The thing about diving locally is that eventually all of us regular divers who dive year round get to know each other, it's like an extended family. If Joe says diver X is good then I trust what he says because I trust him. That's what the extended family relationship does. At one time or another we either have dove together or dove with the others buddies.
It's really kind of neat how that grows. I know I met Brandon at Project Aware when he and my buddy Charlie were talking. I've run across Joe many times at various events down south at the lakes, and of course he's always got somebody around. The problem is I know so many divers by first name and not last name, it's sometimes tough to place them. Or like here, I didn't place bgray as a person I knew even though I'd met him before.
Diving locally is a great way to make friends and meet new people, and sometimes you find spots you hadn't thought about like Bennett Springs. Joe and another buddy of mine Kevin got me into diving there, now I wonder why they didn't tell me sooner...
The way I look at it is a stranger is a friend I haven't met yet.
At any rate right now I'm a bit worried about making the dive tomorrow, it's sleeting right now and is supposed to get worse over night. I am planning on waking up and giving it a shot and seeing what happens, it really is a great place to dive and IMO it's the best place in the state. My dive gear is packed and ready to toss in the back of my JGC, I keep it inside to prevent issues with being frozen. So I'm ready to go if the roads are safe to travel.
