Scuba Diving

Did You Make It?!?!

You see this pier right here? I have a fun story about this pier…. Hold on….

So in May, I’ve mentioned in passing a few times, we went to Cozumel, Mexico. When you board a dive boat, right there under that roof is usually where people enter the dive boat they are going out on.. that and a little bit to this side even. You know, those big pillars are to tie boats off to to keep them at the dock.

I’m not sure exactly how deep it is right there at the end of the peer, but it’s deep enough that dive boats can get in easily. I’ve heard around 20 feet… I now my friend Grady accidentally had his gear dropped off a boat and they had to free dive down to get it.

Okay, so now that you have a little back ground history…. Let’s proceed with today’s story.

The last night we were in Cozumel, around dinner time I ran out to get sunset pictures (the above photo is from the first night….). There were 3 people, appeared to be a mother and 2 kids possibly. The girl I assume was daughter was probably early 20’s and the guy I assume to be son was late teens. So guesstimate mom’s age by those numbers… if she was near 20 when she had said daughter, we’re looking at least at age 40.

They were getting ready to go out and do a night dive. They didn’t seem real confident in their diving abilities based off their conversations of, how do I put this on, where does this go, did I set this up correctly, etc. Hey, as a new diver I was there too. It happens to everyone until you get some dives in under your belt.

Now, those things on your feet, they’re called fins, not flipper. In our group if you call them flipper’s someone starts singing “Flipper, Flipper, Faster than Lightning”… you know the theme song from the show Flipper form the 70’s…. <crickets>

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Memorial Day Weekend 2017

Memorial Day Weekend was spent at Beaver Lake. The night before we left to go down there, Deb and Grady said they were having difficulty getting all the trailers down so we volunteered to pull the dive trailer down for them. When we got to the lake, I had to giggle at the “big” truck pulling the little trailer. It’s a bathroom cleaner thing for campers but that sight just made me giggle so hard.

These 3 are back together again. Wow, did they make quite the team… they are the next round of shenanigan makers!

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Meet ‘n Greet

Last year when we went to Cozumel we didn’t have a Meet ‘n Greet. It was a “shop” trip and we all knew each other. Now I say that and I knew most of the people going this year, but not everyone. We have a couple parents going that are non-divers and this was almost more for them.

My mom is leaving for Hawaii in a few days and wouldn’t be back until the week we leave so we threw this together at the last minute to allow everyone to meet. It just so happens it fell on Easter evening, but that’s okay. Most all of us had all our stuff done in plenty of time to come, plus we didn’t need much food because we were all stuffed.

Now we’re all excitedly anticipating our trip!!

Underwater Pumpkin Carving

I typically get sick twice a year… this year I think I’m at 3 times. Blech! I’m so over this! Anyway… A couple weekends ago we had our annual Underwater pumpkin carving. Yes, I said underwater, because who doesn’t want to carve a pumpkin underwater? Don’t answer that.

The surface temperature topped out around 78˚. The water temperature wasn’t bad at all either. I heard the thermocline was down around 30 feet. I couldn’t get past 3 feet because of whatever this is. My ears were jacking with me so I carved my pumpkin basically laying right under the surface of the water.

I’ve been bugging hubby for family photos all summer long so finally we found a weekend when we had Tbug and it just so happened to be this weekend. We got up early (although not as early as I would have hoped, my fault) and went to the lake to do photos. Not quite where I wanted to take them, but sometimes you have to roll with the punches and I was happy with how they turned out so it’s all good.

That morning it was a big chilly. Abug got cold so Tbug zipped her up in her jacket with her. I turned around and this is what I saw.

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Mermet Springs 2016

There’s a story, of a trip to Mermet… oh wait, that was last year’s theme song. There actually wasn’t a theme song this year… more of a quote… but I’m not putting that out there!

It’s the yearly trek to Mermet Springs over in Metropolis Illinois. Last year on our way we found an Italian Restaurant we wanted to eat at. Turns out we’d have had to wait for 4 hours. This year, we made reservations and trust me, it was worth it. Italian Grill on Broadway. After dinner we went down to the Ohio River shore which was like 8 blocks or so. The weather was perfect for an outing like this. And our friends John and Nelda met us for dinner and our walk to the shore.

Down at the shore there were all these murals on the wall giving the history of Paducah. I wish I’d have had time to read them all!

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Christmas in August (at least for Karen and me!)

What is this you might ask? Well let me tell you. Back in June during the Safari Hunt, I really didn’t have any plans of diving. What? Well, Tbug had a dive buddy (he’s a good one too! Thanks Doug!!) and truthfully, I didn’t want to get my hair wet. Strange as that sounds, it is the truth. Because if you didn’t know, Diving isn’t a dry sport. I didn’t have any plans of diving in the actual safari hunt, so I wasn’t all that interested in getting my hair wet. Now I must say, I’m GLAD I did! And here’s why…

Our SCUBAPRO rep was actually in this part of the country that weekend and told Deb and Grady he’d just come down to the lake. Earlier in the spring Deb showed me a flier for the new Hydros BC and tried to tease/taunt me with it, especially because it comes in purple, my favorite color. I didn’t really care so much… I had a nice BC that worked so whatever. I was content.

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Birthday Party Take 2, But 1

Is that title confusing to anyone else? Okay, I’ll explain. If there is one thing I can tell you about my baby girl it is that she is loved. She is loved by a lot of people. We got involved with our diving group in 2013 when we got certified and they are a second family! Or really, they are family. That’s the best way to describe it. And baby girl got herself one heck of a family! So her birthday was on Sunday, but that Saturday we were at the lake for the Safari Hunt. That evening, we had a small birthday party for her at the lake for those who couldn’t make her birthday party on Sunday. So this kid had 2 birthday parties, this was the first and her actual birthday date was the second. Therefore, Birthday party 1, but post 2. Did you follow all of that? If not, just know my baby girl has one heck of an awesome family both blood and personally added!

We’re a lively bunch, I tell ya! Watch out for us!

So during the Safari Hunt, she played hard. Eventually she took a nap. We got her back up to Deb and Grady’s camper without waking her up and I got her on their couch so she took about a 2 hour nap. When she woke up, I’m not sure she was ready, so she cried and cried. The only person who could console her was daddy!

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