How shall I sum up our 7 days in (Marco Island) Florida? How about, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?
The Good:
1. Meeting CBulla, Kbulla, and the babybullas, and Sharkbait. Also, seeing Colin's massive bone was really swell. :14:
2. Being with my family all week, on the beach, eating, diving, talking, watching movies, eating, sleeping, working puzzles, sightseeing, eating, shelling, racing in the pool, shopping, reading, etc. Oh yeah, we ate some great food!
3. Diving in Key Largo was great.
4. We went with Quiessence dive op, and it was just us 3 (my husband, son in law, and me) on a nice, clean boat with Captain Rob. We dove the Benwood wreck and French Reef. Recommend this dive op, they let us dive our air and do our own thing, very nice people.
5. The food at Shrimp Shack in Ft. Myers. Yummmm!
6. Our resort, Angler's Cove was very nice.
7. The weather forced us to be relaxed and chilled out, so for the first time ever, we don't need a vacation to recover from our vacation!
The Bad:
1. Red tide forced Colin to give us an early morning call on our sharks tooth hunting dive date with the bad news that it wasn't going to be safe to dive on Venice. I appreciate that he is a safety-conscious friend who had better sense than to let us chance it. Sorry, Reef-Guy, wish we could have met! Next trip.
2. We bounced into the Marco Island dive shop (ScubaAdventureMarco) on our reservation date, excited to be getting wet again... Imagine our shock when the dive shop part-owner (wife part with deer-in-headlights look) said that her husband was already out with a "group of students." She evidently didn't write us down after we spoke on the phone, and decided on our dive date and time. Guess what, one boat, no diving for YALL. In my opinion, there is no excuse for this level of unprofessionalism. It was our last possible day to dive (due to flight schedules and Arlene,) and they were the only dive shop in town (only ones with a boat anyway.) Nearest diving would have been 3 hours away, too late in the day for that. So, basically, we got screwed. NOTE to diveshop owners out there: WRITE down your reservations. It saves ill-feelings and bad reviews on the internet. I'm sure they are very nice people, but this is really not a good thing to pull. It's most likely that we were saved by divine intervention from an accident or something, given that they didn't even write down our reservation- hope they remembered the air.
The Ugly:
1. Finding out that we're waaaaaay too poor to live in Florida. The land and home prices are...shall we say... ludicrous? Lucky you who bought 10-20 yrs ago, sell and buy a mansion in Texas!
2. Arlene. 'nuff said.
Overall, we had a wonderful vacation, full of love and life with family and new friends. Thanks again to Colin and Kris for the use of the playpen, it was a lifesaver for my daughter and husband. One-year olds do not sleep well with others. lol. Ready to show off my easy-won fossil sharks teeth, also- didn't even taste any salt water to get these babies! Thanks, C&K!
Foo
The Good:
1. Meeting CBulla, Kbulla, and the babybullas, and Sharkbait. Also, seeing Colin's massive bone was really swell. :14:
2. Being with my family all week, on the beach, eating, diving, talking, watching movies, eating, sleeping, working puzzles, sightseeing, eating, shelling, racing in the pool, shopping, reading, etc. Oh yeah, we ate some great food!
3. Diving in Key Largo was great.
4. We went with Quiessence dive op, and it was just us 3 (my husband, son in law, and me) on a nice, clean boat with Captain Rob. We dove the Benwood wreck and French Reef. Recommend this dive op, they let us dive our air and do our own thing, very nice people.
5. The food at Shrimp Shack in Ft. Myers. Yummmm!
6. Our resort, Angler's Cove was very nice.
7. The weather forced us to be relaxed and chilled out, so for the first time ever, we don't need a vacation to recover from our vacation!
The Bad:
1. Red tide forced Colin to give us an early morning call on our sharks tooth hunting dive date with the bad news that it wasn't going to be safe to dive on Venice. I appreciate that he is a safety-conscious friend who had better sense than to let us chance it. Sorry, Reef-Guy, wish we could have met! Next trip.
2. We bounced into the Marco Island dive shop (ScubaAdventureMarco) on our reservation date, excited to be getting wet again... Imagine our shock when the dive shop part-owner (wife part with deer-in-headlights look) said that her husband was already out with a "group of students." She evidently didn't write us down after we spoke on the phone, and decided on our dive date and time. Guess what, one boat, no diving for YALL. In my opinion, there is no excuse for this level of unprofessionalism. It was our last possible day to dive (due to flight schedules and Arlene,) and they were the only dive shop in town (only ones with a boat anyway.) Nearest diving would have been 3 hours away, too late in the day for that. So, basically, we got screwed. NOTE to diveshop owners out there: WRITE down your reservations. It saves ill-feelings and bad reviews on the internet. I'm sure they are very nice people, but this is really not a good thing to pull. It's most likely that we were saved by divine intervention from an accident or something, given that they didn't even write down our reservation- hope they remembered the air.
The Ugly:
1. Finding out that we're waaaaaay too poor to live in Florida. The land and home prices are...shall we say... ludicrous? Lucky you who bought 10-20 yrs ago, sell and buy a mansion in Texas!
2. Arlene. 'nuff said.
Overall, we had a wonderful vacation, full of love and life with family and new friends. Thanks again to Colin and Kris for the use of the playpen, it was a lifesaver for my daughter and husband. One-year olds do not sleep well with others. lol. Ready to show off my easy-won fossil sharks teeth, also- didn't even taste any salt water to get these babies! Thanks, C&K!
Foo
whaaaaaaaah!!!
