I get to wake up to this every morning. It is the light reflecting off the pool outside, shining up through the curtains, and it always reminds me of the Blue Grotto in Greece.

The summer after high school I got the opportunity to visit Europe with my girlfriend at the time. One of the places we visited was Greece, and the Blue Grotto on the small island of Megisti. There is a cave there which has a small opening just above the water line.

The rocks surrounding the cave come down off the hill and stop a few feet under water. This allows sunlight to bounce down through the ocean and fill up the cave with a turquoise-blueish color.

During a low tide, the water recedes just far enough to sneak into the cave on small gondolas. Once inside, the cavern becomes an amazing soundscape, and the Greek tour guides all start to serenade their passengers.

After a quick trip around the cave, it is equally as tricky to get back out. Everyone has to lay down on their back in the gondola, and hang on. The guide must time it just right, and catch a wave to slip back out into the open ocean...

That was a fun trip...

Just a quick post to share this picture I took the other day. This one's for you Mom...

I swam a mile in the ocean this afternoon. There were a surprising number of fish swimming below me, which made the swim a little creepy.

Swimming didn't seem to hurt my leg as bad as running, so at least that'll keep me busy while my leg heals.

I brought my SwiMP3 goggles, which lets me listen to music, using bone-conduction, while I swim... Nerd Alert! But they really help me focus on relaxing and getting into a rhythm. I made it about half way down the beach, so I have myself a new goal.

I went to bed last night with Lucky climbing around on the wall behind me (for those that don't know, Lucky is the gecko missing half his tail that lives with me). I saw him change from dark brown, while on my dresser, to a light brown, while on the wall & ceiling. How cool is that! I woke up with a bunch of bug bites though... Geckos don't bite, do they?

Love you Mom, miss you!

This morning I kept seeing something flip a fin out of the water. There are usually jumping fish, but rarely a fin so close to the shore. After a few minutes of watching, I recognized the shape... a stingray! Later this evening, I happened to take another walk on the beach, and saw yet another stingray. Too cool...

So I guess this picture answers the question about what their plans were with the boat. She has simply been reduced to a pile of rubble on the sand. Maybe the waves will carry her out to sea...

My leg seems to be healing, although slower than I would like. I can now lift all five toes of my left foot off the ground. I know, wow, what an accomplishment. I miss running, and haven't been able to run all week. I'm going to try swimming in the morning, and looking forward to that.

I found this beautiful community up on the hill today. The buildings look like new construction, and the entrance was just breathtaking. In the middle of the stairs is a waterfall, which I could hear from well around the corner. Imagine coming home to this everyday, how peaceful it must feel to walk up those stairs and jump in the pool. Probably not a bad way to start your day either!

Some of the streets around town are really fun to walk down. This is one of them. I thought I had been on every street around town, but this was a new one today. It is the bordering wall to the complex pictured above. I didn't know this area existed, so its good to know that there are still things to discover around town.

I have developed a couple of iPhone apps between today & yesterday. One of them I am really excited about, and will post more info when its complete. As far as I can tell, it is unique within the App Store, which is pretty amazing considering there are over 225,000 apps currently available. The other app was built in preparation of a larger app I am planning, which I'm also very excited about.

Ok, last thing from today. I caught a video of this kid water skiing on a surf board! They were going up & down the beach, fairly close to the shore. They even tried to ski on a boogie board, but that didn't work out too well.

Hope they didn't hit any stingrays...

Ok, that was a little bit scary...

I was up on the rooftop patio just now, testing out a little GPS app I wrote for the iPhone. The roof seems to be a good spot to get a strong signal, for obvious reasons.

The weather is clear, not many clouds, sunny, warm... and I was holding my iPhone up to the sky...

Out of nowhere, right in front of me, well within my field of vision, came a huge bolt of lightening, clearly visible even though the sun is shining.

The thunder hit me in well under 1 second, and I could feel it. This means the lightening strike was less than 1000 feet away. That is closer than 3 football fields!

I'm a little bit shaken up, but not as much as if I had been hit :)

ps: as I'm writing this, the power has dipped several times, and it has started to rain. More thunder is happening now in the distance, and steadily getting louder...

I thought this was a giant spider crawling across my living room floor. Nope, a tiny crab!!

Yesterday my water got shut off at the house, and I'm not sure why. The valve out front, which connects to the main water supply, has been leaking over the past week or so. I thought they might be working on that, but there was no-one around.

Thankfully my water got turned back on sometime after I went to bed. However, the valve out front is still leaking! Its a terrible waste of water. Glad I'm not paying that bill...

