Tag: Outdoors

Quebec’s Eastern Townships: Cycling From Montreal to Granby

We spent a week cycling around the Eastern Townships of Quebec, enjoying beautiful bike trails, parks, lakes, and delicious food and drink. Here are photos and recommendations from the first day of our Eastern Townships self-guided cycling tour. It is a pleasure cycling from Montreal to Granby, Quebec.

Begin in Montreal

Cycling from Montreal to Granby route map
Montreal to Granby

Day 1 involved a few hours at the bike shop in Old Montreal acquiring our rental bikes, getting them fitted, and gearing up with the panniers. By the time we left the city and rolled across the two bridges, it was almost noon.

Cycling from Montreal to Granby bridge selfie
Our selfie on the bridge leaving Montreal

Quebec Bike Paths

What a pleasure! We rod on bike paths almost the whole way, and they were nice paths. Well-paved, separated from the road, with good views, these bike paths are fun to ride. We are looking forward to a week of almost all separated cycling paths. For people who spend their days cycling in “lanes” marked by painted images of bicycles in Toronto, this was heaven!

Continue reading “Quebec’s Eastern Townships: Cycling From Montreal to Granby”

Utila Diving Photos and Videos

The diving has been really nice here in Utila over the last few weeks. The underwater visibility is great these days now that the rainy season is over. I have been bad about posting while busy finishing up the Divemaster training (SO CLOSE!). We aren’t able to bring cameras on training dives because we are working, so I only take photos on our “fun dives.” Here are some Utila diving photos and videos.

fun dive photos

Here are a few underwater shots from some fun dives I’ve done lately.

Trumpetfish Utila Diving Photos
A trumpetfish

I found my red filter so moving forward the photos will not be so blue! But for now, this is what I’ve got, including this pretty angelfish.

Angelfish Utila
Angelfish
Continue reading “Utila Diving Photos and Videos”

Beach Clean-Up with Utila Dive Center

One of the requirements of UDC’s Divemaster program is to participate in a beach clean-up, which is a great way to ensure all the students are aware of the environmental problems with our oceans. Last Monday, I participated in my first beach clean-up with Utila Dive Center. It was enlightening and a little bit depressing but ultimately rewarding.

Getting to the beach clean-up

We met at UDC and drove in a van to the beach at the southeast end of the island, where I had never been.  From Google Maps, I guess it is Iron Shore Beach. There’s no road across the island, so we went all the way south and then back up the east side.

Iron Shore Beach Utila map
UDC to Iron Shore Beach, Utila

Advance preparation

One of the UDC instructors, T, led the group and she organized everything, providing gloves, garbage bags, rakes, and trays to put special types of refuse on, like glass bottles (of which there were few) and bottle caps (many). We were prepared and we needed to be. The amount of trash that washes onto that island from the ocean has to be seen to be believed.

Organized into teams, we competed with each other a bit: for most trash, and most of each type of trash. It was just one element to keep people involved, but most of us didn’t need the game.

Continue reading “Beach Clean-Up with Utila Dive Center”