Tank birthday, 47+ years

[Scubabeth]

We took the boat to the Bronx last night for dinner to my favorite clam place and on the way back to Long Island as I was driving I held the phone behind me and without looking I took this. I think it was kind of cool.
To make this post about fish (because I know I don't do that a lot) There were a lot of fish jumping but I doubt they were copperband butterflies.

That is a BEAUTIFUL picture!!! Glad you and your lovely wife had such a nice dinner and evening.

 

[Scubabeth]

SCUBAbeth, my absolute favorite place was as I said, Bora Bora. But not like a tourist. While on the Windstar we anchored in the lagoon of Bora Bora and the back of the ship opens up for divers and snorklers. This day we were going snorkeling with Moorish Idols because the water was shallow.
6 of us went out in a Zodiak and we traveled until we couldn't see any life, buildings, huts, nothing. We stopped in a small, shallow lagoon and got out. There were huge stingrays all over the place in the 4' deep water. The guide brought us to the cliff face where we saw a stair way hewed into the mountain. WE climbed up to a beautiful terrace not seen from the water. It was a very secluded hotel on top of a mountain. One of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.
A girl brought us drinks and fruit and we stood there an hour or so.

Then back at the Zodiak we traveled around volcanoes just to look up in awe at the sights. The guide asked if anyone was hungry, but we figured he was kidding because there was no signs of life. We went into this cove on the side of what looked like an uninhabited Island and there was this tiny dock and a sign that read "Ches Louise",(it was French so I am spelling it wrong and I can't find the picture right now.)

We get out and sit at the only table there under jungle like foliage. It was fantastic. This chubby Tahitian woman comes out with this magazine.
"Gourmet Magazine" printed in Manhattan. She opens it to a page she had folded over and there she is in this place and Bill Gates has his arm around her.

Now this is the kind of secluded place I am talking about and you have to search hard to find them, but they are there.
I will look for the picture, in the meantime I will post a sun set not too far from my house.

Paul, I loved your story about the banana bread and the amazing route you took to purchase said (just okay) banana bread. Marty the Jew must not have taste as discriminating as yours...or maybe he really liked to ride his bike. My dad is in his mid 70's and still bikes hundreds of miles each week; both solo and with some friends. He loves it, and it keeps him young and healthy!

How neat was that to come upon such a fantastic restaurant in the middle of nowhere in Bora Bora. I guess I'll have to reconsider my dream of staying in one of the huts on the water; I DO love my hubby, but we like to do sightseeing, too, and since there's not much there...The Windstar sounds like the way to go to see non-touristy nature sights. I better start saving my pennies!

 

[Paul B]

Beth. if you go on a Windstar cruise, you will never travel any other way. We have gone on 5 or 6 of those Mega cruise ships with 5,000 people and the last time we did that I was praying for a torpedo to sink us, that's how much I hated it. The first time I went I thought it was great, but I was young and didn't know about much cooler places far away from tourists. Tourists are great, but I don't want to vacation on top of 5,000 of them.
When our Windstar docked in Tahiti, 6 people got off. 6. I want to see 6 people not 5,000.
On the Windstar you eat breakfast on the deck so you can see the water and scenery. Try to see the water on a Mega Ship or eat outside on deck.

We also took that ship to the Caribbean to Islands like Bequa, Il deSaints and Nevis. Yes, I never heard of them either and neither did those Mega cruise ships.

On one of those Islands, I forget which one, my wife and I walked to the other side of the Island (in probably 25 minutes) We came across this fantastic lagoon about a mile or less across. It was shallow and there was a small totally un inhabited "Island" in the middle of it. No footprints on the beach except for the occasional iguana or goat. It was like Eden. Just palm trees. We spent the day there then walked back, and on another small Island found a bar in a very shallow lagoon where trees overhung the water and they had seats suspended from the trees so you were half in the sea.
Very few tourists there, maybe 5 or 6 very interesting, friendly people.
Compare that to a Mega ship where 5,0000 Jibonies are engaged in a beer belly contest or hot dog eating contest while guzzling cheap beer then go to the midnight buffet where you can gain 10lbs while gorging yourself on cake.

Don't get me wrong, when I was 20 I liked that. But as I "matured" and realized there were much better places, we took advantage of them. The world is small now and those places are exceedingly harder to find and much more costly but I would rather take one really great trip then two or three mediocre trips with half the population of Bayone New Jersey coming along.

