~*Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood*~

Today was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, warm breeze blowing, Nathan was home from school early.

 It truly is hard for me to imagine that my friends and family at home are battling snow storms and my youngest brother is so far north it is too cold to snow and always dark outside.

 Since there will be lots and lots of studying this weekend we decided we needed to stretch our legs, go for a hike and enjoy our beautiful island in the sun.

Beautiful Mount Scenery

 I chose a walk to the Tide Pools because: they are not too far, not too strenuous, beautiful, and I had not taken any pictures of them yet!

Getting to the Tide Pools from our place we walk down 'The Road' towards the airport, it's about a 20 minute walk down and 25 min back up.

Along the road we got great views of Mount Scenery and the airport's huge 1300ft runway.

Size isn't everything... Saba Airport has a great safety record!

The Tide Pools are one of my favorite spots on the island, they are so unique

Along the path to the Tide Pool's.

 The Tide Pools are a great example of what happens when molten rock meets the ocean....

To my Fellow Nova Scotian's: It's kinda like a very jagged Peggy's Cove

It is a Rock Climbers Dream!

There are many nooks and crannies in the rock formations. This makes exploring easy.

Auto-Photo Success!

 The Life

*no stress

~*Our Reality Under the Sun*~

 We'll it's official, we are back into a Routine...

 Nathan is in FULL study mode....

Oh and while I was out Friday night he shaved his head...

I'm quite as a mouse;)...Yet, he still wear's earplug!

 This week I started classes again. They seem like work, but now, I am prepared to deal with it! New semesters are fun, exciting, and kinda scary... This semester I feel much more prepared, I know how the classes work. I also 'know' people in my classes, which is, actually a lot more fun:) 

New curtains! SOoooo much Better:)

This week was busy getting things started! I went to my first sewing day of this term... I am almost finished my first quilt! I can't wait until it is done. I LOVE quilting...In fact, last week, (before my classes started) I busied myself 'playing' with my new quilting toys:a cutting mat and rotary cutter (Thanks Rachel and Nathan). I had so much fun cutting, I was able to cut all of the fabric for my next quilt! 

Fabric

My new tools:)

Tea, Murder She Wrote (thanks Chris), and Quilting= Perfect Afternoon

The Bulb Cutouts get appliquéd onto strips of the coordinating fabric...You'll See!

 The pattern I am following is a free patter from Amy Butler designs

No dish cloths+feeling resourceful= Crochet my own! 

 I started getting creative with the dishcloths and made some prettier ones too!

By some miracle, my garden didn't totally die and I have some cherry tomatoes! 

Other new starts include: Zumba class started, great workout! Friday night, we had a welcome dinner at the Ecolodge for new SOS (significant others of Saba) members. The Ecolodge restaurant will always be special, I love that you need to bring a flash light and hike into the rain forest to eat at this eco-friendly candlelit restaurant! Saturday morning, the SOS had our first monthly meeting and planned many fun SOS events. 

That's it for now... Life under the sun is not always full of excitement and adventure...

~*Down Where It's Wetter*~

It's hard to believe it's only been one week since we arrived back on the island! This weekend was full of fun and underwater adventure! We managed to do two dives! Each time, diving gets better and better:). Saba is such a beautiful place to dive... I am so glad we are taking advantage of this opportunity to explore the diving world....Luckily, Santa brought one of our friends a waterproof camera case, so I can share some of the underwater beauty with you! 

Our first dive was Saturday afternoon. I was a little nervous because this was my first dive as a certified diver. I was unsure of how much more freedom/ responsibility we would get. But the Sea Saba crew was experienced and very aware that most of us were fairly inexperienced divers. We dove at the dive site called Babylon. This was a new dive site for me and we went down to a staggering 100ft! 

On the left: That's Me (Angela) Descending on the line

Scuba Nathan and Angela

Pretty Coral

Fishy

More Coral and Fish!

Scuba Nathan

Trumpet Fish

Tarpon, They like to hang out!

Our second dive was a... Night Dive! 

This felt EXTREME to say the least. The dive boat left the dock just before sunset so we could get our gear in order with some day light. We dove at the dive sight called Tent Reef (it is the closest site to the docks). We got into the water just as the sun set! We each had a flashlight... Needless to say it was dark and visibility was limited to where the flashlight shone! This provided a whole other element of spookiness. Although I enjoy diving, one of my biggest challenge is getting used to underwater communication. During the day you can use hand signals, however, at night this is even more limited... But I can't wait to try it again:)

Night Life at Tent Reef

Poor little fish, hiding from our flash lights

 We were strongly encouraged not to assist the 'food chain' by keeping our lights shining on the same fish for too long! You never know who could be watching!

~*Back to Paradise*~

Back to Paradise...

 It was wonderful to go back home to Nova Scotia and celebrate the holidays with family and friends. We couldn't have asked for a more wonderful time. Skating outside New Years Day was a wonderful way to kick off 2011!

The Oval New Years Day 2011
Craig, Ange, Mom, Dad

Winter Fun!
(Angela and Nathan)

After a long day of travel Jan 02, departing Halifax, NS 06:30am, arrived in Saint. Martin approximately 3:30pm. With much confusion and chaos at the docks we made the best of our delayed boat trip over to Saba by catching up with some friends and eating at Chesterfields, the dock side restaurant. We realized we were back in the Caribbean again when we got the bill and drinks were 2$ :P. Our boat ride on the Dawn II was quiet rough but they did a great job controlling the boat in such rough seas. Let's just say, I was more than glad to see the Saba docks yard once again. Our friend Joel was kind enough to pick us up and drive us to our new apartment. We didn't really have a great plan on how we were going to get into the apartment (since our landlord was apparently still off island) but it is a small world and as luck would have it her granddaughter was still up, outside and across the street. We couldn't have come up with a better plan if we'd tried! 

Our Cottage

Monday we worked really hard cleaning, unpacking, and grocery shopping and are now almost completely settled into our new place, it's small but it seems like it is going to work for us. Nathan has started school again and we are getting back into a routine. Last night we kicked off the first day of school Saba style by going to Swinging Doors for a BBQ! I literally had half a chicken on my plate! It was lots of fun to see everyone again, especially, before they all start studying hard;)  

Kitchen/ Living Room

Ocean view when washing dishes= Not Bad

Couch with cover (Thanks Mom)

Bedroom...Hard to get a good pic...

Our Bathroom...might as well see it all...

 Aside from screens on the windows... This is my favorite part of our new place....Our very own mango tree! Just in time for Mango season:) 

Mango Tree

And a Banana Tree:)

Fresh Mangos