Wow it's been a busy week. My vacation seems so long ago, I can barely remember it. I promised you all a short synopsis, so here's what I recall:

After picking up gear from the local dive shop (and borrowing a gear bag — that reminds me I need to return it), our group of three divers headed to the airport for the short (25 minute) flight to Tobago. Unlike in Grenada, we breezed through Customs and Immigration, and took a taxi to our hotel - [1] the Hilton. Our reservation was theoretically for two people, since the website wouldn't let you put three adults in a room. Not a problem, I thought, an extra cot is usually $10-15/night. Boy was I wrong. The staff member at the front desk wanted to charge an extra 50% for the third person. I wasn't having that, so I ended up speaking with the manager. Seeing as it was low season, I successfully negotiated her down to an extra $6/person/night. Not bad.

The next morning we were picked up bright and early by the [2] dive shop. Unfortunately, I managed to leave my dive computer in the room, so we had to go back, and got a little later start than planned. (I have an hose-attached-air-integrated computer, so without the computer, I can use my hoses/regulators.) After signing all the "I won't sue you if I die" paperwork, we got our gear set-up for the boat. We had chosen this dive company because it had a nice large boat with ladders, swim-platform and proper gear benches, so we were a little surprised to find out that the boat was in repairs. What we did instead is take a pick-up truck to a beach near the dive sites, and then use a small fishing boat to get out to the sites. A small fishing boat with no shade, no room, and no ladder. So as you can imagine, I ended up being a bit burnt and my stomach still hurts from having to pull myself up and over the side of the boat to get in. However, however the quality of the dive sites and the friendliness of the staff definitely made up for it. We ended up doing 7 dives with them, the details of which can be found in the [3] dive log.

We did lots of nice sites — the visibility as well as the health of the coral reef and abundance of fish life was much better than it was in Grenada, and I think made the entire weekend worth it. (Well, that and the food, but more on that later.) Probably the coolest dive was Coral Gardens - not only did we see the biggest brain coral in the world (ok, so it wasn't all that, more like the biggest ball of string), but we also got to see a huge [4] manta ray, which is something I haven't seen in a while, and the others have never seen. I will update this if/when I get pictures of the manta, as well as all the other nice pics my friend took. The other sites were also very nice, with lots of nice coral and fish (didn't I say that already.)

To recap, the diving was great. And I didn't even die of the bends, since I only had 18 hours after my last dive before flying instead of the recommended 24. The food was also great. (It better have been for the thousands of dollars we spent. Ok, so it was in Trinidad and Tobago Dollars, but it was still not cheap.) I haven't eaten so well in a long time — steak, lobster, shrimp, nice wine, and great desserts. It was almost worth going to get away from the same old 6 restaurants in Grenada.

In summary, I had a great time, but unfortunately, I won't be able to do that again for a while due to the strain on my budget.

Update: Totally forgot to mention: For some reason my first stage (scuba regulator) now has a huge leak in one of the seams. Luckily for me, I don't use that much air diving, and we weren't going that deep, so I was able to complete all my dives with enough air left even with the free flow. Gotta get that looked at before I go again, though.