Once upon a time at Conch Republic Divers, so long ago, that Tommy and Cynthia were running the place and Ed The Evil Cat stalked customers there, I was out on a day that had the makings of weather going icky. The second dive basically turned into a drift dive because the current turned and vis in the shallows went away. Seas were 2's and 3's when we stepped off the boat. There was a new captain on that day, we found out that he didn't stay. The lead diver, the one with the dive flag, got out of view from my group. Upon surfacing we found seas had gone to 5's and 6's. Squalls, gusts, you know, icky weather. I kept my guys together and it took at least half an hour for the new captain to round us all up. Nobody panicked, but nobody was really comfortable, either. After everybody was aboard the captain proceded to bark, hiss and growl at all of us because he had a hard time following the drift and took a long time to get us all aboard. Then took the time to wag his finger at every one of us in turn, telling, no, yelling, at us that he had never seen such a bunch of screw-ups in his entire life. Several of us were seen fondling our BFK's for a while, but, hey, in a half an hour we'll be away from this clown. And besides that, think of the paperwork if the boat and divers came back without the boat driver. Quiet ride back to Tavernier Creek Marina. Now, the Republic Diver had a mongo fiberglass VHF antenna that had to be stowed before going under the Hiway 1 bridge. Angry Young Captain was still grumbling about us divers when we all watched while he forgot to stow the antenna and harpooned the low-hanging bridge beam. Then, when he destroyed the antenna we all broke out laughing. Justice was being served while we watched. Red-faced Angry Young Captain then proceded to ground the boat on the 'Love Stone' that separated the marina basin from the creek. While we felt bad for Tommy and the boat, we couldn't help giggling and smiling. Angry Young Captain had an even worse time getting into the slip and tied off with no help from his divers. Tommy came out to tend to disembarcation and saw the splinters hanging from the antenna mount. Then, against his better judgement, he asked "Hey guys, how was the dive today?" Well, we all took turns telling him. Last day for Angry Young Captain. And Tommy made it good with all of us before we were loaded out for the day.
That's my war story, what's yours?
