Under the sea

It's been a big week of renewing my diving vows. . . well not vows. . . that just seemed like it sounded good. . . whatever. . anyway . . . it all started last week when my new good friend (and dive master) Webb

(Hello, Webb!)

called and said there was room on the Sunday dive! As i mentioned on here before Sarah was able to pick up my mask and bring it back from stl so i was ready to go. . . well, before i'd be ready for a bigtime dive, Webb and Sarah and I went out for a little mini refresher just out here in Hull Bay. . on the way down to the bay to dive, we were gathering our gear to take it down. . . i went to try on some flippers and wouldnt you know, right as i slip my foot into the one flipper, a stinking creepy crawler scoots out the toe slot! um, yeah. . . i definitely did the dance on that one. . mom, you know what i'm talking about :) after that we decided just to rent the gear. . . apparently the only thing worse than a cockroach coming out of your flipper is realizing there is a cockroach inside your wetsuit when you're putting it on. . . are you KIDDING me!??!!? i would go nuts if that ever happened!!! Webb said it's happened to him. . yuck! despite the moderate flip-out over having to do mask recovery underwater and the initial reminding i had to do to my body letting it know it is ok for you to breathe underwater, we had a good refresher dive. . . one funny tidbit is that when i went in the water with my precious prescription mask, it became more and more clear (no pun intended) that it wasnt in fact my mask. . . somehow my dad's and mine got mixed up and the sweet little bifocal goggles i was holding were not proving helpful. I was telling them definitely got me geared up and ready to go for Sunday. .

Sarah, her friend Jay and myself all took off on the Barefoot Diver (the boat) out of Crown Bay to go find Miss Opportunity. . . we were lucky enough to become real islanders by some gifted flower necklaces. . .

mine seemed to need some TLC, thank you sarah!!

so we dove Miss Opportunity which is a shipwreck dive and on this one i got to swim with a large sea turtle! Miss Opportunity is an old Navy ship that apparently was used as a location for coordinating jobs after a big hurricane hit down here a long time ago and was later sunk on purpose in order to create a man-made reef. . . then we hit Captain's Nightmare which is a reef dive. . its called that because parts of it are very shallow so it's a nightmare for captains to maneuver sometimes. . . unless you're as smooth as Tony, our driver!! I mean captain. .

alright, too many details. . . sorry, Dad. . . hope you're still with me! On the reef dive we saw an octopus all tucked up in a crevice, a sting ray shuffling down on the ocean floor, and a bazillion fish. . . suppppppppppposedly there was another one of my buddies. . a huge barracuda, that sarah tried to point out. . but luckily my mask was fogging up so i didn't go nutzo!

Tonight I did my first night dive ever!! I dont remember the name of the shipwreck, but we headed out at sunset, gorgeous, and hung out on the boat until it was dark enough for the nighttime creatures to come out. . . some of our passing time activities included synchronized flipping (much preferred to flipping-out :))

and here was the first attempt. . . apparently i know how to play teacher and critique the photographer, and then ignore my own directions of waiting for the 'go' signal!

tonight was fun. . . i didnt get as scared as i thought about descending into the dark abyss. . . my friend steph from st louis came along too and Webb and Tony were our fearless leaders again! Go team!!!!

PS the pic at the top is me when i first dropped into the water. . gear and all!