All right. Now I'm really pissed! I get back from this fantastic vacation and wanted to slip back slowly into the blogosphere. I was totally isolated from the real world for one whole week. On the way back from Roatan, I purposely did not watch any television at the Houston airport. I did not buy a newspaper. Up until Sunday morning, the only news I got was about Cynthia McKinney and that was just a classic comedy. My friend Michael even printed off a copy of the article 'cause he knew it would make a good blog.
But then, I hear about the Torricelli affair. What a piece of crap. So, if Lautenberg wins this election, do we get to say that the Sopranos New Jersey Supreme Court appointed him? I know I will. Everytime I hear a Dimocrat spout that bullshit about Florida, I'll reply New fucking Jersey. What the fuck is wrong with the people in this country? Why in the world can anyone support the Dimocratic Party? Why is there a conspiracy to piss me off?
I still haven't gotten over Hanoi Jane Fonda. Can someone tell me why that bitch was never tried for treason and had her "workin' out with Jane" ass thrown in jail. Or better yet, lined up against a wall and shot? What the fuck is wrong with this country?
Yeah. You're damn right I'm drinking wine tonight. Rachel loves it when I drink wine (which is good for the heart) 'cause I really go off sumpin' fierce. It pisses my sister off 'cause my toilet tongue comes out. And this is a side of me that Maureen (see Sunday's comments) has never seen.
And now we have David Bonier and Jim McDermott going to Baghdad and badmouthing our foreign policy. Listen up assholes! That shit isn't done. If you have a problem with our foreign policy, you talk about it here in the US. You don't go to the enemy's capital and do that bullshit! I hope you people in Jim McDermott's district are taking note of this. If you reelect this sonuvabitch there is sumpin' seriously, fucking wrong with you people.
And now, as if my blood pressure isn't high enough, we got the IFPOTUS (Impeached Former President of the United States), the ex hillbilly-in-chief, reprising his disgraceful act from the 1960's and speaking against US foreign policy in England, thus stabbing his buddy Tony Blair in the back. Jesus H. Christ! How can you fucking Dimocrats live with yourselves. Actually, there was an upside to Clinton not getting kicked out of office (as he should have been). If he had been, Algore would have been president and would have easily been reelected. Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah. You Dimocrats really fucked up big time. The thought of Algore as president during these times is frightening. And here's an interesting comparison of the fat hillbilly giving his speech in England and denying his escapades with Monica. Scroll down.
All right. I feel much better now. Let's go back to the Zen of Buoyancy.
Day 4 was another beautiful day. After breakfast, we got aboard the dive boat to go to Mary's Place. I got a weight to put around my tank valve to move my center of gravity higher so I could get horizontal easier. Since I was still having buoyancy problems, I elected to dive above Mary's Place. Cheryl was having problems equalizing so she and I stayed down around 40 feet and watched the divers go through the chasms. I'm still having buoyancy problems. At the end of the dive I couldn't stay down for my safety stop and shot to the surface. Need more weight.
That afternoon, we went to Missing Link. I added still more weight. Got down all right and was OK for my safety stop. By now, I'm up to 18 pounds of weight. If there are any divers out there, like Toren, that is way too much weight. That will come back to haunt me later.
Charlie took his light on that dive. Remember Charlie's light? The one that leaked? The light worked. But, it got water inside it. Anyone who has been a diver or anyone who remembers Boyle's Law, think about what might happen if you are down 60 feet and you have a container that water has seeped into. And then you take it to the surface. Anyway, Bert warned Charlie about the light. He told him not to open it. During the afternoon, after the Missing Link dive, Charlie decided to open his light and clean all the salt water out. As soon as he cracked the seal ... Blam!!!!
I was laying on the bed reading (still doing research) and jumped up and said, "What the heck was that?" Charlie mumbled sumpin' about how Bert warned him against doing that. See, there were two atmospheres of pressure inside the light and when he cracked the seal, it exploded. It took him fifteen minutes to clean up the bathroom and one of the batteries went down the sink.
So we went to supper and had sumpin' to laugh about. When Charlie said the battery went down the sink, I assumed it went all the way down and was down around the trap. Nope. It just went down a little bit so it was visible when ya looked down the drain. Hmmmm. I told him what we software engineers said in cases like this, "That's not a bug. It's a feature." Needless to say, everytime I looked down the drain the rest of the trip, I had to stifle a laugh.
