Saturday while the Princess was out snorkeling, I was out on one of the many reefs on a dive. While heading to the next reef I was talking to FireBrand and ScubaPolly (interesting that I could get a clear signal all the way out there and no roaming charges
). I was making arrangements of the night dive with Fire and Princes and the late night pick up of Polly when she arrived at the airport (maybe I should look at being a business planner or something along those lines).
The second dive, I scrubbed due to the bad weather I saw rolling in on the horizon and secondly I was saving myself up for the night dive. While sitting and waiting for the two teams to return from their dive, it hit with sudden abandon. In the distance you could see the wall of white just moving in making the distant boats disappear as it approached (a pretty ominous sight if you ask me). Our boat captain (My1ocean, I did not find this out till the last day with Quessence) said it wouldnt hit us, I think King Neptune heard him and caused it to come our way :11: . One team came up in the pouring rain with quizzical looks upon their faces as if saying, what gives :06: . The elderly couple came up after we spent some time trying to find their bubbles on the surface, pretty hard thing to do during a torrential downpour. Finally, we got site of their bubbles and kept a close eye on them there was a good current running that time. They finally get onboard, we begin to get our gear stowed away for a quick ride home and for me to link up with the Princess and Fire for our night dive.
We get back after a good 10-15 min ride back in, I run up and sign in for the night dive (saying a quick hello and how you doing to FireBrand). I make my way back down to the dock and have to move my gear off the boat I came in to a different boat so I could be diving with the Princess, FireBrand and a firefighter on vacation from Cincinnati. After all said and done I get to finally eat (I was famished), thank god for PB&J J! While eating I was the focal point of the ever so popular mascot of the Quessence dive op. After a few sad looks from her I relented, she got her PB&J amongst some other snacks (ok so I am a sucker for sad eyes, I think the Princess had a lot to do with this).
We head out to North North Dry Rocks for out night excursion in the deep blue (well not so deep, could be if you went the wrong way). We get our dive brief from another great boat captain Mike. It was nearly dusk when we entered the water and headed to the big sandy area hoping to catch a glimpse of the rays as they come to bed and eat for the night. To our dismay, they did not show up or give us that awesome sight that was word painted in our minds. We headed to the reef and began our many exploits for the night or as long as 3000psi would last us. The reef was alive that night; the critters that were not seen during the day were out in abundance. The lobsters were plenty numerous, coming out and waving hello and good-bye to us as we silently passed by with the occasional disturbance of our exhalations. We explore the reef keeping carefully well above it, I looked intently along the reef seeing the damage that had been done maybe that day or the day prior. I felt saddened to see numerous sea fans lying on the floor of the reef amongst other parts of the reef that was lying on the sand.
On our way back we headed back to the boat a group of juvenile jellyfish came by, an awesome site to see. They looked like stars in a dark moonless night, there was enough to play connect the dots with. Along the way, I spotted a big black circle on the reef to my surprise it was a sea urchin that was approximately 9 inches in width. The cool part was the long black thin spines with some grey ones in there. On our way back, we took a wrong turn and came to the wrong boat
(the only 2 boats out there that night were from the same dive op, no worries). I go up and check and say hello, Hey Mike you there, no this is Steve came the reply. I said alrighty and duck back in after getting a bearing on the other boat (nobody said I was perfect). We head over, I was pushing 800 in my tank another 3 and I would be doing the surface swim back. We get back and joke about our wrong turn (do you think they could post a sign go this way?), and discuss all the really cool creatures that were out at night.
We get back to the dock and turn in the tanks and load up, off to pick up Polly after a quick shower and deciding on the plan to pick her up. We all decide to go, and then get something to eat after picking up our guest. That goes without a hitch well almost, it seems there are a lot of angry drivers that come out at night in Florida (I regret selling my pistol at times, only for protection). We arrive at the airport and pick up a weary passenger who is elected to ride with Fire so he can do his Q&A for TwoTours. We opt to go to the Waffle House in Key Largo for a late/early dinner breakfast (if we call breakfast and lunch brunch, what would we call dinner and breakfast?). While at the diner we had the pleasure of listening to one of Key Largos biggest players ROFLMAO. I try hard to keep a straight face when listening to his corny lines. If it were the gong show I would have had to ask for the biggest mallet to send him on his way. I mean how many guys us old 80s music trivia to pick up girls? I could care less about the Humpty Dance and Vanilla Ice amongst others that were mentioned in his corny lines. If youre hungry and need of a little laugh with your dirkast (dinner and breakfast combined), you can go to the Waffle House in Key Largo and enjoy!
The next day did not go as planned, I ended up with students finishing their OWs and Princess was on another boat for another Spiegel dive. Unfortunately, there was a mix up and Fire could not get on that boat even though prior arrangements were made by him earlier that week to be on it. He and Polly go off on their own to dive the Spiegel, and to my surprise on their post dive exploits somebody did the dreaded War Hammer and not to mention getting covered by juvenile crabs from head to toe (My lips are sealed). Princesss dive on the Spiegel did not happen due to the fact that the 2 who were diving with her decided at the last minute in the water to not dive after the first three went down. Not picking on them but, there are some circumstances that they did not dive it. I opted to have my Spiegel coin to be sent to TwoTours in Iraq.
