What do sharks and turkeys have in common?

This past Thursday was the first time in my life that I didn't spend Thanksgiving with family. In college, I always found my way home. After graduation, I either made the trek down to my parents in North Carolina, or I spent the holiday with my sister at my cousins house. Working in Guam made seeing my family impossible this year. That doesn't mean I didn't make the best of it though.

I started out the day as I have started out every day off from work - with some scuba diving. My first dive of the day was at Gab Gab 2. It gets it's name from the beach on the Naval Base - Gab Gab Beach. Gab Gab 1 is the first reef line, then Gab Gab 2 is the second one in about 40-120 feet of water.

Giant Trevally looking for food

At Gab Gab 2, a tourist company sets up feeding stations where they put tiny bits of squid in upside down buckets. This attracts some BIG fish - Giant Trevally and Orbicular Batfish. The Giant Trevally go crazy for the food and keep smacking the bucket trying to get a meal.

Nurse Shark

The squid attracts one more type of animal - nurse sharks. These are mostly harmless sharks, but they can still get pretty big. We saw maybe about a half dozen of them - although never more than two at a time, so maybe they were all the same ones. I got within 3 feet of one at one point.










The sharks were more scared of us than we were of them. It was hard to get close enough to get a decent picture since they'd swim away.

This guy was a little more bold. He swam right at me and only got scared about 3 feet away.

We found a really cool Rose Bubble Tip Anemone that was hosting a few Clownfish. This thing was absolutely beautiful. I got some halfway decent pictures, but they could've been better - I got some backscatter, unfortunately.








Our second dive of the day was to Gab Gab 1. I hit my deepest dive ever, going down to 87 feet - although that record would only stand for about 24 hours. We found a giant wall of anemones. It was incredible - I've never seen so many in one place before. The water was a bit cloudy, so unfortunately it messed up most of my pictures with backscatter. A couple highlights are below, but you can find all the pictures from Gab Gab 2 and Gab Gab 1 on my Picasa.

Later that day, it got to be the most important part of the day: Turkey time. One of my co-workers, Chris, who relocated to Guam for this project had won a frozen turkey in a Halloween costume contest. That spurred him and his fiancée, Kelli, to put on a full Thanksgiving dinner for us, our other relocated co-worker (Matt), and a couple of their Japanese friends. Everything came out absolutely amazing. Matt and I had a competition for eating the mashed potatoes. I won. Mashed potatoes are my domain and you do not challenge me.

As you can see, we had quite the spread. Kelli is finishing off the gravy while I'm anxiously awaiting digging in to the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes (not pictured), green bean casserole, and biscuits. There was obviously pumpkin pie to finish the meal.

This is my plate of food. What you're witnessing here is the perfect plate. Bold statement, I know, but just look how the foods all just work together. The turkey has the perfect amount of gravy, just drizzled about. The generous helping of mashed potatoes acts as a barrier between the green bean casserole and the stuffing. Everyone knows those can't touch. And the biscuit just adds that splash of golden brown coloration that every Thanksgiving plate must have.