What's Up Wednesday- Return from the Islands!!



Return from the Islands!


What's Up Wednesday is a weekly blog hop geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what's up.  Should you wish to join, check out Jaime's or Erin's lovely blogs and sign up with the link widget at the bottom of the post.

WHAT I'M READING
One of the best things about going on vacation, time to read! Started with THE WINNER'S CURSE by Marie Rutkoski. Loved it! Perfect vacation reading. Plus any book that can keep me up reading past midnight after snorkeling, hiking in the rainforest and going night kayaking...yeah, that's a winner. I also read LIFE AS WE KNEW IT by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I love survival stories and having to survive after a meteorite hits the moon and changes global, well Everything...very cool premise. Eventually, I ran out of new downloads and re-read ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS (needed something lighter after surviving the apocalypse) and ON THE ISLAND (seemed appropriate, albeit a somewhat non-realistic take on island survival) (And for the last time: Bats do NOT get stuck in your hair! Drives me batshit crazy (get it? Haha.) every time someone puts that in a book. What can I say, Biologist woes) 

WHAT I'M WRITING
Nada. But a week of island hopping recharged my batteries in a huge way and I'm brimming with ideas and ready to tackle everything.

WHAT WORKS FOR ME
Taking vacations. I should do that more often. Both Boy Chris and I were surprised at how good it felt to totally disconnect for over a week. We've been in a news vacuum. Seriously, the World could of ended and we wouldn't have known. But wow, do I feel great!


WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO 

Man, I don't even know where to start!!! It might be because we haven't taken a vacation in Forever, but this was the best freakin' vacation!! We had an absolute blast! It was perfect in so many ways. I guess I'll just have to hit the highlights, because otherwise this blog would be pages and pages.(and you all would be begging me to shut up) Our flight didn't get in until past midnight, so we haven't downloaded all our photos, but I'll post a few. We'll post more later and of course on all our other blogs. (Have I mentioned lately that I have too many blogs?!!)


◆     We chartered a sailboat and went island hopping (top photo). We visited some uninhabited islands with fantastic snorkeling and swam in the clearest, bluest water I've ever seen! We've been trying to find the perfect word to describe that color. Azure? Tourmaline? You could seen the bottom, 60 feet down, clear as day.


◆    Holy crap, the Bioluminescent Bay was amazing! And we got to do it on my actual birthday! We get some bioluminescense here, but nothing like that! We went night kayaking in it and then jumped in for a swim. Imagine every movement of your hands and feet creating a comet streak of tiny blue lights in the water. It's like the water is made of stars. And every time you move you create more stars! We were all laughing and splashing and at one point I think I screamed, "This is the best birthday EVER!" (Like a total dweeb) (Which resulted in a couple of French dudes on the kayak trip singing Happy Birthday to me in French while trying to dunk me in the water) It's probably on the video. Which is mostly audio because it was impossible to get a good shot in the total darkness and our water camera konked out at some point. Which is too bad because there were also glowing comb jellies that flashed bright blue when you touched them. We were trying to catch one, but it totally freaks you out when they flash like that. So you end up dropping them because holy crap that thing just went supernova in my palm!

◆   Other highlights: Rainforest hiking, diving and snorkeling every waking moment, deserted beaches all to ourselves, the almost-deafening sounds of frogs at night, STARS!, a milkyway so bright that you forgot that the milkyway looked like that outside of magazines!, driving on the left-hand side of the road and not hitting a mongoose, the sound all the fish make underwater & watching sea turtles swimming at night at the Pier.


*Okay, for some reason it's cutting off the snorkeling photos (blerg). You can either click the link or I'll post more later. 


I missed you guys! What have you been up to?

15 comments:

  1. Wow, what an amazing trip! The photos are absolutely stunning. Glad you had such a great time :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Woohoo, new ideas! And your trip sounds great; I hope you enjoyed it!


    My What's up Wednesday post.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What an amazing vacation! No wonder you came back totally refreshed and full of ideas. Sounds fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, sounds like you had a fantastic time! That photo is beautiful. Hope it inspired you with lots of new ideas! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Your vacation has me DROOLING. The hubs and I are looking into something like that for our twentieth anniversary this year. This is getting me all kinds of excited! Also, I had to laugh at your bat/hair thing. I had a little sport rant going on in that vein on my blog today, too.

    Glad you had a wonderful vacation!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh, wow! This trip looks amazing. Especially so because I'm way up here in the snowy north. ;-) Love the photos, and I'm pretty sure nobody would complain about seeing a whole bunch of photos. I'm glad you guys had such a great and relaxing time. Nothing quite like recharging the batteries AND reading great books. Hope you have a wonderful week, Kris! :D

    ReplyDelete
  7. Glad you had such an awesome vacation, Kris! I skipped out on WUW this week, but when I saw that you posted I had to stop by and take a peek at your photos. Your description of the bioluminescent bay is breathtaking. I can only imagine how much fun that must've been, especially the comb jellies going all supernova! Amazing! Have a super week settling back in! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Your pictures look amazing and you had a great reading list!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Holy crap is right - THAT WATER!!! Wow. *jealous*

    ON THE ISLAND...the "survival" tactics were hilarious. Made me wonder if the author had ever even camped.

    Anyway...

    Glad you all had an awesome trip.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh my gosh, the trip looks fantastic! (Excuse me while I go sob into a snowbank...)

    Okay, I'm back! I'm so glad you had a great trip and you are now refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to write allllll the new ideas, right? :) Thanks for letting us all vacation vicariously through you.

    I loved LIFE AS WE KNEW IT. I struggled with the others in the series. But I love me a good end-of-the-world story.

    Have a great week!

    ReplyDelete
  11. So, as a first timer here I wanted to say that your site is completely superb! We’re interested in starting a volunteer community initiative in this niche. The tips on your blog were extremely helpful to us, as it gave us something to work on. Thanks.
    Vacation Barcelona

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is a fantastic website and I cannot recommend you guys enough Full of useful resource and great layout very easy on the eyes. Please do keep up this great work.
    Alquiler vacacional Cataluña

    ReplyDelete
  13. This is a fantastic website and I cannot recommend you guys enough Full of useful resource and great layout very easy on the eyes. Please do keep up this great work.
    Alquiler casa Cataluña

    ReplyDelete
  14. Your blog was absolutely fantastic! Great deal of great information and this can be useful some or maybe the other way. Keep updating your blog, anticipating getting more detailed contents.

    Vacances villa Barcelone

    ReplyDelete
  15. I always prefer to read the quality content and this thing I found in you post. Thanks for sharing. A very good resource for everybody that wants to read a good blog.

    Location maison à Barcelone

    ReplyDelete