26 Years and Counting

Where has the time gone?  26 years of being married?  It feels like John and I are still newlyweds, figuring out this whole marriage thing.

Okay, not really.  We've added too many inches around our waists to be newlyweds, and our taller-than-me children remind me that we've definitely figured out some things :-)  However, I'm thankful that our marriage still feels fresh and full of love.

We take a picture every year!

In fact, both John and I will agree that we love each other much more now than we did when we were first married.  There's something about having each others' backs for 26 years that lends itself to feelings of loyalty and trust that we can't get anywhere else.

This year, we returned to Grand Cayman for our anniversary trip.  It sounds exotic, but really it's become a rather comfortable and easy destination for us.  We trust our most excellent dive master, Mac, we know the restaurants where we like to eat, we understand the layout of the island, and the weather is reassuringly stable.  Too, it's an easy trip from the States.

We now have around 80 dives under our belts.  That's a nice, solid amount of dives.  John has been trying to get me to push myself to earn my Advanced Open Water Diver certification for some time, and figured there was no better time than the present.  Honestly, I have no more anxiety diving anymore--no ear troubles, no equipment troubles--so it's a natural step.

We got all of our online work done before we showed up at Grand Cayman.  It was about ten hours of studying, but it wasn't hard.  As it turns out, we've done all of the required types of dives, and in all honesty, we already know most of what we needed to know in the course work.  That's what happens when you go diving for a week at a time every couple of months :-)

Too, Mac is a great teacher.  We've seen him training all types and ages of people over the last couple of years, and we tell him that he should get married and have kids.  He seems to have the patience of Job.  Thankfully, he didn't need that patience with us, because we, in all honesty, are very low-maintenance divers.

We took two dives to 100 feet in depth.  We needed to understand what happens at depth and how to deal with it all.  Discrepancies in depth gauges, changes in color, always erring on the conservative side.

Underwater navigation.  We had to learn to use our compass both during the day and during the night.  This was my favorite part of the course.  I've never had any idea what to do with the compass on my regulator, and it was amazing to see how well it worked once I knew what to do with it.  If in my next life, I end up a diver, I want to be a search and rescue one!

Too, we had to learn to navigate using natural landmarks.  This, of course, is how all of our dive masters navigate underwater when they lead us on dives.  It's just nice for us to follow them and not worry about it, because when we had to lead (and show that we knew how to get back to the mooring line), it wasn't nearly so relaxing and fun.

We learned several knots to use for tying up the boat.  Ugh.  I can tie them, but I've seen the stress of tying up a boat, and I would need to live and work aboard one for a while before I really felt confident in making them.

Fish identification.  I probably could have taught this course to John, because just about every dive for me is about identifying all the amazing underwater life.  However, it added a whole new dimension to my dive, seeing John interested in the fish (he's usually a depth/wreck/big creatures diver).  And it was even more fun after surfacing and hearing John asking so many questions about what he had seen.  Good times, good times.

All of the dives were fantastic, but the night dive never disappoints.  Really. Never.  Every time we take a night dive I figure that it can't possibly be as good as the last.  However, it always is.  Some notable moments:

• a sleeping nurse shark.  Who the heck sees a sleeping nurse shark, in the dark, at about 30 feet?  It was wedged underneath a coral overhang.  So cool.
• a flying Eagle ray.  Again, these are a rare sighting during the day, but at night?  And it was in about 25 feet of water.  We could have almost touched it.
• an octopus.  Thank goodness we saw an octopus.  It doesn't feel like a bonafide night dive without an octopus sighting.  He too was hiding under a ledge, but he was so green and easy to spot.  Beautiful.
• The biggest High Hat (and might be the only) I've ever seen.  This was our last dive, and we hadn't seen one spotted drum or high hat the entire trip.  I'm not superstitious, but I do feel like it's a good omen that we always leave our dive trips having spotted one.  I figured the sighting was a no-go when we were on our last dive, and it was a night one.  John (bless his newly minted fish identifying heart) signaled with his light for me to come over, and there, in all his lit up glory, was the biggest high hat I've ever seen.  It must have been close to eight inches long, and he was doing the back and forth swimming of his juvenile counterpart.  Absolutely amazing.

We were traveling on our actual anniversary which just happens to be Veterans' Day.  Usually, we spend the day traipsing between different restaurants that offer free meals to veterans with our friends, the Scattergoods.  With us traveling through airports, it wasn't as possible.  However, I had read that Starbucks was offering a free coffee to veterans, and since there was a Starbucks every 500 feet in the Charlotte airport, we decided to try it.  John went in, asking if he could have a hot chocolate instead (one of his favorite beverages), but was turned down by this big, friendly black guy.  I could just sense John's extreme disappointment, so in true Jared Moran fashion, I didn't let go (kind of like a bull dog) :-)  I yelled over John's shoulder, "Oh c'mon, he doesn't drink coffee.  You can give him one little hot chocolate."  And in a show of the true Southern hospitality that I know and love, the guy relented and wrote John's name on the controversial cup.  It was a fun moment.

After arriving in Grand Cayman, we took a nap, and then just sat by the ocean and ate dinner (probably one of my very favorite activities to do in life).  The next night though we headed to our favorite eating spot on the island, Hard Rock Cafe.  Hmmmm, their burgers are the BEST!


I didn't end up taking any pictures underwater this trip, mostly because I was working on the course.  However, I did manage to take a few from our balcony at the Westin :-)

I love being in the Caribbean, because there is absolutely nothing I can do about my hair.  It's just a wake-up and go kind of thing.  It's so easy!