What a great invitation!

[Guba]

I just got an invitation to the "open boat" reception of the MV Manta, the Flower Garden Banks NMS newest research/dive vessel. The boat will be dedicated by none other than Dr. Sylvia Earle in a special ceremony on June 27.

The heartbreaker for me is that my wife and I will be in the Dominican Republic on that date (I'll be getting in a couple of dives there), so I have to miss it. That's really disappointing, because it looks like a great addition to the FBNMS, and I'd certainly like to se it, as well as Dr. Earle again (I got to meet her at Aquarena Springs a couple of months back).

Oh, well, if you have the chance to go, I'd say "Get there"!

 

[RumBum]

Ooooh, aaaaaah! Don't guess that RSVP is transferrable, eh?

 

[DRsharky]

Too bad you had to miss, just hope you had a good time diving in Dominican republic. Where did you go?

 

[wjknobles]

It is a great invitation ... and would be interesting to see the boat in person, I keep hearing about it but haven't seen it

 

[Guba]

Well, Sharkey, therein lies a story...
My wife and I had planned to "jump" a trip to the DR (by that, I mean to wait until just a week or so before our trip to book it...we had a way of doing this, by the way, in the form of friends who could arrange it for us). However, it was not meant to be.
You know all those warnings about salmonella from tainted tomatos, jalepenos, and perhaps cilantro? Well, my wife and daughter and I took a trip to New Mexico in mid-June, and there's this little Mexican restaurant in Turkey, Texas, along the way....
Yup, on the dates we were supposed to be in the DR, I was listed as one of the "official" cases of Salmonella poisoning in Texas this year. It MUST have been that great salsa served with the home-made tortila chips.

Talk about hard luck on my diving trips this year! First there was the Salmonella-thwarted trip to the DR, and then the Flower Gardens trip got called back by a DCI hit (not on me, though) on board the Fling. I hope this isn't some sort of trend!