Comments: well where do I start? This is something I've been looking forward to for such a long time. My buddies Duke and Sandy have decided to go diving. Duke's been certified for a while and Sandy just got certified last month. 'Finally' talked them into heading down to the Keys to get them wet! What a great dive to start with and a great dive it was! (boy - I'm using a lot of exclamation marks.... but this is sooooo good!) We're out with Quiescence - my favourite dive shop in the Keys.

Kitted up and in we go.... well - almost.... Sandy had never done a GIANT STRIDE before! - Funny how you take some things for granted. Explained it best we could and by the end of it all, she was getting off the boat in style (we'll leave the face plant on one of them to the 'forgotten' memories). No hurries, no worries; that's my motto. Headed up to the anchor line and we're SCUBA divers. Well we were after about 15 minutes.... but at least we were at 15FSW.... nice and slow... and next thing you know we're paddling our way over to the Benwood.... well some where more paddling than paddling, but at least we were all going in the right direction. But since this was their first time in, that direction was up, down, left, up, right, down, down, right, left, left.... and the amazing part.... all while remaing completely vertical! I'm just teasing... buy the end of the weekEnd they were both delightfully horizontal and scootering about like pro's. Eased over to the Benwood and the journey begins.

Puttered up around the Bow (I was hoping to find a nice Green Moray) and puttered on back to the stern and we began what was to be a recurring theme - Sandy is a shark magnet! Duke swears it was just because he wasn't paying attention and I know that's the truth, it is SOOOO easy to loose track of your position in the water column, but it was cute as a bugs ear to see Duke easing slowly toward the surface as he did everything in his power to point out the glorious Nurse shark that was crusing by. Of course we'll never let him live it down, but.....

I was futzing around with my red lens... Since I wasn't videoing I figured it would be a good time to give it a whirl. After about a dozen swaps I finally figure out I could just hold the mask in front of my normal lens to see the difference; and it really is a difference. A nice difference. For nice shallow dives with lots of sunligh... highly recommend it.

Came back to the 3 beams that pointed to the boat and we're heading home. We got a little behind the boat and Sandy was doing her best Bobber impression. Couldn't quite get back down - so I held her hand and brought her back down to 20FSW. Motioned to Duke to head back to the boat and Sandy and I did our Safety Stop while heading towards the boat.

For a first dive.... awesome....

What'd we learn? Boric Acid doesn't make good contact lens cleaner!