A relaxing weekend

I was able to dive Saturday, Sunday and Monday for a total of six dives. It was awesome to get out and not think about anything for a while. Been a long time since I've had that luxury. Of course, that meant that I've spent most of today in front of the computer catching up on all the work that wasn't urgent for the past three days!

Here are some underwater shots to start off - there was a ton of marine life, and in particular nudibranchs yesterday, on all of the dives so even though the conditions weren't picture postcard perfect under the surface, I couldn't have asked for more!
Blenny

Blue or semi-circular angelfish

Found another flounder...he kept an eye, pretty literally, on me

then decided he was way past bored with it all and gave me a big yawn!

Flabellina rubrolineata

I haven't had a chance to go through all of my shots yet, so hopefully I'll get some more up later this week.

Puppy news can't be neglected! Dora continues to amaze us with her tolerance and her leadership. MatildaLily doesn't have a slow-mo speed - she's either bouncing all over the place or running full tilt up and down the house...likely pouncing on Dora or any other semi-stationary being or object along the way!

Kapowie!

Tilly's new favourite place is right on top of Dora and Dora will let her stay there for ages before they start playing again.

Boof is becoming much more relaxed with the little dog and will even keep snoozing in the same place with her. Tilly can even lay her paw over him or give him a little kiss without negative consequences...the other two cats aren't quite there yet!


Dora and Tilly have decided that my office is the place to be during the day when I'm home - the door stays shut when I'm not here. I like to think it's because they love me, but it could be the air conditioning and the comfy pillow...

She's just too cute!

January is half over already!

The year is already flying by and MatildaLily is growing a mile a minute, it seems! She and Dora continue to create new playtime activities and Tilly is even able to amuse herself in the mornings before Dora decides it's time to get up. Til has unearthed a truckload of toys that were considered lost forever from Dora's young puppyhood - sad to say that Gekko had to be binned today after Tilly pulled all of his little white beads out!

Of course I'm not pulling the grass up!

Maybe one leaf...

What? I'm so cute and good dog!

Inside playing gets a bit rambunctious and we often come home to find the furniture out of whack and the rug all smushed up against the door. Tilly hasn't quite figured out that she isn't allowed to chew on everything - even Dad's feet as he watched tv!

Dora will watch for a few minutes, but gets jealous and has to get in on the action - or maybe she's just helping remind Tilly of the rules...

They even work together as a mighty fine demolition team, with Dora the foreman...

Tilly gets impatient for the work to begin...

Pleeeeaaaasseee can I start now?

OK, you can have a little practice...

It'll go much faster if we both do it...

Well done, kid...

It must be time for a little kip...

Good idea.

Best we rest up for the next adventure!

It's not all puppies in our house. Dave is working hard on Concord, trying to get the boat ready for season so she's up on the hard and it's a dirty, hot job! I'm doing my usual office thing trying to get clients and agents organized as they prepare to make the long haul to visit our beautiful area.

Today I finally got to go out for a couple of dives with my friends, Ross & Mary. These were my first dives of the year and boy did it feel great to be back in the water - despite still having a terrible head cold and feeling really yucky. The conditions were just too nice and the lure of the ocean couldn't be ignored. I figured the worst that could happen was that I had to laze in the sun on the boat for a few hours!

Happily, I was able to do both dives. We visited one of our favourite spots and it was teeming with life! Shooting conditions were a little tough as there is some big chunky food in the water at the moment, but that just means more action! Here are few photos from the day:

Bright Margined coralfish dart here and there as they search for snacks on the reef:

Flabellina exoptata nudibranchs were abundant today and came in all sizes from smaller than the length of a pinky nail to a good inch and a half long:

This flounder was skipping along the bottom as I was descending:

I always love to try to catch a triplefin relaxing on a favourite perch:

These blennies make me smile, what with the little poofy tufts on their heads and the way they sit up so perkily...for .5 seconds!:

What would a dive here be without some mating nudibranchs? Looks like we'll have another bumper crop of Glossodoris atromarginatas!

It's not often you get to see these crabs out in the open...you have to wait 'til they are empty!

The girls have a new game

Tilly thinks this is more fun than a barrel of monkeys and Dora is happy to participate - she even instigates it sometimes!



The wind seems to be dropping and the temperatures are becoming reasonable so I hope to be able to get out and do something later in the week. We even have positive vibes for some dives on the weekend! Hopefully that will mean something beyond puppy news ;)

Discovering water

It's been hot here. Stifling, suck all your energy, burn your skin if you walk outside hot. So we've been playing in the water.

Tilly loves the shower and thinks the hose is pretty nifty, too, but we wanted to see how she'd do in deep water. See if she like to swim a bit. So Dave filled up our spa and MatildaLily and I took a cool plunge. It felt awesome!
She splashes a lot at first but then gets the rhythm down and does pretty well.

She likes to stand on the shallow seat and look around.

Her first foray into the deep all by her lonesome didn't go really smoothly...she forgot to move her legs!

A little bit of help from Mom and it's all good again...

Today we were going crazy being stuck inside so we decided to head down to a beach that we know is almost always deserted and is rarely visited. We've talked to our vets about taking Tilly down before she has had all of her vaccinations and so we knew we had to keep her in the water and on the water's edge to help minimize any risk there might be. Unfortunately, the breeze was up a little bit and this gave us a bit of chop right at the shore and Til' was a bit nervous about it. We carried her into the sea and let her do a little assisted swimming before letting her swim a few meters on her own.


Being on the lead for the first time, heading to the beach for the first time and swimming in the ocean for the first time was all a bit overwhelming for her so we didn't stay too long. But she did great and once she remembers to get her back end moving is a good swimmer!



Dora loves the beach and loves to swim around in circles. She really couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about...but we remember her first timid times at the beach, too! She helped supervise and played with her Dad while Mom babysat the little one.


Dora and I had already been to the beach in the morning for a nice walk with our friends Ross, Mary and Digger. On the way back home, I saw a racehorse goanna or bungarrow (pronounced bung arrah) crossing the road. Surprisingly, I actually had a camera with me as Ross had kindly cleaned my sensor overnight! I didn't think I had a card for the camera and asked if Mary had her camera (of course not!) and Ross said that I did in fact have a card in the case! Yay!! So out came the newly cleaned 40D and the 100 macro...I'm not actually game enough to get too close to these guys, so I did a very slow approach!

He watched me warily for a few minutes and then decided to go back the way he came:

He settled under a bush and allowed me to creep a bit closer...but I am still a wimp and piked out after getting this close:

The cats aren't convinced

For all the progress MatildaLily is making adapting to her new home, Boof and Harry aren't quite ready to be bestest-buds. Especially Harry.

Boof will let Tilly come up to him if she's being relatively quiet, but mostly he prefers to watch the action from a distance. You can almost see him shake his head in disbelief that such a tiny creature could be such a menace.

Harry is showing a less than serene side of his nature with continual growling and hissing whenever he even suspects Tilly is around. She, of course, is clueless to the signs and has had several near misses with kitty paw swipes. And yesterday Harry finally connected after she'd been annoying the snot out of him for about 45 minutes. He got the tip of her ear a good one - drew blood and a high pitched YIP. We shall see if she's learned anything.

We're being very interactive trying to get Harry to mellow out a little bit, but it's going to take some time LOL He will now sit and keep a wary eye on her if she is otherwise occupied, like with her Funky Chicken. As soon as Tilly's attention starts to wander, Harry is BAM out of there!