Travel Blog: Indonesia: Part Two- Why Do All Of The Good Stories Start Next To A Carpet Anemone?

Selamet Siang!

Welcome back curious reader! If you’re new here the class has officially moved on to part two of this specific adventure, but if you’d like to be caught up I’ll link part one just below this little bit of conversational pretext! Be sure to give that a read before continuing on here, context & establishment are important to storytelling after all!


INDONESIA

PART TWO:



Day Three

We start out this day in the usual way, rising early, grabbing brekkie, then going off to pack up for the full day of diving ahead. The only noticeable difference about this day’s breakfast was that I created my new obsession for the week; Toast with Raspberry Jam & Nutella, & I made a little Jumping Spider friend. I found her first climbing on my shoulder where I gently gathered her & set her aside on my chair, but no matter what I did she kept coming back to me in one form or another. Finally I just gave in & let her sit on my arm & watch me eat breakfast.

For all of you out there freaked out by this notion, Jumping Spiders are actually very personable creatures that have very interesting personalities about them. They will often even appear to look you in the eye & will, as witnessed above, watch people do things out of what seems like nothing more than curiosity. Though now that I’m thinking about it she may have been using me as a trap for the insects potentially drawn in by either my food or my blood. Either way, at the end of my meal, I set her on a leaf just off the dining pavilion & went about collecting my gear.

Our first dive site of the day was lovingly named “Hairball #2.” Why? Well, as it was explained to us, there are two separate explanations, the first is that the balls of netting/rope & the flora growing on the seabed resemble balls of hair, the second explanation was due to the abundance of Hairy Frogfish, of which we did see one, but apparently my camera did not. #MinimumFocalLength

This dive had an abundance, & I mean an abundance, of Mantis Shrimp of all sizes. Not only that, but you didn't really have to search for them, they were just kind of out, cruising along the sand or, in my case, attacking you. We’ll get there, we’ll get there.

I’m going to assume it was the scenery that lent itself to the plethora of decorators in the area as well, from Decorator Crabs & Hermits to Gorilla Crabs, it seemed every few feet near the top of our dive we’d find a new one. Additionally the Seahorse/Pipefish family came out to play as well.

Many of you know how much of a love for Seahorses I have, I used to raise them in my tank at home including, at one point, having an Erectus Male get pregnant & birth a clutch of fry in my tank! I’ve actually been flirting with the idea of setting up a specialty tank for them somewhere in my house as they don’t do well in big tanks with more aggressive eaters, but enough about my aquarium hobbies. All of that was a massively round about way of saying that I saw the. cutest. seahorse. I have ever seen. He had a bit of red macro algae growing just above his left pectoral fin which made it look like he had a flower in his hair. Simply adorable.

The site was truly a masterclass in what muck diving has to offer between the (in my personal opinion) horrifying Snake Eels with their heads popping out of the substrate, the pairs of Cardinal Waspfish, the numerous varieties of Shrimp Goby with their hovels in the sand, Lionfish, Trumpetfish, Carpet Anemones, & Snapper. But, let’s back up one step to one of those Carpet Anemones for a moment shall we?

Here is where I shall lay the chronicle of the viscous, subaquatic affront I received at the punchy mits of the afforementioned Peacock Mantis Shrimp:

So, I’m sitting there, filming a colony of Clownfish & Ghost Shrimp, doing my best to get the Porcelain Crabs as the current rolls up the sides of the anemone. I have my pointer buried around half a foot in the sand when all the sudden a hear a “thwack” & get a sharp pain in the hand holding onto my substrate anchor. I look over & there, puffed up in the sand, is about a three to four inch long Peacock Mantis Shrimp. It is presenting its antennal scales to me & keeps leaning in to go for another strike. What has gotten this Mantis so worked up over my presence? Well, I guess the fact that I’m a good meter+ from its burrow. It had come out a fairly long distance for an itty bitty shrimp from its defenses to smack my out of territorial spite. You can actually hear the smack, as well as my yelp, when it hit me on my GoPro footage. I was however fortunate with my Mantis encounter for two reasons. One, it was a little one, they can grown about a foot & a half in length. Two, it was a “punchy” variety, meaning that its raptorial appendages were blunted, not sharp like the alternatively “stabby” variety with their sharp appendages.

On our way back up we encountered a Male Ornate Ghost Pipefish, a Napoleon Snake Eel, several more Cardinal Wasps, & a Flamboyant Cuttlefish!

Our surface interval was once again supplemented by Tea, Coffee, Milo, Water, Papaya, Pineapple, & Cake. Dive spot number two was Jahir #1. I guess it’s worth noting at this point that a lot of the dive sites in Lembeh had numerical quantifiers as well. This is because a lot of them are the same towns, villages, islands, or locations, just different mooring sites & thus different entrance/exit points & therefore different dives.

Jahir was another muck dive that leans a little more on the sandy side. Here we found a whole host of Flamboyant Cuttlefish (including some eggs), Scorpionfish, Pillow Starfish, Blue Spotted Rays, Black Lionfish, Banded Pipefish, & the like. However there were two very distinct things that happened on this dive & I’m so excited to share them with you all!

The first made me absolutely geek out.

Maybe it’s the fish lover in me or my fascination with marine life in general, maybe you’ll also find this as cool as I did, please let me know if you do. Anyway, I was planted near yet another Carpet Anemone teeming with Clowns. Slightly above the anemone were a school of Cardinal Fish. Y’all I am literally geeking out typing this story simply because of the insinuations it carries. All of the sudden the largest of the clowns, the female, departs the anemone & makes for a piece of debris laying on the sand bed, It was just under a foot in size & looked kind of like a piece of cardboard or maybe a patch of dutch tape. Puri, our guide, immediately grabs my attention & motions to me to start filming, so I do. The clown drags the debris over to the anemone & stashes it right in the middle of it. She then proceeds to duck under it. After a few seconds she picks it up again & does the same, over & over. What was she doing? Y’all. This clownfish was fishing. It was upholding its portion of the symbiotic biological agreement between clowns & nems & trying to feed its home. It was using us, three big, scary, bubble making beings in the water next to the anemone as a tool implying she understands the basic nature of fish, specifically cardinal fish, & was trying to get them to swim under the debris & use it as “shelter” to hide from us, all the while luring them to their inevitable death. Wild. I guess it’s true what they say, the best stories happen around a carpet anemone.

The second thing that happened was actually something I’d discussed with Simon, the resort owner, the night prior. I had inquired as to what Simon’s favorite Lembeh creature was, to which he said something along the lines of “it’s always changing. However, this time of year the Fire Urchins make an appearance & I think they’re something truly spectacular.” That they are. Towards the end of our dive we came up the slope back towards the boat & were immediately met by about twenty or so massive Fire Urchins! I wish the photos & video I took did them justice but they unfortunately don’t. They’re iridescent, they genuinely look to be ablaze with their dark red spines & bright red & blue bodies so luminous they appear almost like LED strips. A breathtaking species of Urchin to say the least! The way their spines move across their bodies offsetting the view of the farther parts of their body makes them truly look aflame.

Following dive two it was time for lunch. We headed back to NAD Lembeh where we were met with a lovely spread once again provided by Tommy, the resort’s excellent chef. Following our exquisite sustenance it was time, once again, to head back out for another dive.

Dive three was Nudibranch Falls. For those of you dear readers that do not know what a Nudibranch is, they are a family or shell-less mollusks with exterior gills that often feed on corals & sponges. They are often poisonous & thus come rather brightly colored to ward off predators & blend into their lunch. As for the name of the site, Nudibranch Falls is a wall dive meaning you’re diving along side a wall, pretty self explanatory. It is named as such because the ascending bubbles from the divers often knock the Nudies from their place of munch & send them cascading to the depths below. Thus the nudibranch falls.

While exploring the first bits of this site it became extremely dark out of nowhere & I’m talking like ‘felt like we should be in a cave or passthrough’ dark, therefore a lot of the pictures that will accompany this section will probably make heavy use of my flashlight, as will the following, but we’ll get there when we get there.

Around Nudibranch Falls is primarily rubbly reef; waves, creatures, boats,…divers…, etc crash against the corals causing them to break & fall to the bottom below where they either expire or continue growing, hence the rubble. The venue had many of your typical reef fish as well as, yes, many a variety of Nudibranch & Flatworm. The coolest incision of the reef however where the Sea Fans that played host to Pygmy Seahorses.

You shan’t be seeing any picture of Pygmy Seahorses from me seeing how the are, as the name implies, Pygmy & my camera could not for the life of it figure out what the hell I was trying to film. When I say these boogers are small, I mean it. I would say the largest was no bigger than the nail of your little finger.

I’m going to throw Sam under the bus a little here just because I find the story to be a tad humorous & it comes back around later. Sorry Sam if you’re reading this.

After viewing the seahorses Sam, my dive buddy & roomie, set about exploring the rest of the reef wall. Little had we all notice but the current had started to pick up because, as we’d come to find out, it was pouring rain above us, hence the darkness. Sam, having been blown backwards by current & not entirely realizing, was mere inches away from running her fins right through the sea fan containing the entire colony of pygmy seahorses. We all motioned frantically to get her to stop moving, which she did & Gigs, another guide, & I came over & pulled her away from the coral wall manually all the while she remained posed like an astronaut freshly sucked into space. She later had to save me from a similar situation where I was blown into a bunch of coral & could not move for fear of damaging them. In either case there was no harm, no foul. No corals or sea life were harmed in the making of this blog…by us anyway.

Another cool discovery on this dive was a Lembeh Sea Dragon, which looked like a mess of hair until we got close to it. Yet another thing my camera said “Focus? Who’s she?” to, the Lembeh Sea Dragon was truly no larger than a bit of wire & about the length of the pad of your thumb. They are apparently rather rare, hadn’t been seen by Puri in a very long time, & are exclusive to the Lembeh Strait. Even Googling pictures of them they’re barely in focus in each instance.

We made our way back through the rain, which I’ve got to admit was kind of fun to dive in. I took a shower to warm up, started downloading my footage, & took a wee nap. Post nap I hit the coffee bar for what would be one of my only coffees the whole trip. I went the LA Australian Cafe route & made myself an Iced Milo Latte, basically an iced mocha sub chocolate sauce for Milo! I took my concoction back to the patio of my room & continued to edit.

While I sat there a squat little crab scuttled out of the burrow it had made under our neighbor’s steps & began picking through the dirt for food. Once it noticed me watching it immediately retreated though not all the way back into the burrow. I sat & watched it remoisten its eyes & trying to decide whether to continue its forage or hide for a good while.

This would be the first day in which we had four dives planned instead of the previous days of three. Well, our boat did anyway. I guess, I forgot to mention that our group was so large they’d split us in two, each boat containing eight people & four guides along with the captain & the deck hand. Our boat went back out to Aer Prang around 5:45 PM when the sun had begun to set. By the time we arrived a mere ten to fifteen minutes later the light was minimal at best & the sun was all but gone from our view. This was to be our first night dive.

Now I’d never been on a night dive before & if you recall from my pre-Fiji blog, in which I thought we were going to do a night dive, I was just as nervous about it as I was my shark dive. Now I’m craving both. I’m far from being a Thalassophobiak, but there’s something about the inky black of the ocean at night that I found rather off putting. My fears were misguided both in this instance & in my nervousness around sharks.

If you don’t know how a night dive works you’re basically plopped into a dive site in the pitch black. The lights on the boat are set to red as to not mess with the wild life below & each person brings along a torch to light their way. Additionally different methods of communication are used.

In normal light circumstances you give different hand signals to communicate with your fellow divers. In the blackness those signals are far from visible so they move from being off the body to being over your flashlight. Simple enough. Additionally when you want to get another diver’s attention in the light of day you make noise; bang your tank, carry a rattle, blow a whistle, click a carabiner, etc. Here when you hear a noise reverberation from the dark you have no idea what direction its coming from, who it’s coming from, or even if it’s a member of your party or another dive party. The solution? Wave your flashlight back & forth like a maniac in front of your fellow diver’s line of sight. I think this method often actually works better than the sound alternative.

So down we go, lights aglow searching for critters what dine on marine snow.

I’m once again going the throw Sam under the bus here, I promise this won’t be a trend in the remainder of this blog, nor part three to follow.

We get down to the bottom, I’m following Puri, Sam is following behind me, & I notice the light from her torch flash then disappear so naturally I think she’s trying to get our attention. I whirl around in search of her & she is no where to be found, lost to the darkened maw of the ocean.

I can hear some of you saying “check please, she got snatched” in your head, mine however didn’t go there until just now when I was typing this.

I continue searching for her, looking all around from the ocean floor to the water’s surface, no luck. Next thing I know I feel fingertips & a hand fiddling around the back of my neck trying to grasp the handle of my BCD (Buoyancy Compensator/Control Device). I look up from the arm now attached to me & there is Sam waving back at me extinguished light in hand.

So what happened? Well, Sam forgot to charge her dive light with full confidence in it & ironically it had decided to crap out at almost the exact moment we were all like “All ready? Okay, let’s go exploring.” Sam’s solution, which I’ve got to say was a smart one, was to grab ahold of my gear & basically hitch a ride with me the duration of the dive, which is the exact thing you’re supposed to do. Only I didn’t know that. So while I’m whirling around in search of her, she was whirling around trying to grab the back of my BCD to continue the dive. Fortunately the Eagle Scout in me came prepared & I had a second, smaller light, to give her so she didn’t have to play Remora with me the whole time.

Night diving is an interesting experience, it’s a completely different world. We’d dove the site during the day so I knew what to expect in terms of terrain & fauna but it truly is something to behold when the lights go out. A lot of the fish in the reef enter a form of sleep drastically reducing their metabolism while still technically staying awake to keep them alert from predators but during this state of stasis they basically go into a less reactive & mobile state. You find a lot of the fish that you would see during the day resting & they don’t stir or depart nearly as quickly at night. Sometimes you end up right up on them without them paying you much mind.

We stumbled upon many ‘sleeping’ Dwarf Lionfish, Pipefish, Crustaceans & Starfish that had come out to eat. We found our first Octopus of the trip, a long tentacle that would splay its arms out, following each divot of the sea bed, then retract them once it came up dry with nothing to grab onto & snack on. Additionally we ran into many snoozing Cuttlefish & a massive, meaty looking Blue Crab swimming about the shallows, hunting fish. You also get the microscopic critters that you miss during the day who are drawn to the light, darting in & out of the beam as you cruise along. (We’ll get more into them on the Black Water Dive in part three next week).

With our night dive concluded we made our way back to base where it was now dinner time. The groups who’d stay’d behind were already digging in by the time we returned but we were assured dinner would wait for us to return from our showering. The Tomato Soup & Indonesian Chicken Curry that were on the evening’s menu really helped to warm the bones as well & it wasn’t long before we were all sound asleep, zonked by the many adventures of the day, ready to face the next.

End Of Day Three


Day Four

Day four felt ripped right out of the archives of a nature documentary. There were so many observed happenings on this day that I don’t think for the entirety of the remainder of my days as a diver I will find another jam packed day such as this, at least where the circle of life is concerned. The day started out early, with breakfast. One thing I really appreciate about diving Lembeh is that you actually get to have the breakfast of your choosing because you’re not dealing with massive swells on the way to your dive site. I think, in this case, it was an egg sandwich day with bacon.

The first of the day’s animal encounters happened without even having to leave the shore. You see, each morning, on my way to the boat I’d stop to see which sea creatures had gathered around the dock over night. Day one it had been a Batfish just off the end of the pier, day two; schools of butterflyfish, but I think this morning took the case of coolest things spotted. Just off the main part of the dock there were a few schools of fish, that wasn’t the cool part. Amongst these shoals was a singular Cuttlefish, cool on its own, sure, only this Cuttlefish was hunting. It was pulsing dark & light colors over its body in an attempt to hypnotize the fish belonging to the schools. When it got closer it would extend out its two harpoon-like tentacles & snag one of fish. I watched it do this over & over until it had successfully snagged two or three fish & it was now time to depart from the shore to head out into the strait for the day’s dives. I promise you, this Nat Geo/Discovery Channel/Animal Plant-esque day was far from over as the remainder of this segment will surely show! Buckle up kids, it’s gonna get wild!

As the week moved on & my editing work began piling up more & more I began to get lazy with logging my dives. At least that’s the excuse I’m going to be using going forward for the fact that I lost track of some of the names of the dive sites going forward because the online log book required me to make a new entry with address (um…ocean?) & coordinates as well. So if I can’t give you the name of any of the dive sites on this here day we shall be referring to them here numerically.

Dive #1 popped off immediately & actually ended up being one of my favorite dives of the whole trip. This one, fortunately to us, dear reader, does have a name. It’s called Angel’s Window. Similar to the Cathedral of Lanai, Angel’s Window is the remnants of an old lava tube, supplying it with a number of pass throughs & caves. The “window” is a massive, 100 foot tall rock, that rests just below the surface of the water & is covered in beautiful reef. Where deep diving is concerned you always start the day off with your deepest dive & always start said dive off with the deepest depth, working your way back up.

Slowly we began our decent down the side of the rock, taking in the fish & corals before we reached the first cave. There a school of Squirrelfish had taken up residence & their reflective silver & red scales flashed the light of our torches back at us lighting up the cavern. Directly below us the rock had a vertical pass through that let out right at the entrance to the actual window of which an Angel, either by name or title, possess. I should mention, the above pass through is where Sam had to save me from bumping into the reef, so we’re square. On the other side of the window we came our to find sand bed waiting for us. Much to my joy, off in the distance I could see the ‘sway & snag’ of a colony of Garden Eels.

I love garden eels, I absolutely adore them. They burrow in the sand in clusters, popping their heads & a good portion of their bodies out, & collecting zooplankton as it drifts by. They’re very, very shy & this group of Spotted Garden Eels was no exception. I did my best to sneak up on them to no avail, but that still didn’t stop me from squealing at the glimpse of them that I had been fortunate enough to gather.

Back to the rock we went where we began to spiral our way up & around. I did glimpse another cluster of garden eels down on the other side of the rock but I ended up distracted by Octopus #2 of the trip.

This was a Day Octopus, a close relative to the GPO or Giant Pacific Octopus. You know, that octopus that comes to mind when we all think of them. Solving puzzles, squeezing through tiny spaces, tucked up by the glass in your local aquarium? Yeah, that one!

It was tucked & hiding away so we moved on quickly running into a rather large Moray Eel, several schools of Box Anthias whose colors seemed to glow neon at depth, & a rather aggressive Damselfish who came careening off the reef to attack my fins. Though after what happened next, I’m not surprised that it wasn’t a fan of divers.

On up the rock we found a rather large school of Klein’s Butterflyfish pecking at the rock. Puri pointed out that they were eating fish eggs, specifically the fish eggs of the Damsels on the reef. I was fascinated by them swarming the rocks but Puri urged me on. Noticing me watching them as we swam away he wrote on his pad “they will follow us.” A little lost I chose to trust & continued on after him. Sure enough here they came, the entirely of the school of Butterflyfish was now following us. The damsel below was just a precursor, a foreshadowing of events to come it you will because the butterflies had learned that the damsels would much rather defend their clutch from something large, more likely to wipe out the spawn, than a school of fish. They used our being there to draw the damsels off of the reef & would then swoop in & pick off the eggs left behind leaving the damsels to fight off the butterfly fish frenzy.

Don’t feel bad for the damselfish, please. The entirety of this trip I had probably a dozen or more damselfish try to pick fights with me just for swimming by. Even in my own home aquarium I had to evict my Staghorn Damsels because they were killing my corals to lay eggs in the middle of the tank & then would fight all of the other fish the came within feet of the nest. They’re a-holes.

The butterflies followed us for a good while, feeding along the way, taking the piss out of the damsels but departed from us when we swung around the north side of the rock & found the current.

I’ve always kind of enjoyed a slight current while diving, the sway back & forth reminds you just how small you are & its exhilarating to start in one spot, kick to ride the current where you want to go, & then sweep back just a little bit. I was distracted by the immaculately vivacious Sun Coral colonies to notice that Sam had completely disappeared. I signaled to Puri asking where our dive buddy was & he simply gave me the gesture of “the boat.'“ Turns out while I was reveling in the current, Sam was developing sea sickness. I scouted the reef for a few more minutes before returning to find Sam applying Dramamine patches behind her ears.

Angel’s Window sits near the top of Lembeh Strait, hence its oceanic influences. That meant we had a bit longer of a trek back south to get to our next dive site. Just off the shore from a small town, dive #2 was a full on muck dive, hard contrast to the morning dip. We sat & watched a small Indonesian girl & her father training their dog how to swim while we loaded up on warm beverages, water, fruit, & once more, cake. Once it was time to dive & Sam’s Dramamine (Samamine) had begun to kick it was time to dive once more.

We spent a good while doing simple observational tasks on this dive. We found a set of Sea Slugs ‘racing’ towards one another & sat to watch them & see what they’d do. Initially we were all taking votes on mating but it ended up being only coincidence & the slugs recoiled immediately when they finally made connection with one another.

I managed to film my second “feeding” of the day as we descended down farther when a Lionfish chased a Boxfish off the mooring line where it was perched & consumed it out in open water above me. Probably was that Lionfish’s last meal as Boxfish are poisonous.

Our dive into the muck included many Hi Hats, a massive school of Shrimpfish, Sand Divers (yes, they are as the name suggests), Porcupine Puffers, several types of Frogfish (Hairy & Painted), a Seahorse, several live Sand Dollars, & a Queen Conch. We even found another set of the same variety of Sea Slugs inching their way towards one another, only this time, they ended up mating! Post dive it was once again time to head back to the resort for lunch.

After lunch I sat editing, milking a Pacori Sweat while editing. All of the sudden I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. There, above me, pilfering through the rafters was a slender brown & grey snake. It was darting around looking for food amongst the roofing. I asked one of the staff what kind of snake it was & I was informed it was a Brown Coconut Snake, probably looking for geckos to eat up there, though normally they stick to the trees. I sat there editing & watching the snake for a good while before it was time, once again to go dive.

Our afternoon dive was at the Island just across the strait from the resort. In the water we went, ears adjusted, down through the muck where I excited discovered a large Crete, or Sea Snake below us. We all gathered around but found ourselves a bit puzzled as it wasn’t really moving. Our collective though seemed to be that maybe it was snoozing, resting, or trying to burrow after food, but upon closer inspection the snake was missing its head. 40 feet below the surface, a quarter mile off the coast of an unsettled island this discovery still perplexes me.

