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This is the Royal Sunset in Cancun, Mexico.  It is our home resort and is all inclusive.  We enjoy spending our vacation time there once every couple of years.  Nice place with a lot of activity available within walking distance.  Just look at that water; no air brushing here!  The white sand is actually crushed coral which does not retain heat, so you can walk around barefoot all day even in the height of summer.  Only 40 miles south and a short ferry ride across the water is Cozumel, which in our opinion, has some of the best diving in the world (at least in the top 5).

This is the cruise ship Triumph, part of the Carnival Fun Ship series.  We left the Port of Miami in January '03 and went to:

Cozumel!

Here we went diving and met some new friends who are also divers:  Mark and Angie (who we hope to be able to enjoy more diving vacations with).  After diving, we did some shopping.  Be ready to do some bargaining!  The ship then proceeded to:

Georgetown, Cayman Islands!

Again, some of the best diving in the world.  Stingray City (the weather prohibited us from going that day, so we will just have to go back :) ), where snorkeling and diving with the sting rays is a normal occurrence.   Somebody forgot their wetsuit on the boat and didn't realize it until we were underway again, but we managed to have it sent to us at home.  We then proceeded to:

Ocho Rios, Jamaica!

We decided not to dive here, regrettably, so we went to Dunn's River Falls, a 600 ft. long natural step-type formation where the river drains into the ocean.  As part of this tour, we went to a small nature preserve on the beach where we saw many native animals, plants, birds, etc.  It was a fun trip.  Then, boo hoo, the cruise was over.  Oh well, the Bahamas trip in March '03 isn't that far away!

At last, the Bahamas.  We stayed at the Westwind I resort in Cable Beach, Nassau.  Our daughter and son-in-law, Angie and Pete, joined us for this trip.  The diving here was as you might expect; excellent!  This is where we took all of the shark dive pictures, at a dive site known as the Bahama Mama.  Caribbean reef sharks from 4 to 6 or 7 feet long.  Not huge, but big enough to do some serious damage!  I definitely recommend the shark dive as well as the Nassau Scuba Center who we did all of our diving with.  The exceptional crew and staff made this a memorable diving vacation.  If you get the chance, the new Paradise Island resort, Atlantis, is worth the trip over to the island.  The indoor aquarium was awesome; some of the pictures above came from there.  In fact, the first sting ray shown is approximately 7 feet across the wings.  Afterwards, head back across the bridge to a place called Pirates for some lunch.  Good service, great food, cool atmosphere!  All in all, we had a really great time.  Now we're looking forward to the Bonaire trip in October '03.

Well, well, well.  What can I say?  There's a reason that Bonaire is called the diver's paradise.  There is more shore diving than can possibly be done in a week long vacation, especially when the diving at the resort's house reef was fantastic.  We stayed at The Lion's Dive Resort and had a really great diving vacation.  The staff at Bon Bini Divers couldn't have been any better, with 24 hour a day shore diving available.  In the pictures, we have: the view from our front terrace (every night),  me in front of a slave hut (imagine that), our first turtle, Sheila in front of a humongous pile of salt (oh yeah, she's in heaven), a parrotfish on a night dive and one of many moray eels that were present on just about every dive.  If you are looking for a diving vacation with very little night life, then this is the place.  You will find all the diving and peace and quiet you want but none of the Cancun style party atmosphere.  Speaking of which, that's our next trip where our friends Mark and Angie and our daughter Angie will be joining us.