In cruise mode -- with a little help from our friends

Our month-long vacation is behind us, but before we begin with the next round of diving adventures, we'd like to acknowledge some friends of The Right Blue.

Several of our fellow bloggers have written reviews and articles about The Right Blue in their own blogs:

Matt Keegan, a.k.a. The Article Writer, featured The Right Blue in a piece he wrote entitled Blogging Can Be Thankless Or Tremendously Rewarding.

Fellow Hawaii-based blogger Charley Foster referred his readers to The Right Blue in an article on his blog, Planet Kaua'i.

A photo of Bobbie and a post about The Right Blue appeared on the blog run by Samish Divers of Bellingham, Washington.

Fellow 'baby boomer' Rosie wrote a very complimentary review of The Right Blue on her blog, Rosie's Boomer Review.

Penguin lover Wiinterrr featured our article about the Blue Penguins of New Zealand on A Penguin's Tale.

We appreciate their role in spreading the word about The Right Blue, and helping us to grow. We encourage our readers to visit these excellent blogs, too.

Some of our fellow bloggers honored us with awards. In fact, in mid-October we received two awards on the same day!

Dawn at AntiBarbie.net gave us a Beautiful Blog Design Award "For having the best pictures EVER!" Thank you, Dawn. You made us blush.

Later the same day, we heard from Jos at NoDirectOn (not: NoDirection), who gave us a Community Blogger Award. The award "celebrates people who reach out and make the blogging community a better one."

Then, a few weeks later, Jos also gave us a "Be the Blog" badge. "This badge is for bloggers who make their blog their own, stay with it, interact with their readers, and have fun!" Many thanks, Jos, for both of those awards. We greatly appreciate the fact that you appreciate The Right Blue!

Kathy, who displays her excellent work at Photography by KML, gave us an Amazing Blogger Award. Thank you for the recognition, Kathy.

Speaking of Kathy, she also is one of our most faithful commentators. She and Bernie Kasper of BFK Photography not only comment on our stories and photos more frequently than anyone else, their comments on Bobbie's photos are especially appreciated, since both Kathy and Bernie are such accomplished photographers themselves.

Among our other frequent commentators are the members of the Photography Group at Blog Catalog, and our fellow Wordless Wednesday participants. We thank them for returning to The Right Blue again and again and keeping the conversations lively.

Traffic to The Right Blue has steadily grown over the course of our first six months, thanks in part to readers such as Thomas Laupstad and Mark Stoneman, who have submitted the site and particular articles to Stumbleupon. We're sure that this has resulted in an expanded readership for The Right Blue, and we are grateful to them.

We are truly touched by the continued positive and enthusiastic response to The Right Blue, and we thank all of our readers and commentators for making this venture seem worth doing!