Abandoning the dearly departed we continued down the island’s slope til I came upon a Black Ribbon Eel. Many of you saw the moment I’m about to describe on my Instagram or TikTok but I’ll be more than happy to describe it to you all here! This Juvenile Eel was buried deep in the substrate, swaying patiently in the currents, passing the water through their specialized nostrils that act as antennae picking up the scent of any passing prey. P.S. I knew it was a juvenile because it was black. The adult males are blue, the females, yellow. In our passing we had startled a small cluster of Cardinal Fish close to the eel’s den. (Truly we are a terror to the safety & security of the cardinal fish). The eel immediately stopped its swaying & closed its mouth, looking now more like a blade of seagrass sticking out of the ground. Puri noticed this & motioned for me to lay low, stake down, & start filling, which I did. The group of cardinals, disoriented by us, had scattered a bit & were still paying much more attention to the three black clad monsters in the water with them than the seemingly innocuous blade of grass at their rear.

The fish population of Lembeh are clearly opportunists, many adapting to use human influence to their advantage, case in point. This eel used our presence to hone in one a singular cardinal that had drifted a little too far from the flock & had found itself very much in line for an easy lunch. However, the cardinal was not entirely unwise. It narrowly avoided the strike of the eel but, I guess stuck between a rock & a hard place of us or the eel it wrongly chose to stay in the proximity of the eel who creeped in for a second strike, landed it, & drug the wriggling fish back into its hovel.

Farther down the slope we encountered a pair of Chocolate Chip Starfish before Gigs, one of the other guides started banging his tank to get us to come over to see what he & his group had discovered. Enter octopus #3.

Gigs had found a Blue-Ringed Octopus, only about the size of your thumb, the Blue-Ring is one of the most venomous animals on the planet & it isn’t afraid to show you that it is not to be messed with. This blue-ring, in the typical fashion, was fairly mundane looking, that was until it decided we were a threat & it was in danger. These octopuses, as the name implies, are covered in a series of blue rings. What the name doesn’t tell you is that these blue rings aren’t always there but instead are used in mating & as a way to flash at predators, or in this case us, to back the eff off. The electric blue rings are extraordinary almost appearing to have a turquoise luminescence to them. Never one to waste its venom, the blue ring quickly slinked away to a hidey hole after it realized we weren't going to watch it & that we weren’t fooled by it pretending to be bubble algae or just another rock so we let it be & departed as well.

Farther up the slope was came across a reef with some of the most amazing Bubble-Tipped Anemones I’ve ever seen, massive mounds of Galaxia, huge Feather-Duster Worm colonies, Maze, Bird’s Nest, & Torch Corals. We found Juvenile Sweetlips squiggling around the bottom, a colony of Venomous Coral Catfish dive bombing the sand, & many a Filefish, Cleaner Wrasse, & Puffer tucked in the rock along with a Crete, only this one was alive.

The rest of the evening played out as usual; shower, editing, dinner, more editing, bed. I kept finding myself reminiscing about just how incredible the day had been & couldn’t fathom how Lembeh was going to out do herself, boy was I wrong.

See you all in part three! Have a great weekend!

Much Love Always,

-C

End Of Day Four


End Of Part Two


Travel Blog: Indonesia: Part One-A Plane, A Boat, A Truck, & Diving in the Muck

INDONESIA

PART ONE:

Prologue/Day One

Singapore

We’re starting day one off in the airport, specifically the Singapore Airport where my eighteen hour LA to Singapore leg had come to an end at 1:30 on Monday morning. Regrettable I was unable to get much sleep one the flight so I was dragging. I found an open street food stall in the airport & got a bowl of Wonton Noodle Soup with Veggies. Before finding a spot to crash I stopped at the in airport 7/11 for something to drink & some candy as well as the airport Butterfly Garden & Cactus Garden. I found a spot behind a row of seats to bunk down for a few hours before my flight to Jakarta was set to take off at 6 am. By the time I’d setting in for my nap the time was around 3 am.

It was, unfortunately, short lived. Apparently a section full of people napping is the perfect place to take a phone call & play with your toddler, as the woman who loudly sad beside me somehow discerned. Having slept only around 30-45 minutes I begrudgingly gathered my things & went in search of caffeine.

I’d switched from coffee to tea a few weeks prior so when I ordered a lemon black iced tea at what was now just short of 5 AM, the sleepy barista looked at me like I had three heads. It truly didn't cross my brain until I’d left the region entirely that I was smack in the center of part of the coffee world, literally about to board a flight to the island of Java. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say & next time I’ll be sure to scout coffee options.

The rest of my dive crew joined me just after I downed my tea & right around the time our gate & security opened to let us through to the gate waiting area. The Singapore Airport does this interesting thing where there is minimal security when simply entering the terminal, but each gate is glassed off with its own private security line that you can reserve a specific time to be in if you plan in advance. We all got through security, I paid Deb the $3 I owed her still from Fiji & we promptly boarded shortly there after.




Indonesia

I had managed to book a window seat into Jakarta though it was in the far back of the Singapore Airlines plane, the seats get more & more narrow the farther back you go. I slept majority of the hour long flight but woke in time for the in flight meal of Chicken Congee, which made me question why I don’t make Congee more often.

Once we began our decent into Jakarta I noticed something interesting, rows & rows of something out in the ocean just off shore. Later I would find out that those were pearl farms after boating by a few in Lembeh Strait.

We had a four hour layover in Jakarta & while we thought it would be a casual stroll through the airpark, we ended up needing every minute of it.

The first hurtle was immigration, we got in one line just to be told it was wrong once we got up to the front, then we went over to buy a 30-day visa for $30 USD, which then had the be taken back to the original line. Our baggage took a while to collect, coming out in spurts in ten minute intervals, though Joe & my dive partner/roomie, Sam’s, bags didn’t end up making it entirely. We waited while they filled out the missing bag reports, then we started to make our way through customs.

I don’t know why I found the immigration/customs process in Indonesia so intimidating, but it was. Everything was taken very seriously, each little form had to be filled out precisely or the officer viewing it would throw a fit, the only other similar customs experience I’ve had was entering The US at BNA from The UK.

Once we were all through customs we had to board a monorail to a different terminal, of which, the directions for use were very confusing, but we made it, though half of our group got separated trying to figure out the sky rail system.

The local terminal was overwhelming with, once again, little to no direction on where exactly you’re supposed to go. Have you ever seen the pictures of Kathmandu, Nepal where the streets are just wall to wall people, buggies, & vehicles? That’s what the local terminal at Jakarta International felt like. It was especially overwhelming trying to roll suitcases & bags through in addition to everyone basically being in the same attire from the soccer/football match the evening prior.

We finally found where we needed to be & stood in line to check in for Batik Airways. This took some time. The problem was that everyone in the group, with the exception of Sam & I were on a singular booking, so we had to assemble & check in each of those people as a group, paying the baggages fees individually as they went. The acceptable baggage weight fluctuated between 20 kg & 17 kg depending upon which ticketing agent you asked so some people ended up having to go halfway across the terminal to pay their baggage fee & others ended up getting off scot-free. Once we were all paid & bags were dropped we made our way to our gate.

The gate situation here was similar to Singapore with the gates being the security check point but had more in common with MCI where there were 5-10 gates behind each security check point. Our flight was slightly delayed so I went in search of food. I landed on a coffee stall that had Thai Tea Boba & Coconut Steam buns.

Once we were boarded I’d been resorted to a middle seat in the very back of the aircraft. For the two & a half-three hour flight I sat watching Shang-Chi & passively enjoying the Curried Chicken I’d been given.

Once we’d landed in Manado & gathered our belongings we were shown to cars where our stuff was packed in & two-three of us were shoved in & off we went.

I’ll say this about the Indonesian drivers as a whole, the lane markers seem to only be a suggestion. We cruised across the country side past Gunung Klabat to Bitung where we disembarked from the vans & we ushered through the village to a pier with a small overhead cover where we sat with our gear waiting for a boat, we’d finally made it to Lembeh Strait.

Our chariot was, ironically, one of the dive boats from the resort. We all got in, our bags were passed down & placed in the non-seated areas. The ride across the strait only took around ten minutes & we were greeted at the dock by Simon, the owner of NAD Lembeh Resort.

We were instructed to leave our bags on the boat & head into the bar area where we were meant to fill out the resort & dive paperwork. We were met there by some of the resort staff & a Calamansi beverage of the resort’s creation. While we filled out our paper work our bags were being brought to our rooms & we were briefed on the resort, its amenities, & our dives.

I retired back to my shared room with Sam & we got ourselves sorted before it was time to go back to the main part of the resort for dinner.

NAD has a resort chef named Tommy. Tommy’s job extends not only to evening meals but also includes lunch, breakfast is handled by several of the women on the resort staff. Each meal, no matter the maker, is served buffet style with dessert or fruit being brought out around twenty minutes into the designated meal time. Dinner was always a soup, a salad, several entree options & at least one veggie dish. Our first night Chicken in Yellow Curry was the main course.

Over dinner I remarked to Simon about the various species of “rare” plants scattered around the facilities; A Variegated Philodendron Burle Marks on the check-in desk, several species of rare Monstera, Hoyas, & Pothos & he explained that their gardener is world renowned for going out into the jungle of Indonesia & even discovering new species of plants! He even offered his contact info & told me to contact him about shipping some to The US!

After a delicious dinner we seemed to be reaching our individual points of expiration so we called it an early night, each of us heading off to bed by 8:30 at the latest. I took a rinse off shower in our room’s “shower room” (a literal room whose only purpose was to house the shower) & was out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow.


End Of Day One


Day Two

Our boat call was 7:30 AM. Breakfast each morning began service at 6 which consisted of Toast with Jams, Cereal, Fruit, Yogurt, Eggs, Bacon or Sausage, Fresh Juice, & occasionally Nasi Goreng (Indonesia’s National Dish of Fried Rice) or Fried Noodles. I opted for Two Eggs Over Easy on Wheat Toast w/ Chicken Sausage, Fresh Papaya, & Pineapple, along with a Jasmine Tea.

After breakfast it was time to assemble the gear. The staff had come the night prior to retrieve our BCDs (Buoyancy Compensator Device), Dive Computers, Fins, Wetsuits, & Regulators, along with anything else we didn’t want to carry down ourselves the next day. That left me with my Mesh Scuba Bag filled with my Dive Socks, GoPro Kit, Bits & Bobs that I Dive with (Pointer, Torch, Etc.), & my out of suit Swimwear. I topped off my water & climbed into the boat where Sam & I were introduced to Puri, our would-be guide for the week ahead.

Now Puri is an Indonesian gent from just outside of Bitung that I’d place somewhere in his 30s. Whether through natural occurrence or corrective lenses he has dark blue eyes that sit cheerfully atop his stout, dark build. From what I gathered from Puri in the week’s time we spent together he can be a bit of a jokester which is fortunate because his laugh is both cacophonous & infectious.

NAD Lembeh has the benefit of being positioned almost smack dab in the middle of the Lembeh Strait, meaning that a lot of the dive sites were only around a 10-15 minute boat trip from the resort. Our first of which was Pantaic Parigi 1, which translates to Parigi Beach 1.

We started our week of dives off, appropriately, with a muck dive. For those unaware a muck dive differs from other dives by the substrate. A muck dive consists of a soft, muddy bottom & it requires one to have a true handle on their buoyancy because one false kick or move & you kick up the silt ruining the visibility. A lot of muck dives also take place on a slope as you’re on the banks of the strait & could easily swim all the way up on shore if you weren’t careful.

We were briefed & entered at around fifteen feet of water, we hung out there for a minute while we all got used to being submerged again then descended down the slope. I was immediately amazed that half the things Puri had begun pointing out to Sam & I were around the size of a finger nail; translucent Shrimp, little Nudibranchs, Shrimp Gobies buried in the sand. I suppose it’s worth noting, if you hadn’t picked up on it already, that we were diving in trios. Typically resort dives consist of one or two dive guides per group of eight-ish. NAD Lembeh does two per guide so that the small things aren’t missed, the commotion around the animals doesn’t stir up the bottom, & the guides aren’t fighting the visibility to keep their group together.

At one point we came upon a submerged fishing net that had long been abandoned to the bottom of the ocean. That didn’t stop the fish & corals from using it to the best of their abilities. One of the buoys for the net was still holding it aloft while the rest of it sat strewn across the sea bed. There were many corals that had taken root, clusters of Cuttlefish & Octopus eggs covered the netting, schools of Cardinal Fish hid amongst the low netting, Eels & Lionfish used the coverage & camouflage options for hunting, the net was teeming with life.

Farther down we found Medusa Worms hosting Emperor Shrimp, Anemones filled with Clowns, Pufferfish grazing in the muck, a beautifully puffed out Gurnard, & many a Filefish.

I, for once, was the air sucker of the group. I guess being at least a foot-foot & a half taller than the rest of your part will do that. I was getting low on air while Sam & Puri both still had just short of half a tank upon our resurface. This would be the trend for the rest of the trip where usually I am the one with all of their air left over.

Our surface interval was supplemented with Papaya, Pineapple, a Loaf Cake, & your choice of either Coffee, Tea, or Milo (Australian Nesquik). We rehydrated & disbursed the nitrogen from our bodies all while traveling over to Aer Prang 2 which I guess roughly translates to “Air Crash 2” though I don’t believe there’s a plane wreck below the surface, at least not that we saw. Aer Prang 2 sits right next to a water depot which really just looks like a cinderblock building with a thatched roof & a small aqueduct running down the dock to the water. Aer Prang would be a popular destination over the next week, as it is half coral reef/half muck. This was the site that really solidified it for me, this was the site that immediately made the 40+ hours of travel to Indonesia worth it for me. Allow me to explain why.

This is going to truly sound like first world diver problems & to some degree it is but I want to wind things back to Fiji for a second. When I was in Fiji, with the exception of the shark dive, all of the dives we were doing were amongst some of the most beautiful reefs I’ve ever seen. This is not to dissuade you from going to do Beqa because if you have the desire I highly recommend it. Hell, I’d love to go back myself! BUT when you’re diving 2-3 dives a day, all of them, as I mentioned, the most beautiful coral reefs you’ve ever seen, it begins to feel a tad redundant. Told ya, first world diver problems. Indonesia has the benefit of variety. You can go from wall dives to muck dives to massive sprawling reefs to giant rock cathedrals swarming with life, sometimes all within the same dive. I will say the thing that Fiji has over Indonesia is its large aquatic life, something I found myself actually missing in Indonesia from time to time.

At the start of Aer Prang you’re dropped, plop, right into a reef. Anemones, corals, fish, & life abound, then you start to head down another slope into the muck. The benefit of this miss mash is that you get kind of the in-between where the muck & the reef are concerned. You get the fish & invertebrates that live in both or are the reef outcasts. You get things like Cuttlefish & Octopuses, you get things like Seahorses (one of which was pregnant) & Frogfish, you get things like Flasher Dragonettes, Pipefish, & Sea Kraits all while experiencing amazing coral life along the way.

After our second dive we returned to home base where it was lunch time. I grabbed a Pocari Sweat which is a Japanese Sports drink & immediately went to download my footage from the day & start editing.

Lunch was usually a tad on the lighter side since most of us still planned to go out diving a third time in the afternoon & was served alongside a massive plate of fruit; mostly papaya, watermelon, & pineapple. I asked after Jackfruit seeing as it’s one of my favorites & was informed it was the end of the season for them, but they would try to find me one.

Our third dive departed at 2:30 PM each day. In this instance I’m not entirely sure the dive site we ended up at as I got lazy in my dive log & just claimed Aer Prang again instead of creating a whole new site for the SSI app like I’d done the previous two. I can tell you that this site was mostly muck but it featured fields & fields of Goniopora & by fields & fields, I mean as far as was visible in all directions. Amongst the Goniopora we found many resting Lionfish, some Blue Spotted Stingrays, Pipefish, Filefish, Clowns, Anemones, Puffers, etc. One of the coolest things we found in the somewhat faded light was a school of Shrimpfish that when you passed light through them looked like a fire blazing above a Gorgonian.

We returned to the resort & I set about editing once again. If you were unaware on my TikTok & Instagram I post clip videos of my trips as they happens, especially my dives!

The evening rolled around & it was once again time for Tommy’s delicacies & the day’s discussion of who saw what & where! I remember calling it an early night again, having rinsed off earlier & opting to finish up the day’s video in the morning I drifted off to sleep fairly easily.

End Of Day Two


END OF PART ONE


Travel Blog: Singapore-Day Drinking My Way Through A Two Day Layover

We’re gonna change this up a little bit. Normally I would post my blogs in chronological order of how they happened, meaning that this should technically be “Part One” of Indonesia. However, as I am currently still in the middle of editing all of my footage from Indonesia, including some things that would fit into the segment of “Part One,” we will instead begin with Singapore as I have all of my photos in order there & won’t have to rush to include them here. That means that next week will be Indonesia: Part One & we’ll return to our chronology from there. Sound good? Too bad. Let’s talk about my two day’s time spent in Singapore!


SINGAPORE

Day One:

If you read my blog regarding the 40+ hours of travel I had on the front half of my trip you’ll know that initially my plan was to arrive in Singapore two days before Indonesia & enjoy my time then. My plans for that order of events was thrown a wrench when I couldn’t for the life of me find a hotel that wasn’t $600 minimum a night & couldn't figure out why. Turns out that weekend was the Singapore Grand Prix. So instead Singapore moved its pretty little self to the back half of my trip & I proceeded accordingly from there.

I arrived in Singapore from Jakarta at around 8:30 AM, having only gotten around three hours of sleep the night before & another thirty minutes-ish on the plane my original plan was to head towards my hotel & see if they were willing to put me in my room early. By the time I cleared customs/immigration & gathered my things it was pushing 9:30. I pulled some cash out of an ATM & went to hail a cab. I initially tried to book something through “Grab” which is Singapore’s version of Uber but I couldn’t get the app to download so a standard cab ended up being the winner.

My driver was a Malaysian gentlemen whose name I never quite caught as his excitement about having me in his vehicle made it near impossible to distinguish about 60% of the stories he was trying to convey to me. I gentlemen in question was a Muslim missionary who, on many occasions, had come to The US to speak to local Muslim communities here on what it is to represent the faith in The States & how they should spread the message of The Quran amongst their friends & neighbors. He was overjoyed to have an American in his cab & during our near thirty minute ride he went through every story from every city in The US that he could think of at near break neck speed. He dropped me at my hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn- Little India, & I handed him a fifty note for his troubles & enthusiasm.

The Hilton was more than willing to accommodate my early arrival, of which I much appreciated, & put me in a corner room overlooking the city. I didn't realize, however, when the room was booked just how far Little India was from the Downtown Core of Singapore. Leaving the room completely untouched I went back down to the receptionist to see if I could cancel my stay & move closer in town. He was only able to cancel me the following evening as I’d already checked in which was fine by me.

Initially my plan was to get a nap in before going out adventuring but anytime I’m anywhere I haven’t been or am on vacation I always hear the echos of my sister when she was in her early teens telling me “you can sleep when you’re dead.” Probably during some time in which she was trying to get me to go out with her somewhere. So I got dressed from the clothes I’d wore on the plane & went out into the city.

I was desperately craving a workout as the only one I’d gotten in the last week of travel was that which involved hauling dive gear or hauling luggage around an airport, so I headed over to Barry’s Singapore: Raffles Place. Quite the departure from taking a nap, I know. I walked through the vibrant Little India over to the subway where I took the train over to the downtown block. The Barry’s class was difficult, especially having not worked out for a week & some change, but I celebrated its completion with a shake & a “Barry’s Singapore” shirt, along with a hooded tank top that was 40% off which I changed into to get out of my sweaty, post-workout clothing.

Back downstairs I made the decision that I was going to go get some lunch instead of my initial plan of going back to my hotel to change. I wasn’t stinky I promise, plus I brought deodorant. I made my way over to the Civic District but not before passing many incredible buildings in the downtown block, Yueh Hai Ching Temple (the oldest temple in Singapore, & Boat Quay (a river front restaurant district). I was making my way over to Sing Swee Kee to try Singapore Chicken & Rice! Along the trek I stopped at the Raffles City Shopping Centre just to walk about & gather some AC before continuing on to the restaurant.

I was greeted exuberantly when I walked in, by literally everyone working the restaurant. They all wanted to make sure I was in the right place & wasn’t just some lost tourist who had wandered into a random chicken shop. I was sat right by the kitchen & brought a cup of chilled Ginger/Pandan Tea & a cup of Clear Broth Soup. I asked the first waitress what to order, she had me get traditional Boiled Chicken & Veggies with Rice Balls, the second waitress added the insistence of Fish Maw Soup with Chicken Collagen so I agreed. The food was incredible, simple as can be but bursting with flavor. I didn’t realize it at the time but the stall has been operating out of the same location since the early 1970s. I even bought a jar of their chili sauce to bring home much to the owner’s surprise who was shocked I could even make it through eating it atop my lunch.

After lunch I made my way towards the Mandarin Oriental Hotel because their bar, MO Bar, made the list of the Top 100 Bars in the World as well as the Top 10 Bars in all of Asia in addition to it being the only of the several in Singapore that made that list to be open on a Monday. Along the way I encountered the remnants of the Grand Prix that had jumbled up my trip & passed through yet another mall to take in the AC.

I arrived at the Mandarin Oriental where I asked the concierge for directions to the bar, I was instructed over to the elevator feeling far too underdressed to even be setting foot in the hotel, much less its award winning bar. I was greeted at MO Bar by a lovely hostess who sat me at an upright along the window overlooking the bay. I then received the spiel about the cocktails & the bar itself. Each of the drinks on MO’s incredible fun bar menu (even the online version is cool) is meant to pay homage to a specific country in Asia & the local ingredients found there. The physical bar menu is set up almost like a 3D constellation map with lighter drinks on one side & the more boozy on the other.

I was served some Wasabi Chips, a bowl of Chevda, & some sparkling water before I ordered a Full Moon, a drink with Rum, Wheatgrass, & Pear topped with a Sugar Film Moon based on South Korea. I will say, of the drinks I had during my time spent at MO Bar, I think this one was my least favorite. That’s not to say the drink was bad by any stretch of the imagination, in fact it was excellent, those that followed were just more so.

My next drink was a Honeybee; a Honey, Whiskey, Kumquat drink, at the bartender’s request. It was an excellent, heart warming, & frothy tribute to Penang that was served inside a black marble cup, of which I still would love a set for my home bar, along side the perfect accent of grapefruit which really brought an interesting quality to the beverage.

