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 Comments:
well
we must be crazy. Larry can only get Sundays off and
we've been trying to get him down to West Palm for over
a year now. So we planned up a trip to do 4 dives in
1 day. Got up at 2:00AM to leave at 2:30 to be at Gus's
at 4:00 to be at the boat at 7:00AM to dive at 8:00.
The
weather had been terrible all week and there was even
threats of a tropical depression coming up into the
Gulf! We decided to give it a whirl no matter what as
both Gus and I wanted to try out our new camera's. Well
the weather was horrendous as we pulled out of Tampa
and was rotten all the way to Kissimee. There was almost
standing water on the frikken Interstate. Lightening
was all over the sky as we pulled out of Kissimee and
all the way south. We were sure it was gonna be another
round of WET PALM but as long as the boat could get
out..... what the heck. Around Ft. Pierce it started
to clear up a little and by the time we hid West Palm
it was only cloudy.
Went
diving with Coral
Island Charters. Wanted to go w/Pura Vida but they
were full and I chose these guys 'cos they have a ladder
to board instead of one of those sillie whale flop boards.
Awesome boat. Nice and big with lots of room for your
gear. We tried to bring as many of our own tanks and
were even able to get almost all on board! The crew
was absolutely fantastic. Very professional personable.
They worked hard at making everybody comfortable on
the boat and did a a great pre-dive explanation of the
site we were gonna do. Even did the graphic gamin which
I had only seen done on Pura Vida and it really does
help to know what's down there.
Only
2 little things wrong with this boat. It's parked at
downtown West Palm which adds about a 20~30 minutes
run out to the Atlantic. That's no big deal for us Gulf
divers who are used to 1~2 HOUR runs to go diving! The
only other uh-uh was the price they charge for NITROX
fills. Larry hadn't gotten to get his LP120 filled on
Saturday so we planned to have it filled while we were
diving in the morning and have it ready for the afternoon
dives. Everything was working out fine until we came
to ante up the bill. Freakin $21.00 for a NITROX fill!!!
OMG .. poor Larry almost car@aped his shorts. It's not
so much the buckage, heck we spend thousands on diving
gear, travel and such, but just the concept of paying
100% more for a fill The lady was very nice about it
and explained how expensive it was to fill NITROX in
Georgia and Hawaii and other such excuses, but... still.
Completely ridiculous! I just had to do a little checking
around on Monday and sure enough, most places charge
about $10 for a NITROX fill and you can get a card that
brings the price down even more.... heck if you buy
a card of 25 you can get it down to $6.50 a fill!
The
morning boat was full of C-Card wannabee's so we were
scheduled for a bunch of shallow reefs. That's cewl...
Larry had never been drift diving before so a nice shallow
reef would be just fine and dandy. We loaded up our
80's to save our larger tanks for the afternoon dive.
Paul's reef was absolutely gorgeous. Plenty of relief
and scads of critters! I had explained to Larry some
of the nuances of drift diving and the need to get down
as quickly as possible and he was working so diligently
at getting down and keeping up with Gus and I that when
he got to the bottom his eyes lit up like a kid a Christmas!
He was totally blown away by the view! There was almost
no current at all; in fact we were joking about wanting
a refund 'cos we didn't get to do a drift dive and we
actually had to use our fins to get around! The VIZ
was actually pretty good considering how much rain they
have had... it was well into the 80's!
This
was my first dive in my new endeavor of U/W
photography and I'm glad I had done my homework.
It was still a complete cluster-farch, but fun just
the same. Everything is kind of a blur trying to dive
through a 1.8 viewfinder. It's like when you're down
there spearfishing, the same but different. It completely
changes the dive, but I think I'm gonna like it. I've
start a whole new section of the site to keep up with
the trials and tribulations of U/W
photography . Had a nice close flyBy from a turtle...
Lots of fun.
WHAT
WE LEARNED: keep an eye on your tanks.... Larry
grabbed one of my neutrally balanced 80's and I got
stuck diving my blue tank on the next dive.
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