Recently, now that we are "older" we went to a riverboat cruise in Europe on the Blue Danube. I didn't want to go but my wife convinced me. I totally loved it but it was a much different trip than I thought it would be.
The ship is a long skinny ship because it is on a not very wide river. The top deck is flat with lounge chairs and blankets. You lay there as castles, cathedrals, opera houses and wineries pass by. The ship stops in these little towns like I have under my Christmas tree and you can get off and take a bicycle to the next town to meet the ship, they even pack a lunch for you.
WE took a small helicopter when ever we could over antique castles and mountains. Helicopters are not a cheap ride but if you are going on a very good vacation, save another $400.00 for a chopper ride as it is well worth it.


I flew in a helicopter almost every day in Viet Nam but once I wanted to take my wife and daughter around Manhattan in one. So we went to the Heliport in Midtown to get on one. I asked how much. He told me and I said "I think you mis-understood me" I don't want to buy the thing, I just want to ride in it for 20 minutes. I also said, Look, I am a New Yorker, first you have to take care of me and my family, then worry about the tourists.
He said if you take care of me, I will take care of you. I gave him 20 bucks and the ride was cut in half which was manageable.
WE walked to the chopper and was stopped by a worker there because Tom Cruise and Nicole or Natalie (I forgot her name, she was in Batman, but she is a Supermodel) wanted to take that ride. Like what am I, chopped liver! He isn't even a "Veteran".

Anyway, I have been to places I can't pronounce and I am glad I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to get to those places. When we got married I was bringing home about $60.00 a week so saving for a vacation was hard and I had to do side jobs like fixing cars, electrical, cement and plumbing work. But we always managed to get some place.

 

[Paul B]

Beth, I made a mistake, that road in in Maui. They al look the same. In this video the road looks wider and they didn't film the high parts where it gets really narrow. To their left is a few weeds, then a 600' sheer drop to the rocky shore for most of the road. That school bus has been there for years and we met Marty near there.

 

[Paul B]

My bluestripe and Janss pipefish.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPzSxrsVW3U

 

[Chasmodes]

Might be fun driving the monster truck up that road!

Cool pipefish video!

 

[Paul B]

You are lucky if you can drive a go cart very slowly up that road. Most of the time you have to go 5 mph or you are over the cliff.

 

[chris85]

My bluestripe and Janss pipefish.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPzSxrsVW3U

Those are beautiful pipefish. Im sorry I don't want to hurt the other fishes feeling they are all beautiful fish. In such great shape. I love to see healthy inhabitants.

Do you ever collect tropical strays anymore?

 

[Paul B]

Do you ever collect tropical strays anymore?

I didn't go last year but I hope to get there this year. It all depends on the tide, weather and my back.

 

[chris85]

I have seen some nice fish come from up there.

You said the visibility is low right? About how much? How do you catch the stray's? How do you see them or know where they are?

 

[Paul B]

I don't see them, we use a 2 man scene net through the grass flats at low tide.
I know where they are through experience.

 

[Paul B]

Been busy hanging out with Supermodels but wanted to pop in and say hi!

Still following.

Norfolkgarden, I am sorry I didn't acknowledge that you are following. I can't believe anyone is following this as it seems to be about everything except fish. I know it is a fish forum but there is only so much I can talk about fish. I am surprised no one complained that that I am not talking about fish.
A while back I did mention that I went out with a girl who reminded me of a flounder, but a very cute flounder. Her dad was an officer in the Army and I was afraid the guy would shoot me. But since I am a Gentleman, he never did.
That was in Colorado. I know I wrote about Colorado so I don't think I will mention it again. But if Colorado had an ocean, it would be a very fantastic place and I really love it there, except for that lack of ocean thing and that is kind of a biggie for me.

We did find this cave there, I am not sure I mentioned it. There is a tourist cave there called Cave of the Winds but when you are in the Army you don't really have to follow the same rules as most people and we went way off the road and found this other, much smaller cave. We had to crawl through most of it with flashlights and we thought we were discovering some new, un discovered place. But maybe 100 yards in, we came across Playboy Magazines and empty beer cans. So much for discovery but I was 20 years old so everything was exciting.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Everything is new and exciting when we are young.

Enjoy the gift of that feeling on the rare occasions it still happens!

Beautiful Sunset!

 

[Paul B]

You are correct that I still find new and exciting things and places but not nearly as much as when I was 20, stupid, naïve, skinny, broke and had a full head of hair.
Those days, the few between high school and getting drafted, I traveled a lot and didn't have any responsibilities or cares. Every thing was new and most of my time was spent looking for girls. I always had a fish tank but even up to today, I never found a girl who cared one bit about that.
Remember the song "Girls Just wanna Have Fun".
All of my money was spent on either fish or girls, the rest I wasted.