After I’d finished by second drink I struck up a conversation with the hostess/waitress who had sat me. We talked about everything from my travels to her life in Singapore & even delved into the Top 100 list they’re feature on, of which, I’ve been to several of the bars listed. I mentioned to her that while my first two drinks were exquisite, I really look for niche cocktails at bars, something that I wouldn’t find anywhere else that maybe imitates of food item or evokes specific feeling, as the cocktails I tend to remember in my travels & life are those that drew from very specific inspiration. Her recommendation was the Satay By The Bay, an homage to the street foods of Singapore, going so far as to include “chicken floss” in the list of ingredients for the cocktail. So I gave it a whirl.

Y’all, when I say this is one of the most fascinating cocktails I’ve ever had I’m not joking. Boasting a “nutty bitterness,” the Gin based twist on a Negroni tastes almost exactly like Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce, it’s truly incredible. It even has the smokey notes from the charcoal of the grill mixed into it! Additionally I was brought a “taster” of the Afterglow, a Ginger Gin Martini variant with cotton candy (candy floss) melted into it meant to be a tribute to Java. The curious thing about the Afterglow, besides how delicious it is even to a non-martini drinker, is that it really accents the floral notes of the ginger instead of bringing out the traditionally used root, even though the root was what was used.

If I’m being entirely honest, I’m not sure how long I spent at MO. I know when I got there I was at the tail end of afternoon tea & by the time I’d left dinner service had begun to roll out. That’s not to say I didn’t knock back a few more drinks before my departure.

My final drinks of the evening came as a duo as well. I had asked about two cocktails, the Ube & the Annona, both out of my love for the ingredients involved, but since I was preparing to close out my journey down craft cocktail lane I went with the dessert cocktail, the Ube.

The Ube was explained to me as an experimental cocktail, something of a milkshake without the milkshake texture. I’d probably qualify it as some form of a milk tea served with a warm chocolate spring roll. Before the Baguio inspired drink graced my lips however I was served another taster, this time of Annona. Meant to convey Koh Samui, the Annona is a Gimlet twist made from Gin, Soursop, & Pandan. The pandan really is the star of the show here bringing a grassy nuttiness to the understated citrus of the soursop. An excellently balanced cocktail.

My Ube was also served along side a plate of cookies & chocolates from the staff whom I had gotten relatively acquainted with over my several hour stay. I’d shared conversations with the majority of them, gotten their takes & recommendations, & found out a little about their lives in the process. I even informed the bartender, who plays a hand in the crafting of the menu, that I found their menu more enjoyable & more memorable than the vast majority of bars I’d checked off on the Top Bars list, including those ranked in the Top 10 of the world. He hugged me.

I am a massive fan of Jackfruit, as the members of my dive party in Indonesia can attest to, as well as the desserty nature of Ube, a root vegetable similar to Taro or Sweet Potato. The creamy whiskey drink had a lovely lulling quality to it, I almost would have liked to try it warm surrounded by snow.

I payed my tab & departed. I was thanked repeatedly by the staff whom I also returned my gratitude to & was given the sweetest post card, signed by each of the staff whom I’d interacted with over my incredible time at the MO Bar in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Singapore.

I was advised to go & see the Supertree light show at the Gardens By The Bay, I figured that since I was within reasonable walking distance & still required sustenance that I would kill two birds with one stone; see the show & get some satay! I crossed The Helix Bridge over the bay & skirted the gardens before cutting in towards the Supertree Grove.

I could hear the music from the outskirts of the park. There were runners everywhere & I was actually under the impression that I was going to be early for the show, turns out I arrived about halfway through it. Now I’ll be the first to admit that typically I find myself underwhelmed by light shows/firework shows/etc. but this was a spectacle to behold. Partially so because of the trees themselves & the hybrid technological marvel/plant housing that they are & partially because of the sense of community it offers. There are people camped out all over the park under the trees, each gazing up to the dazzling display above in wonder. Maybe it was the quantity of drinks or the lack of sleep but it was something undeniably heart warming.

After the light show ended I made my way over to Satay By The Bay…sound familiar?… where I got a fresh pressed Thai Guava Juice & naturally, some satay! The plate I ordered came with two prawns, two pork belly, & eighteen chicken satays along with rice. It was the smallest option. It was also served with a peanuty pineapple sauce that was the bomb! I only ended up being able to eat about half of the plate as I truly wasn’t that hungry, but I knew I needed something on my stomach other than alcohol & sugar to top off the evening.

I walked through the gardens on my way back to the train station which were beyond peaceful in the growing night. There was never a point in which I felt unsafe or nervous walking by myself in the well lit pathways.

My route to the train took me through the Marina Bay Sands where I passed way too many stories up for my fear of height’s liking through the middle of it. I finished my commute back to Little Italy where people where enjoying Chaat in the streets & carrying on amiably as I passed. It kind of make me wished I’d saved what little appetite I’d had for some Roti or something of the like.

I made it back to my hotel, took a much needed shower to wash off the day, & was out before my head hit the pillow, grateful for an incredible first day in Singapore!

End Of Day One


Day Two

I was awakened at 7:30 AM by the sounds of bells emanating from the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple adjacent to the hotel. After around thirty minutes straight of tolling, I gave up on sleep & immediately set to packing my things. If you recall from the previous day I was planning to move hotels to something a little closer to the Downtown Core but that wasn’t going to stop me from exploring Little India a bit first.

I’d been advised by multiple different parties that I needed to give Toastbox or Ya Kun a try & get some Kaya Toast. The staff at MO Bar the night before had been adamant about Ya Kun being the superior of the two so I made it may breakfast stop. I found a location just a six minute walk from where I was staying & made my way through the bustling streets of Little India, adorned in decor for Diwali, towards the restaurant.

The location for Ya Kun I found was a small stall set inside a petite mall right next to the Little India Arcade. The venue only had around six or seven small tables total & it was near to full by the time I arrived. I stood at the counter where an old Singaporean woman took my order. I got the Kaya French Toast combo which came with a Milk Coffee & Two Soft Boiled Eggs for around $5. While the woman was cracking my eggs onto a plate she spotted my painted nails.

“Why are your nails painted” she probed?

“Because I enjoy them” I replied with a smile.

She was silent for a moment.

“Someone did them for you?”

"No, I did them myself.”

Without a beat she said: “I can tell.”

I just laughed & she handed me my plate of eggs instructing me on the locations of the sauces before I sat.

My Kaya French Toast & drink didn’t take long to follow, all the while I was scouring the web for a new hotel. Y’all, when I tell you Southeast Asia has been hiding Kaya Butter from us, they have been HIDING KAYA BUTTER FROM US!!!!!

What is Kaya Butter? Well, to put it simply, Kaya Butter is a Coconut Jam. Similar in taste & texture to sweetened condensed milk, I wrapped my meal & immediately went back to the country to buy me a jar for home!

After breakfast I cut through the arcade, sampling snacks & perusing the stalls many of which selling gorgeous, fragrant malas & variant sized statuettes of the many Hindu deities. After circling around Little India one more time, popping in & out of shops & enjoying the wafting incense mixing in the street, I headed back to my room to gather my things & check out.

There’s an awkward time discrepancy in the hotel world. Check out always falls somewhere between 10AM & Noon but check in is never before 3 PM. That’s a long time to wander aimlessly with your bags. Luckily I’d my checkout time wasn’t til noon & I’d thought of a solution. I would return to Barry’s & burn an hour & a half-ish there!

Back to Barry’s I went where I got my ass kicked, literally. It was leg day. After class I got me a smoothy & a few items of 70% off merch I’d missed the day prior! After I hopped back onto the train & made my way towards the Civic District once again where my new hotel awaited me.

My new accommodations were at the Grand Park City Hall, a five star hotel that I’d found a solid deal on due to the renovations undergoing the facility. I entered around an hour early but fortunately the had a room available for me as well as a complimentary upgrade! The room was stunning & while the 6’4” gentlemen that I am may have been remiss about the twin beds, I thoroughly enjoyed the ambiance & little touches that went into my stay there. After getting situated I made my way upstairs to the roof top pool for some rays & a soak before returning to my room to shower & get ready for the evening.

Truthfully I was awaiting a call from Odette notifying me that my waitlist status had been bumped to a table so my dinner plans hinged on it. I made my way over to Chinatown in the interim where I planned to stop at Jigger & Pony, another of the Top 50 Bars, to get a drink & maybe a light bite to eat.

I’d been told by the Google that Jigger & Pony opened at four, so I’d gone just after in hopes of catching a seat sans reservation. Google was wrong, it didn’t open til six, so I returned to a stand I’d passed, Yomie’s Rice X Yogurt, for a refreshing beverage to cool off the heat of the day. I got a fresh Mango & Yogurt drink & sucked it down as I began to walk around Chinatown. I knew I was close to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum so I headed off in that direction.

I guess my luck or timing was off that day because I arrived at the temple right around five, at which time it closed apparently. So I took up a seat by the Chinatown Singapore: History & Culture Center, resting my feet that were still screaming at me from the 12+ miles I’d walked on concrete the day before.

After some time spent relaxing & watching the Xiangqi players in the courtyard I came to the realization that I was next to the Chinatown street market. I got up & flitted between the shops even finding an exotic plant stall that made me desperately wish I could bring plants home through customs.

When I’d finished perusing the hour was approaching six & I decided to make my way back towards Jigger & Pony but not before stopping at september coffee for an Iced Black Sesame Latte. Ya boi was crashing. What better solution for the crash than a dim lit bar & alcohol right?!

I was the first person at Jigger & Pony where I was sat at the bar right near the entrance. That’s not to say the bar did not quickly begin to fill with people who had clearly stumbled upon the same list I had & were looking to those “Top 50 in the World” quality cocktails.

At the bartender’s behest I ordered a Madame President, a deconstructed Negroni served with the Campari in lollipop form. The drink was not nearly as dry as I was anticipated with the Campari separated & the Vermouth being a dry instead of sweet variety, I think the orchid & melon liquors really balanced it out. You were meant to sip the cocktail, then take a lick of the lollipop, or whatever other way you wished to enjoy the drink. All I know is I could have had fifty of those Campari Lollipops!

Next I ordered a bit of food, not to over shadow the excellent Wasabi Chips (I see a trend here) that had been served, but I needed something more. So I ordered Deviled Blue Crab Dip served with Smoked Leeks, Sambal Belacan, & Potato Espuma. It smacked.

With the arrival of my dip I diverted course from Gin & found my way to Rum with a Corn Colada. Yes, you read that right, a Corn Colada. I don’t know who thought of it, whose brain said ‘try this out’ but power to them because it was incredibly refreshing. Served a little more like a fizz with egg white the colada swapped out the coconut for butter creating a surprisingly complex mix.

At this point exhaustion was really starting to set in & despite the intrigue the Jigger & Pony menu presented my intuition said it was time for me to call it, so I did, making my way back toward my hotel.

In all honesty I’m kind of glad Odette never called, I don’t think I’d have made it through, I was that tired. I literally went back to my room following my time at Jigger & Pony, packed my things, & fell asleep.

In my defense I had been woken up early & I also had an early flight to catch the next morning needing to be headed to the Singapore Airport around 6 AM.

End Of Day Two


END OF BLOG

Blog: Travel Blogs & Their Time Table

I know what you’re thinking, ‘um, this is not a travel blog, you just returned from travel, wtf?!’ & you’d be correct, this is not a travel blog though, I assure you, next week’s will be. Why is this not a travel blog? Well, that would be the entire point of this blog you are currently scanning into your brain through your eye holes. I felt it appropriate & incredible important to fill you in on my process & what exactly goes in to each of these travel blogs that you all so lovingly read, because the answer is no short sum.

Again, if you are a reader of my frequent travel blogs, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I started them back in May of 2021 with my three part Maui series & have since done everything from The UK (multiple times), Fiji, Disneyland, etc & am currently working on Indonesia & Singapore for your reading enjoyment. However, the thing that I don’t think a lot of people realize from the outside looking in is just how long each of these travel blogs take to formulate & publish.

On an average week I would say that a standard blog takes me around two-three hours to complete, the shorter ones maybe an hour & a half. The travel blogs on the other hand, & any other recommendation blog I do, ends up being around ten hours of work, minimum, outside of the travel itself. I’m sure many of you read that number & though ‘the hell is he spending ten plus hours on in a travel blog?’ & the answers may surprise you.

Aside from the stories themselves, the remembering key events & filing them into an order that makes a coherent & interesting story, I also have to go through & tag each of the locations involved. If you weren’t aware, each time that a location is mentioned in a travel blog of mine, be it a restaurant, bar, hotel, museum, or even just a landmark, the name is a clickable link that takes you to the site of that exact property. Additionally I have to go in & edit each of the photos posted to the blog & often find & pull the ones I forgot to save to my phone that I want to use. Furthermore, logistics with squarespace, the housing site for my site & blog, make it so I have to switch back & forth between my computer & phone to get things uploaded &/or where I want them to be in the blog itself & if in the process of all of this my work gets derailed & I end up having to shift work time to something else, it often leads to a delayed publishing.

That’s why so many of these travel blog entries come out at later dates instead of right on Friday, which I have designated blog days, because I fall behind, or life gets in the way & the blog doesn’t end up being written in time.

So where is my Indonesia blog? Well in all honesty I have been weighing with posting the two day blog of Singapore first before diving, pun intended, into the week’s worth of content I have for Indonesia. I also arrived home around midnight on Wednesday & have not had the time or bandwidth to hash out a ten plus hour blog to post today or for the weekend so instead you get this, my long, drawn out excuse.

Don’t worry, there will be a travel blog post out next week. Whether that ends up being about Indonesia or Singapore remains to be seen, but something will be out, I promise. The scheduling for the postings may end up being a bit wonky as I head into the next couple of weeks & the further travel I have there but I will get them out!

In the meantime I hope you’ve enjoyed this blurb of honesty regarding the life of the blog behind the scenes & if you are at all interested in the adventures I had, I will have TikToks & Reels posted over the next few days from the trip!

Much love to you all,

-C

Travel Blog: United Kingdom: Part Three- Pack It Up

Hi! Welcome back! As per usual, when it comes to my multipart blog series, this is your pre-blog reminder to go back & read my previous two installments before continuing down the page below. If you’re in need of the two previous installments to this series they will be linked just below this paragraph & we will see you back here once you’re all caught up. If on the other hand, you are an avid reader of mine, thank you as always for your patronage, feel free to skip on to the title card below! Cheers!


THE UNITED KINGDOM

PART THREE:


Day Seven

We last left off in Dumfries at the home of the Donowhos. In spite of the more than gracious hosts they always are & the loveliness that Scotland always provides, it was time to head back down to London. We loaded up the car fairly early in the desire to beat the evening London traffic. Our plan was to sweep in from the Northeast side of London, drop our bags in Covent Gardens, take the car back to Heathrow, & take the tube back into London, more on that later.

If you have read anything from my previous UK trips you’ll know that I require a stop on the road south out of Scotland. Thanks to the gents that played the original Parkfest set with me back in the day, Tebay Services, Farmshop, & Kitchen is now a must stop, of course this time it was no different. We stopped to fill-up both the car & our bellies with a buffet style Full English Breakfast before on down the road we went once again.

There’s not too much eventful that happened along the road to London other than a rather rambunctious, down to the wire change of plans. My father had been gracious enough to lend us some of the Hilton Honors points he’d accrued in his travels over the years. I’d had him book our stay the night before at what was meant to be the Doubletree in Russell Square, sat on Southampton Road. However, when I called to confirm the room they had no booking for us anywhere on their computers so I called my dad back to make sure the reservation had been set. Now, let me be very plain that this is not a dig on my father nor is it meant to come across as unappreciative, I just think it’s a rather humorous story that deserves its slot in the annals of my blog page. It’s also worth noting that my father has never been outside of North America, The United Kingdom is entirely foreign to him. He had indeed booked us a reservation, only when he had pulled up “Doubletree, Southampton” that’s exactly what he got, a Doubletree in Southampton.

If you don’t know where Southampton is it’s about a two hour drive Southwest of London, sat on the Southern coast of England. Needless to say that wasn’t going to work so we not set about frantically looking for not outlandishly priced hotels in London that weren’t booked out for the weekend & that number was rapidly dwindling. Forgoing the plan to drop bags at our hotel & instead switching to dropping off the car first we made our way to Heathrow. It was only after returning the car & dropping down into the tube that our reservation at the only available, none lavishly expensive hotel was finally booked. That’s not to say that the hotel wasn’t lavish, it was gorgeous & we ended up at The Waldorf Hilton, London. After settling in to our *toss toss* upgraded room, we slipped down to the basement gym for some quick cardio, dressed for the evening, & went down the road to drop in on our friends Victoria & Rhys.

I had spent most of the day looking scrubby in my travel clothes but what became my official OOTD was the following: a Gold J. Crew Sweater, Blue Tellis AG Jeans, & Grey Suede Calvin Klein Boots.

We rolled up to the now Jones’ flat & before we could even call to be let in, Rhys noticed us through the window. We were buzzed in, climbed the stairs, & were met at the door by the duo & an almost completely empty flat. You see Rhys & Vic had come to the decision that when they left London to fly back to the states for their wedding, they were leaving for good & starting their life together as a married couple in America & when they flew out, the same day as us, it would be their last time in London until they returned for visits at a later date. Needless to say the apartment was quite different from the last time we’d seen it in April.

We sat exchanging stories before asking to see if they wanted to join us at dinner at Seven Dials Market. They politely declined with exhaustion rapidly setting in & Ev & I departed their company for the evening to grab some much needed sustenance.

Seven Dials was moderately busy, but not over the top. We went back & forth trying to decide on dinner but ending up with the same general consensus. Dinner was to be Thai as the main course, Dumplings/Bao as a side, & frozen Israeli beverages to drink. I got Chicken Pad Kee Mao at Yaay Yaay, Evan Papaya Salad. Evan & I both got a Pork Bao & Pork Dumplings at Yum Bun, then the drinks were a Lemon/Mint Slushy & a Blue/Pomegranate Slushy from SHUK. Once dinner was completed we decided to make a night of it. We invited Victoria & Rhys once again but they were already well in bed.

Our first stop of the evening was The Alchemist. A flashy cocktail bar with locations all across The UK, we actually skipped out on the drinks there this trip, I had my eyes set on one thing, their cocktail book. Once attained we headed over to EVE for our nightcap(s).

If you read my last UK blog from April you would’ve seen me rave & rant about Frog By Adam Handling. You also would have read about their sister bar, locked in the basement, feeding off their scraps, EVE. That last sentence is not a jab, EVE literally feeds off the kitchen scraps from Frog which it uses to create new & interesting gastronomy for the bar & the cocktails they sling. We only dipped out toes into EVE last time, this time we claimed a table & sat in for a while.

As far as drinks went, we had a few. I got the Amber Fizz (Johnnie Walker Black, Maraschino, Banana, Berries, & London Essence Ginger Ale), followed by the Lazarus (Appleton 12 Year, Santiago Blanco 3 Year, La Yuzu, Verjus, & Guava), but the star of the night, tasting like a Salted Caramel Espresso Martini was the Little Rise (Santiago 8 Year, Galliano, Coffee, Caramel, & Bitters). Evan has some form of Colada that was a special of the evening & an Il Conte (Patron Reposado, Kumquat, Madeira, Smoked Cocoa Nibs, & Prosseco DOCG).

We sat in the basement bar for around an hour & a half before we decided it was time to call it a night & off we went back to our hotel just down the street.

End Of Day Seven


Day Eight

Thursday we managed to sleep in a little big. I was still desperately craving a workout so we booked something in the early afternoon at Barry’s Soho. Needing caffeination & craving a croissant we made our way over to Monmouth Coffee Company where we both had a Pour Over, I got an Almond Croissant, & Ev got a Chocolate. We sat outside in the drizzle because it was honestly tolerable & we’d actually gotten to wear the raincoats we packed for once!

After our coffees & pastries we still had a little bit of time to burn so we went & perused the shops near Covent Gardens. Starting first in Barbour, I tried on several flannels & a sweater or two before designating it a loss for the day. Across the street at Scotch & Soda, where I’d had so much luck the previous trip, we tried on a varied assortment of the store but never landed on anything that we were head over heels for so off we went towards Soho for our appointment with Barry’s Bootcamp.

The class was a Barry’s Lift class which neither of us had ever taken, the sole difference between it & a traditional Barry’s class being that there was no cardio. That didn’t mean the class was easy, in fact it was one of the hardest ones I’d done, simply because of the massive amount of core work it entailed.

After class we grabbed protein shakes from the shake bar & made our way back through the city to our hotel to shower & get ready for the rest of our day ahead.

My “last night in London” OOTD was a Green Rag & Bone Sweater, Khaki Tellis AG Jeans, & White Goodfellow Trainers, a similar outfit, yet still different, from the one I wore for my Living Room Session two nights prior.

Vic & Rhys had to be out of their flat by 3 PM so we met them just across the street at their local pub, The Round House, where they sat surrounded by luggage, still working remote while sharing a pint. We sat with them awhile until hunger set in & we swung around the corner to Old Chang Kee for one of their “world famous” Singapore Style Curry Puffs! Ev & I both got our own Chicken & Curry Puff which we enjoyed immensely, then walked over to The Espresso Room for a Flat White & another Almond Croissant but unfortunately they were out of the latter.

While Victoria wrapped work, Evan, Rhys, & I formulated a plan for the evening. The soon-to-be Jones were staying at Heathrow for the night but still wanted to kick around London with us for a bit so we decided that we would drop their luggage off at our hotel room just around the corner, go about our business, & they could return with us, grab their stuff, & hop the Piccadilly Line to Heathrow. Victoria ended up moving one last appointment we had up so that we could all go out so Evan, Rhys, & I sat enjoying The Waldorf’s Cocktail & Canapé hour while we waited sat pretty in the Executive Lounge (*adjusts monocle). Hey, free booze is free booze. When Victoria arrived we sat enjoying the hors d’œvres for a while longer before hopping a cap over to Tayēr + Elementary.

T+E might sound familiar to any of you that are return readers of mine, it’s another spot we hit back in April & just happens to be considered one of the best bars in the world. Now if your plan is to say that we weren't too adventurous with new things this trip to London I think you’d be slightly mistaken. You see, much like EVE, Tayēr + Elementary’s menu is constantly changing & evolving inviting new experimental gastronomy into the mix so no two people’s experience at either place will ever be exactly the same. We also had only sampled “Elementary’s” menu last time as the two have completely separate menus & feels.

Though residing in the same building Elementary is the front bar & Tayēr the back. Sat around a large, chef’s table/tasting menu type set up I would say Tayēr is the sophisticate while Elementary the playful lending more towards the neighborhood bar feel.

We were actually the first people to enter Tayēr that night. Sat on the corner we each began picking out cocktails as well as little finger foods to nibble on. I typically go for the recommendations of the staff & this was no exception. I got the Haucate as well as a drink that consisted of Etna, Mandarin, & Pachouli & a Makrut Lime cocktail. In addition we ordered a Piña Colada Cheesecake to split, Prawn Couchette’s, & some form of Corn Dog, of which I cannot remember its contents.

