2009-Florida-Key Largo Diving
I wake up early, around 7:30. I am thinking about the dive AND making the video for The Great Barrier Reef job. I work on what I want to say. I rehearse it and change it and figure out how to record it. I wanted to use my camera, but I would have to hold it. I decided to use the laptop to record the message. I practice several time and the first one that comes out good is 20 seconds too long. I make some modifications. It is still long. I speak more quickly. It sounds a little rushed, but that is it. I try to upload it a couple of times and it keeps timing out. I will have to drive to the library tonight or find some other hot spot. I really don’t like not having internet access…
So after waiting for my app to upload I leave a little later then I had hoped. I have to be in Key Largo by 12:30 to check in for my dive. I don’t like being rushed. I also need some shoes to wear for the water. I don’t want to wear my hiking shoes… I put the address in ANB that is along the way. I bolt from the hotel without doing a proper checkout. I get my car and apparently it is not on the main bill. I may have to call to confirm. I pay them and am on my way. I follow the directions, but they keep taking me west… I want to go south… I question if I confused ANB, so I go to remove my via, well I put in the address of the hotel I just left, ooops. I get off the highway and then I figure that I screwed it up. I put in the correct address and it wants me to get back on the highway… well I just happen to be at a street mall with a Marshal’s and a Target, score. I go into Marshal’s find the perfect sandals…
On to Key Largo…
The rest of the drive is ok. There is a lot of construction and I was told later that I should taken the highway instead… I don’t know if I would have, but I would also have thought that ANB would have selected that… anyway this is the first time this trip that I actually had to be somewhere at any particular time…well, I made it with 25 minutes to spare.
So, I get there and have to pee! I go to the bathroom and it is locked. I assume that someone is in there. We do the check-in and register for the dive… there is a little more to it then that, but isn’t there always… it has been some time since I have dived. If it has been more than 2 years I have to recertify in the pool all day and take a test… well, I want to dive today, actually in 25 minutes, so I may have slightly exaggerated how long it has been since I last dived… also they tell me that the first dive is a deep dive for some advanced open water divers and they are both wreck dives… well, well… my cert is just open water… they tell me that I need a guide… I am OK with that. I may be brave, but I am not foolish… much, a lot, or often (pick two :>). So I get the paperwork all filled out AND I just so happened to bring my PADI card with me… what a smart boy… sometimes. I tell them that I need all the gear as I have brought nothing… they fill out the form and whack my credit card…
I go to my room and quickly change making sure to bring warm stuff for the boat trip back. I know that I am going to be COLD! I mossey over to the rental shack… renting any kind of sporting equipment is the same… Hi, my name is Rick and I am a renter …. Hans fixes me up with a mask and snorkel and I try on a wet suit. It fits well, slimming even… we go and get on the boat and chit chat… I am a little apprehensive as this is a serious dive. I did not know quite how serious until I read the review later at: http://fla-keys.com/spiegelgrove/. Any way it is a very nice day if not a little cool. The seas are 1-2 feet. Not bad. It takes about 45 minutes to get there. Hans is going over the advanced open water information with another couple who are certifying. Capt Joe goes over all of the safety stuff as we cruise though the mangroves on the way to open water.
Hans asks me if I need a weight belt… I am a little confused. Of course I need a weight belt, i have nothing remember??? Well apparently there was a little mix up. He did not give me a BC (Buoyancy Compensator). This is probably the second most important piece of equipment for a dive, with the regulator being first. I put breathing above floating cuz I can swim, but I CAN’T breathe under water. I ask him to take a look at the BC so I can familiarize myself with it. I remember that you put air in it to compensate for the weights so you can achieve zero buoyancy. That way you get the cool weightless feeling and you don’t have to struggle to go up or down. Well, he looks at me like I have two heads… you don’t have one he asks… to which I reply with the remember I have nothing remark. Well Christie was the one that filled out my form and she also knew that I had nothing… a couple of moments of panic ensure. My biggest fear is that I will not be able to dive! They, of course have a spare one on board. Well, it is not the best looking piece of equipment that I have ever seen, but it works. I later check out the one that I should have gotten and they are nice :< they also have pockets for the weights :> NOW that question makes sense… ok, NOW he shows me how to put air in and how to take air out… remember to be upright and hold the hose up when expelling air… oh yea, that sounds familiar.
Well we are almost ready to hit the water. Hans is my buddy and we will be diving with a couple that are doing the open water cert. hey, wait a minute, Hans is double dipping here… he has to be here with the couple and I am paying him to be my guide… hmmm… if I want to dive today, they need to make a couple of things right… I don’t know if I want to spend the money to go again today… I am on the fence. It would be nice now that I know what I am doing again and I know the people. PLUS they should give me the gear for free and supply Hans… maybe I will call and check it out. I am down here…
So as they talk about the first dive I find out that this is the deep dive for the couple’s advanced open water cert. Well, I have NEVER done a deep dive. I am thinking that this should be interesting. Some might think that this may be a little crazy… well, let me say this about that. First of all it may be a little risky. BUT only if not properly handled. Diving is mostly common sense with a couple of rules regardless of how you dive… one, don’t run out of air, which leads to two, don’t surface too fast, and three equalize your ears!!! Of those, the one I was most concerned about was the equalizing. Hold your nose and blow until your ears pop. I practiced on the boat on the way out… ah yea, this is coming back… slowly… my open water cert dive was a while ago and it was after a hardy night of festivities… oh yeah, and whatever you, as it says on the cover of the hitchhikers guide, “DON’T PANIC!”
