Lisa and I took our first Scuba dive today in Grace Bay on the leeward coast of Provedenciales. The location was called cathedral due to the shape the box canyon that drops to about 100 feet. The plan was to dive just over the edge of the shelf and hit a depth of about 60 feet, but we ended up doing a 40 minute dive to about 45 feet. On a scale of 1-10 with a 10 being a dive of a lifetime, I would give it a 6 or 7. Once we got past the chaos of the morning, there was much to see.

Yes, there was chaos at the dive shop as we clamored to get our equipment checked out. There was chaos on the boat as we scrambled to find a mask and a weight belt. And there was chaos in the water as one by one, each member of our group swam back to the boat to get extra weight. (Was the water just more buoyant than usual today?) Finally we were given the signal to head down and all the chaos of the world was left behind. I was very quickly reminded of why I like to dive so much.

I made a profound realization today that I have had the incredible good fortune to do some incredible things in life. If I had to do it all over again and choose only one of them, I would choose to SCUBA dive. I would choose Scuba over jumping out of a plane, over bungie jumping over the bay in Puerto Vallarta, and even over flying an ultralight airplane over the grape vines of Galt. Don’t get me wrong, each of those adventures was an incredible experience. But twist my arm and force me to choose, and I’ll take Scuba every time.

Tonight we had our adults only “formal” dinner out, that is if you can call long pants, a collared shirt and closed-toed shoes “formal.” So while the kids spent their night with a couple of paid nannies, we ate at Sapadillas, Beaches Resort’s finest eatery. Most of the food we ate at the resort was quite delicious, so it seemed the only way they could take Sapadillas up a notch was to say “adults only,” dim the lights and put less food on your plate in a fancy form factor.

So we smuglled Matt in claiming that only an 18-year-old could grow hair on his face like that (click the photo on the left to see it), did our best to read the menu by candle light (does that really say “ostrich”?), and then thoroughly enjoyed eating the smallish-portions of our meals. And yes, it did say ostrich, and nearly all of us tried it. The consensus was that it tasted like a gamey steak. The resort’s theme for the kids is Sesamee Street and features frequent visits by costumed characters. So Beth was quick to point out that we might not see Big Bird for the rest of the week… and we didn’t.

Sapadillas Restaurant

Lisa slipped away to get video of Emily performing in the fashion show in front of a few hundred people. She had rehearsed the previous day with her new-found friend, Skyler. She wowed the crowd and nailed her moves. Click the video below to watch.

We finished the night watching the “solar eclipse of the moon” in various stages over this paradise.

Click the photo(s) here to see a larger version.