Fairly buzzed we all stumbled back into a cab & returned to Soho & The Waldorf where The Jones’s retrieved their bags & Evan & I went off in search of more food.

Really wanting Nando’s seeing as it would be good & quick we made our way that way. The site said they closed at 10:30 but for whatever reason they’d decided at 9 PM to call it early so on our search for food went. We ended up happening to pass Blacklock, a chop shop that I had had on my “travel list” from the last go round. Blacklock readily let us in & we were shown to a seat near the entrance.

We were truly looking for an abbreviated dinning experience, feeling almost entirely ready to call it a night but still rather famished so we just threw in & went with the “All In,” a pre-chopped selection of Beef, Pork, & Lamb, along with two sides & Grilled Flat Bread. We devoured it though quickly the stuffiness of the basement restaurant, the heat, & the meat began to get to us & we had to evacuate the premises.

I truly wish that I could give Blacklock more of a glowing review, I do. The food was very good & the diversity of menu options, lengthy, but I fear falling just short of having a full blown panic attack in their primacies due to the stuffiness of the place, I’d be hard pressed to feel warm & fuzzy about it.

Anyway, feeling stuffed, but still wanting to satiate the dessert stomach we went in search of ice cream/gelato. Unfortunately all of the shops were closed so we called it a night, returning to the hotel defeated.

End Of Day Eight


Day Nine

Our last day in London we pushed that “late checkout” to the limit. We awoke & packed before we decided to make one last hoorah of London & heading over to Heathrow. We had stumbled upon Abuelo the day prior & I had made some joke about the restaurant simply being called “grandpa.” It decided to pull a full on Uno Reverse & say “look who’s laughing now” as it popped up for one of the top listed brunch spots in Covent Garden, so it became the destination of where we were to break our day’s fast.

Surprisingly enough, Abuelo is an Australian coffee shop, well, Australian with South American influences, & it did not disappoint. Evan & I order to share, something savory & something sweet, of which we would each eat half of then swap plates. Evan order our savory course, The Big Bondi (Avocado, Dukkah, Goat Cheese, Pickled Jalapeños, Cress & Flowers, & Egg atop Sourdough) & I the sweet; Banana Bread w/ Caramelized Cinnamon Peaches, Dulce De Leche Marscarpone, & Ginger Biscuit Crumb, in addition to a Cappuccino & a Pour Over respectively.

After a glorious breakfast we made our way to Tesco to grab a goodie bag for our flight attendants & made our way back to The Espresso Room in hopes that the Almond Croissant had made its triumphant return, it hadn’t, they were still out. So we shuffled, defeated, back to The Waldorf to collect our things & hop the tube to Heathrow.

Normally this is where I would leave you all. I would conclude the travel with our last meal or interesting feat we accomplished but in fact the intrigue of our voyage is not yet over. About halfway between Covent Garden & Heathrow the tube operator came over the speakers & announced the the Piccadilly Line would not be making its normal stop at the terminal that feeds Heathrow Terminal 2 & 3. As we were in Terminal 5 this was of no concern to us, though the rest of the passengers seemed less pleased. After each subsequent stop the same announcement was made until it changed, subtly. I truly think it was a slip of the tongue but the announcer added “due to its evacuation for public safety” to his announcement of the lapse in stop. I immediately pulled out Twitter.

The reason the train would not be stopping at Terminal 2 & 3 was that there had been a bombing threat upon Terminal 2 & the entirety of Terminal 2 had been evacuated. There never ended up being an actual bomb, as far as we know, but when we rolled through the train station for those two stops the feeling of unease in the car was palpable. The terminal was like a ghost town, not a person in sight. It was eerie. I’m just glad that no one got hurt & the threat itself ended up being nothing, again, as far as we know.

Off to Terminal 5 we went where security was a breeze & we sat in peace munching on Smoked Salmon Sandwiches until it was once again time to depart the dear United Kingdom.


End Of Day Nine


End Of Part Three


End Of Blog

Travel Blog: United Kingdom: Part Two- Lochs & Lochs Of Loch

Welcome back! Iffin you are reading the ‘welcome back’ as well as the ‘part two’ up in the title & scratching your head, this is the second blog stemming from my latest bit of travel to the United Kingdom. If you feel so inclined & want to feel caught up the link for Part One will appear just below this paragraph! With that settled & having us all agreed that ‘yes, we did indeed read the first part of this series,” shall we move on?


THE UNITED KINGDOM

PART TWO:





Day Four

We last left off our romp around the kingdom in Stranraer, Scotland. That too is where we shall resume at the morning after the festival, Sunday. Originally the plan for this day was to do a live broadcast Living Room Session, however we ended up needing to move it to Monday night because of some scheduling conflicts. Totally fine, we’re easy breezy over here. The plan after the originally proposed Sunday show for Evan & I was to drive up to Oban & scoot around the highlands for a bit before we made our way back to London. Seeing how that would now stretch things a little thin we opted for a trip around Loch Lomond instead.

We slept through breakfast at the North West Castle where we were staying, in favor of a recommendation we’d gotten from several people to dine at Fig & Olive. Unfortunately the Fig & Olive was closed for the day due to a private event they were catering (grumble, grumble) (nah, no hard feelings, make that dough y’all!) so instead we opted to try another breakfast spot. It too was closed. Then another. Also closed. Until finally we ended up just grabbing some sandwiches from a chain cafe, of which we shall not name here. Food & coffee (finally) acquired & gassed/petroled up, we made our way up the coast.

We knew the day would be a long one filled with driving, that was a no brainer, so we’d prepared to spend long hours in the car getting lost in the scenery as it passed. We had no real plans of stopping anywhere either, just followed wherever to road decided to take us. We took the A77/78 All the way up the coast until we got to where it cut across headed towards Glasgow. From there we hopped onto the A82 & headed north to Loch Lomond. I think it’s worth stating that I’m a fairly competent driver, I’m fine navigating small, bendy roads but the ones around Loch Lomond were a bit of a different story. The issue was not the roads themselves though, the issue was the people who would fly around the bend going full speed in the complete middle of the road with little to no regard for who or what lay around the corner, but we survived it, we made it through.

Loch Lomond is truly a beautiful region. The last has been designated as national park land as well so the Loch or Lake itself looks almost entirely untouched by human hands. Around Tarbet the road forks a bit, the continuation of the A82 looking like a side road jutting right. At this point I’d abandoned my GPS thinking “oh, I’ll just stay on the A82 until we hit Crainlarich & be fine.” This naturally ended in a wrong turn right at this exact spot. I’m honestly a little glad the wrong turn was made because we ended up stumbling upon The Slanj.

The Slanj is a bar/restaurant/café set inside a former church that was built in the 18th century. It sits in the valley of a few picturesque hills & serves a full traditional UK menu. We’d arrived just to pass a moment or two & I ended up getting a sampling of a local gin before we sat around, taking pictures & enjoying the afternoon. Once some time had passed it was back on to the A82 we went & on up into the highlands.

If you were with us for the previous installment in this UK series you’ll know that Evan set out this trip to capture an OOTD or Outfit Of The Day of mine. So I decided to put some thought in their planning! The OOTD of this day was a Blush Urban Outfitters Pullover Thermal, Black Tellis AG Jeans, White Goodfellow Trainers, Keiko Glasses from Warby Parker.

We hadn’t gone very before we stumbled once again into something unexpected, The Falls Of Falloch. Set just off the east side of the A82, the falls are just a short hike from the dirt lot where you park. Once we’d walked to the falls we were met by picnickers as well as quite a few people jumping into the pools set under the falls themselves. The water here had a very dark rust color to it, due to the iron rich soil, & the water was chilly, chilly, chilly. The falls quickly started to get busy so we packed up & headed on down the road.

Our next turn was at Crianlarich where we ditched the A82 for the A85 & headed farther east before looping back down towards Glasgow again. Along the way we passed Loch Lubhair which had some of the stillest, most pristine water I’d ever seen. If was calm but without the over abundance of algae that usually forms from still bodies of water. We looped through Callander where we stopped for gas & snacks before continuing on back to Dumfries.

We arrived back at the Donowho’s around half six/seven PM. They had lovingly waited for us to arrive to have dinner which I believe ended up being Italian for us. We sat around carb loading before we adjourned to the couch to finish off the night with a cuppa & conversation.

End Of Day Four





Day Five

Now was the day of our newly adjusted plan for the Living Room Session. As aforementioned the original plan had been to do our live broadcast Living Room Session on Sunday however certain things came up that required us to move it to this, the Monday in question. The start of our professional day started with an early lunch at Mrs Howat’s Vintage Pantry where the Donowhos, Evan & I congregated with Ross, Rhonda, & James to chart out the plan for the evening.

Leaving the Pantry more than a little full, each of us having ordered a slew of rather filling items, we returned to the home of the Donowhos to prepare for the evening but not before Evan managed to snag a few photos for his OOTD collection!

The OOTD in question was a Yellow Beanie & White Trainers by Goodfellow, Kaiki Colored Tellis AG Jeans, Keiko Glasses by Warby Parker, & a Blue Knit Sweater by H&M.

We had decided at lunch that in loo of the stage setting of the Royal Theatre we were going to use Ali & Carolann’s living room for the site of the first ever actual factual Living Room Session where a few select guests would be invited in & the whole thing would be simulcast over a number of different streaming sites.

We set up the room in preparation for the broadcast, moving many items of furniture to accommodate the space. We brought in a full speaker system, lighting rig, & a streaming rig, all were set up with a curtain backdrop. Ross then came in & began setting up each of the streaming portals & adjusting the live feed audio mix. We ended up starting a little later than anticipated but the show flowed easily & with only limited hitches along the way!

I did do a wardrobe change for the LRS, of which Ali referred to it as my “Jake Owen, ‘Barefoot, Blue Jean Night’ Moment.” It was exactly that. A Light Green Rag & Bone Sweater & Light Wash Blue Tellis AG Jeans. Naturally, I also went barefoot!

After we’d wrapped up the set & finished socializing it was time to eat. It had gotten pretty late in the evening, 10 or 11-ish, so Carolann & Ali opted to skip dinner but Carolann had spent the day making her incredible sweet potato curry recipe & I was on the verge of eating my arm off so Evan & I indulged.

End Of Day Five


Day Six

There wasn’t much planned for this day, I had asked Ali what his favorite dessert was given that his birthday was a few days later in the week. His reply was cheesecake which I immediately knew I had in the bag!

My mother has had a cheesecake recipe that she’s made for as many thanksgivings as I can remember. I’ve made it myself a few times, having had the task of its construction handed over to me in the preparations for the holiday & every time it is made it ends up being the belle of the dessert table. So off to the grocery store we went.

You don’t think about the discrepancies between UK & US culture, & if you do, I promise you’re probably not doing so when it comes to the grocer. Naturally, this didn’t cross my mind either until I was in the middle of the aisles, bobbling around, lost, looking for the things I needed that don’t exist on the standard United Kingdom shelf. For example. Graham Crackers. You know, graham crackers, one of the key ingredients of a NY Style Cheesecake? Having a loose understanding for the fare of the British Isles, I was able to improvise; two parts Digestive Crackers to one part Biscoff. It ended up being a pretty solid sub out! I put Evan to work on crumbing the dry ingredients while I took care of the wets.

I was a tad nervous when I’d pulled the cheesecake out of the oven as it didn’t quite look right. In a bit of a panic I called my mother who reassured me just to let it set & it would be fine, she was right. It turned out immaculate!

After the cheesecake was complete Evan & I decided to book a last minute distillery tour just down the street from Dumfries in Annan at Annandale Distillery. We got in on literally the last distillery tour of the day & were put in with a family visiting from England. Our tour was around forty-five minutes in length & went very in-depth on the incredibly interesting history of Annandale. Another discrepancy between the US & the UK is the lax drinking & driving laws that the US has compared to the UK. In the US the legal blood alcohol limit is .08, not that its a score to aim for, Scotland that legal limit is .02, & in England it is .00. So no drinks at all. When we booked the tour I had no realization of that until it came time to do tastings along the way. Since I drove, Evan got to do the tastings & I was promised a take home tasting at the end. Totally fine by me. However, when we got to the end of the tour I was met with a dram of one singular tasting, completely missing out on five of the other tasters the group had gotten along the way. So I purchased an additional tasting set to take back to the states for my own tour.

When we got back to Ali’s I broke open the dram. I was curious after all, I’d spent the last hour surrounded by people trying different whiskies & commenting on their characteristics that my FOMO had definitely gone into over drive. I enjoyed a peated whisky called The Man Of Swords which I enjoyed thoroughly! I still have yet to break into my sample stash, maybe I will once I finish this blog!

Gathering a bit of a buzz it was time for us to go eat. Ali & Carolann decided it was time to take the Americans to an American themed restaurant in town called The Hitching Post. I’m curious to know what all my Americans out there imagine a Scottish based & operated America themed restaurant consists of. Please, form your mental image, let me know what you think & what you would expect to find on the menu before I go ahead & tell you.

For my Americans, what an American restaurant in Scotland consists of is a bit of a love letter to Texas. The theming is definitely Wild West with little cactuses adorning the table & wagon wheels & cowboy paraphernalia dressing the walls. There is of course an American flag or two, most of them are painted on barn wood, as you do. As for the menu. It did have a rather large array of American cuisines. From burgers to bbq to pizza & philly cheesesteaks, all are present & accounted for, which then prompted to the question at the table between Evan & I, if we were to design an American restaurant, what would it be like?

After a lengthy discussion we landed on the need for a BBQ section, sorted regionally, a cookout menu, a regional specific menu (Philly cheesesteaks, Maryland crab cakes, Meat & Threes, California burritos, etc), & general American (wings, mozzarella sticks, quesadillas, etc.). The theming would also be regional, carrying different influence from room to room.

Once we were stuffed full of pizza we returned once again to abode Donowho where we broke into Ali’s freshly baked birthday cheesecake & had a cuppa before sharing what would be the last of our late night conversations until we meet again!



End Of Day Six


END OF PART TWO

Travel Blog: United Kingdom: Part One- York & The Festival

As many of you know, I have a great love for the United Kingdom & the people that live there. It has also been clear, for many years now, that the United Kingdom also shares a great love for yours truly & my music! My first trip there, back in August of 2019, was actually a trip entirely planned around a festival, Park Fest, in Stranraer. Again, that was back in 2019. Naturally, due to the global pandemic, Park Fest was put on hold for 2020 & even 2021 making its resurrection this year some what of a homecoming for a lot of those involved. I was asked fairly early on in the planning phases of this year’s Park Fest whether or not I’d be willing to make the trip to play it, I was more than happy to snag a spot in the line up.



THE UNITED KINGDOM

PART ONE:



Day One

The original plan for the trip was to arrive Thursday morning, grab the rental car, & immediately make our way to Dumfries. When planning Ali, who was gracious enough to play host to me & contract Ross to help assemble a band on my behalf, & I had originally talked about having the band rehearsal for the show on that Friday before heading to Stranraer on Saturday for the festival. However, plans change & we ended up having to push rehearsal to Saturday afternoon to accommodate all of the musicians playing, totally fine! So now having a new day free we decided to go up the East Coast of England & stay the night in one of the towns there.

We arrived around mid to late morning having barely slept a wink on the flight over. Our immediate mission on the way to the rental agency was to poll our destination. We reached out to all of our UK friends asking whether we should go to Newcastle, Nottingham, Cambridge, or York. Everyone basically unanimously gave us York, so we started up Central England towards York.

We arrived in York in the early evening beelining to our hotel where the plan was to shaft from our travel clothes to something nicer in which to explore the town & take a few choice photos here & there! Our hotel was the Hilton York Tower, set literally across the street from Clifford’s Tower, one of the largest remaining fragments of the York Castle.

Once checked in, showered, & changed we set out to explore the town of York before our evening reservation at the North African restaurant, Los Moros.

Evan had this idea to take what he referred to as my OOTD, or Outfit Of The Day. Despite having packed in a frenzy I had managed to piece together a unique outfit for each day of our trip all while maintaining a suitcase weight of around 40 lbs & compensating for the swings in weather & the varied temperatures we would be experiencing throughout our eight days spent in the United Kingdom.

We actually did a proper photoshoot too, going around the York City Centre finding cool backgrounds to fill the negative space of each of the photos. For this OOTD I had chosen a Scotch & Soda Tan Knit Button Shoulder Sweater, a pair of Light Blue AG Jeans in the Tellis fit, Brown Aston Grey Work Boots, & Keiko glasses by Warby Parker. It was a tad chilly in York so the covering was much appreciated.

After we were satisfied with the photos taken we stopped off in The Shambles, the street of shops that inspired JK Rowling’s creation of Dragon Alley for the Harry Potter books. The parallels are abundantly clear to all who have seen the street as well as partook in Potter media. After our exploratory walk it was dinner time.

Los Moros is up near York Minster on the North side of the town center. It is in a small, unassuming three story town home that you would never guess, from its exterior, is brimming with color & flavor. Upon arriving we were shown upstairs to our table over looking the street below. I swung back downstairs to wash my hands having tripped on one of the steps near the riverside & was greeted by the cutest of outdoor courtyards where people dined under lattice adorned with tiled lamps & greenery.

Dinner was exquisite. We ordered a bottle or Romanian Pinot Noir to split & order off the menu “family style.” Our dinner consisted of a bowl of Casablanca Olives, Hummus with Rose Harissa, Olive Oil, Pine Nuts, & Flat Bread, Batata Hara, a Spicy Potato dish with Coriander, Garlic, & Turkish Pepper Paste, ZFC Chicken fried in Za’atar & Sumac with a Preserved Lemon Mayonnaise, Smoked Haddock Crocketts with Rosa Harissa Aioli, Beef Tanjia; Slow Cooked Ox Tail with Saffron, Preserved Lemon, Button Creamery Cumin Gouda Mash Potatoes, Pickles, & Lamb Jus, & a Chocolate Cardamom & Coffee Mousse with Chantilly Cream & Pistachio Crumble. Need I say more?! All of it, without exception, was incredible. There isn’t a thing within that order that I would change or alter!

The original plan after dinner was to go out, to hit the town & a few cocktail bars, however, the lack of sleep caught up to us & we made our way sheepishly back to the hotel with stuffed bellies. Pretty sure we were both asleep before our heads hit the pillows.

End Of Day One


Day Two

We awoke later than we had intended, our initial plan was to get on the road early to Dumfries but we decided to roll with is & grab breakfast before our cross-country drive. I had scouted a restaurant just a short walk from the hotel called The Blue Barbakan. The Blue Barbakan is a Polish Restaurant with an “extra multi-European twist.” We, however, arrived around fifteen minutes prior to their opening & resort to initiating the daily hunt so many of us engage in for caffeine.

Coffee was found just across Foss Bridge from The Barbakan at a very quant little cafe called Kiosk. We used to queue formed out its door as a gage for the coffee being brewed inside & were not let down by the parade of patiently placed patrons. The coffee was wonderful, the venue charming. The owner had even thrown an assortment of ceramic ware specifically for his shop of which the title card for them read “Here There Be Monsteras,” something I still am in awe of each time its cleverness passes my brain.

Coffee acquired & consumed & time passed it was now time to return to The Blue Barbakan!

We stepped up into a wood paneled room adorned with framed photos & chalkboards baring the restaurant’s specials. We were instructed by a woman, who I assume was the owner, to sit anywhere we like so we chose a table sat next to a lace curtained window overlooking the bridge. I ordered another coffee & a water & when I asked the matron of the house what I should get she suggested the Full English. Not usually one to do so, I ignored her recommendation as a weeks worth of “full english breakfasts” were staring me down. I opted for the Duck Rumor with Smoked Salmon & Evan the Poached Eggs with Smoked Salmon.

I was elated with the Duck Rumor. Truthfully, I am so glad I ignored her suggestion & went with my gut. Duck Rumor is a ramequin filled with Buttered Creamed Spinach, topped with Smoked Salmon & a Duck Egg before being baked in the oven. Think of it like an Eastern European Uova In Purgatorio. It was served with fresh Brown Bread to scrape the contents of the ceramic over, I could have eaten it forever.

After we paid the bill we popped back over to our hotel where we gathered our belongings & set off again, waving York a very fond farewell.

The ride to Dumfries took us up by Newcastle, where we originally had planned to stay. We got stuck in traffic here as one of the highways is currently undergoing rather massive renovations. Passing by the Angel of the North we made our way West along the A69, a route that used to be used to patrol Hadrian’s Wall, of which many of the pieces still exist to this day. From Carlisle we went backroads all the way to Dumfries where we arrived in the mid-afternoon.

Not to miss my OOTD, Evan immediately had me go out into the neighborhood & do I brief shoot. Never have I felt more self conscious doing a photoshoot than in the middle of a residential neighborhood but that day the outfit consisted of a Blue Goodlife Pullover, Tan Tellis AG Jeans, Yardley Glasses by Warby Parker, & White Goodfellow Trainers!

The rest of our evening was pretty relaxed; we ordered Indian take away from Seimo Seito with Carolann (Tikka Masala, Assorted Naans, & Seimo Seito Masala), then Ross & Ali joined after overseeing Panto auditions for the Royal Theatre. We sat around the rest of the evening exchanging stories, talking about the plans for the day to follow, & generally having a grand ole time. It wasn’t until one or two AM that we were all off to bed.


End Of Day Two




Day Three

The Saturday started about 9 AM with a briefing on the day’s plans from the Donowhos & a cuppa. Ali had a midday set in Stranraer in addition to an evening set in Loch Raven. The plan for me on the other hand was to grab some brekkie, go to band practice, & then make my way to Stranraer where we were to stay the night after my 7 PM set & interview. So having keys in hand & having said goodbye to the Donowhos, wishing Ali lucking in my own special way, we went in search for breakfast in the Dumfries town square.

I can’t recall the place we originally planned to dine but they were closed for whatever reason, so we ended up at Elevenses. I ordered a London Fog, which was on special, & Evan had a cappuccino, both were excellent! For breakfast I had the “Flower Of Scotland” which was basically their Full Scottish Breakfast, Haggis, Tattie Scones, & All! By the time we finished our brunch it was time to head over to the rehearsal space which was a studio just south of the town center.

We arrived just before noon where we were greeted by Ross who informed us that our guitarist for the day, Finlay, had unfortunately missed his bus out of Glasgow & was now running two hours behind. So we rolled with it. I played acoustic, Ross drums, & Ruairi played bass & we just went through the set top to bottom taking the time to make changes & corrections along the way. We had a brief break before Finlay arrived & we ran through the songs once more before throwing all of the gear in the rental & beginning the hour & a half trek to Stranraer.