I did forget to equalize my mask at first and ended up squishing my face a bit. I also got a little red-eye, but hey.
So Hans showed me the operation of the BC and we are ready to go… now the point of no return for diving is just like that of sky diving. When that first person jumps, you know that is the way you have to g… well I waddle over look over the edge and jump! We follow the rope down and eq on the way down. This is cool! The water is warm and clear and looming below is a really big wreck! Nice! We get to the wreck and my ears are happy and I un-squish my face and I achieve zero buoyancy. Time to check out this wreck. Now if you read the link from above you have determined that this is serious. It is 130 feet down and you can swim through the wreck. Now the people that I am with are newbies and not all that adventurous. I signal to Hans that I would like to go into the ship. He denies the request to go below decks and instead leads us to a pass-through. We got a really good picture of it. It was cool, but I wanted to do more. One of the problems with a deep dive including all the things already mentioned is the fact that you use your air, fast. You can only stay down for 15-20 minutes before you have to go up… also I had to hang with these other people who in retrospect took some cool picture.
The wreck was cool, there were lots of fishies and a huge grouper. I way a green eel and a sea turtle swim by. I wanted to chase him, but I would have had to leave my group behind and I could not signal them. I am sure that part of the equipment that I was supposed to get would have included a knife, so I could have signaled. Read the link, it tells you all about the dive: http://fla-keys.com/spiegelgrove/.
Then we were off to the wreck cert dive for my advanced cohorts. I thought we just dove a wreck… well apparently that counted as the deep dive, not the wreck dive, so we travel a mile or so with in pennycamp park to the Bennan. This was a shallower dive so we could stay down longer. This is a natural wreck, meaning the ship actually wrecked… making it a … ship wreck. Apparently in 1942 while two ships were staying closer to shore to avoid the enemy (turns out that was a bad plan) they crashed. This is the smaller boat and it lost and sunk. Well the fish like it! There are lots of them. I get a little bored with my camera wielding buddies and my supposed buddy and swim a little ahead. I spot a sea turtle and swim after it a bit. Well, first of all I am not going to catch it, second of all I will completely lose my group… I turn around and swim back. There are lots of colorful fish and the wreck is cool. Lots of jagged metal though… we see several large groupers and various fish. You know the fish you dive…
Now this is actually my first real dive. My other dives were in Tampa and the water was cloudy and not very deep. This was much better. I think that we will have to go in Cancun in May. It should be warmer and they have some great sites.
After our second dive, it is cold. My fingers are their usual dead-white and I am shivering… I go and change into the dry stuff that I brought. Things warm up pretty well. We chit-chat on the way in and the couple offer to share the pictures with me. Sweet.
Now I am hungry for internet access and secondarily food. I cruise over to the food store which happens to be next to the library that has internet. I get on and search an AT&T hot spot. Score, there is one right down the road at a Starbucks. I shop and buy the healthy chips and trail mix and bananas and cinnamon raison rolls, yum. Oh, yea, of course I also get some diet dew.
While there I scope out my dinner options. Now let me take this time out to express how important internet access is to someone whoe does not plan at all… very. I do ask the locals and I do have ANB, so I am not without options, BUT, the internet is way better… so I ask the starbys guy where to eat and he tells me 5 doors down is a great place. I look it up and it has good reviews. I am in. the problem is that when I go to look for it I miss it… this is one of those separated highways that I don’t care for because I spend a lot of time turning around… well I turn around eventually when I find there special crossover places and head in the other direction. Well as I was researching dinner plans I came across the Key Largo Conch House. It looked really good and I figured that I would do lunch there the next day. Well, turns out that I was about to drive by it. I thought it was way further up, and in the other direction. This should not be a surprise for anyone that know me. It also used to be called the Key Largo Coffee House. Now how you go from a coffee house to a full blown restaurant I do not know. I drive right on by it and part in the enterprise rent-a-car place. I did not want to turn around twice more to get into their parking lot… I can walk.
The place is small on the inside, but that have lots of table and tiki torches outside. I sit in the corner at a nice little table. There is one couple in the restaurant. So there is the host, and three waitresses for 3 patrons inside. I am not sure if anyone is sitting outside. But this is a Friday night… I read the reviews and they were good. More importantly then that the food and service were good. I was not overly hungry after eating some chips and a cinnamon roll after shopping. The service was right there and I actually got assistance from all three waitresses. One brought my na beer, one took my order, and another one checked on me… what service… I ordered the conch fritter, you kind of have to at the Conch House, now don’t you, and I also ordered pan seared yellow tuna. They were both very good. I finished up around 9:30 and came back to the room. Both Star Trek and The Fifth Element were on. I switched back and forth between them and chilled. By midnight I was exhausted and went to sleep.
Now my room was right next to the pool and I could hear the drone of the pool pump and my air conditioner. That was not too bad, but I woke at 2:30 am and did not sleep too well after that. There was a thwumph that I heard every so once in a while. I am not sure what it was.
Key Largo Day 2
Today consisted of kayaking and sun bathing. I did offer to helps some people with their boat, but they declined…
I have to figure out where I want to stay tomorrow night. I am headed to Key West. I think that I am going to check them all out on line and make sure that they have paid parking and internet access for my laptop. I don’t think I will make reservations. I think I will call a couple before and see the deal, and then take a drive by. It’s not like I have anything better to do :>
Now I am off to Starbucks for an afternoon coffee and my internet fix…