Technology is funny.

We had a miserable night. The worst dry season storm since 2004. I got woke up at 1230 and then again at 2. At 2 I packed my stuff up in case we had to make a hasty exit.

We had breakfast and then drove an hour to the ferry. Ferry is an hour, then maybe 2 hours to Monteverde, where we got reservation note this morning over breakfast.

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I’ve been planning an engagement proposal for a while. I didn’t have details in mind – I hadn’t carefully choreographed a musical number, or scheduled her name on a jumbotron – but I’d been working on making a ring (see my other blog when I get back for details on making jewelry!!) and I had two plans. I’d either finish it and take her up to Grouse, where we had our third date and propose. Or I’d do it sometime in Costa Rica. The latter plan started to feel better when I finished the ring, so I thought I’d propose on Miranda’s birthday on the sunset cruise we had planned. Plans a good ‘un.

Except that once we got to Costa Rica, I got nervous. Not like “holy hell, do I really want to do this” nervous, but more like “fuck, why can’t I do this right now”. So I started looking for places that might work.

I forgot the ring at home one night that looked good, and it turned out fantastic because that night I got food poisoning. “Will you marry me? *urup*” Not romantic.

The next day we had planned to go to Monteverde, but timing caused it to not work out so we made other plans. Arenal Hanging Bridges sounded great, and off we go! I brought the ring, hoping that at some point there would a sweet looking bridge with another tourist on it whom I could ask to take photos.

We crossed a bridge, and passed some people, but not at the same time. On the second bridge there were people on it when we got to it. Miranda said we should wait. I said we should go ask them to take our picture. She said she didn’t want to. I said I wanted to, and I just started walking to make it happen.

Miranda has often said that she wished I would take charge more often, so perhaps she was taken aback by my insistence, or maybe she just figured it wasn’t worth her own insistence, but thankfully (mercifully!) she followed behind me.

I went up to the lady and held out my camera and asked if she would take a picture of us. I asked if she would take a couple. I had planned to show her the ring box so she’d know, but I got caught up and didn’t. I walked back to Miranda and had planned to take a knee at that moment, but for some reason did this instead.

That’s a photo of me wondering why on earth I’m standing next to Miranda, instead of in front of her with a ring presented.

I turned towards her, with the ring box held in my hand in front of me. I think she saw it as I went down, but she was good enough to maintain this incredibly photogenic face long enough for the amazing lady we’d asked to get this photo, a photo worthy of the proposal I had prayed I could make happen.

On a suspension bridge, in the middle of Central America, doing something we love – exploring the natural world – I went down on one knee and asked Miranda “will you marry me?” She said “yes, yes, a million times yes”, a phrase which I hope to keep with me forever.

The lady was overwhelmed, which is fair since I’m not certain she had all the English needed to have any sort of conversation, and she’d just been unwittingly dragged into a life defining moment for a couple of strangers. I grabbed my camera, thanked her profusely and we stood on the bridge for a few more moments.

That’s the story. You can ask me about it when you see me, I won’t mind repeating it, but it won’t be as eloquent as here – I’m a much better writer than I am a speaker. 🙂

I woke up and wished her a happy birthday, as yesterday didn’t work out 100%, with her not feeling well for most of the day. We got up and had breakfast in the inn.

I haven’t written about the Pato Loco Inn much. I wasn’t super impressed when we got there, but my estimation changed a lot. It’s a swelteringly hot 10 minute walk to the beach, which is a big downside. And our room was a little small, but not uncomfortably so. There was a pool in the back which was cold (YES) and the proprietor Mary really had a chance to shine while we were there. I left super early to go diving, and with about 10 minutes notice she whipped me up some breakfast, which I had asked about, but had not expected to get. When I bought Miranda’s cake she was instantly offering plates and cutlery and a fridge to store it in, which I figured I was going to have to ask her for.