If any of you have read my previous travel blogs in which I have travelled to The United Kingdom, you will know that I have a great love for a little smokehouse off the route to Stranraer/Port Patrick. It used to go by Marrbury Smokehouse but has since changed hands & now boasts the name OakHill Cafe & Deli. Their smoked salmon is still equally as delightful as before & feeling a bit peckish along the way we just managed to squeeze in before closing time to snag one of their incredible Smoked Salmon Sandwiches. Don’t worry, they pre-make them daily so we didn’t put anyone to work at closing time on our behalf.

We arrived in Stranraer around 5:15 & immediately headed to Agnew Park to check in. Having received our festival wrist bands, dropped gear, & squaring everything away with the festival promotion team, who are lovely by the way, we went to drop our stuff off at the hotel & get changed for the show.

My set was at 7 PM, as aforementioned above, but I think we ended up taking the stage closer to 7:10. I had planned a forty-five minute set that actually ended up being perfectly timed on my behalf actually cutting a few songs before we even rang the first notes. I did an acoustic set in the middle of the overall full band set just to break things up & give the band a bit of a break but over all I was more than happy with how the show went & how it turned out! After we finished I helped the guys pack up their things, took my guitar back to the room, & returned to enjoy the festivities.

Of course the OOTD photoshoot had to happen, so that was also a part of the evening. For my set I had wore an Oversized Jackson Brand White T-Shirt (RIP) under a Mauve Suede Zara Jacket with Light Wash Tellis AG Jeans (noticing a trend here?), & the Goodfellow White Trainers.

After the brief shoot I was due for an interview with Jinx Sullivan of DG9 Radio. I always enjoy my interviews with Jinx because she always asks the most interesting questions! When she last interviewed me she had brought a rolodex of questions that we just kept going through because we were having so much fun with the interview, I think it ended up being at least an hour long though. This time I think we ended up talking for 30-45 minutes, recorded that is, we continued to talk after for a long while before my hunger once again set in & I needed to search the streets for sustenance.

My first time in Stranraer I was introduced to Curry, Cheese, & Chips after my set. It was love at first bite & also somewhat very familiar due to its similarity to Poutine here in the States & Maneet Chauhan having Tandoori Chicken Poutine on her Chauhan menu. It felt like something I needed to carry on as a new tradition though. So with that in mind we ended up at Istanbul Kebab & Pizza House where we both got an order of Curry, Cheese, & Chips only this time with Kebab Chicken added to it! It smacked. Truly, truly smacked.

We hung around the festival a bit longer, taking in several of the other acts, before we headed back to the hotel to tuck in for the night. I suppose its also worth noting that what had started as an afternoon in the high seventies had ended in an evening in the high 40s, so we were also a tad freezing & caught unprepared for the chill.

End Of Day Three


END OF PART ONE

Blog: Well If It Isn't The Consequences Of My Own Actions...

TW: Transphobic Comments, Anti-LGBTQ Rhetoric, Strong Language

If you aren’t a listener of country music or if you don’t pay attention to news cycles, the events of the last week may have completely missed you. If you’re reading that first line going “yeah, I don’t have a clue what you could be alluding to,” allow me to fill you in. Failed artist & second wife to country singer (a gracious title at best) Jason Aldean, Brittany Aldean, posted something regarding trans/LGBTQ kids & in which she referred to the plight of trans kids & their desire for gender affirmation comparing it to a “tom boy phase” & being “glad he parents didn’t change her gender” when she went through it. To which the conservative side of the country industry all started pilling in on, her husband Jason even going so far as to say “yeah, I don’t think we would have worked out.”

Cassadee Pope called her out on twitter with the following tweet:

Maren Morris then joined in on the rhetoric & tweeted the following:

To which Fox News pundit & overall really atrocious human Candace Owens replied:

The two then went back & forth giving the following exchange:

“Artists” like Aldean & RaeLynn also begin sharing their support for Brittany’s remarks along with the wife of one hit wonder, Chuck Wicks, & Whitney Duncan.

Later country artist, Ryan Hurd, & subsequent husband to Morris also weighed in tweeting the following:

And round & round it went including RaeLynn spending a bachelorette weekend toting a “Daddy T” hat & owning the moniker of ‘Insurrection Barbie,” Aldean & Wicks dropping a fundraiser for victims of child trafficking through the sale of shirts that said “Don’t Tread On Our Kids” of which only part of the proceeds went to the charity in question, & Maren posting a reel of a speech she gave live at a show the evening of the happenings stating the following:

So why bring this all up? Why dedicate an entire blog to this infighting within the country music world? Well, because for once, there were consequences for the actions of those involved.

It’s not hard to guess what side of this argument I fall on. I struggle to find a member of my friend group & chosen family who do not belong to the Alphabet Mafia. I also want to make it clear that I’m not over here trying to be divisive or throw my hat into the ring where this argument is concerned, I want to highlight a point here & in actuality, maybe help bridge the wide ass political gap this country has at the moment.

Yesterday it was announced the GreenLight Publicity Firm, a firm that has worked with Jason for the entirety of his career will be dropping Aldean as a client, due to the harmful narrative that he & his wife helped to perpetuate this week. Now before you start going all “cancel culture this” & “cancel culture that” & “they’re trying to silence us” & “blah, blah, blah” let’s pause & examine shall we?

I have no issue with being politically opposed where issues of state & finance are concerned. I’m fine to sit down & have a conversation with someone who swings right about how we as a country spend our money or the advantages & disadvantages of certain social services, etc, etc. However, where the divide in this country has materialized is not about policy any longer, I will say in this instance the MAGA crowd is correct, it’s about morality only there within the Far Right lives a fallacy built on blame, name calling, & division. We are no longer voting along the lines of policy, we are voting along the lines of morality, & morality & human rights are not up for debate.

I don’t know if you as a reader have ever struggled with being a societal “other;” whether you’re BIPOC, or Queer, or an immigrant, or any combination of the above, it’s hard simply getting by day to day. It is no easy feat for a young individual to come to the conclusion that they are trans or non-binary. It is no easy feat to outwardly choose to expose & express yourself as a member of the “other” knowing full well you may face the ire of those who view themselves “morally opposed” to who you are as a person & human being. There in lies the line we as a society, are fortunately, starting to draw.

Things were bleak in the states for a while during the years of Trump especially for those in the societal minorities. I’m sure if you’re a long time reader of mine you can not the point when I stopped feeling the need to constantly report on the harmful policies being put in place. For those of us who exist on the fringe the last couple years have started to feel more & more hopeful, after four years of dread.

Along with this hope, especially in the last year or so, has come a return in what is becoming more or less socially acceptable & the morality of The US as a country has swung back more in the direction of progress & inclusivity as opposed to scapegoating & fear mongering. With this uptick in “um, that’s not okay” has also come the natural progression of people like Aldean seeing the consequences that hateful, ignorant comments will land you. Have a lot of his fanbase doubled down? Of course, it’s hard to change a mind through a news cycle but it is refreshing to see, especially in country music, someone get chastised for the harmful things they perpetuate & outwardly endorse.

I’ve never identified as a trans individual, I’ve have never felt any inkling that I was born in the wrong body, so I can’t imagine how hard of an identity that is to come to terms with. I’m sure a lot of you reading this fall in that boat as well, but imagine you’ve wrestled with who you are for the entirety of your life & finally have the clarity & peace of mind to express that outwardly. I can’t imagine what an uphill battle it must be just getting through the day to day with the filth people spew at you just for trying to claim your happiness & wholeness. I can’t imagine simply wanting to use a restroom & being assaulted both physically & verbally for it. I can’t imagine posting a picture where you finally see the person you’ve always known you were underneath & having people accost you over the internet. I simply cannot imagine it because it is outside of anything within my field of experience but I empathize with you. I stand with you. I recognize your struggle & am here to be whatever you need me to be.

We as a country, as a world, are sorely lacking empathy. We get so caught up in the “me, me, me’s” that we lose sight of the “us.” I’m glad these ignorant comments & harmful policies are no longer going unchecked. It’s how we build a world that is more inclusive & supportive of everyone, not just those who look, act, sound, & identify like us.

I’m sorry for the late posting on this, the jet lag really did me in this weekend but if you’d like to donate to help trans youth across the country Maren Morris is currently selling shirts where 100% of the proceeds go to the Trans Lifeline & the GLAAD Trans Media Project. I’ll post the link about it below:

As always I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend, much love to each of you. I challenge you this week to lean into your discomfort, to sit down & hear or read the story of someone whose life is on the societal fringe. Then I challenge you to find that glowing ember of empathy in your heart.

-C

I feel called to finish this off with a quote from the late Billy Block who would always close out his radio segment with “Remember, if you see someone without a smile, give them yours.”

Have a great holiday weekend!

Blog: Hello Seasonal Depression, Welcome Back I Guess...

TW: Depression

I honestly can’t recall what my original plan was for today’s blog. I’m certain I had it burning in the back of my mind all day until I had this prompt come zipping in. I know a lot of you who read these weekly installments of my life & thoughts also suffer from mental maladies like myself but for those of you who don’t understand seasonal depression & the way if informs your life I wanted to share this simple story.

It’s incredibly hard to explain but I can feel when autumn starts to slip in, the air & sunlight shift from the bright warmth of summer to the almost artificial feeling of the late summer/early autumn sun. Again, hard to explain, but the tinge of sunlight shifts from a bright, clear all encompassing hot to an oddly indirect yellowed glow. There’s something different in the way the air smells too, it gains a mustiness & a stuffiness.

If you have seasonal depression you know exactly what I’m talking about because it exacts a sense of overwhelming dread. You try to ignore it, but you can feel it in your bones. You can feel the sun slipping farther away & feel the days begin to shrink.

I imagine it’s a lot like how plants feel. They follow the sun from Spring into Summer & then are forced to put a pause on all of the progress & growth they’ve made with the abundance of light & retreat into themselves to winterize.

If you don’t have seasonal depression I imagine you read the above three paragraphs with a “WTF” kind of expression on your face or images of lunacy in your head but those I know with the same affliction as me can attest to this.

Anyway, I felt the sun start to slip away about a week ago, at least that’s when it became noticeable to me internally. I remember I was running errands & was outside & it just hit me out of the blue. I managed to push past the sense of dread for the time being but then it hit me again a few days later, & again this afternoon.

The dread isn’t the depression part, the sense of foreboding does not automatically equate “seasonally depressed” that’s where the next step comes in.

I was walking through the freezer section of Sprouts today, picking up some Paleo hot pockets when my Depression Kitty came walking down the aisle (Big Mouth reference, if you get it, you get it). She strolled right up to my wrapped around my shoulders & dissolved into my body & immediately I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed & not exist.

That’s more language that I’m sure is alarming to those with those blessed by the Serotonin Gods. When I say “crawl into bed & not exist” it has nothing to do with my will or lack of will to live, at least to me. I have no intentions of self harm, I just want to not exist, to dig a dark hole & lay in it for however long it takes. Again, I’m sure to a lot of you that sounds morbid but it’s the honest truth of how depression feels to me.

During depressive states I can lay wrapped up in bed doing absolutely nothing for hours. I don’t get bored or cry or anything, I simply lay & stare at the wall. I know it sounds SOOOOO productive to our Capitalist minds but existing in the void for a little while is what it is.

Do I wish I were different? That I wasn’t afflicted by it? Of course, but so do all who have to watch “normal” people live out there lives free of the hinderances of mental illness. It’s debilitating & the reason I write about it today is to help those of you who don’t understand to have a glimpse of what it’s like & for those of you that do, to know you have a kindred spirit in me who does understand.

One of the hardest things as someone who is both neuro-divergent & afflicted by SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is trying to make people who don’t have either understand what it’s like to be one of us. I have been blessed with the knowledge of words & the ability to convey things through them that I feel helps to put most of this in layman’s terms.

Being someone with SAD (so delicately named) can make you feel like an outsider, it can make you feel crazy, or truly detached from the world around you especially in Autumn & Early Winter. You are faced with a constant barrage of people who are so excited for the Fall or the Holidays; wearing sweaters, making soup, cozying up & you have to do your best not to let it hurt your feelings because to me & those like me, the colder months are a constant fight to keep your head above the surface, to not appear like a downer or an outsider. To people like me it often feels like celebrating the fall or winter is in some way celebrating the hardest time of the year from us & then rubbing it in our faces. Just like so many of you can’t relate to not loving all things autumn, we can’t relate to the feeling of liking it.

Let me be clear, this is not a “piss off, I don’t wanna hear about the things you like because they make me want to dissolve into a vapor,” type of post. I’m just trying to help you understand. I’m trying to help you see how your friends & loved ones who have SAD feel & maybe offer them a break or a little bit of patience.

Before I close out I know what the next line of this conversation will be; why don’t you get help? A lot of us do, myself included. During the cooler months my script for Bupropion switches from a base 150mg to 300 & that’s just to keep my head above water. There’s no simple answer to depression & what causes it & not every solution works for all of us. We still have days where just the act of getting out of bed is literally like hauling a piano up a flight of stairs even if you are medicated & at a healthy base line. Please be patient with us & know that even if we refuse your help, we always appreciate the ask. If you find yourself as someone who also finds the Earth’s gravity turned up to eleven during the cold, I see you & understand your pain. Help is out there & available, there are a ton of resources on line & many free clinics offered by civil services around the world. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, though I know how hard it can be at times.

Much love to you all as always,

Welcome to autumn I guess haha,

I’ll see you back here next week!

-C

Blog: Now You're Family

I swear this is my last blog about Fiji…unless you’d like it not to be, I’m sure I can squeeze another two or three stories & life lessons out of that amazing trip! For now I’ll leave you all with this blog in hopes that it leaves you as inspired & hopeful as the experience did me!

One thing I thing that ended up being very different from my expectation of Fiji was the reality of it. I think we’re often times, especially in the US, thought to view Fiji as the perpetual postcard; a place where no matter where you look you’ll find picturesque white sand beaches, palm trees, & crystal clear waters & while that does exist it is definitely an exception, not the rule.

Majority of the residents of Fiji live below, what we in the western world would deem, the poverty line. The housing of those who dwell on the islands often consist of tin roofed, one room homes with an outdoor kitchen & while I’m sure a lot of us would find this difficult, the Fijians don’t seem to let it dampen their spirits.

It’s true of a lot of tourism driven countries where the lives of those who were born & raised in said country live drastically different lives than what those visiting are presented with, it creates an odd disconnect. There’s a very odd feeling when you’ve spent x amount of dollars to fly halfway across the world, hop on a privately escorted shuttle service, & are being taken to a resort whose rooms are bigger than majority of the homes of those who reside there. It’s an odd disconnect when you’re met with something clearly meant to welcome visitors that often has an “off limits” feel to those whose country it is.

This is not the point of my blog, but I feel its worth mentioning in order to set the scene for what I want to talk about.

While riding in one of the aforementioned private escort shuttles to go river tubing I overheard a conversation between one of my fellow divers, Elaine, & our driver that day. Elaine had sat up front with the driver & the two had been talking for quite a while before he mentioned the following. He said to Elaine that even though the Fijians may not have the room or the food outright, there is always room at the table & room in the home for one more. That no matter how hard life appears they are always willing to sacrifice a little room or a little food for someone else. I soon found out this was a common feeling amongst the Fijian people.

I wish for the life of me I could remember our driver’s name that day, shame on me for forgetting the openness & outward kindness of a stranger, but he also mentioned that to Fijians, once you’ve been on to the islands once, you’re a part of them. He said that to his people each of us was now family & that at any given time their doors were open to us for as long as we wanted or needed.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if the rest of the world worked that way? Wouldn’t it be amazing if we all thought as such & acted as such? That no matter how hard things were for us, we always have the time & energy to embrace those who come knocking on our door & say “how can I help?”

You see it occurs to me that the people that have the most, the countries that have the most, are often the ones who are most cut off to helping their “family.” We were welcomed, graciously, into a home in a village with around twenty people. Asked to take a seat, to make ourselves comfortable, & were then offered a portion of the owner’s lunch. A lunch that he had to farm for six months to get to produce crop. He not only offered us up the portion, but the entirety of what he had to eat for that afternoon with a beaming smile & radiant joy! Why aren’t we all like that?

We, in the US, have so, so much. A lot of us do anyway. Yet we shut our hearts, homes, & borders off to those who desperately need to be welcomed, to be shown through the door, welcomed, & offered a plate & a seat at the table & if they are offered entry it’s usually with stipulations. You have to give your life to MY God, have to work towards MY system, have to do something for MY cause or life. Acts of kindness & support rarely come simply from the goodness of ones heart. We need to cut the divides, to cut the ego & the “I’m better than” attitudes, & proudly exclaim to those who come willingly to our door “now you’re family.”

I hope you have a fantastic weekend & find a little moment or two over the next week to make a stranger feel loved, even in the smallest capacity.

Much love to you all,

-C

Travel Blog: Fiji: Part Two- Sharks, Kava, & A Leisurely Float Down A River

Bula! Welcome back!

If you’re reading the above line & saying to yourself “welcome back?! To what?!” & if the giant “Part Two” in the title wasn’t clue enough there is a previous installment to this, my Fiji travel blog. If you haven’t given “Part One” a read I highly recommend you do so. I’ll attach the link to it below! Give that a read & swing back over here when you’re finished! Enjoy!

PART ONE


FIJI

PART TWO:

Day Five

Are we ready for it?! I know a lot of you who have been following this saga of travel were excited to get to today because today we’re talking about the SHARK DIVE!!!!!!

I did end up waking up at 6 AM to finish my vlogs as I mentioned I planned to do at the end of part one & I worked right up until 7 AM when it was time to once again descend the hill & eat breakfast. I chose to go back to Muesli that morning favoring something with a bit more variety to once again cross into the Beqa Passage seeing as my stomach had been fine the day prior. Not sure why I thought maybe it wouldn’t I’ve never been one who was prone to sea sickness. Our call time for the boat was fairly early as the dive site sat around forty-five minutes to an hour away from Waidorka.

A little background info on the shark dive site, Shark Reef Marine Reserve. Back before the site was declared a Marine Reserve by the government of Fiji it used to just be an ordinary strip of the Beqa Passage that fishermen would sure to drive from Suva or Pacific Harbor out to sea & fish. The fishermen, wanting to cut time from their required work load, would get to work gutting & cleaning their catch on the way back home for the night. During this time spent navigating the Beqa Passage the fishermen would dump the undesirable bits of fish of the boat into the water below. This naturally attracted sharks, which, over time, began to inhabit the Passage & congregate there because of the guaranteed meal. The Fijian government took notice of this & in an effort to increase tourism as well as lend a hand in shark conservation named a point in the passage as Shark Reef Marine Reserve. They sank several old boats there in an attempt to supplement the reef & give smaller, more reclusive species of sharks, spots to hide away, in addition to cutting some of the strong current so that divers wouldn’t simply be blown away while visiting. They also built what they deemed “The Arena.”

“The Arena” is a somewhat circular, sunken part of the reef. On the western edge of the arena the Fijian government has built a wall out of reef rock that sits about 2-3 feet high & goes the entire circumference of the western edge, beginning & ending on either end of the natural reef. In the middle of “The Arena” is a mooring site, however, this mooring site is not intended for boats, its intended use is to chain up a bin full of chum that will then be dumped into the arena once the day’s divers are in place, triggering a shark feeding frenzy. Some people have mixed feelings about “The Arena” & feel that it hinders the natural flow of the eco system causing the sharks to be dependent upon humans for food & allowing the fish populations to grow unchecked because the sharks don’t have to put out the energy to hunt them.

On the way out to the site Jodi informed us that unfortunately the reserve was only able to get a single bin of chum for the day. Typically they bring in two, one for each dive & you get to experience the madness twice but apparently the fishing boats came in light the night before & only had enough to fill one bin. The new plan was to dive the wrecks around the reef, then the reserve worker would bring in the one bin of food they had & essentially parade it around “The Arena” teasing the sharks into believing they’re about to get fed. Then things would go as previously planned for the second dive.

You know you’ve arrived at Shark Reef Marine Reserve because, ironically enough, the land adjacent to it looks like a shark fin jetting out of the island. We got to the site earlier than the boat from Pacific Harbor & earlier than the crew from the reserve so we had to sit around & wait a bit for them all while completely suited up because, as Jodi said, once the reserve crew roll up, it’s go time, they don’t wait on you at all.

While we were waiting the water began to become more & more active, more & more figures started to show up just below the surface. Nurse sharks. Completely harmless to humans, the nurse sharks at the reserve have begun swimming up to the surface when the dive boats moor under the impression that they’ll get fed for doing so, they never do. Dee, our captain, spotted the reserve boat coming on the horizon & it was time to get into the literal shark infested waters.

I’d be lying if I said I weren’t a bit nervous. I’d never done a shark dive before, nor had I ever been that up close & personal with such large predatory animals before. Let me be clear here, I’m not afraid of sharks, I think they’re severely demonized & misunderstood creatures, but I do hold a great deal of respect for them & understand the damage they’re capable of inflicting. All of that being said…I was the first in the water. The absolute first. I knew that the longer I waited the more the anxiety of anticipation would build so I just bit the bullet & took the plunge.

Immediately after I got into the water & grabbed ahold of the towline & looked down. The Passage was murky, probably visibility of around 40-50 feet but at the edge of that range I was a massive bull shark circling below, which much to my surprise, made me immediately excited.

Once we were all on in the water & on the line we began our decent. At around 25 feet we hit the top of the reef, sliding a little farther down the side we began to circumnavigate the outcroppings of rock & coral filled with fish. I was so preoccupied with the aquatic life to my right that I didn’t noticed the Bull Shark had returned & was passing a mere five feet to my right before carrying on around the reef.

We circled the reef ending up at the first sunken vessel in the passage. Turned upside down the hull was littered with little clusters of corals holding tight to the eroding metal. Around the side of the ship I found a massive pair of Green Filefish before turning to once again find the Bull Shark passing by. I wish I had pictures of both the Filefish & the Bull Shark passing to present to you all but I guess my camera had been off since the time of my decent til we got to the edge of “The Arena.”

We were all lined up against the wall of “The Arena,” knees planted on the sea bed. Elaine & I took up the far right end with Sam, our Fijian Dive guide behind us, & the rest of the group filled in along the row. Once we were all in place the diver from the reserve brought in the chum bin.

The chum bin was a massive yellow trash can with clips on the lid & a ten foot chain connecting it to the diver above. He carried it through the water like a marionette, rattling the chains & his dive rattle along the way to draw the fish in. He initially just hooked it to the mooring & chilled above it ringing his rattles but then went & unhooked it to carry it around the arena.

