Week 7...Stupid Sore Throat.

Monday morning I woke up feeling fairly terrible. I dove first thing, at 7:15, but I was feeling even worse by the end of it, and so passed on my second dive. The next day, I woke up even worse, rather like a zombie all day. I had chills and sweats on and off during the day, but felt better by the end, so I thought I might feel better the next day. Nope! Another day of no diving, so I went into town to see a doctor just in case it was the dreaded H1N1. It took me forever to see him, but when I did, he pretty much immediately said it was a throat infection and gave me a prescription for some antibiotics. Total cost for visit and medicine? Under $10. It´s not even worth the hassle to try to claim that from my travel insurance.

When I came back, I really did feel better, so the next day I dove. It was nice to get back in the swing of things. Friday however, ended up being too windy to dive, which I was grateful for, since I was still quite fatigued from being ill. When I dove Saturday, I got all of my creature spots correct! Finally. (The creatures we need to be able to identify are things like sponges, tunicates, crinoids, hydroids, anemones, urchins, many types of algae, and bryozoans) I had just passed my test the day before, so I should be doing some actual monitoring in no time. Hopefully.

Saturday afternoon, I decided I needed a break from base life, and went into town and booked a room for the night (only about $12). I had a lovely dinner, and a lovely shower, and a lovely long talk with people back home, and then went back to the hotel to READ! One of the new five weekers, Morgan, brought with him the latest Wheel of Time book, the 12th so far in the series. The original author, Robert Jordan, died 2 years ago from a rare blood disease, amyloidosis, so they turned the series over to Brian Sanderson, and it turns out he´s done a magnificent job! I wanted to wait to reread the entire series when I got back, and THEN read the latest, but I couldn´t help myself and dove right in as soon as Morgan finished. It was everything I was hoping for in a Wheel of Time book. No one can replace Robert Jordan, but Brian Sanderson did a masterful job taking over the plot, and finally things are happening! To anyone who read some of the series, and stopped due to the plot dragging on, have no fear! The plot is once again moving, and some crazy things start happening, and you definitely can´t put it down once you start.

So it´s been a relaxing weekend. We´ll be having our own little Thanksgiving dinner on base on Thursday which I hope to contribute to! My camera had another run in with a computer, and once again hid all the files on BOTH cards, so I can´t take pictures again. I managed just a couple pictures on this card before that happened, so I need to find out how to get it to let me take pictures again... In the meantime, here´s a few random photos! ....oooooor not! because this computer doesn´t want to upload them for some reason. Why?? Why is there some problem every time I try to do this?? Next week. There will be photos. Techinical difficulties be damned, I will have photos next week. Bah.

Til then, Happy Thanksgiving!!