work. I mean, yes i will go backto work but where and when and yet to be decided...who knows where we will end up next year. The great part is that i know regardless of where we are i will have the love and support ot Gabriel and our baby and thats makes everything OK!

So, i will write a brief review of our weekend diving (from a non divers point of view!) when we returrn. Maybe even some photos too........

Thanks to everyone for their best wishes for our wedding last month....it was simply perfect! Maybe even more perfect than a night dive without tanks.....

Until next time, HAPPY DIVING

Bebecca

7/22/2005 - Number Two

Hello,

Just a quick blog from me as i am at work right now, but i felt the desire to write a little....

Gabriel and i have just returned from our first non-diving holiday/honeymoon! We had a lovely time, and although we stayed directly opposite the ocean i must admit i enjoyed staying dry. Well, thats a lie really as we had access to a beautiful indoor pool and spa where Gabriel did some apnea training and i relaxed with a magazine.....the joy of being a pregnant woman!

We started freediving/apnea training when we lived together in Thailand. I was completing my Divemaster Internship and Gabriel was instructing but we really loved free diving and my fondest memory of living in Thailand was taking our small sailing boat to a dive site, jumping in the water with our fins and diving with each other...no tanks, no noise, no one esle just us. Then to be able to sail home was amazing.....when we discovered we were expecting a baby i stopped SCUBA and began only freediving...so our little unborn baby has aleady been to 30m on one breath....we can't wait to tell him that!

For those of you who think freediivng is scarey or weird then you are in good company with me. Gabriel fell in love with the idea long before me and i used to think he was MAD! But after completing my freediving course and then the advanced course i too fell in love with the concept. It is such a personal challenge and such a huge achievement.....i love the peace, i love the challenge and most of all i love that i share this experience and joy with the guy i about to marry. Even if everyone else in the world thinks we are crazy for holding our breath and swimming down a vertical line to 30m...i don't care. We love it and we understand the passion and thrill for the sport....if you haven't tried  it, get involved, do a course and you too may give up your tanks sometimes for  some freediving???!!

Happy diving to you

Bebecca

7/13/2005 - First Entry!!!

Well, I've seen this site being built from the room of our future baby and thought it was time i also logged in and started to 'blog'. I think this is a fantastic idea and i look forward to actually doing some diving soon so i can write about it! Right now though its great to read everyones elses blogs and remember all that i love (and sometimes hated) about being a DM!

I haven't dived for nearly 5 months, or maybe its six now i'm not sure. Its strange to go from a world where all we did was dive, all we spoke about was diving and all we saw was divers to cold Australia where my equipment now lives in our laundry! But....things have changed, ALOT.

I now find myself content in our house, happy walking the dog on the beach rather than getting wet, and looking forward to actually meeting our baby in November.

We will get back to diving, in some way....but right now the priority is not that!

I will write again very soon about my Divemaster Internship in Thailand and my introduction to and now love of freediving!

Happy diving to all those still in the water around the world

Bebecca