Welcome to Thunderdome

Whoa. I think I'm at like 3 or 4

I think every ocean charter we've been on, there were a bunch of students doing their open-water checkout dives. I get a kick out of seeing my little kid assemble his gear on his own, and as of this trip, confidently walk over and jump in the ocean on his own.... and these adults and shit are all nervous and getting help and basically floundering.

Yeah, we're all noobs at first, but still.

On boats packed with 20 people, only like 3 or 4 of us each trip were "unguided," as they call the non-students.

WIll was also strong climbing the ladder. Finally, this year, he's ahead of the curve as far as his own weight and strength, and the weight of the gear on his back. He really didn't need any help climbing the ladder out of the ocean. So that's nice.

And the scopalomine patches work perfectly for both of us... also very nice. No seasickness. Some of the students spent a lot of time kneeling over the side of the boat.

Went camping. Decided to chop some wood after 5 drinks.

Your fuck you finger. I did the same one, left hand.

The cut was deep enough I probably should have gotten stitches, and re-opened a couple of hours later and completely soaked that gauze with blood.

Don't attract bears.

They can smell the menstruation.

TheCatt wrote: The cut was deep enough I probably should have gotten stitches, and re-opened a couple of hours later and completely soaked that gauze with blood.

It healed mostly well.

Tomorrow we're going to St John for 8 days with the kids. They don't SCUBA, so we won't be SCUBAing, but plenty of snorkling. Have our great + Go Pro. Hopefully we don't lose it.

I'm going to SNUBA with the oldest one day (youngest is 1/2 year too young for it). It's halfway between snorkling + SCUBA, with a raft that has your air tank, and a max depth of 20feet, I think.

Haven't been to the island in 13 years, so looking forward to it.

Nice.

I'm looking forward to changing my own personal paradigm of when I can go diving... no more asking permission.

I'm going to look into getting my Rescue Diver certification this year. I think I have enough dives in.

Instructor's wife died last night.

GORDON wrote: Instructor's wife died last night.

Unexpectedly? Or was this the guy having scheduling issues due to his wife being sick or something?

This was a callback to way back at the beginning, when I was first getting certified his wife had bad cancer and was in month 8, of a 6 month prognosis. So she held on a couple years.

We rented a boat today for snorkeling... for an entire day... I've been off the boat 45 minutes, and feel like I'm still on a boat. This has never happened to me before, and I don't like it.

I used to get that way after spending all day at the local amusement park... then that night in bed, I felt like I was still on a roller coaster.

I don't get that way now, when using a scopalomine patch on a boat, all day. It keeps my stomach in place.

Scopalomine ? Cheater.

I was the only person on our boat (just our family) not on drugs.

Fuuuuuuck you. Every charter I've been on, there's a person puking over the side, wishing for death.

I'd rather have fun.

GORDON wrote: Fuuuuuuck you. Every charter I've been on, there's a person puking over the side, wishing for death.

I'd rather have fun.

Lol. I've only been seasick once, and it was very weird. We were at St Croix, fair amount of chop due to a storm a bit north of us. Went out to the first dive site, did the dive, was doing fine. Was bouncing in the chop waiting for my wife to get in the boat, put my head under to unclip my flippers, and suddenly the whole world started spinning. Managed to get back on the boat, get my tank locked in, then spewed all over the side of the boat. Drank some fruit punch, and was fine. Never been sea sick before that, or since.

Today was probably the best day. 4 rays, two different kinds, 1 large sea turtle, lots of small fish, 4 ft barracuda, who sneaked up on my blind side way too closely, and a baby octopus. Oh, and maybe a guitar fish.

2 of the rays were spotted eagle rays, the other 2 were grey, used to know their name.

And a baby lizard. But I actually just rescued him from our garbage

Sounds excellent.

Probably the best snorkeling day I’ve ever had... cept maybe that one adult octopus I saw in 2005