Marina Melee to be featured at "The Fussy Librarian" AND MORE!

Marina Melee is being featured Monday at The Fussy Librarian!

The Fussy Librarian is a new website that offers personalized ebook recommendations. You choose from 30 genres and indicate preferences about content and then the computers work their magic. It's pretty cool -- check it out! www.TheFussyLibrarian.com



How hard can it be to run a marina?

George H. Marshall III has it all, and he wants to get away from it: women, a busy social calendar, and his so-called career in the family oil business. Determined to prove to his parents that he is more than a spoiled, womanizing, over-aged adolescent, George buys Porto da Vida Marina on a small island in the Caribbean. What could be an easier road to business success than running a marina on a tropical island? 

As mishap piles on disaster, George realizes his new life in paradise isn't all about sitting under palm trees sipping umbrella drinks. Between his wayward staff, the governor's hot-to-trot wife, a lift truck possessed by jumbies, and a host of other island disasters-natural and human-George finds that living the easy life is hard work.


AND MORE BIG NEWS!

Ye Gods! A Tale of Dogs and Demons is scheduled for an April 1 release from Casperian Books!

Is it real or a myth? Dog only knows.

Author Jack Halliman sails to Puerto Rico seeking a cure for writer's block, but instead finds a dead body. When a second corpse turns up, Jack becomes one of two suspects. The other is the chupacabra.


Now Jack has to find out who--or what--is responsible for the killings before he lands in prison. Again.

As the conniving mayor, a dogged detective, and a voodoo practicing 14-year old drag him deeper into the investigation, Jack discovers that separating reality from myth is no easy feat. The lines between men and monsters, monsters and gods, and in this case, between gods and a dog, are thin and blurry.
 

CHASING OUR DREAMS, or My Heroes

I recently celebrated my 50th birthday, as did hubby a few months earlier. Matt has 6 years until retirement, when we can sail off into the sunset.

Or at least that's been my retirement dream for as long as I can remember. Ever since I moved to the Virgin Islands when I was 19, I've known that's where I want to spend my life. It's home. It's where I feel comfortable, and don't have to try to be anything but me. I'd dreamed of staying there forever.

Then living got in the way of my life and I went to Puerto Rico to pursue another dream: getting my PhD. Then I moved to South Carolina to pursue yet another dream: paying off my student loan debt. Then I found a dream I didn't even know I had: I fell in love and married Matt. Then we started finding and chasing new dreams together: living in Europe, finding Muggle and falling in love with him, traveling, and planning our retirement together.

Even with all that, my dream of returning to the Virgin Islands has always been there in the back of my mind. But "stuff" always gets in the way. Career, husband, aging parents, pets, friends, health concerns, and just getting older in general.

I still find myself looking forward to buying a sailboat and retiring aboard, sailing the Caribbean, getting rid of all the obligations and responsibilities that go with the "dirt-dweller" life: the stuff we accumulate under the silly notion that stuff = happiness.

But now, instead of getting excited when I fantasize about that life I'd dreamed of, I get stressed. I worry about leaving aging relatives, parents with health concerns, how to accommodate the pets while living aboard or just living in the islands (Tibetan Terriers haven't evolved for the tropics!), how Matt would actually deal with the relatively nomadic lifestyle that I enjoy, how we'd handle what seems like a constantly escalating number of health issues, and most worrisome of all, how I'd deal with those things now that I'm older.

At 19, running away from "everything" to pursue my dreams was simple. I packed my bags, I moved. Seriously, I didn't exactly know where the Virgin Islands were when I boarded the plane back then. (I don't know why more 20, 21, 22-year-olds don't do that, why they already seem so concerned with "security." They'll never be able to do it as easily as they can now!) Now, though, as an adult, with responsibilities and obligations, with homes, pets, family, and "stuff," it now seems so much more complicated.

It shouldn't be. If we really want something, we should do it. All of those "concerns" are merely excuses. They can all be accommodated. Planes fly on schedules and it would take me almost as long to get to upstate NY or Chicago from the Virgin Islands as it does from South Carolina. So much of our "stuff" is stuck in closets and drawers, never to come out, but there "just in case," that it really isn't a real reason to worry at all. We should get rid of it anyway.

To keep our (my?) dreams of sailing the world (or at least just traveling it) alive after retirement, and perhaps to give me a shot of courage, I've been living vicariously through my new friends Carol and David Rocco. They spent their honeymoon in St. John, USVI, fell in love, decided that's where they wanted to be, and did it. They pursued their dream, made it happen, and are now experiencing all the excitement, angst, wonder, stress, and elation of discovering a new life. They're my heroes.

