Exposition Boot 2010, Düsseldorf...

Today the discovery of the biggest water sport exposition in Germany: BOOT 2010 was on the programme. This event takes place since 2002 and collects around 1700 companies/presentors from 57 countries every year in Düsseldorf.

The visitor is squizzed between huge yachts and underwater images, old viking ship replicas and hanging water sport gear. In the diving hall there are even 2 inside dive tanks (and a pool for wake-boarding) for the most enthusiastic once.

The expo is definitely a good place to collect information for beautiful places around the world, meet some old faces (hehe, we bumped in the owner of dive school we dived with in the Maldives) or just to "walk/wonder around" in the middle of a huge crowd...

Le Beffroi d'Arras/ Arras bell tower in Picardy

I was amazed when arriving at the main square in Arras, the capital of the French department Pas-de-Calais. The main square (called so many names: the Grande Place, the Place des Héros, also called the Petite Place) was bathing in autumn sunshine. On the background of blue sky and white clouds the buildings appeared just so perfectly lined up and beautiful...At the one end of it, the 77m-high-bell tower overlooked the city from the top of the Gothic town hall.

The "Beffroi d`Arras" (the bell tower) is on the UNESCO World heritage list since 2005. It was built between the XIVth and the XVth century, but was almost completely distroyed during the WW1. The bell tower is classified historical monument of France already in 1840! Inside the town hall (Hotel de Ville) the typical local costumes (of Picardy area) "in huge size" are on display.

If you are curious to see how Arras did look like some 50-60 years ago, please click here. A great selection of old post cards is shown!

Caribbean flowers....

It is cold, wet and grey outside, typical European weather in winter....and its been like this for the last few days, so I have decided to share some more colours and warmth from the Caribbean with you. In the French Antilles one may discover plenty of exotic flowers unknown in the old continent. On the first picture you can see the so called "oiseau de paradis" (eng. "paradise bird"). Another funny name has the flower pictured just below, this one is called "rose de porcelaine" (eng. "pocelane rose").

The best place to experience this in Martinique is Jardin de Balata, close to the capital Fort-de-France. The 3 last pictures in this blog entry are from there. Next to different flowers and exotic tree kinds one can admire there colibri and other birds too. The last picture features the flower "heliconia", which always hangs down.

Skating on frozen canals in the Netherlands...

Some colleagues told me they did not remember (in the last 20 years...) a winter as cold and white as this one in the Netherlands. Last year (and to be more exact in January 2009) was the first time the Dutch canals were frozen (again) for the last..... 12 years!!! Why is it so surprising-well some decades ago this was happening every winter in the low lands...

But to come back to last and (of course!) this year! Young and old (and even the Queen-if one may trust the press) put on the skates and went on ice. Does not matter the skates: on ice I have seen next to the well-known figure- and ice-hockey-skates also the very famous here Dutch "noren" (speed-skates: the one on left side, picture above). A Swedish colleague impressed me with the Skandinavian version of speed skating: the one without a shoe and very funny form, on the right side in the above shot.

Snow-ball fights were also possible...But the minus-temperatures lasted only a bit more than a week and the ducks are happy now to have again water!

Explore the Caribbean underwater life...with me:-)

Finally (and with the Blogger-blessing) i have the honour to invite you to go underwater, in the Caribbean sea. The next three videos will help you discover the amazing world in the Reserve Coustea, Ilets Pigeon, in Guadeloupe.




In the first movie one may admire two calamars. The second one displays an octopus, who made a real show in front of me:



And for an end a close swim with an turtle, we have had the luck and pleasure to see them in almost every one of our dives.