The Nurse Sharks were especially interested in the bin, diving over one another to get closest to the lid, while the Black Reef Sharks, Bull Sharks, Lemon Sharks, Black & Silver Tipped Reef Sharks, & remainder of the fish merely circled around the ring.

After being in aw of the sharks for around twenty minutes as the reserve diver maneuvered the trash can around, we began our ascend back to the boat. Elaine noticed that Sam had stopped to have an interaction with a Moray that I clearly missed because I was too entranced in a school of Spade Fish gathered by the boat mooring.

We surfaced, sat & ate through our surface interval & awaited instruction from the reserve workers on when it was feeding time.

During our surface time Elaine asked Sam about the Eel. He explained, much like the reserve does for the sharks, he feels the Eel in hopes of it sticking around & becoming less reclusive. He explained that over the span of several months he went from having the Eel hide from him to being able to hold it & feed it by hand. The Eel also comes out of the rock work exclusively for him when he comes to dive the site. He then asked if we wanted to pet it to which we both gave an exuberant “yes!”

Our second dive began with less meandering. We were in the water & guided straight down to the rock wall where we lined up in basically the same fashion, except that I got nudged further down the right side so that I was between the wall & the reef with literally about a foot of space total wiggle room. Once we were all lined up against the wall the diver from the reserve returned & began working to unlock the bin. He worked diligently at each of the clamps until at last all were free & be began to tug the chain that would overturn the garbage bin.

No sooner than he had gone to over turn the bin did a large rush of current sweep in to snatch the receptacle. The surge first carried the yellow can south before the chain went taught & began swinging it west towards us. It stopped about 20-30 feet directly in front of my & dumped the entirety of its contents. The sharks immediately went into a frenzy darting in & out of the mess of fish heads & scales. I couldn’t help but shrink a little. Here, less than thirty feet away from me were hundreds of sharks of all varying sizes, species, & temperaments fighting for food that was all blowing in my direction.

At one point a large Bull Shark got stuck in the bin & writhed around in it until it sprang free, several fish heads in its mouth. Another Bull rushed in, grabbed a collection of three large fish heads & began swimming directly at Elaine, Sam, & I closely followed by another Bull who was fighting to get one or two of the heads out of the other shark’s mouth. The picture here is the best I got of the kerfuffle, please note that my GoPro was tucked in at hip height so while it looks like they’re well above me, they were within a distance where I probably could have reached out & grabbed a fish head of my own. Sam had to bump the sharks away with a large metal hook & Elaine & I exchanged a “WTF was that” look before returning our attention to the Sharknado before us.

The feeding frenzy lasted around twenty minutes even calling in a reclusive White Tipped Reef Shark or two. There used to actually be a resident Tiger Shark as well named Princess, but she hasn’t been seen at the site since COVID kept the feeding crews away.

Once the sharks began to dissipate we were prompted to head back to our mooring for our safety stop. Sam stopped Elaine & I & prompted us to follow. He then took is to a little outcropping of the reef where a Green Moray came wiggling out of the rocks & proceeded to receive scratches from Sam. He then prompted Elaine to come over & give it a pat & a scratch before the attention was passed to me. I anchored on the rock & came in slowly being sure to stretch well over the apparent biting range of the Eel & gave it a few scratches at the back of its head.

The Eel felt completely different than I expected it to. You know how often times you think to yourself “yeah, I’m pretty sure my brain can piece together what that’ll feel like based on the things I’ve touched in my life?” Well the idea my brain had of what a Moray Eel feels like was completely off. First off it’s very mucus-y. The slimy part I’m sure a lot of you had pegged, but its skin almost has no tension to it, almost like poking the top of a jellyfish or feeling a thick plastic bag underwater except its covered in slime.

We departed from the Eel & made our way back to the mooring site, saying “hello” once again to the school Spadefish who hadn’t left their post since the last time we came through. After climbing back into the boat we headed back to the resort.

Lunch that day was a Pan-Fried Fish Salad. We planned another dive though the tide was quickly slipping out, so we chose something chill & local, “The Pond” again.

Returning to “The Pond” I had the same damn mask problems that plagued me at “Turtle Head" the day before. I made the best of it & cruised around “The Pond” with my dive buddies taking in the site.

I felt so bad because Elaine at one point motioned to me something that I thought was “Pillow Starfish.” Sleepy hands by her head & an explosion with her hands. She meant sleeping Pufferfish. So here I came, barreling over the reef, completely oblivious to the need to be sneaky & I scared it away. Thankfully we encountered another sleeping Pufferfish later on in the dive that I was wiser to not awaken.

It was Curry Night when we returned, something I & a few others in the group were beyond psyched for. Despite many grumbles from the group at large everyone seemed to at the very least remain fairly respectful & at least ate a large portion of the provided food. No one, to my knowledge, turned away the dish or asked for something else. The curry was wonderful too! Chicken Tikka Masala, Fijian Roti, Yellow Lentil Daal, & a Salted Caramel Pavlova for dessert!

I spent the rest of the evening combing through my shark dive footage, of which there was a lot, & compiling it into my vlog. It was another midnight with a 6 AM wake up call for me just to get it finished.


End Of Day Five




Day Six



Another late night of editing, another early morning to finish, Thursday we did actually get to sleep in a tad so what had become my normal 6 AM wake up & edit session was now able to be delayed an hour. After editing I went down for breakfast where I had Yaloka Niviti waiting for me. Yaloka Niviti is a Fijian breakfast dish consisting of eggs, black beans, feta, avocado, & chili sauce all wrapped in Roti, sort of like a breakfast quesadilla I suppose.

Our dive call was a little later than normal partially because of the tides for the day, partially because the sites we were hitting were all local. The first of which was “The Aquarium,” a dive the other boat did at the beginning of the week & raved about.

I understand why the other group raved about “The Aquarium” it is teeming with life both of the coral & animal variety. The site sits on the outer reef wall of Beqa Lagoon & is in the shape of a more front heavy curve. The corals there fluoresce with bold neon oranges, acid greens, highlighter yellows, & bright turquoise blues. The reef is covered in several intriguing mollusk species; Black & White Spotted Nudibranchs & even a Common Egg Cowry munching away on a leather coral.

I saw my first wild Clown Tang here as well, though I only caught a glimpse of it from the corner of my eye before it ducked under a rock. I did my best to idol by where it hid in hopes that it would come out but it only popped its head out once & the Tomato Clownfish who I’d taken up station by were getting pissed that I was so close to their beloved anemone, which was an impressive one at that.

Before I’d gotten distracted by pursuing the Clown Tang I found a little Gray Moray Eel, far less boisterous than Sam’s the day before. I had shared it with the group at that point & moved on. Farther along the curve of the reef that jutted a bit more into open water we discovered a male & female Great Pacific Octopus. I actually didn’t see the female until I was looking at video later, even though she was pointed out to me over & over again. Camouflage is dope!

Our second dive of the day was equally as spectacular, “Mata Point.” Despite going over the dive plan & agreeing that we would all start the dive going west with the reef wall on our right side we all got in the water & immediately headed east. After about ten minutes of confusion we all got straightened out & headed in the right direction which unfortunately ate into our dive time making it so we never made it all the way to “Mata Point” as originally intended. The dive was still gorgeous though!

The reef wall basically goes in a straight line until it curves into the point (I assume). The coral species here displayed the same vibrance as their “Aquarium” counterparts & there were an abundance of Halloween Flatworms! At one point Jodi found a quant little Saddlebacked Pufferfish tucked into the reef & I found a rather large Anemone Crab attached to the underside of a large anemone.

At one point during the dive a group of around five or six of us began hearing the aggressive rattle of someone’s dive rattle. We hadn’t noticed the rest of the groups disappearance but we were with Sam & each of us had our own dive buddies, so we were all a tad confused. We took it as a recall signal & all made our way back along the wall amongst the sea fans & anemones.

We found the boat with Jodi waiting next to it underwater banging her tank with her pointing rod. Some of the group had been running out of air & she was trying to locate the remainder of us, who were with Sam, to pull the dive.

While we were in our safety stop above the reef I found my second Clown Tang & this time I got quite a deal more time with it! It basically circled me over & over, both curious & cautious. It would duck into crevices, hide, the jut out & swim to the next spot. But back into the boat & back to the resort we all went.

Lunch was a “Hangover Burger” served poolside which was topped with Onion Jam, Tomato, Bacon, Lettuce, Cheese, & a Fijian BBQ Sauce made at the resort. I enjoyed it there while catching a few rays & sipping my ritualistic post dive cup of tea.

Our afternoon dive was to be the last dive of the trip. We headed back out to do an exploratory dive, that simply means the dive is uncharted & the guides don’t know it's ins & outs. We knew at some point that the current would come in so we anticipated the drift. We were dropped at one end of the reef wall & Captain Dee was meant to meet us down the line. So was the plan…

The dive was outstanding, the corals especially. I stumbled upon a bed of deep blue anemones that played host to a whole colony of assorted Clownfish, a large cluster of Alveopora (flower coral), & mountains of leathers & maze corals.

It was then that we hit the wall. Not a literal wall, but a current wall. It came in hard & fast & halted any & all progress we were making down the reef. The decision was made to turn around & head back to where we had begun our dive in hopes that Dee would see the signs & the current shift & anticipate the new plan.

On our way back I was so mesmerized by the corals that I was almost completely run over by a large Hawksbill Sea Turtle. I ducked out of its way as well as I could in the water & waves & watched it go along its merry way on the top of the reef.

When it was time to surface I got put in charge of deploying our SMB or Safety Sausage from the depth of what would be our safety stop. We swam out to see til neither the reef nor the bottom were visible & I deployed to sausage up to the surface to signal Dee of where we all were.

DISCLAIMER: IF YOU ARE MY MOTHER OR FATHER PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH OR THREE!

We waited well past the three minutes prescribed for our safety stop all the while never hearing the ringing hum of the boat motor as it got closer, so we all cautiously surfaced. Dee hadn’t seen the bright yellow SMB, nor had he anticipated the change of plans. He still sat very far away at the other end of the reef facing the opposite direction. Our dive time was meant to be around forty-five minutes but the site ended up being deeper than we’d anticipate & we’d only been under for around thirty-five minutes or so. Naturally Dee hadn’t begun looking for us yet.

The winds & waves had picked up with the current though which easily drowned out the several whistles being blown. At around five minutes into our surface time we had all inflated SMBs & were waving them in the air in a futile effort to get his attention. Given different circumstances we honestly probably would have looked & sounded like a rave; different colored neon flashing in the air with whistles, rattles, & shouting.

It wasn’t until our allotted dive time was up that Dee began looking for us, which, after he turned around he quickly found us. By the time Dee picked us up we had drifted well away from our initial ascent spot & it had been about ten to fifteen minutes spent trying to make as much noise as we could.

Was it terrifying? Surprisingly no. We actually were having a pretty good time all things considered. I can’t speak to Jodi or Sam but I know the rest of us were rather enjoying the float. When we got on board of the dive boat again Jodi explained that a few months ago she had been the private dive guide to an elderly couple & the three of them had gotten swept out to sea. It took them around thirty to forty minutes to be found at which point Jodi had said she was starting to panic. All the while the elderly couple was laughing, taking pictures, having a blast. It must be the plight of the dive guide to fear for your clients.

I really wish I could remember the major highlights of the rest of the evening but I can’t seem to. I know we spent the time after we returned from the dive fresh water washing our gear & packing it all up from the storage spots we’d had all week, I know I sat & edited in the cabana by the pool, but I can’t for the life of me recall what was for dinner or what the rest of the evening looked like so I guess that’s all I have for you on day six. Kind of an anti-climactic ending I know.

End Of Day Six


Day Seven

With no more diving to do it was time to retrieve our gear. Well, that which we hadn’t already snagged the night before. This mostly consisted of BCDs, Regulators, & Wetsuits which had all been hung to dry over night in the dive shop. I packed up majority of my scuba gear but allowed my BCD & wetsuits more time to hang dry in the shower of my room.

Breakfast was the Full Fijian, a tropical twist on the Full British that I’m sure was a remnant of the colonizers. Yes it consisted of baked beans, cooked tomatoes, bacon, toast, eggs, etc but also came with the Fijian touch of fresh tropical fruits.

For those of you that were unaware, you aren’t supposed to dive less than 24 hours before a flight, that doesn’t mean we spent the day twiddling our thumbs or even dry for that matter.

Many of us had booked a day of River Tubing & Cultural Exploration.

Our van picked us up around 9 AM & we headed East through Pacific Harbor towards Suva. We stopped in Navua where we boarded long boats that took us up stream. Each long boat held around five people, captain & guide included & there were several times in which we had to vacate the longboat to trek along the shore because the water was too low to accommodate the weight of all of us.

About an hour up river we were escorted into a small village called Sabata. A village with around nine buildings, Sabata had joined up with the tubing company in a mutually beneficial partnership to show people how a lot of Fijians still lived. Our guide took us first to a home atop the hill where cassava was being cooked & palm was being stripped to make grass mats. He showed us the outdoor Fijian kitchen & then took us into the one room home.

The owner of the house graciously offered us some of his food, boiled cassava & then took a picture with us, showing us around his house. We then met the chief & the mayor of the town before being shown through their cassava & taro fields back to the longboat.

We ventured down the river in the long boat for about ten minutes before we pulled over & were escorted up a path, along a stream to a beautiful waterfall! The falls poured water into a dark pool below & it honestly reminded me a lot of the waterfall that Evan & I swam in back near Hona in Maui. I got into the water without hesitation, the rest of the group, not so much, even despite my reminding them “when is the next time you’re going to have a chance to swim in a beautiful waterfall in the middle of the rainforest in Fiji?”

After our guides cliff jumped into the waterfall it was time for lunch which was served in the Guava Grove back along the shore where we’d excited the river. Lunch was traditional Fijian. Kokodo (a Fijian Ceviche, Stewed Fern, Pineapple, Grilled Chicken Drumsticks, Salad, & a very spice heavy Sausage with White Bread were all on the plate.

I bothered one of the guides into picking us some fresh Guava which we joyously shared amongst the group.

After lunch it was time to tube. We got our safety briefing from Rosie, the owner, & we all clambered into our respective tubes before setting off down the river.

The guides had requested that we all try to link up, that way no one ran the risk of getting lost or left behind, & we were less likely to tip going through rapids.

Most of the river was a pleasure cruise, leisurely & calm. We hit rapids two or three times, the last of which was by far the largest. As someone who has whitewater rafter many a time in my life, I’ve got to say that going down some minor class rapids in an inner tube is a tad intimidating.

After we were through with all of the rapids the staff began singing to us. They sang traditional Fijian songs, Fijian church songs, & songs of farewell. We then climbed back into the long boats & headed back down to Navua where we got out, changed, & climbed back into the van to be taken back to Waidroka Bay.

Along the way we were all feeling snack-y, especially for ice cream, so we asked our driver to stop at a gas station or something comparable to get some treats. He took us to a newly opened Korean Supermarket. We were like kids in a damn candy store.

I have a massive sweet tooth, & candy is my weakness which, at that point, I hadn’t indulged in over a week. Poor me, I know. So I went HAM on the snack section of the grocery store. I got Sour Stripes, Gummy Colas, a Cadbury Fruit & Nut Bar, a Magnum Ice Cream Bar, a pre-mixed Bounty Rum & Cola, & a bag of Calbee Honey Butter Chips (a Korean fad food that I’d actually squeezed into a song a week or so prior)! All of this amounted to a grand total of around $12 USD. I guess it’s true, sugar is cheap.

When we returned I went back up to my room to begin packing & take a little bitty nap, being on the river all day in the sun really saps you.

Around sunset I made my evening cup of tea & went down to sit on the dock & watch the Fijian sunset one last time over the shallows. I was then brought up to the cabana by the pool for a Kava ceremony, complete with more Fijian Music!

Kava is a member of the pepper family. It is traditionally used socially as a drink to be shared. Kava actually has many beneficial medical properties & has been found to drastically reduce anxiety & stress. The Fijians say alcohol winds you up, Kava settles you down. In Fijian culture Kava is a social beverage brewed by hand in a large bowl called a Tanoa. The dried, ground Kava root is placed in a sack where it is kneaded into water before being dished out. Traditionally when handed a cup of Kava you are to say “Bula,” clap your hands once, shoot the contents of the cup, finishing it in one go, & then clap three more times.

I would describe the taste of Kava as reedy. If you ever played a woodwind instrument & had to suck on a reed before playing, it’s almost exactly that taste only a bit more peppery. The effects of Kava are interesting as well.

A lot of people in the western world equate Kava to Peyote or Ayahuasca but Kava is neither a stimulant nor is it psychoactive. It does kind of leave the roof of your mouth buzzing but it truly puts you in a state of deep calm & serene happiness. I drank four full cups of Kava that evening & probably would have loved more! It was a wonderful experience!

After the Kava ceremony & dancing around the cabana like fools we retreated for dinner. Much like lunch, dinner was also traditional Fijian, seeing as it was our last night in Fiji. Served buffet style we had Pan Seared Marlin, Taro, Cassava, Sweet Potato, Coconut Creamed Spinach, Kokodo, Topoi coated in Sweet Coconut Cream, Chicken, & Pork. After dinner the Resort staff came & sang to us before sending us off to bed.

Almost as soon as I got up the hill the power went out. We would later find out it was because a tree had fallen on a power line, but the whole bay was a deep black darkness, the moon being hidden behind clouds. The Fijians, who had never stopped singing even after we left, didn’t seem to mind the darkness & continued their deeply harmonized chorus into the winter night.

I noticed a pocket of stars poking through the clouds & sought to take advantage of probably the darkest place I’ll be in my lifetime. I turned my phone to high exposure & snapped pictures of the sky capturing stunning glimpses of the cosmos simply from an iPhone.

Power was partially restored as we switched to a generator & I drifted off to sleep not long after.

End Of Day Seven


Travel Blog: Fiji: Part One-Beqa Lagoon

Prologue

I started my trip to Fiji not in my normal Nashville place but instead in Los Angeles. The group I was going with, Midwest Aquatics, had booked out a group of tickets through Fiji Airways out of LAX so I went out about a week early to acclimate to the time change & get a bit of work done. It was good I went out early as I got to catch up with friends, had a few very productive meetings, & ended up having time to finish some coursework for specialty certifications I was getting as well as acquire the necessary equipment that I hadn’t realized I was lacking in my diver’s tool box. If you read my previous two blogs you’ll know that I was beyond excited for this trip to Fiji & could barely sit still in anticipation of its arrival, which, of course, it finally did! Shall we dig into it?



FIJI

PART ONE:


Day One

It’s a rather interesting experience flying across the international date line. We departed the US on our flight to Fiji at 11:55 PM PST on Thursday, July 14th, we then missed the entirety of Friday, July the 15th as, across the international date line where Fiji lies, it was already Saturday, the 16th. A very off experience to miss a day in its entirety. We all ended up not receiving the seats we had called & requested, each of us having spent about an hour on hold with Fiji Airways listening to the same song on repeat over & over, but they had bunched our group into the same couple handfuls of rows, so the awkwardness of sleeping next to a stranger on a red eye was eased. I was placed next to Roland in a middle seat though, much to our excitement, our aisle ticket holder never showed & I happily got to shift over, leaving the middle space blank for both of us to pile on items we wanted within reach & commandeer the absentee’s leg room.

I barely slept on the ride out. Call it nerves or simply sheer lack of comfort, but for whatever reason it evaded me. I think max I got three to four hours out of our eleven hour flight, all the while fading in & out of music & movies I’d downloaded to my iPad.

We arrived in Fiji before the sun around 5:45 am. Greeted by the upside down moon & a large line at customs we slowly made our way to the transport, collecting luggage & exchanged currency along the way. I was the last to make it onto the transport van having sought out coffee & an atm while everyone else in my group had gone through the exchange.

Once we were all crammed into the van we began our two-ish hour trek from Nadi to Waidroka Bay Resort. Along the way & towards the beginning of this ride our driver drove us by the gorgeous Sri Siva Subramaniya Swami Temple & explained that nearly one third of the Fijian population is that of Indian decent whose ancestors had been brought in by the British to farm sugar cane. Formerly going by Indo Fijians, the newest Fijian President, Wiliame Katonivere, had recently declared all “Indo Fijians” as simply Fijians in an attempt to neutralized divisive language amongst his people.

Around an hour further down the road we passed through out driver’s home town, a small fishing village on the southwest coast of the island, before making our way to Vatukarasa to stop at Baravi Handicrafts & Cafe for a stretch break & a little sustenance.

Baravi is an interesting duck of a place. Majority of the store is a gift shop specializing in goods made by Fijians most for tourists; lali, carved masks, tanoa fai’ava, apparel, jewelry, ornate paddled & clubs, etc. Then tucked opposite, in the front corner of the store with a window to walk up from the outside is the cafe portion. I ordered two hand pies, butter chicken & paneer & corn, under the presumed assumption we wouldn’t linger long in addition to an iced coffee, served blended, & a bottle of sparkling coconut/pineapple drink. The hand pies were out of this world incredible! The crust was flaky & the filling was moist & rich. I definitely think I preferred the butter chicken one but maybe that’s just the white boy in me talking.

We lingered a little longer at our stop than I think we all had anticipated. Across the street a small village had set up food stalls of their own to compete with the cafe. They sold fresh fruit & boiled corn, though I got the vibe the menu changed seasonally based on availability. We all loaded back up in the van & headed onward to Waidroka.

Waidroka Bay Resort sits on the other side of a small coastal mountain range, something a van full of twenty three people might struggle to reach from time to time & though the main highways in Fiji are paved, the singular road going in & out of the bay was not. The radio station our driver had selected was an eclectic one for sure, playing anything from southern gospel to country to modern pop & 80s hits. The irony of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was not lost on any of us as the van struggled to crest the mountain, we truly thought at a few different points we’d need to get out & push.

Finally on our decent we bobbled our way down into the resort where we were greeted by the two Scottish managers. They informed us all that our rooms weren't quite ready & that the group before us was still yet to leave but that we should hang out, place our lunch orders, & they would take care of our baggage & seeing it o our proper rooms in due time. I ordered the “catch of the day” before making my way down to the ocean, shocker, I know.

The tide had gone out during out voyage so silty mangrove shores stretched out for hundreds of yards past the etched coast line. Tide pools & fading estuaries dotted the terrain from the dock where the dive boats where now run a ground to the edge of the reef, far out past the exposed sand bed. The pools were teeming with life & one of the first things I came upon was a lagoon triggerfish trapped in water only about two inches or so deep. I asked Darin & Elaine if I should move it to the channel about fifty feet away seeing as I have experience handling live fish having managed reef tanks most of my adult life but the consensus was that the tide was returning & the porcelain bodied, strikingly painted fish would soon be able to return to sea. So off we all went in our separate directions to explore further pools.

