Birthday Bulldog

It’s my birthday.  Today I am 44. 

I woke up early again this morning and read.  I’m reading Cheryl Strayed’s Wild.  I swear I’d read it before, but after being ¾ of the way through the book, it’s 100% clear I never did.  I’m excited to see the movie when I get back.

It’s funny.  I always think about turning my “blog” from my time working on the ocean into some kind of novel but the thought of that seems like an insurmountable task.  I love writing down things as they happen but I hate turning some musings and puking on a page into an actual story with an arc and making it into something someone else would actually want to read.  And I’ve figured out the money isn’t really all that good unless I really hit it big.  I also thought that the material would get dated given that it happened in 2004 – 2006, but after reading Cheryl’s novel I realized that it happened in 1992ish… and it just hit the big screen now.  I think the classic story of wanting to escape the place you are in and explore the world with new adventures is a classic story.  And something that most people locked up in the corporate world (or not so corporate in her case) can identify with.

It gives me hope that it’s never too late to try to get my old “blog-vel” from 2004 - 2006 published someday.

It was a good day of diving but pretty slow on the Nudi front.  The only new one I found was on the Kudimaa wreck.  It was a Tambja morosa that was rearing its head to find food or a mate.  It was challenging to get a good focus and photograph him up close, but here he is:

Nudi #10 – Tambja morosa

But I can’t help but show you a couple more… I had such fun with this guy:

You can’t tell me that this little guy doesn’t remind you of a bulldog.  I just cannot stop staring at this photo.

After the night dive as we rode the skiff back to the boat we noticed that the mother ship had been decorated with lots of lights.  Green ones all the way up to the masts and then a bunch of colorful ones on the bow, blinking.

On New Years Eve, we had a buffet with chicken fish beef veggies and noodles.  Then after dinner, they brought out an amazing cake and sang Happy Birthday to me.  It was very nice.  J  The cake was really delicious.  The frosting was soooo good and there was some fruit in the middle.  I really enjoyed it.

But I got sleepy and never made it to midnight.  That’s ok though.  I don’t think anyone else did either.