Then I was lucky enough to meet the love of my life and after 44 years, we are still married and she is still my best friend. If I had to do it all over again, I would

(She actually points out Supermodels to me)

 

[Paul B]

I wanted to post something about fish so people don't throw eggs at my house.
These Purple Queen Anthias are extremely cool and colorful but they do require a little different care than say a tang or manta ray. Well, actually Manta Rays do kind of eat in a similar way, kind of but these Anthias require tiny food and although they will eat it when there is no current they seem to really enjoy eating in a swift current.

I feed them new born brine shrimp every day but I also add either frozen new born brine shrimp, cyclopeze, fish eggs or really anything tiny. I am not sure how they can see the food moving so fast but there are tiny things they won't eat. At first they will only eat live food but they eventually get the idea and I am certain that in time they will sit at the table with me and eat linguini and clams.

I need to hatch shrimp every day because I have about 10 fish that depend on that diet including mandarins and five pipefish.















I don't have a picture of the Manta Ray.

 

[Paul B]

SCUBAbeth, if you get to Bora Bora, stay away from those silly huts. They only built them because there is no dry land there.
The one road that goes around the circular Island has little to nothing on it except as I said Bloody Mary's Bar and how long can you stay in a bar?
The only thing they sell in Bora Bora is black pearls so if you need those, go there.
We went to a black pearl shop (actually you can't miss them because they are like Starbucks in Manhattan) The girl asks you what price range you are looking for. You can go from $50.00 each to how much my Daughter spends on shoes.
You tell her how much you want to waste, I mean spend and if you say a thousand dollars each (which we didn't say) she gives you a shoebox filled with thousand dollar black pearls.
You take this cardboard box that is worth the same as Trump Tower and bring it to a table to look through it so you can pick out how many you need for a pendant, necklace or nose ring. I would imagine that you can take one of these pearls and stick it up your nose and walk out. We didn't do that as my nostrils are not big enough.
They take the pearls and X Ray them to see how thick the nacre, or shell is. Then they drill it and either string them or put a loop in so you can wear it "wherever".
We bought a couple and as we were leaving the girl, who was kind of a Supermodel said to us "Where are you from". We said New York. She said "Where in New York". We said Long Island. She said "Where on Long Island.
We said New Hyde Park. I said Where are you from? She said "Mineola". Mineola is walking distance from my house. I said, That is some commute.
What are the chances you go to the complete other side of the world, the farthest place you can travel and still be on earth and meet someone from your town!
Now that is a little far to go for a job.

 

[Chasmodes]

I can't believe anyone is following this as it seems to be about everything except fish. I know it is a fish forum but there is only so much I can talk about fish. I am surprised no one complained that that I am not talking about fish.

That's one reason that I do follow. I enjoy the fish talk, pics and movies, but I also enjoy what you have to say and share

 

[mcarroll]

Now that is a little far to go for a job.

...or is it exactly the right distance???

 

[Empress]

I lived in COS for years and been to the Cave of the Winds. Pretty awesome place. No ocean there, but it would be cool if there was one at The Garden of the Gods!

 

[Paul B]

Empress it certainly is an awesome place. I haven't ben there in almost 50 years so I am not sure if it has changed. But as I mentioned, when you are in the Army you can go anyplace you want so we went searching for ghost towns. There are a few scattered all over the place there but most of them are just a couple of rusty pitchforks and a piece of a Starbucks sign with a plaque that reads, "This is Tombstone" or "Welcome to Wagon Wheel, ATM in the back, Population Zero".
I don't remember finding anything of significance. But the scenery up in the mountains is totally cool. They said you can see three states from on top of one of the mountains but I couldn't make out the black lines between them so I wasn't sure what I was looking at.
I also liked Manitou Springs. I am sure I spelled it wrong as you have to be an "Indian", or Native American to spell it. I love Indian stuff. At that time we called them Indians, I now realize they are Native Americans and a guy like me who is from Brooklyn is really a foreigner.

My friend and me would take either an M-60 tank of an APC (armored personal carrier) out on the prairie and look for buffalo, ghost towns or girls. No girls or ghosts, just buffalo. We didn't hit any.
I am sure I must have mentioned it in this thread 12 times but in case I didn't I will tell it again until I can think of something else to write. I was going out with a girl I met in Denver. (She is the one with the cute flounder face)
She had a Volkswagon. I told her where to meet me next to the fence of the Govt. land. She and her friend parked her car next to the fence and we lifted them over using the barrel from the gun on the tank.
We spent the day exploring the plains, it was very cool. I am sure I would still be in Jail if anyone found out but I was a Sargent and had a "little" pull, but not much.
I am sure that was the only time those girls had a date in a 120,000lb tank. We had no artillery shells so we couldn't play with the gun.