Island life, underwater

I needed to renew two fishing licenses and register the boat. All my paperwork is in order, I have the old licenses, and clear title to the boat. Shipping documents, duty paid, no paperwork complications whatsoever. Cash in my pocket. About as straightforward as it gets.

The TCI government office that issues fishing licenses and boat registration is exactly 4.8 miles by road from where we are staying. So, you would figure I would drive 4.8 miles over, and 4.8 miles back to the house with my new certificates in hand, correct? A total of 9.6 miles. That sound about right?

Now here's another number to consider. If you drove from one end of Providenciales completely to the other end of Providenciales, lengthwise, it would be about 17 miles. It's a small island. But that's it. You can only drive about 17 miles on this island in one direction, before you find yourself facing the ocean on the other side. And you would have to put your rear bumper up against the ocean at whichever end you started from to even get that far away in your 4x4.

I drove a total of 48.9 miles today to get the licenses renewed and the boat registered at the place 4.8 miles from where I am sitting right now. It took me from 10:00 this morning, until 4:00 this afternoon. I drove 48.9 miles on an island 17 miles long end to end.

If it had been a 48.9 mile boat trip, it would have put me the other side of Big Ambergris Cay, across the entire nation from here. Its a small nation.

And the scary part? This is beginning to seem normal to us. We actually expected it. I was proud of myself to get it done all in one calendar day.

While we are in Provo taking care of mundane and uninteresting stuff, I thought I would stick up some more photos from Sunday's trip;

How bout that water clarity, eh?


Ever notice that when you dive down fifteen feet or so to try to take a photo of the hull of your boat from underneath, and you roll over belly up to get the picture that sometimes the seawater gets in your nose and makes you snort and all the bubbles get in your photo? Don't you hate it when that happens?


Little blue fishies doing whatever it is little blue fishies do when they get together:


La Gringa definitely gets involved:


Might as well get my new hot chili-pepper doo-rag in here:


I'll look around for some more "in-town" photos today.