Myra Nelson, another friend through my online writing group, and her husband Jack, packed up and retired to Costa Rica. She'd been a teacher in Philly, and also spent time traveling through Asia and teaching English in Japan. We met Myra and Jack while in CR last year. I'm in awe of their adventure, and her openness in sharing her experience going through a health scare as an expat. She gives me hope!

Sarah Corbett settled in Costa Rica in 1992--before it became the hot spot for expat Americans, where they could live in an English-speaking community filled with other Americans. She's immersed herself in the culture and her blog is filled with fun, funny, and wonderful tidbits that both intrigue me and make me worry about my hubby's ability to ever retire anywhere outside of suburbia USA! (Especially tales and photos of some of the "visitors" they've had, like the one she talks about in THIS blog post, or in the picture below.)

The green Lora that visited Sarah one morning.
(Huge, yes, but kind of cute, isn't it?)

Of course, in suburbia USA, we rarely get visitors like these that have showed up in Sarah's yard, either, so it balances out:

Wooly Anteater visiting Sarah

Central American Silky Possum

Anteater

Our neighbors, Misty and Terry, dreamed of moving to the west coast and last year, packed their bags and headed to San Diego. Four pets and all (3 cats and a dog---they're now up to 3 cats and 2 dogs). Normandie Fischer has sailed the world with a boat full of kids and now pursues her dream of writing while sailing up and down the east coast to visit her new grandbaby.

All of these friends are my heroes because not only were they all brave enough to pursue their dreams, but they're also keeping my dreams alive. When I wonder if Matt and I will have what it takes to pack our bags and take that leap of faith that everything will be just fine, I look to these friends who were brave, who knew what they wanted, and did what they needed to do to make it happen. I want to think Matt and I will be able to, but I'm not sure. I do know that these friends are my heroes and inspiration. Thank you all for being brave enough to chase your dreams, and help me keep my dream alive!

If you need some help keeping your dreams alive, here are some blogs that might inspire you. I know they inspire me!

Carol and David on their VI adventure at
http://www.roccosinparadise.com/

Myra Nelson at
http://www.scribblegal.com/

Sarah Morgan at
http://www.scmorgan.com/

Normandie Fischer
http://writingonboard.com/

Jellyfish Lovers' Paradise!

Thanks to a Facebook post by my friend Dave Jenkins from Down Under, I've discovered a dream destination for jellyfish lovers, like myself! Jellyfish Lake in Palau is a marine lake on the island of Eil Malk. The lake is connected to the ocean by fissures and tunnels through the limestone from reefs that built the island.

Photo from To-Travelling - visit their website for more on the
lake and other fun things to do and see in Palau.

Not only is Jellyfish Lake a cnidarian-lovers' dream, but a chemical oceanographers' fantasy playground, too! The lake is stratified into oxygenated and anoxic layers, the deeper layer, devoid of oxygen, is also a toxic pool of hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and phosphate due to a combination of conditions that prevent mixing of the two layers.

From Wikipedia

Wait! There's more! This is also a playground of fun discoveries for marine microbiologists: the first three meters of the anoxic zone is laden with bacteria, including at least one species of a purple photosynthetic sulfur bacterium. The bacterial population is so dense that this layer absorbs all sunlight so the anoxic layer below the bacterial plate is pitch dark, but transparent. Sadly, the hydrogen sulfide can be absorbed through a person's skin--and kill them--so you and I won't be able to dive down and see that for ourselves. SCUBA diving isn't allowed in the lake, only snorkeling, in an effort to keep tourists from dying.

Want to see what it looks like to swim through a lake filled with jellies? Click here to watch a YouTube video of the experience. While the video caption says these guys are non-stinging, that's not quite accurate. The golden jellies do sting, but their nematocysts have little effect on humans. We  hardly notice them unless you're allergic, in which case, you'll know they sting!

I've added yet another destination to my always-growing list of places to visit. Other people have bucket-lists of things to do before they die, my list is a travel itinerary. So many fabulous places left for me to explore. Finding one that is the ideal destination for a biogeochemistry loving island girl, well, that's the epitome of "must-see" places. Thanks for sharing, Dave!

For more on the lake and things to see and do in Palau, go to the Palau Visitor's Authority website here.

Welcome to Waterblogged!

Welcome to Waterblogged! This is where I get to write about water, and anything and everything related to water. Bizarre sea creatures, great islands or coastal towns, watersports or events, and the marine environment: If it's water related---and everything is--I might write about it here! Pop in and see what's caught my fancy each week.