Well Good Morning DDD's! Hope everyone made it home in one piece and most likely have been cleaning and soaking scuba gear like me! For those who could not make the fest...well I am sorry to report you missed a great time! I want to personally thank Shane, the manager of Vortex! He truly was the factor that made this event pretty spectacular! The DJ/Karaoke setup really helped bring out the inner diva's of alot of us! Especially TOM SMEDELY! Truly that was the performance of the night! His rendition of 'Like A Virgin"...well it was unique and truly awe inspiring! I can't wait to see what he does at Vortoberfest!:jb:
I also want to personally thank my offshore dive team and truly great friends, Kraken and Yellow Angel Fish! I couldn't imagine sharing adventures with anyone else! No matter what happened on our offshore trip, it's great that we can truly laugh and enjoy the misadventure! Thank you for making me part of your family! XOXO!
Now for the REPORT:
I got into to vortex before 5pm Friday and of course had to say hello first thing to Dennis and Linda! I then got my campsite setup so all would be done so I would hope to get to bed at a decent hour! (Yeah Rght) WillardJ and his wife were there too. Denise was wanting to do a night dive so I was holding off getting into the water till her and her group got there. At about 7:30pm, we invaded Sally's for our traditional Fest kick-off dinner! We took over the back room and definitely hit the menu hard! You can't beat Sally's Shrimp, burgers, and Sourcream/chive fries! When we got back, Denise was just getting there, but in the end, she was not up to diving.(BTW DENISE...U r AWESOME GIRL!) So a couple of us, decided to go get wet. I was the only one in a wetsuit so after about 20 mins, I was a bit too cold to stay any longer. It was beautiful hanging with the eels and enjoying the full moon from the bottom of the spring! It seems that there were some events happening while I was under water. I guess there was some chick passed out in her car at the campsite and when the local patrol came through, he thought there was something wrong with her.
olice: So he tried to wake her up and in the end she came out swinging and beat him with a flashlight! Well needless to say, there was an ambulance, her car got towed and I am still not sure if she went to jail
Got to love SPRINGFEST!
Now of course the area of Campsites 8-12 beacame THE HANGOUT!:meeting: Everyone was up talking till about 2am and I tried to get some sleep, but ended of talking from my tent. It started to drizzle so everyone went to bed. At about 3am the STORM hit! Lord, I was praying that my tent wouldn't leak, and I was surprised when I got up in the morning that BUGMAN had a catastrophic event during the night! He almost drowned in his own sleeping bag!:11: It made for a good laugh and at least, his vehicle accomodates a place to sleep!
Krak, YAF, and myself headed out to our offshore dives. It seems, the Dive Locker did not get my message that we were still a go, so they had added more people to the boat. Sigh, we then were told to go to the Marina at St Andrews park, but we were told incorrectly so in a rush and reloading of gear, we headed to the other marina. Needless to say it was a cluster**** but we got on the boat. It seemed like chaos! We got some gear setup and headed out. It of course was rough as heck and we all took a beating getting to the dive site. YAF was feeling seasick and I was doing my best to hold myself together. :l: But I succumbed to chumming as soon as I donned my gear. Oh well, just get me in the water and I will recover! Krak and I decided to hit the water and YAF stayed topside. I can't remember the wrecks, but Krak can fill you in on their names since he knows the sites so well. It was an ok wreck, but what made it the event for me was the 9' shark :sharks: that decided to pay a visit. He was incredible and thank goodness Krak had his camera! He got some good shots of it, and this beautiful creature allowed me to tag along for a bit. He came back a 2nd time for another go and of course I couldn't resist getting another close up view. We are still trying to figure out the species. I don't know for sure if it was a dusky shark, or a sandbar shark. Once Krak gets me the pics I can use the dorsal and snout to get me more information. All I know, is that I was a very happy girl at that moment!
We got on board and prepared for the next dive site. It seems that I was doing ok, but once we anchored into the 2nd site, I just got green again! But I am tough and was ready to get in the water again! This time YAF was feeling better and so all 3 of us were going to dive together. I hit the water first, but it seems that YAF had a major issue with here tank. Somehow, her tank got completely drained. Sigh, I decided to head down and wait for them as they got things straightened out topside. There were a lot of fish on this wreck and I liked all the compartments to swim through. No sharks but I did get to hang with a Goliath Grouper for a bit. Krak and YAF finally joined me and we all just hung together enjoying the fish. Finally, I had started to get cold and I had been down alot longer then they had been, but we all decided to stay together and finished the dive as a team. We all got pretty beaten by the boat and were happy to get off of it. I was really feeling bad, mostly beacuse I was just plain exhausted. Somehow my mask ended of MIA but after much bitching, someone finally checked their gear bag and found it! Thank goodness! I was just happy that whole event was over and we all had a good laugh on the way back! It wasn't completely a Bad JU JU free day:no, but it was kept to a minimum this time!
We got back to the campsite and lots more DDD's had arrived! It was good seeing everyone and even new people this year! I got cleaned up, put on my FABULOUS SSF Tshirt:t-shirt: and joined in the cooking! I mixed up my Sharky's Bahama Mamas and got the party started! The DJ kicked things into gear and the evening was set! There were alot of great singers, alot of entertaining singers, and just everyone having a great time!
I think we all were laughing in hysterics many times and it was fun to all dance together!
We shared toasts
and had lots of love to share with everyone! Again, I cannot thank Shane enough! He has truly brought new life to Vortex! After we shut the party down at the main arena, off we headed back to my end of town to campsite 8-12 again! We had a great campfire with a guitar singing diver, made smores, and just laughed and shared stories! We have such a great group of people! We stayed up till about 2am and were all talking about getting up early (yeah right) to head to Cypress or Morrison!
Well at about 8am some people started rolling out of bed, and it ended up that we all were too tired to go anywhere! LOL! Flightlead and Bugtif made us breakfast and we enjoyed hanging out again. I decided to pack up so I wouldn't have to deal with breaking down a campsite when I was tired from diving. We then got some small groups together for diving at Vortex. Parysa, Flightlead, and myself decided to check out the cavern and take a run to the gate. Things seemed ok but Parysa had some issues and thank goodness everything worked out allright. We learned some things that will stay with us on future dives. This weekend was good training for me and I was glad to have got some more work done on my skills. After 2 dives, I was done for the day, got cleaned up and had some great BBQ! I was all packed up and hung out with KRAK, YAF, BUGMAN, CMUFIELDHOCKEY, PARYSA, and Andy. At about 5:30pm I said my goodbyes and headed home!
Again, I want to say thank you for all those that came, cooked, and partied with us! I wish Clay had been able to come since he was the one who really got the idea of Springfest going! The Tshirts were a great addition, and thanks again to Shane for picking up the tab on them! I am working on the design for the next tshirt and will be also working with Shane on getting the logos for Vortex and Scubaboard on there as well! I hope Vortoberfest 4 will be even better!
Happy diving with my friends!
Carolyn:sharks:
PS: LOTS OF PICTURES AND I THINK VIDEO WERE TAKEN....THIS SHOULD BE AWESOME TO SEE!
I PLEAD THE 5th, DUE TO THE FACT THAT I WAS UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF NARCOSIS...AKA...BAHAMA MAMAS!
Shane extended the non-quiet-time for an hour for us and when quiet time finally came, the big scubaboard camping group collected around a fire (thanks, Tif!) and goofed off for awhile.
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