We went back to our room and packed, took one last dip in the pool and then came back to the restaurant part for some breakfast dessert — birthday cake! Mary took it out of the fridge, turned the fans off and put a candle in it so we could sing happy birthday to Miranda, which was totally unasked for and really sweet. There was another group of 4 in the restaurant while this happened, and we offered everyone including Mary and the kitchen staff cake to celebrate. We had a lot of cake for 2 people. 😛

Finished packing up, and off we went. Within an hour, we were on a gravel road. No problem, can still do 50km/h since it was regularly leveled Within a half hour, we were on a 4×4 only back road with huge rocks, pits, and rivers. An hour later we emerged from this to a little town that was having a football game (soccer) game. We were looked at a lot. We left town onto another road that quickly became the exact same thing.

We drove, crossing river after river, for 2.5 hours. We were both keeping our anxieties to ourselves, as we both knew that if anything went wrong with the car, that this would quickly turn into a massive hassle. Mercifully, the car took us through it with no troubles at all.

At one point near the end of our trip, we came out onto a paved road and I sang out in praise. Minutes later we were back on a gravel road…I think the Google Maps route we’d chosen was “most direct” and so it was taking us across paved roads in favour of awful ones.

I had a good time, since nothing went wrong. Miranda says the real question is “would you do it again” and my answer is “hells no”, but I enjoyed it anyway. 🙂

We got into Santa Teresa and found our place for the next few days. This town is filled with shirtless surfer “dudes” and ladies wearing only bikinis. We walked to a restaurant, had some excellent dinner and walked back to hang out by our pool for a bit. Back inside, we played a few games, and are considering whether we actually want to stay here for another 2 days or not. Outlook is not good. I proposed going to Monteverde. We had to miss it, as it was a 3-4 hour drive from La Fortuna where we were planning to go to it. But our trip from Santa Teresa to Quepos takes us within an hour drive of it, so I wondered if we wanted to leave here, stay there for the next two nights then go to Quepos as planned. We’ll see what the evening holds, I think we’re going to give the beach a try tomorrow and make a decision from there.

There are some photos that Miranda took on our harrowing journey, but she’s busy looking up things in Monteverde and I don’t want to disturb her for photos. Maybe later. 🙂

Miranda woke up with an upset stomach, so this day could have gone a lot worse than it did.

I had planned to leave around 10am to pick up a cake that I’d had a local bakery make for her for her birthday! Which was rough, since she wasn’t feeling well. >.>

We lay around for a chunk of the morning until noon when we left for our sailing tour, thankfully Miranda was feeling better enough that we could still go!

Lots of tiny fish when we started snorkeling after our relaxing boat ride for an hour and a half.

This blue fish in the top left annoyed the hell out of me. There were a ton of little blue “TRON” fish swimming around, and this one in particular had little spots of even lighter blue along his body, so I followed him for a while before giving up, and this was the best photo I got out of 11 of them. Stupid fish.:(

Another blue fish, and some snorkeling scenery.

We sailed to a beach and had lunch on a black sand beach.

I’m relaxed. (this photo was staged…there was a ton of water coming over the front by this point :P)

Sunsets!

I’m currently sad because Miranda’s cake is in a fridge in our hosts kitchen and we can’t get to it and I want to eat it! …with Miranda, want to eat it with Miranda, is what I mean.  Stupid cake…

This post is to sing the praises of my new favourite fish, the puffer. Let’s start you off easy, with a photo of 4 (or more) of them nestled under the hull of a wreck.

Then we’ll bring out the “big guns”.

HE’S JUST SO FREAKING CUTE. That’s the face they all give you when you look at them. And if you manage to get a head-on view (very difficult – they keep turning away from the camera), they’ll ALL SMILING. Every single one is like a sloth of the sea – perpetually smiling.

And then, they sometimes do this…

I don’t know what Rocky did to make him do this, but it’s amusing. Probably not great for the animal, since it’s a reaction designed to thwart predators, it’s probably combined with a shit ton of fear. >.>

But he’s still just SO CUTE.

Puffer fish selfie.

Then we let him go. This is a hilarious face…

Here’s another couple, along with my only head-on view. This guy is neutral faced, compared to the rest of his brethren.

I found this cluster of them under a rock.

Anyway, I hope I’ve convinced you of the glory of the puffer fish by now.

Another few photos today, these ones the “slight story” photos.