Despite the numerous damsels, gobies, sea cucumbers, clams, corals, & starfish I came across I couldn’t shake the trigger & intuition got the best of me, which I’m glad it did. See the clouds had dissipated & while, yes the tide was returning, so too had the sun which had begun to dry out the innumerable tidal pools. About twenty minutes or so after our initial encounter I made my way back to where I believed the triggerfish to be & found it now sideways laying the same pool, now only about an inch deep. I decided to move it. Grasping the fish firmly, but delicately, holding it so that my index finger maintained its “trigger” I lifted the fish from its rapidly evaporating refuge & took it tide pool by tide pool all the way back to the channel. The trigger lingered a little when I placed it back in open water before darting out through the channel. I then made my way back through the muck to the resort for lunch.

After washing my feet I sat down to dine. The catch was Marlin, pan seared, sat atop a bed of fresh Fries, served with Fiji Lime & Tartar. It was delicious! I was then escorted up to my room, a sixty-four step climb back up the hill where room fifteen met me at the far end of a line of motel style rooms that shared a common porch/walkway. The view from my room was outstanding & it overlooked the entirety of the bay! I sorted my baggage & put my clothes in the wardrobe before collecting my dive bag & heading down to meet Jodi, our dive guide, with it all.

We had been sorted into two separate boats, that with those requiring special access for entry & exit of the water went on the Explorer with James, Jodi’s husband & fellow resort dive guide. I was placed on the other with Jodi as the ladder was a bit wobblier & we a few of us had specific tasks to complete for our different specialty certifications we were getting on the trip. Each boat was issued a briefing time & told to bring our BCDs (Buoyancy Compensator Device) & Regulators down for the staff to have set up & ready to go in the morning when we departed on our first dives. After our check-in & getting all of my gear situated I climbed back up to my room for a little jet lag nap before dinner.

I tried to keep my nap brief as I still wanted to sleep that night & in spite of my body begging me just to succumb to the slumber I managed to get up! Not feeling entirely social & in a state of calm I returned to the shoreline, where the tide had returned, & meditated atop a large chunk of lava rock next to an overturned palm tree. I exited my meditation to the sounds of fish catching insects in the shallows & found a large colony of fiddler crabs had emerged from the sand to wave their dominant claws at one another.

The Lali for dinner was beat & I returned to the main part of the resort to be met with a dinner of Stuffed Chicken with Cassava, Veggies Samosas, & Chocolate Donuts before pushing my way into my room barely able to keep my eyes open. I think I ended up falling asleep around eight or nine that evening.


End Of Day One







Day Two

I woke up on day two fair early. My body naturally said “time to go” around 6:30 AM Fiji time which is 1:30 PM Central US, hence why my body said “enough of this, up we go!” The kitchen didn’t open until around 7 AM for breakfast so I sleepily shuffled around my room collecting things I would need for the day for that thirty minutes time. The weather was a touch on the rainy side, which I’d come to learn if often far more common than sun in Fiji, but that didn’t me from stopping to take some pictures of the local Syngonium species growing in the run off ditch at the bottom of the hill.

The breakfast I had requested was Topoi, a local Fijian dumpling. The way breakfast & lunch worked at the resort was that the night prior you’d be handed a menu & prompted to choose your breakfast the next day right after finishing your three course dinner. The same went for lunch only you were asked to put in your order after finishing up your breakfast. Back to Topoi. Served with sliced fruit & a small ramekin of peanut butter, topoi is a dumpling made of Cassava & Coconut. It is similar in taste & texture to that of the southern American varietal of drop biscuits found in Chicken & Dumplings. The reason I chose this breakfast is simple. Why go somewhere you’ve never been to eat the same things you eat every day? In addition to choosing the dumplings simply out of curiosity I also got them somewhat at the behest of Elaine, my instructor & dive buddy for the week, who chooses Banana Pancakes on the days she dives especially if the distance required to travel to the dive site is farther by boat than normal. The reason? In addition to being a great source of carbohydrates, something you need when diving, bananas taste the same going either direction…

Our call time wasn't til 9 so we all sat around the table telling stories until it was time to go. It was a late start simply because the weather was up in the air. Jodi had decided to take us to a dive site called “The Pond.” She’d chosen this site for a number of reasons.

  1. It was inside the reef & thus offered protection from the swells & winds the storm had brought in, literally making a bowl shaped, mostly sandy, retreat on the other side.

  2. Some of us were working on Low Visibility & Night Dive Specialty Certifications, it would be murkier with the weather & thus qualify.

  3. It’s a nice introductory dive to get reacclimatized to diving after having spent a whole days worth of time in travel mode.

I have to admit I got a little bit of FOMO when our dive site was announced because the other group was headed deeper into Beqa Lagoon. However, the weather said otherwise & the other boat ended up diving “The Aquarium,” a dive we would hit towards the end of the week.

“The Pond,” in addition to providing a respite for us, also offered one for the aquatic life around the lagoon, typically playing host to White Tip Reef Sharks, Sea Turtles, Breeding Chromis & Damsels in addition to Dogfaced Pufferfish. The only of the three we ended up seeing that day were the latter. As I said, “The Pond” is a bowl tucked on the inside of the reef wall, its sandy slopes are covered in boulders that host colonies of Lettuce Coral & Birds Nest. These then play host to the mating fish of the reef & hide Green Chromis & Domino Damsels all throughout their overlapping structures.

We ended up diving “The Pond” twice that day as the weather prevented us from going out onto the other side of the reef. During those two dives we saw a Great Pacific Octopus, a Maculiceps Tang, a ton of Scopas Tangs, several species of Butterflyfish, the only Goniopora Coral I saw all week, a Halfmoon Triggerfish, & the sites resident Sewing Machine (mark that as the weirdest thing I’ve ever found on the bottom of the ocean).

We headed back to the resort ahead of the weather & just in time for lunch. I took my lunch poolside & got a cup of Pumpkin & Coconut Soup with a Ham Melt Sandwich. During my time by the pool in the little sunshine we had that day I managed to befriend a rather curious little female Jumping Spider. She came & sat on my knee looking up at me before I’d scoot her into my hand & set her on the ground next to me just for her to come back over & over again, so I decided to let her stay & we enjoyed our lunch in the sun together.

Naptime rolled around with the rain. Our third dive was called off & up the hill I went to crash for a bit of time & start editing the GoPro footage I had accumulated over the day.

After my nap I decided I’d be a little more social, so I returned to the main lobby/dining hall of the resort. There I was met by Elaine, Billy (one of the Fijians working there), & Kai (the owner’s daughter). Elaine & Billy were in the process of teaching Kai how to bartend as she would soon have to be the one to do it in a few of the staff’s absence in the coming months. Elaine was writing out a list of basic drinks & recipes as she’d at one point owned a bar & we all got to be the guinea pigs for Kia’s bartending experience. I got handed a blended Papaya Daiquiri which was refreshing & light before then being passed a drink Elaine & Kai had come up with called a “Safety Stop,” a fruity rum drink with a cherry floater halfway submerged. If you’re a diver you already get the joke, if not allow me to explain (divers may skip ahead to next paragraph). A safety stop is a 3-5 minute hold spent around 15 feet below the surface. The purpose of the safety stop is to allow your body to expel some of the nitrogen that has been forced into your body due to increased pressure. It helps prevent decompression sickness a.k.a the bends.

After a dinner of Veggie Tempura, Pan Fried Marlin, & assorted fruits alongside a Rum Negroni, it was time for bed. I wrapped up my editing, posted my travel vlog video, & was out before the clock struck nine.


End Of Day Two






Day Three

Now entering Monday, I was awoken around 6:30 AM once again, this time by the sound of a screeching Masked Parrot perched atop a tree just off the side of the hill. The sun had risen & the rain had cleared so I made my way down to breakfast. My meal that morning was Muesli, a dish that I had been introduced to in the past by my former manager. The Muesli at Waidroka was less of an overnight oat & more of a cereal with a plethora of topping. Yogurt, honey, bananas, raisins, papaya, etc. It was amazing & quite filling though I think I owe part of my fullness to the endless supply of tank bread (fruit bread in the shape of a tank) that came with each breakfast.

Our dives were at “Pipes,” just off shore from the reef wall. “Pipes” in addition to being a great dive site, is also a rather attractive surfing stop, in fact that’s where it received its name. To us it was appealing not only for the abundance of corals & sea life, but also because Dave, my other dive buddy, & I needed to get down below 100 ft for our deep diving certification.

Upon our initial entry into the water I became immediately overwhelmed. Not anxious or panicky, but aghast at the amount & diversity of the corals that lay below me. “Pipes” was truly a spectacle & I couldn’t help but smile for at least the first 10-20 minutes of the dive.

We pretty quickly got to work plummeting down into the deep. Elaine, Dave, & for some reason Darin, Deb, & I all made our way over the drop off & down into the deep reaching around 108 ft. before beginning our slow ascent back up to the main part of the reef. I think Deb & Darin were simply following us, not because they were after the certification, lord knows Darin most likely already has it being a dive shop owner, but because they thought we were following the rest of our group. In any case, Deb was now just lacking the coursework to check off her Deep Dive certification.

At “Pipes” I found a gorgeous bubble tip anemone in addition to the only Powder Brown Tang I saw the whole trip, which just happened to be at depth! The reef teemed with life from Moorish Idols to Regal & Lemonpeel Angelfish to Firefish & Leopard Wrasse.

We dove “Pipes” twice before heading in to shore for lunch. During our surface intervals we sat drinking coffee, eating muffins, cookies, & apples, watching the surfers take in the surface enjoyment through a light drizzly rain that made way for a magnificent rainbow.

On our second dive we crossed the 80 ft requirement for the Deep Diving cert. Deb joined once again. I contributed to my daily bit of ocean conservation when I pulled a busted size 11 flip flop from the sand that a massive sea cucumber was attempting to eat. We also found a shining example of bubble coral nestled just opposite of a huge saddle anemone.

My lunch that day was a Fish Wrap served with a side of Island Slaw, a very cucumber heavy dish. No spider accompanied my mean but there was a rather large moth outside the dive shop when we initially returned. I also began my daily practice of post dive tea time; English Breakfast with a spoonful of sugar & a splash of milk. Really warms the bones from the chilly deep.

We were given the go ahead to trek out for another dive which we decided would be a return to “Pipes” only this time we would drift dive the portion that is normally surfed & end up tucked away from the current where we originally began. This is where we spotted our first Turtle of the trip! Off swimming in the current, lazily bobbing along, a turtle! Unfortunately the afternoon churn & our distance from it kept me from getting a good video/picture but it is there if you go back & watch the day three video from my TikTok or Instagram!

In addition to the turtle the wall was covered in beautify Zoanthid polyps & teaming with larger reef fish like Grouper, Snapper, & Squirrel Fish.

Dinner was Coconut & Pumpkin Soup with a Marinated Pork Chop & Ice Cream for dessert. I sat a few long, extra hours at the table editing video for the daily vlog before I began the sixty-four step climb to my room.

The frogs were out that night, massive tree frogs that came out to bask in the warmth of the concrete all while attempting to attract a mate.

I’m pretty sure I stayed up rather late editing, going to bed around Midnight instead of 9 or 10 PM.

End Of Day Three








Day Four

Tuesday started a little groggier than the previous. With more dive footage came more required for combing through hours worth of footage to find several one to three second blurbs to fit into my vlogs. I’m not complaining though, I’m beyond happy with how my vlogs turned out!

It was a clear day that we started earlier than normal because we were off to dive Beqa Lagoon proper! I started my day once again with Topoi as we had to brave the choppiness of the Beqa Passage between the main island of Fiji & Yanuca Island on the western edge of Beqa Lagoon.

As I said, the morning was a much quicker one, the wind was due to pick up in the afternoon making the Passage more & more difficult to navigate in our small dive boats, so our call time sat just on the other side of breakfast, the staff even arriving thirty minutes earlier to accommodate us.

Our first dive in the lagoon was called “Pinnacles” so named because of the labyrinth of pinnacle rock formations jutting up from the sand below which now house millions of individual plant, fish, coral, & invertebrate species.

Upon entering the water we were immediately greeted by a curious Remora. For those of you that don’t know, a remora is a fish with a sucker on the top of its head that attaches to larger pelagic aquatic animals such as whales, turtles, sharks, & manta rays. Seeing a remora is usually a sign that something big is swimming near by unless, as this one was trying to do, they see you as the bigger aquatic life & attempt to suction onto you for a ride, something I’ve heard is far from fun.

The Remora quickly lost interest in us & we began our dive. Wrapping around the first pinnacle we found an abundance of Sea Fans & Whips, Christmas Tree Worms Basket Starfish, & two massive Clown Triggerfish. We wove in & our of the different Pinnacles throughout the dive though I stayed around 5-8 feet above everyone else, my left ear failing to equalize the the pressure below that depth.

When it was time for the group to make our safety stop we were moved to the top of one of the largest pinnacles. The abundance of life just atop the large, looming tower was extraordinary. Hard corals abounded with damsels darting in & out of their folds, Male Lyre-tail Anthias flashing their displays, fighting over territory & harams of females, & the current swinging us all violently to & fro, now entirely unprotected by the walls below.

We took the opportunity of our surface interval to dip out of the wash & into calmer waters. We pulled over to the abandoned surf camp on Yanuca & claimed it as harbor while we sat around sun bathing & eating our carb heavy snacks. I took the time to tend to my clearly clogged sinus in preparation & hope that it would clear for the next dive ahead. My efforts were fruitful!

The original plan for dive number two of the day was to do a site called “Three Nuns” as the three massive pinnacles there resembled, you guessed it, three nuns. About halfway out the Fijians called it though & diverted to “Turtle Head” a dive site not as close to the passage where winds & waves had picked up exponentially.

“Turtle Head” is so called because one of the large pinnacle towers there jets out into the water reminiscent of a Hawks-Bill Sea Turtle. I personally didn’t see the turtle head during the dive, maybe it was because I was distracted by the incredible life found there but was definitely also partially to do with the fact that I spent the whole dive fighting my mask which had taken up the hobby of fogging during our surface interval. Well, that & the waves had kicked up quite a deal of sediment. None of that to say that the dive was a bust however, far from it.

In spite of the rather constant annoyance my mask was generating & the face I had to fill & clear it almost forty-five seconds, the dive was still incredible. We found several very large Porcupine Pufferfish, another Octopus, & a Trumpetfish, in addition to all of the coral & fish dotting the reef & its many tunnels that would have made great swim throughs if not for the fragile nature of the sea fans inhabiting them.

The top of the “Turtle Head” pinnacle was even more teeming with life though so too was the surge. It was truly a fight getting back into the boat even despite having the mooring line to hold tight too while being slung back & forth across the reef.

Lunch was Teriyaki Chicken Fried Rice served from the beach of the old surf camp. After paying a local $10 Fijian per person to a local islander we all climbed off the boat onto shore & gathered in the bar/mess hall of this now abandoned surfer camp, a location the island locals have helped to upkeep because it has since become a hot spot for dive boat lunches.

Another very popular surf spot, Frigates, is just off shore from the island, on the western edge of the Beqa Lagoon. Frigates is one of the top surf spot in the world, bringing people from all over to cruise its wave. This surf camp featured facilities for surfers to bunk in, running water, a full kitchen, etc. However, they decided at one point to stop paying rent to the locals who in turn kicked them out.

After lunch & failing to husk a coconut on the beach, I swam out to the boat for my mask. A beautiful reef say just off the shore & me being the fish I am, I had to explore it. This then gave Jodi an idea for our third dive. We would be doing a shore dive, starting just outside the little harbor & ending right before the shoreline. So I guess not technically a shore dive where you enter & exit from the shore.

This dive, which we named “Papaya Seed” because of the random swatches of papaya seeds all over the surf camp, was very reminiscent of my first ever dive in Maui with the exception that I think the water was a little more clear on this dive. The sparse reef was home to Massive Seacucumbers, Many a Cleaner Wrasse & their respective cleaning stations, Pillow Starfish, Queen Conches, Clams, Triggers, & Tangs & the dive ended up being a very relaxed, very quant one!

The journey back through the chop was a rough one & I was thrilled we ended up not being smack dab in the middle of it with “Three Nuns.” We were greeted back at the dive shop by the resort cat before I once again began the editing game for my vlogs.

The evening was meant to be a cultural night at the resort, of which I was unaware until one of the Fijian dancers, Sam Sam, came up behind me to fetch a spear from the building overlooking the harbor where I’d taken up residence with my post-dive tea & my iPad, just editing away.

The Fijians all circled up & sat by the pool bringing us all in to a group half circle to watch the festivities. They explained to us the dances & songs they’d be singing & then the party began. A group of young Fijian men rushed the “stage” they’d allotted & began their traditional dances. They ranged in age from early twenties to about eight to ten & the littlest ones constantly looked to their superiors for the next moves. After the dancing & singing we were moved to the main building of the resort where a line up of traditional Fijian foods awaited us.

I took way too much food & ate the lot of it which caused me to spend the duration of my evening editing very, very full. I ended up wrapping around midnight again but without finishing the video. I determined it would be better for me to wake up early the next day & finish which is precisely what I did.

End Of Day Four


END OF PART ONE

Blog: Pre-Ji (A Pre-Fiji Blog)

For those of you that don’t follow me on my socials I for starters am not sure how you even made it here, but welcome! Give this a read & go follow me on things! Back to the thought at hand. For those of you that don’t follow me on my socials I am heading to Fiji today! In fact, at the point in which this blog is posted, I will be halfway to Fiji!

Why am I going to Fiji you ask? I’m going on a dive trip! So naturally you can also expect there to be travel blogs the next two weeks! The dive trip I’m going on is through the school that I did my course work for my initial certification through in Kansas, Midwest Aquatics. I’m unfamiliar with the vast majority of people going on the trip with the exception of Kathy, who did my classroom study & pool dives, & Darin, the owner of the dive shop. The trip is a week long & includes fifteen pre-planned dives along with any I want to add in along the way. Part of my diving will be receiving my deep water certification, my night & limited visibility certification & the total number of log dives to secure my rank as an advanced open water diver! In addition I’ll have at least two night dives & a shark dive with a fourteen foot tiger shark named Princess!

In addition to the dives we will also have cultural nights with local Fijians, several excursions to different sites around the islands, in addition to beach hangs & anything else we desire doing. As I sit on my friend Jenna’s couch writing this I am only five hours away from hoping aboard the roughly eleven hour flight.

Why is this the blog topic? Why was last week’s blog topic about why I love to dive so much? To put it plainly, I’m very excited!

Fiji has always been a bucket list destination for me. The culture, the beaches, the marine life, the cuisine, all of it has intrigued me since I was very young & it feels like I’m checking off a very large life goal box by going on this trip.

I’ve gotten the question from a few people who I mentioned the trip to regarding the fact that I am traveling “alone” but I honestly don’t mind it. I feel I’m fairly decent at being able to make friends anywhere I go & as an introvert time spent in solitude, even socially isolated. I am someone who spends a lot of time in my head & I find my time in contemplation very comforting. It allows me to narrow in on my own feelings & thoughts I dive deeper into my understanding of who I am as a person. Part of why I love diving too.

I think I’m going to keep today’s blog fairly brief. If you want to keep up with this adventure I’m embarking on please feel free to follow me on either TikTok or Instagram where I’ll be posting daily vlogs in addition to the travel blogs I’ll be writing here over the next few weeks! If you’re someone who has been missing Object Writing, don’t fear, those will return after I return to Nashville!

Much love to you all! Next time you’ll hear from me will be an ocean away!

-C

Blog: Finding Peace At The Bottom Of Ocean

I just landed in Burbank an hour or two ago & now sit basking in the mid-80s summer sun, typing out this blog on an iPad, a practice in patience compared to my normal full keyboard laptop. The reason that I am sans laptop is because I have done my best to pack minimal luggage even though a part of my voyage, the current leg, is meant to be for work. My minimalist packing approach this go round is because the second leg of my trip is taking me to Fiji on a scuba diving excursion.

While still fairly green to the leisurely sport of scuba, it has become an instant fascination of mine, & something I seem to have a knack for. I’ve been certified for just over a year & some change & have logged around ten total dive, this coming week I’ll be adding around fifteen more to that total!

So why the blog about Scuba diving? Well, aside from it being on my brain (I spent last night checking all of my gear & packing it meticulously before spending the morning lugging it around airports & North Hollywood), I often get the same set of questions when conversation shifts to diving. So I figured I’d dive, pun intended, into the topic on here!

I’ve always claimed a saltwater soul, I say if I spend too long away from an ocean I start to dry out & in a lot of ways that rings true. When I’m away from the ocean I feel my muscles slowly tense, my bones ache, & my skin yearns for sun. I find my peace below the surface, drifting in the currents.

I’ve swam almost the entirety of my life & I’m rather good at it! I would also definitely say that I’m built like a swimmer, triangular body & all. I, much like many millennials, had a fascination with the ocean & thought I’d grow up into a Marine Biologist some day. I even looked at going to school in San Diego, Hawaii, or Corpus Cristi to study Marine Biology & Veterinary Science. Essentially I wanted Adam Sandler’s job from the film 50 First Dates. Naturally my life took a different course, as here I sit creative writing preparing for writing sessions & such.

I don’t know why it took me so long to get dive certified, it was always something I found myself envious of anytime anyone I knew would talk about dives they’d done. My certification came as a gift actually, a suggestion from my parents as a birthday gift for my 28th year. I immediately took to it.

I got the course work & pool dives done at the same time as my father in Kansas before getting my open water certification in Maui. After that I added a few more dives in Maui as well as a few in Puerto Rico.

The most common question that I seem to get from non-divers is “aren’t you scared?” In short, no.

I do have to admit, my first non-shore dive, my first boat dive, I was nervous, even apprehensive about plunging ‘blindly’ into the ocean below. I knew that there would be a great distance between my entry & any obstacles such as reef or the bottom but it was the slight fear of being completely ‘exposed,’ of not having the beach as a safety line or a convenient escape back to land.

Once I was in the water, 40 feet down, & fluttering along that fear quickly dissipated. Now anytime I step into the depths unknown waiting below I feel nothing but excitement! Why? Because in diving I have gone past the previous limits I had in satiating my saltwater soul & have found a peace that seeps deep into my soul.

