drbill:
Geez, I do 10-20 dives a week. Not sure if I'm a dive bum or a working marine biologist... it's a fine line.
The "dive bum" title is a local joke
Ugh Cindy! That is wierd because Puff was mucking around with his strobe fiber optic whatzit cable and it wasn't working for our dive yesterday.
Dive report:
After a long and harrowing journey our gallant protagonist Sir Pufferfish located and retrieved the damsel in distress (me) and her gear. A short cut was taken across a super-secret military installation and out heros finally glimpsed the calm yet overcast bay.
The tide was predicted for 11ish but local diviners have been hitting the sauce or something because the actual tides have been approximately 60 minutes later. As such when our heros arrived at The Perilous Parking Lot of Death around noon it was not a problem. No spots for The Enormous Purple Monstrosity could be located in the general vicinity of the beach access so gear was assembled about one million light years away and ferried to the entrance. At this point in time the Golden Most Covetted Parking Space became free and our heros were quite smug indeed.
Our stout-hearted heros geared up despite thunder claps very close by and trecked across The Burning Sands of Death for about 40 years before reaching the cool embrace of the sea. They were pleasantly suprised by a seabreeze to cool them slightly on thier perilous journey.
Despite a brief incident involving an o-ring that appeared to be the victim of a hit and run by a fleet of 18 wheelers and tanks our intrepid divers slipped beneath the azure waves in a timely fashion.
They were greeted by the usual deziens of the Magical Jetty: pinfish, white grunts, tile fish, puddingwives, sand perch, spotfin butterfly fish, cocoa damselfish, flounder, and blue crabs. Keeping in mind that The Witching Hour was drawing to a close our undersea explorers were mindful of the tide and as such stayed on the backside of the short end of the "L" and did not proceed over the shell bed where a distinct current was picking up speed. With visibility limited to approximately 25' by The Evil June Grass of Death our explorers turned back for a very liesurely survey of the rock reef.
The Gallant Sir PufferFish was suffering from the awful ailment of Opaques condensatii and was repeatedly attacked by marauding rabid damselfish. All of the juvenile cocoa damsels, butterfly fish, and sand perch have grown to gargantuan proportions in the time that our Fearless Heroine has been absent from the jetty. The legions of Big Nasty Mean Pinchy Crabs, both blue and stone were significantly reduced in number. Our heroine posits that either they move on and off the jetty for biological reasons or some low-down dirty crab-poaching scoundrel is taking them all and needs a good :mooner: whooping
As such there was no crab on the dinner menu although the few remaining crabs did condescend to be photographed and play a brief game of Claw Swat.
After 64 minutes and 1500psi our heroine was quite chilled and our hero tired of taking pictures. Apparently an electrical storm had been taking place above water during the adventure as the sun broke through the clouds as our protagonists prepared to surface. As usual, our heroine of little grace, was out-smarted by the reel on the flagline and managed to entagle herself, the gallant Sir Puff and several unwary snorkellers upon ascent. At the surface an interesting sight met our adventurers: The awful urban pimples festering on the lovely face of the island (high rises) shadowed in the thunderstorm and illuminated by lightening with a foreground of beautiful turquoise water.
The End
PS. The grunts were holding both inter and intraspecific jousting matches moreso than usual and there was an orgy of hermit crabs of varying sizes that weren't eating or mating but appeared to be having a group grooming session. There were also 2=3 small triggerfish I couldn't ID that were being skittish. No baitballs, gamefish, or dolphin noises.