First, a story about the camera that I think got eaten last night. I have a bad rep with electronics and water. I flooded my GoPro, went snorkeling with my HTC One S and opened the lens port on my D400 last year. This new camera housing is my last attempt at it. If this fails any time soon, I’m giving up on underwater electronics (except for Toughie, which is amazing).

My new scuba housing has a vacuum seal, so you can create a vacuum inside the housing before you go underwater. This ensures that water can’t get in, because the internal pressure keeps the housing sealed. It also has a leak detector, with a convenient LED to tell you what state it’s in. Also, it’s slightly positively bouyant, so it floats slowly upward when you let go. Technology!

But all that technology can’t help prevent my idiocy and clumsiness. As we’re rolling into the water off the boat for our second dive, I caught my leash (which I use to ensure it stays with me while diving) on my fin. I roll into the water, and the camera gets yanked off the boat with me. There’s bubbles everywhere and confusion and I’m being told to swim away from the boat and I don’t have my camera in hand and I haven’t seen it and I’m told it’s in the water and fuck. They tell me it’s probably sinking, I tell them it floats. Someone says that another diver has it, and everyone starts to dive down. I still haven’t seen my camera. >.> I try to dive, but can’t and Rocky (my dive guide/buddy) comes up to ask why. I tell him that I don’t have my camera and he says it’s probably on the bottom. I don’t believe him, but have no choice right now but to follow him down. Also, that I couldn’t sink.

We get to the bottom of the ocean and one of the other divers hands me my camera.  …  … Why on earth couldn’t we have had that exchange on the surface?! I was there, he was there, my camera was there, my panic was there, just hand me the $2000 worth of technology and gadgetry and all will be well!!

I slowly calmed down.

Now here are some awesome photos! 🙂

Very spikey! But if you look carefully near the top left hand side you’ll see a little fish nestled in between the spikes. Protection!

There were rays everywhere on our first and third dives, just everywhere. This guy had been waiting under some sand until just before this photo when we disturbed him and he flew away.

The sun from about 20 feet below during our 3 minute safety stop.

I don’t know what this thing was, but moments before this photo it was closed off and scrunched up and then a dive guide did something to make it do this.

We swam near a wreck. It wasn’t a terrible amazing wreck, so I looked for good angles and framing rather than interesting things.

When you have the opportunity to frame the wreck with the wreck itself, you should take it.

This fish was funny. I took a photo of him and moved on. Then every photo I took for the next few photos magically seemed to include him. I think he was interested in being famous, so I’ll give him his 5 seconds here.

This is super cool. One of the other divers had this sweet camera, and “ancient” Nikonos, which was a line of underwater designed cameras for film. The two sticks you see popping out of the camera are lasers, which he uses on the surface to point at a card that he has a specific distance away. Then he uses his viewfinder to manually focus on the point where the lasers cross. Then he takes the card away and goes diving. The point of all this is because he doesn’t have an LCD display (FILM!), and it’s a manual lens (no auto focus) and the viewfinder is often hard to look through while diving, he just has to line up the laser points while diving and whatever is at those points will be in focus. Because it’s a macro lens, with an incredibly thin depth of field. An ingenious solution to a problem that I just don’t have because I spent a lot more money. 😛

This creature looks boring, but you won’t be saying that when it gets bigger and climbs out of the ocean to destroy your home and family. It looks a bit like a starfish, but it moved at a regular speed, crawling with all it’s limbs across Rocky’s hand. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s going to haunt my nightmares for a bit.

The striped fish on the left was getting a cleaning from all the other fish when we showed up. He decided he didn’t want to do this in front of the cameras, and swam off. Then seconds later, his friends slowly went and joined him. Repeat this scene two more times while I’m watching. Fish are funny. 🙂

A safety stop selfie with Rocky and I. Rocky was a gruff ex-Canadian Special Forces dude from Nova Scotia. He was very matter of fact, and I felt most of the trip like he thought I was a bit of a bungling fool, because I screwed up so much. But he was great, showed me a lot and had some good conversations.

One more diving post to go, on my new favourite fish – the puffer fish. I didn’t have a favourite fish before this trip, and I’m stoked to leave with one. We’ll talk about how amazing this little fish is over the next 10 photos.