I asked my brother last night about a problem I've been having with my left foot. The best way to describe it is "foot drop", which means I can't lift my left foot off the ground. I must have torn something during training, because its been like this for a while now.

I didn't really think much about it until I was at the grocery store over the weekend. I was trying to kneel down onto my left knee. It was as if my foot was completely numb, or just non-existent. It gave out immediately, and I landed on top of my foot. Well that caught my attention, and the attention of several other people nearby.

It does seem to be getting a little better, because this morning I can raise my big toe again. I still can't get the ball of my foot off the ground, but that'll come. I've been walking around town like the hunchback of notre dame, dragging my left foot along the ground as I walk... kinda funny actually...

Today marks the one month mark. Seems like that went by really fast...

I can now check off Pig on my list of animals seen around town. I turned up a side street coming in off the beach and found this guy sitting on the side of the road. From a distance it looked like a giant rock, and as I approached it seemed more like a large dog. Then it moved & grunted, and I nearly ran away...

About two weeks from today, my buddy Scott will be arriving, and I am really looking forward to his visit. The current plans are for him to stay about two weeks, so it will be a welcomed vacation for him & a nice long visit for me.

Over the past week I have been feeling more and more homesick. There are specific things that I miss about home, like my dog, my family, my friends... but some strange things too, like a DVR, my road-cycle, a dishwasher... Some moments are tougher than others, and for the most part I am content with my adventure. It is a bit unsurprising that I would be feeling distant at this point in my travels, exactly one month in... I just need more time.

Last week I saw a couple of guys with a large bulldozer trying to pull a boat off their property, and back into the ocean. It looked like the boat had been sitting for a while, but was in decent enough shape to sail. I didn't have my camera at the moment, bummer.

Yesterday I ran into the same group of people, and they had managed to drag their boat down to the waterline. I sat and watched for a while, and it seemed to be stuck in the sand.

The sand here is very thick, unlike the fine-grain sand in Southern California. It comes from the volcanoes, is dark-brown to dark-gray, and slightly coarse compared to bleach-blond sand. Its no wonder they had so much trouble, and it certainly seems like there's an easier way to do this.

Unfortunately, they didn't succeed in their launching efforts, and decided to let the boat sit on the beach for a day. At the time, the weather was mild, and showed no sign of turning.

Later that evening however, the weather picked up, and although it wasn't the biggest rain we've had here, the wind was enough to buried the boat overnight. So now it sits, half sunk in the sand, and surely more damaged than when they started. Maybe they're waiting for high tide, or maybe they've given up on it, but at some point its going to take a bit of work to get her back out to sea.

Le Tour de France has started, and the World Cup has ended. Congrats to Spain, and my condolences to Lance. Yesterday Lance had a terrible day in the saddle, and looks like any dreams he may have had about a podium finish have been extinguished.

Today I plan to finish my iPhone development book. I have been studying nonstop lately, and really have enjoyed learning this new programming language, once I got past the fundamentals. I am really looking forward to starting my own development, and laying this studying business to rest.

Monkey Monkey Monkey!!!

I saw my first monkey today. This morning on my walk into town I heard a howler in the distance, at least I think it was one.

But this afternoon I confirmed a sighting. The picture is a little too far off to really see it, but its there. Click on the image to see a full size shot.

Unfortunately, the video I took did not come out very well. The howler had moved into the trees you see on the right, and was by then covered in dense foliage.

We just happened to make a detour into Coco Bay on our way back from Tamarindo this afternoon. The streets there are covered with an over hanging canopy, a place that monkeys are known to visit. However, this particular monkey must have been cast out of it's troop, since they are rarely seen alone like this.

Tomorrow some friends and I are taking a boat out to go fishing, hopefully from mid-afternoon to sunset. Not a bad way to spend the 4th of July, but I am starting to get a little homesick. Last night I caught an episode of the Dog Whisperer, and started to miss my pup so bad that I actually had to change the channel.

My lil sis is going to host the 4th's festivals on my parents lawn tomorrow. My folks are on their way back from the Lake House, by way of a wedding in San Francisco. Really, the 4th is a block wide party, but because our home is in the middle of the track, it has become a natural gathering place for food & lawn chairs. I'm sure she'll do fine, and she has a great guy to back her up. The boy can cook, and I'll just leave it at that.

Its 8:30pm, past my bedtime, and I'm exhausted. Its been a long day, and I was up pretty late last night playing scrabble with my brother.

I'll get some good pictures of my boat ride tomorrow...