Sunday, February 24th Playa El Palmar, San Carlos We arrived in Panama City last night at 7:15 pm.(EST) right on time. The flight was six and half hours long but we can't say enough good things about Copa Airlines. The plane was new, with mini televisions in the back of each headrest that offered four new movie releases, movie classics, sitcoms, comedies, and games. Also, we were pleasantly surprised when the crew served lunch and dinner as well as complimentary wine, beer and soft drinks. We highly recommed Copa Airlines in your future travel plans. Tocumen International Airport is modern and easy to navigate. We made it through customs in no time at all, and found Budget Rental Car located right outside the doors that exited customs. The car rental representative was very nice and helpful, ... read more

Today was the last day we could dive, since we have to have 24 hours between our last dive and flying. We woke to a partially sunny day, very little wind, but it was cold, or cold for Belize maybe 65 degrees. Natives were dressed in winter coats and stocking caps, as we walked to the dock to catch the boat in our shorty wet suits. I have wanted to dive a site called The Christ of the Abyss since we arrived, but the seas were too rough. Also there isn't a mooring site there so they have to "eyeball" the location, drop you and then follow your bubbles to where you eventually come up. So that's what they did, we rolled off somewhere near (we hoped) the site and started the swim to where the ... read more

We experienced something this week, that has never happened to us before in all of our travels. The loss of a loved one is hard enough when you are in the U.S., but is the most helpless feeling there is when you 1,000's of miles from home. Wednesday, December 28th my nephew's wife died suddenly after a short illness. She was a lovely young woman with so much life ahead of her, and leaves behind a husband, a 5 year old son and a 17 year old daughter. Barb you are loved and will be missed by many. With the sad news from home, our hearts were not into beachcombing or diving for a few days. Today we awoke to a beautiful day and learned Reef Adventures was going to go "north" to dive which is ... read more

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! I haven't blogged for a couple of days because we have been laying low and taking it easy. It's still too windy to dive (but that's okay because that also means we're not hemmoraging money) so instead we snorkeled yesterday, took some long walks and met some really nice people. Today being Christmas Eve we planned dinner with an elderly gentlemen we met during the beginning of our trip by the name of Ted Smith. Ted brought along a couple of people he met, Kara from Missouri and Mike from Texas. We all met at a restaurant called La Caprio, big big mistake. There were only 6 people in the entire restaurant beside us, and it took 1 and 1/2 hours for us to get our meal. EVEN I can boil pasta in ... read more

Yesterday was a full day, but full of what we are still trying to decide. Note to anyone traveling to Ambergris Caye. If two nice young men in a golf cart stop you on the street and ask if you would like to have a free breakfast and participate in a drawing for a prize tell them NO. The second day we were here, Jim and I were on our daily walk when a golf cart with two nice young men stopped to talk to us. So of course to not be rude to the locals we listened, nodded and somehow I drew a ticket worth $100 of "stuff" at Captain Morgan's Retreat (fancy name for a resort). Well that meant a free breakfast and of course the preverbial hitch it's a timeshare pitch. Our friends ... read more