Also, tomorrow is Miranda’s birthday so don’t forget to wish her a happy one on Facebook or by email.

This message brought to you by the “Beat Our Facebook Engagement Numbers Committee”.

(Happy birthday, in an hour, love. :))

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Annoying. I wrote and started uploading a post, and was thinking about how smooth it was all going and then WordPress for Android crashed and ate my entire post with it.

There were 2 parts, but now there are 3. “Puffer fish” “Photos with stories” and “Everyone else”. This one is “Everyone else”, because I have a few stories to share that don’t involve the photos and I’m tired but want to get something up!

I dove with Rocket Frog Divers in Playa Ocotal, near by us. They picked me up at 7:45 this morning and we had a great day of diving. I can’t recommend them completely, because of some disheartening and consistent organization issues, but the boat crew were terrific and I did have a great day, even though I wasn’t even certain what I was doing as of yesterday afternoon.

This fish really is that big, it’s not just an unflattering angle.

I wish I had a better photo of one of these guys. They are so cool looking, but I just got this fish butt.

Just an idyllic underwater scene.

There were a ton of rays on our dives, they were just all over the place and so cool. I originally took this photo with just the ray, but then a diver conveniently went into my frame to give context.

Here’s hoping this posts properly this time…only 5 minutes of work, but I hate re-doing it!

Miranda read my last and volunteered to send me some photos of some coati we saw by the side of the road. These guys were super adorable!

Which inspired me to go grab the camera for the 2 beach photos we took.

Scroll down for cursing about iPhones, digitcal cameras, standards and the incomplete adherence to them.

Bonus rant. Some camera manufacturers (including iPhone cameras) have decided to include an orientation tag in their EXIF data. This is SUPER HELPFUL because if you take a photo on an iPhone, it’ll know how best to display it to you! But if you send that photo to someone, and that someone has programs, half of which respect that tag and the other half of which don’t respect it, you have a problem.

Guess which half respect the tag? All of my image editing programs were like “Yes, this photo is totally right side up”. Guess which half don’t respect the tag? Well, WordPress most notably, so I would upload photos that were sideways that Android Image Editor and Photoshop Express would insist were not sideways!

Some research later, and an EXIF editing program and an extra step to my on-the-go photo processing workflow and we have photos of coati and more knowledge.

I have no photos for today. Well, maybe I have one, but it’s over there and I’m over here and…

We woke up, packed our stuff up and let the amazing La Fortuna Suites for Playa del Coco on the Pacific Coast. It was an interesting drive that hugged the Lake Arenal really closely winding all over the place. We drove at 50km/h most of the way along this highway, because you couldn’t turn any quicker.

At one point we made a completely unsigned turn onto what looked like a driveway, but turned out to be the turn for the route we needed. We knew because of Google Maps and Miranda, and would’ve gotten lost otherwise.

Another time, we turned onto a dirt road that we were assured again by Google Maps and our paper map, that would turn into a major highway. About 20 minutes of driving through red dirt and potholes and we came off onto a paved street that had a shoulder and everything. So weird.

We drove through Liberia, which is another bigger city in Costa Rica. They were upgrading the highway along the route, which caused a shit ton of confusion as we drove. There’s apparently a roundabout in the middle of that construction mess, but we followed the car in front of us until it made sense.

Arriving in Playa del Coco was easy and we found our place. It’s a bit of a longer walk to the beach than we’d like, but the main strip is a big party place with a ton of open air sports bars all over. The beach was covered in really fine sand and was a little dirty, with a great concrete beach walk. We’re told that Playa Ocotal is good for snorkeling and may check that out later.

We had a swim, then came back to swim in the pool attached to our new place. Had pizza for dinner. I organized another birthday surprise for Miranda that I’m still not 100% will work out, but so far so good.

Organized my scuba stuff! I’m going diving tomorrow and not only had to get my stuff together, but wanted to run through my camera housing steps to make sure I had them fresh in my memory. 3 dives tomorrow while Miranda is going shopping and to the spa! Super looking forward to it!

(and I might post the single photo from today later…:))