Scuba and 2010

Back by popular demand :) I guess I took the kiwi mentality and took off from Christmas till half way through January! In the mean time we welcomed in the new year... 2010! We celebrated twice... once on our new year which was 18 hours before the states, and then again when the states celebrated. We had fondue and grilled chicken sausages... then we did the champagne thing once it got closer to midnight. Instead of going downtown though we walked to our local bar that is above the bowling alley down the street. We met some new people and listened to techno! Seems much more popular here than in the states. This is going to be a really good year for us :)
I am now officially certified to scuba dive. I did my open water dives this past weekend, passed all my tests the week before, completed the pool dives, and now I have my temporary card... I should have my real card when I get back from my trip to the states. We went to Jones Bay for my ocean dive. Brandon was my dive buddy so I made him try on all is gear... that is what is shown in the picture :) We were mostly doing skills tests, but we did see a couple starfish... they would dig down into the sand and just glide across it! We saw a lot of vegetation, and some oysters. The neatest thing was seeing scallops. There was a big bed of them that the divers doing the refresher course went out and saw, but where we were there were a few. Our instructor picked them up and opened them a little to show there lips and then they fluttered down... the scallops were scalloping!
Our next dive was in Lake Pupuke. It is a lake in Takapuna that is formed in a volcanic crater. It is also very murky... we did our skills testing then went for a swim. We saw a big water pipe, and a sign that said 180 minute parking zone... that was at 35 feet down :) We went as far as 14 meters.. that is about 46 feet under. When we went that low it got really dark and we hit a thermocline which dropped the temperature of the water very drastically. When we started going back up it felt like we were in tropical water in comparison!
Now I am just preparing for my trip to the states. I know Brandon wishes he could go :( I leave in a few days and will be there for a couple weeks. I will be loading up on my American cuisine! First stop will be taco bell :)
Miss you guys a ton! Hopefully it wont be such a stretch between postings now!