hello---

Hello.  Still just growing flowers---

So, a photo from long ago.  I need to start diving again ,,,,,    Been how many years?  nine?  I wonder what happened to me?  Something.  Life is a foggy mist.  At least I can still make this blog work.  It got to be a lot of time and hassle, and I felt like I was in an empty room talking to myself.

Wowee, I finally got back here.  I will be transforming the drawing above to a colorable version.  Coloring books on the way!  Cheers!

No pictures?

I haven't been diving in nearly a year now, since last February. Guess I should get wet, hey? I've been growing Desert Roses, instead. Have had some health issues.

OK, I'll be back eventually. Bye for now.

Been too long...

Last year I entered a few paintings, just dinky little 10X8 inch images, in a little art show that I didn't respect, sold several at give away prices, and I haven't touched a paintbrush since.

Bad me.

I don't know why I get so upset at selling.

A friend went to the same show this year, several weeks ago, and he told me that everybody was asking about, "Where's the artist who sold the cheap paintings last year?"

Ah, well, see you again soon.

Hum.

.

A round sponge, perched on a bit of hard substrate, out in the sand.  Sponges have holes.  Sponges are animals!  They are filter feeders.  Very simple, and in an evolutionary 'dead end' because of this simplicity.  They are made of cells that act as a kind of skin, cells with little whips that draw in water, cells that distribute food particles, and interior cells for structure.  No circulatory system, blood or lymph, no lungs, no senses, eyes or ears.  Yet somehow, they do reproduce, all at the same time.  The male and female sponges simultaneously releasing eggs and sperm into the water.  They look like they're smoking, sometimes a very dense 'fog' rising up from the central hole.

.

..

A very old 'clump of sponge...

.

.

Silt is always a problem I'm not sure how sponges deal with silt.  Corals make slime and silt falls off.  A lot of effort for the coral polyps.

.

.

A yellow Tube Sponge, a very large, old animal. And a brown tube sponge on the side.

Hmm, all for today, see you tomorrow!  Thanks for stopping by.

.

.

A most amazing rainbow Christmas morning, seen from my front deck.

.

.

Go for a car ride, folks enjoying the beach.  I don't 'beach' much, I dislike sand!!

.

Some folks laugh at the tiny beaches here,  they're used to the humongous continental beaches that are  thousands of miles long.  But I say we have 'Designer Beaches', each with a special charm of it's own.  This is Cane Bay Beach, where I most often dive.  I get in the water by that boat ramp.

.

This another beach, Butler Bay Beach.  I went to Thanksgiving day dinner here, a great picnic!  The big blizzard that snowed in the USA a few days ago came here in the form of big ocean waves, washing away a lot of sand, see the edge?  The sand will slowly build back up, a natural process.  Ha, big waves here are two feet high!
.

.

Lovely big brown Senepol cattle.  A breed created here on St Croix, from Angus, Brahma, and some others.  They don't mind the tropical heat, and they get huge!

.

These cows were shy, and turned away, this is a sort of telephoto photo

.

The road leading on past the estate where those lucky cows live.  The big trees are Mahogany.  Most roads are two lanes here, and the Island speed limit is 35mph, for the most part.

.

Another estate, I've been inside this one.  The construction is massive.  The outside walls are four feet thick, and the interior walls are three feet thick, solid stone.  You feel like you're going through a tunnel between rooms!

.

The entrance to the estate.  Old old walls built by slave labor two hundred years ago

.

More old stuff, ruins of a rum factory.

.

.

Another driveway.  The families that own these estates almost never sell them.

.

.

Oh boy, these pretty pink blooms are on the Coral Vines.  An invasive plant from South America.  Pretty, but it takes over like Kudzu and Wisteria

.

.

A view of the Carambola resort.  A very nice golf course, and expensive homes.  There are two other golf courses on St Croix.

.

One more 'ruin' they seem to have filled in a doorway.  I guess the slaves with the donkey cart went off to find stone, brought back a load, then went off in another direction for more building material.  Old buildings are made of every kind of rock on the island, and coral 'stone' also.  The bricks are Danish, brought from Denmark as ballast in the sailing ships long ago.  When the ships left, they left the yellowish bricks here, as they were loaded heavily with rum.

OK, all for today!  Thanks for stopping by.  My next lot of photos will probably be topside also, as the sea is so stirred up with the high surf that underwater photography won't be very successful for the next few days.  I'll be gardening for the most part.  Cheerio!

.

Christmas morning

Well, surf's up, dude.  I uploaded all the photos at once, and don't yet know how to work with them, maybe I can't.  Ah, well.

Thanks for stopping by!  I'll get moving again eventually.
.

try again...

try again...