The cool thing about scuba, the obvious things aside, is that it allows you a state of neutral buoyancy. It allows you to float suspended in the water & grants you a state of true weightlessness. In addition to the beautiful, untapped surroundings, you now essentially get to experience the most basic feeling of aquatic life. Your plain of orientation is no longer limited to where your feet & gravity allow, you are free to truly navigate three dimensional space unrestrained.

The next great fear of folks seems to be that of the wildlife, mostly where sharks are concerned. There’s a term I’ve picked up on in my limited time diving that I hear circling around from time to time. Sea Puppies. That’s what some people who spend a lot of time diving or doing ocean related research have nicknamed sharks. You see you are more likely to die by being attacked by a cow or are more likely to be struck by lightning then you are to be bitten by a shark. Not killed, bitten.

Are sharks apex predators? Yes. Should they be respected as such? Absolutely. But just because you respect something doesn’t mean you need to fear it, just know the signs & be respectful of the animals & you’ll be more than fine!

The only fear that has crept into my mind where diving is concerned is that of the unknown. I have yet to do a dive where I cannot see the bottom, I have yet to do a dive at night & if I’m being honest, both of these scenarios frighten me, but much like my first step off the boat into deeper water, I know once I’ve checked the box it will no longer be a fear of mine.

This is something I’ve tried to adapt to my life of late. I’ve written on the topic a few times now but my friend Stephen Lovegrove always says “if it terrifies you, it’s probably the right step.” So take the step. Step off the boat into the open ocean, because often times unexplainable peace & serenity await you on the other side!

So something this week that scares you but that you know is the right step, I believe in you!

Let’s me know what that step ends up being for you & as always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Just Another Late Night

On a chilly November Wednesday evening, back in 2017, gathered around my kitchen table with Evan Michael & Kate Cosentino was where “Just Another Late Night” was originally conceptualized. The title had been a note in my phone for even longer & for whatever reason the timing was right for this midweek write. Back in 2017 Kate, Evan, Kimi Most, & I used to do weekly Wednesday night writes. This song came out of one of those sessions as well as Kimi’s “Happy Birthday To Me," a song called “Dumb Drunk Self” that I still desperately hope Kate cuts, & innumerable other songs that we each have sitting on the shelf waiting for the timing to be right on their potential tracking. Given that she is not credited on this song, Kimi was obviously not a part of this particular week’s write for whatever reason so it became a collaboration between the three of us.

I remember writing down the title in my notes as almost exactly how it ended up “I need someone that will love me right, not just another late night.” To me the song sparks a memory from the early 2010s but for whatever reason I still hadn't found that “someone who would love me right.” Naturally it had been a while since any of the events in the memory had taken place but I still felt deeply attached to the idea & the song kind of poured out of us in the session.

From there the song became a staple in my set, I’ve been playing it in live settings ever since that night in 2017. I played it so much & so often that people who came to a lot of my sets began to know the words & I would get asked over & over when I planned to release it but for whatever reason it just kept getting pushed down the “to record” list. Cue 2020/2021.

I had just put out the acoustic mix of “Obliterated” & had gone in to record another song that is as of yet, still to be released. We wrapped the song & I felt I needed to put out something with a little more movement, enter “Just Another Late Night.” Going back in studio with Josh Gleave, we set out to finally bringing “Just Another Late Night” to life.

I wanted “Just Another Late Night” to feel almost like two separate songs because in the song, much like in life, we have moments of waining clarity. The verses act as the “quiet before the storm” that is each encounter the chorus brings. The verses are much more reserved allowing more space for the clock & hours to tick by in reflection. The chorus is cacophonous, it’s rambunctious & wild. It’s unhinged & without hesitation. Then we come to the bridge. The bridge to me is the “eye of the hurricane” it’s nothing but vocal & percussion that features a begging ultimatum from the narrator of the story. I wanted the song to reflect life, to have those moments of clarity that we all reflect on after & before the fact before we ultimately buy into the thing that’s destroying us one more time.

We’re now a week int the release of this song that we poured so much love & life into & I’m floored by the response I’ve had for it! Many blogs, playlists, websites, have all reached out asking to feature it. So many people have shared & as of this second we are sitting around 25,000 streams on Spotify!

I’d like to thank any & all of you who were a part of this song:

Evan Michael & Kate Cosentino for helping to write it!

Joshua Gleave for producing & dealing with my crazy artist ideas in addition to bass, keys, synth, & program instruments!

Lester Estelle Jr. for lending his mad drum skills!

Cole Phillips for crushing the guitar!

Jonathan Roye for mixing it so perfectly!

Mike Monseur for mastering!

&

OneRPM for distribution!

If you haven’t streamed or purchased “Just Another Late Night” I’ll drop the link to it here:

As always, thank you for reading! Thank you for allowing me to do the art that I love & be the artist I am!

I’d also love to know your thoughts on the song & how it relates to you personally, so feel free to leave a comment below!

Much love to you all!

-C

Blog: No Hate Like Christian Love

Hold up, hold up, hold up. I know a few of you have read that title & immediately gone into defensive mode & have a paragraph long comment ready, but how about we hear what I’m trying to say first? I think it’s also worth noting for the assumed bias of this blog that I myself identify as Christian, though I am far beyond the point of disillusionment with the church at this point & if we’re being honest so are a lot of people these days.

America has seen a drastic drop in new christians or individuals attending churches in the last few decades but for the life of a lot of the religious leaders they can’t seem to figure out why. They blame it on the media, they blame it on culture, on politicians, on x, y, z, but never seem to want to look internally. You see, so many of us who no longer find ourselves as congregational regulars grew up in churches; we grew up going to Sunday school & vacation bible school & lived through all of the “keep the Christ in Christmas” ish & those who remain in the hallowed halls don’t seem to understand why we don’t want to go back or actively attend those churches any longer. The answer is a simple one, we learned about Jesus, his way, his light, & we didn’t see his teachings being implemented, practiced, or reflected by those within the church, so we left. Truly I say unto you the most Christ-like individuals I’ve even known have a strong distain for the church.

To put this all in perspective the statement in the title above has become one that I’ve seen expressed more & more frequently over the last few years, “no hate like christian love.” If you as someone who identifies as such don’t see that & immediately see the problem I hate to break it to you, but I think you’ve missed the point of your religion. Christianity has become so synonymous with hate, bigotry, white nationalism, fascism, misogyny, homophobia/transphobia, xenophobia, islamophobia, racism, etc. that the statement “no hate like christian love” rings true to very large groups of individuals. So much of our culture’s pain & modern reliance unfortunately owes itself to years & years of religious trauma & continued attempts at oppression.

In recent years the US political climate has become more & more divisive swinging aggressively more & more towards a fascist right. Those leading that charge are claiming to do so in the name of God, they say God is disappearing from a country that was never a theocracy & founded itself on the principles of religious freedom, meaning freedom from others forcing their religion views onto you, & want to bring America back into its “former greatness.” A “former greatness” that holds a lot of pain, suffering, & lack of rights for those who find themselves in minority groups. Tell me, where are the teachings of Jesus in that? The campaigns of these Christian Nationalists go entirely against the teachings of Christ. They actively shun & vilify the “foreigner,” the needy, the immigrant, the refugee, the less fortunate, the different, the other. They propose laws to limit rights of these individuals, they strip back protections in place that give these individuals a chance at having an equal life to them, & they do so all in the name of “christian love.”

Often there is a bubble created around a church community, a church home if you will. This is a place, in theory, meant to allow you to feel love unconditionally from your fellow christians, to have support systems in place that allow you to express your pains & burdens freely & get support while remaining unjudged. I have never felt more judged or more completely ostracized than by members of the church who often use their born again status as a means to justify their hatefulness when things don’t fit their preconceived mold. Now people are looking around & seeing a congregation that reflects one way of being, one style of life, often limited diversity from a nationality, race, sexuality, gender identity, & social class & finding it lacking. They see themselves & the world more represented in the faces of their peers & diversified friend groups than they do in the pews on any given Sunday.

The bubble also often acts as a safe haven for abusers. We all know, very effectively the crimes of the Catholic church, thanks to the journalists at Spotlight out of Boston, but this guard isn’t limited to the catholic church. I’ve heard innumerable stories regarding the handing of abuse within the church. Higher ups will make excuses for abusers & protect them at all costs instead of hearing out the side of the abused. They refuse to acknowledge the often ugly side of humanity & outwardly condemn these actions that overall harm the community at large & weaken the bonds of a church.

The complete & utter lack of critical thinking is also a major deterrent for those looking to join the church. So much of the counter culture that christians justify with the bible has either been altered completely for political agendas (see the RSV translation of 1946) or completely lacks historical context. There also happens to be a lot of picking & choosing which verses to follow & which to omit completely from the modern dichotomy because “things were different back then.” It’s blatant hypocrisy & when faced with facts alternative to the fiction they’ve painted in their heads or carried their whole lives they refuse to even consider the possibility of them no matter who it harms or what damage it does to their brothers & sisters in Christ or the world at large.

If we as Christians were truly following the ways of Christ we’d embrace those around us with open arms, celebrating what makes them different & unique. We’d help refugees & immigrants unconditionally. We wouldn’t hoard wealth & covet riches when so many are doing everything in their power just to have a scrap of food to eat. We’d lovingly take preventative measures to insure that our neighbors & those at higher risks can remain safe & disease free. We’d recognize the disconnect & disadvantages certain communities & minorities have systematically & do everything in our power to overturn them. We’d be voting for people who want to help the less fortunate, not ostracize them. We’d be embracing our children for who they are whole heartedly not kicking them out of our homes or shaming them. I personally believe that Christ would be disgusted by the modern church & those in attendance & clearly a growing majority feels the same way. I think we need to take "no hate like christian love” as a major red flag & find ways to correct course immediately, taking proactive measures to correct the damage done to those who are bearing the brunt of the “love.”

I hope this blog wasn’t too much of a rant or a finger wag, I also hope most of you made it through this. This world deserves better, the people in our communities deserve better. I know at the end of the day we’re all human but if the saying goes “they’ll know we are christians by our love” then it should be love people know christians by, not the over abundance of hate radiating from the steeples.

I hope you all have a great weekend,

As always, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Make A Wish, Take A Chance, Make A Change, & Breakaway

Earlier this week I received a message from my friend Jared at Country Music Allies. He’s putting on a few shows this week, CMA week, & was asking if I would be willing to host the one on Friday (today) in his place. My initial reaction was an honest one, I’ve never hosted an event before & truly don’t consider myself to be amongst the great public speakers of the world so I was hesitant. He insisted that I would make a great host & that all I would be doing is introducing & not so much M.C.ing, so I told him I’d take the night to think about it.

The more I weighed the idea of hosting in my mind, the more uncomfortable it made me. I felt I wouldn't know what to say or that I’d make a fool of myself, but then my mind proposed the question “so what?”

It’s a simple question really “so what?” It really clears the air of anxiety & hypotheticals & creates way for logic to step in. So what if I screw it up & make a fool of myself? The people performing are lovely humans, some of which I know fairly well, they’ll definitely show me some grace, as will the audience who I’m sure will be primarily compromised of those within the queer community, especially if I’m honest in voicing my discomfort. Truly there is nothing to fear in accepting this role. So I did.

I texted Jared the following morning to tell him that the idea of hosting the event made me uncomfortable as hell which probably meant that I should do it. So tonight I guess I’m hosting an event! Let’s hope that come next week we don’t end up with another blog in the same vein of how I epically failed my callback a couple of months back only subbing out the “callback” for “hosting position.”

Additionally, I’ve had a lot of content come up this week around songwriting that lives in the same vein of thought. A writer who I follow & respect dearly said she spent 10 years in the industry writing songs that felt “meh” like they were good songs but nothing she was writing was great or moving the needle. She said the moment I stopped restraining myself & my thoughts was the moment I started writing great music. Her recommendation was that if you want to write a great song about a scenario or relationship you have to be bare. Go into a notebook & write unrestrained, uncensored about the topic until you feel you’ve purged your feelings thoroughly, then, once that is done, go back & find the sentences that make you say “oh, that’s too much” or “I could never say that out loud” & put that in your song! Those are the lyrics that end up connecting deeply to an audience.

If you haven’t noticed the common thread here is taking chances. This has been a week full of chance taking for me & those around be doing the same. Last night, my friend Chris Housman premiered a new single of his called “The Bible Belt” something he was incredibly nervous to play in public because it talks about all the ways he’s still recovering from how he was beat with “the bible belt,” it received ravenous applause. I went downtown to try & convince people to pre-save my upcoming single in exchange for a keychain, basically dry soliciting, something that makes me very uncomfortable. I then, while I was walking around, ended up doing a “finish that line” karaoke thing that got me a few more followers as well!

The point is take chances! Do the thing that makes you uncomfortable, be bold & unafraid to muck it all up! Put yourself out there, the worst people can say is no…I guess aside from cussing you out. But what I seem to be finding is that if you are who you are, unapologetically, the right people will find you, the right people will hear what they need to hear, & you’ll go so much farther in life & be so much happier in the long run.

Keeping it brief today as, like I said above, it’s CMA week & it’s packed out for me!

If you’re in Nashville this weekend come find me! I play at The Bowery Vault tomorrow evening around 9PM & will probably just be around also!

I hope you have the most fantastic of weekends!

Be safe, much love to you all!

-C

Blog: Yet Another Blog About Why We Still Need Pride

The past few years anytime June has rolled around I’ve written blogs regarding why Pride Month is still a relevant & important thing. Each time I write this blog I hope it’ll be the last time I have to but each year it seems to be more & more in demand. If you are a frequent reader of these snapshots my brain dumps in the form of weekly blogs, as always thank you, but you may have also read a lot of what will be discussed going forward in this blog regarding the state of LGBTQIA+ politics.

A few months ago I wrote a blog about the egregious, slimy, blatantly trans & homophobic attacks legislators are attempting &/or succeeding to legalize around the US. I guess a bit of this will be an update on all of that in addition to the new wave.

Unfortunately the “Don’t Say Gay” bill passed in the state of Florida. The DeSantis imposed law restricts & even outright bans the mere mention of anything remotely LGBTQ in Florida public schools. That includes teachers discussing their same sex partner or spouse, the same sex parents of one of their students, etc. It creates a dangerous lack of support around same sex education & limits the scope to which so many important figures in history achieved greatness in spite of the odds. It perpetuates the stigma of those members of the LGBTQIA+ community being “other” & is harmful not only to those students that identify as such & feel they can’t be themselves openly around their peers as well as the already systematically intrenched cast divides of this country. Fortunately the part of the bill requiring teachers to report any LGBTQIA identifying students did not pass & I have a hard time believing the bill will stand in light of the massive walkouts, speeches, etc. being executed by those whose schools have been affected.

In addition to Florida’s BS there’s also Texas’s that we need to discuss.

Governor Abbot’s attacks seem to have the trans community at the heart of his hatred. Over the last year he has tried to make it a crime for parents to support their trans children labeling it as child abuse & has been sending out Child Protective Services to investigate any & all claims of parents outwardly embracing their child’s identity. Luckily this executive order is currently on hold due to a federal court case blocking the order. That hasn’t stopped Abbott though who earlier this week made it legal for healthcare workers in Texas to refuse treatment to trans individuals.

On top of that, on the federal level we need to talk about Roe v. Wade.

Whether you stand on the 30% side who want to ban abortion or the 70% who don’t is not that aspect of Roe we need to discuss today. Roe v Wade was a case won on the grounds of privacy just like Griswold v Connecticut (right to contraception), Loving v Virginia (right to interracial marriage), Lawrence v Texas (banning of sodomy laws), & Obergefell v Hodges (right to same sex marriage). Each one of these cases stands as the law of the land because the losing party infringed upon the privacy of private citizens in their own homes. Let’s just look at those last two shall we Lawrence & Obergefell. Each of these specifically targets the LGBTQ community. If over turned they would effectively leave the rights of those individuals up to states, there would be an overnight witch hunt for those opposing to turn in their LGBTQ neighbors. I also understand that, in this case, all of this is hypothetical & you may be sitting on the other side of your computer, device, whatever, saying “oh, they’d never overturn those” but each of the Supreme Court Justices who are siding with the overturning of Roe v Wade said they had no intention of touching Roe in their confirmation hearings as well. Every. Single. One. Which is an impeachable discussion for another time.

What is my point in all this? My point is that there is still a long, long way to go. This country has a long, long way to go before those members of the LGBTQIA+ community have the same God given rights & treatments as their CIS/Het peers. That’s not even mentioning the atrocities exhibited outside the US towards members of the community.

I also don’t mean to be a downer, Pride is meant to be a celebration of who you are & what makes you special. It is a festival of love & acceptance & what it means to be human.

If you are a member of the community or an ally, I wish you all a Happy Pride Month! To everyone else, Happy Pride Month to you as well & ask that you take the time to get to know someone who identifies as LGBTQIA+, & I mean really get to know them. Come to the table with an open mind & heart & you may be surprised not only by what you learn about others but also about yourself. If you’re someone who uses the good book to harm or limit the rights of others you are no true christian nor do I believe that you’ve actually read your bible or know its history of alteration for personal & political gain.

I know tonight’s blog was a little on the heavier side content wise but I want you all to know I love you deeply just as you are & that you always have a friend & ally in me. Family doesn’t have to be restricted to the one you’re born into, there are people in this world who will embrace you whole heartedly & authentically, they’ll help you patch the pain & mend the heartache. You are absolutely as you were meant to be. You are loved, you are worthy, & you are enough.

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: The New American Dream

Earlier this week, after the horrific events in Texas & the egregious mishandling & lack of policy change that went along with it, a friend of mine posted a prompt on their story. They were asking any one of their followers to give any insight that they had on how to legally bow out of the United States. I can already feel some of you turning off after reading that but this is a genuine sentiment shared by much of those the Millennial & Gen Z age range. We feel this country is sliding further & further away from the ideals & policies we’d like to see in place & is being continuously run by outdated, out of touch politicians. Whether you agree with that statement or not is beside the point, it’s fact.

We live in a country where Millennials are still being forced to rent well into their thirties because the housing market is outlandishly high & wages are outlandishly low. We live in a country where people use seeking medical help is a very last resort & even then people would often rather suffer than go into outrageous medical debt. We are one of the only “first world” countries without Universal Healthcare, Paid Medical Leave, Paid Vacation Time, Proper Work/Life Balance, Comprehensive Gun Laws, Prioritized Free Education Systems, Etc. And those, especially in the older generations, who are happy with the state of things because it does them no harm, don’t understand how we can look at countries like The UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Japan, New Zealand, those in Scandinavia & majority of The EU, etc., & want for that.

So often the narrative in this country is that we are free, so so free, but free to what? The truth of the matter is that most Americans have no idea what true freedom is. True freedom is not the ability to do something, it is the ability to not have to worry about something. To not have to worry about choosing your health, their job, or going into debt, to not have to worry about getting shot in your school, place of worship, grocery store, etc., to not have to worry about being able to afford education that will propel you into jobs that aren’t soul sucking, to not worry if the next day some lobbied politician will strip your rights away, to not have to worry if your work will allow you time to still see your friends, family, maintain a social life, etc. True freedom is bliss, not ignorant bliss, but having systems in place that allow for their citizens to live, not just be cogs in the capitalist machine.

The new American dream has become that of Exodus. We want so badly to get out because we see that the storm is only getting worse along the horizon. We see how people live, truly live, in other countries & we envy that. I don’t profess to have the answers to the current American problems because they are innumerable from what I can see, I’m just here to inform, to recognize a common thread that I see becoming more & more apparent.

I, myself, have had this idea at the forefront of my brain. The impending & current doom of the states has me looking furiously for exits, seeing where I can be grandfathered into citizenship, who offers college programs, etc. Do I want to leave America? No, if I had a choice to stay & fix everything or leave I’d gladly pick the former but it’s becoming more & more apparent that we may have slipped far beyond repair.

You want to save this country? Stop electing self righteous, hateful nut jobs who are so out of touch with the people they represent & start electing people that care for the future of America, not its present.

I don’t want to have to leave this country but I fear that is where we are rapidly heading. I know a lot of you my age who are reading this feel the same & I wish I had an easy answer for you all, but I don’t. I think this November will be the deciding line for a lot of people with the threats against America’s established laws via privacy (Roe V. Wade, Oberfell V. Hodges, etc.), the fight to finally have some form of gun control, & the continued marginalization happening, I fear if this election season goes poorly the mass exodus will be in full swing.

I hope you have a great weekend & don’t weigh too heavily on all this, there is always a way out & always hope, keep pressing on.

-C

Blog: Why You Should Be Pre-Saving Releases From Independent Artists

Hiya!

I’m sure if many of you are like myself you often find yourself faced with an artist friend or an artist you follow prompting you to pre-save their upcoming release. And if you’re also like myself the first thing to usually go through your mind is “why would I do that? I don’t even know if the song is good or not yet.” Well, I’m here to tell you today, that doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, I’m also going to tell you why!

Back in the day, when people were still buying tracks/eps/albums/etc, (which if you’re still doing that, you’re a saint in the eyes of artists & writers) you could often preorder said piece of musical art & that made sense, because it’s like preordering a book or a game or whatever else you may be excited for! It gave the artist distributed the piece a leg up, especially where charts & sales are concerned.

How does this translate to our modern era of streaming?

Well, much like preorders, pre-saves give us as independent artists a leg up in an industry where the charts & playlists often favor the labels & the signed artists. It gives us a behinds the scenes way of saying “this is how many people are already interested in this song on day one, imagine how many more will be when you add it to your super exclusive editorial playlist!” And that counts EVEN IF YOU NEVER LISTEN TO THE SONG!!!

That’s right, you don’t even have to stream the song, the pre-save is enough!

I mean, by all means listen to the song because that’s somebody’s hard work they poured time, love, money, & effort into! It deserves to be heard! You never know, it may end up being your cup of tea too!

I have been hearing more & more independent artists vamping up massive pre-save campaigns just to get the attention of the editorial playlisters on the major music streaming platforms, & you know what, it’s working! Slowly but surely these artists are getting thrown onto major playlists in part because their songs deserve to be there, but a lot of the time because it got flagged as a song of interest simply from the number of pre-saves.

All of this is meant to say help independent artists out & pre-save their releases! It takes like 30 seconds to do & you could be a major boost to their career! In addition to, you know, being a good friend/supporter for those of us out here doing the thing all by our lonesome!

SPEAKING OF….

I have a new single that comes out on June 24th called “Just Another Late Night!” You’d be doing me a humongous favor by going in & pre-saving it to your streaming platform of choice or even all of them you’re a part of if you feel like going above & beyond! I’m going to post the pre-save link below, again, please take thirty seconds more out of the couple minutes you’ve set aside to give this a read & pre-save my next single! It’s a bop, I promise!