Day 5. I knew I was gonna finally get my buoyancy straight this time. As I was walking into the equipment area, I slipped and fell. Everyone raced to help me. A bit of advice: When a walking cripple starts to fall, get out of the way. Don't try to catch him. Usually he has a plan. Anyway, no harm done. As I'm getting on the boat, again I slip. This time, I grab one of the ladders to catch myself. Dive boat ladders are designed to go down, which this one did. I did too and one of my crutches went into the water and to the bottom. As we were only in about eight feet of water, one of the divemasters jumped in and retrieved it.
This was not a good omen. This morning, I'm diving with Graham, one of the master divers. I just know I'm gonna get my buoyancy under control on this dive. I had no problems descending. So far, so good. We swam out to the wall and started going down. Holy shit! I sank like a fucking rock! I don't want to overcompensate. Hit the inflator. Hit it again. Hit it again. Hold that sucker down! Graham came shooting down to get me! At about 100 feet (!!), I finally stopped and started up and met Graham at 95 feet. We went back up to 70 feet and continued the dive. Am I ever gonna get this buoyancy crap down?
So, now, I know I need lots more practice, so I do the drop off on the way back to the resort. We dove the wall off the resort, the wreck, and went back into shore. Graham held me down for the safety stop at the end of the dive and dragged me to shore. This buoyancy crap is really getting frustrating!
That afternoon we went to Anka's reef. I just knew I was gonna get my buoyancy correct this time. So I messed around with my buoyancy and blinked out a contact lens. Oh crap! Well, that had happened before. All I had to do was keep my cool and at the end of the dive, fish it out of the bottom of my mask. Only one thing wrong. My mask started to fill up with water. I had to bite the bullet and clear the mask. Good bye contact lens. One of the divemasters pointed out to Graham that my mask wasn't on properly and some of my hair was in the top of the mask which messed up the seal. I fixed it and cleared my mask and the rest of the dive went OK. When I got on the boat at the end of the dive, my contact lens was stuck against the inside of the mask. What luck! It had landed with the inside of the lens against the mask and the pressure had kept it there. Cool! Rather than pressing my luck, I skipped the drop off dive.
That night, a night dive was scheduled. I really didn't think I was qualified, and since the rest of the crips were going, I figgered all the good divers would be occupied. Also the wind was picking up. Before my accident, I was a sailor, and I didn't like the look of the weather that was moving in. As I watched the lights of the dive boat going out the channel, and saw how much the boat was bouncing up and down, I knew that there were gonna be some real sick people before the night was over. It turned out to be the night dive from hell. Graham wound up blowing chunks through both of his regulators and they must have been major league chunks, 'cause at the end of the dive he had to grab another diver's octopus. Charlie told me he didn't use the ladder to get aboard the boat. He just timed a wave and rode it right into the boat. Glad I missed that dive!
Day 6 and the weather had blown over. Another beautiful day. I passed on the morning dive. That afternoon, we went to Big French Cut, and I dove with Bert. Got down all right, but went too deep. Pissed Bert off. "All right", I told him, You're my instuctor, instruct me. Fix what's wrong." So, he reconfigured my weight belt and we made a few other adjustments. Cut my weight back down to 16 pounds. We did the drop off and dove the wall off the resort. Descended just fine. Went down to about 60 feet and I was hanging out watching Bert shining his light into little caves looking for critters. All of a sudden I realized I had perfect neutral buoyancy and was controlling my depth with only my breathing. What's more, I was ahead of the curve. Right about the time I was starting to ascend, I was breathing out and as I was starting to descend I was breathing in. I was hanging vertical with my arms and ankles crossed. I had finally achieved the Zen of Buoyancy. Wow! This was really cool! I could have hung there all day.
Finally Graham broke the spell by punching me and pointing in toward shore. We swam in and at 15 feet, Bert found this hermit crab that he decided to take a picture of. There was a grouper fish hanging out about two feet away. We spent about 10 minutes there while he lined up the shot. I was able to balance about two inches off the bottom using breath control. Only another diver could realize how cool that was. Since we didn't go any deeper than 60 feet and didn't exert ourselves, we wound up spending about an hour an five minutes under water.
That night, we went to a restaurant in French Harbor to eat. I had Parmesan shrimp. Delicious.
Day 7 and our last dive. Two people were sick from last night's dinner. Ooops! We dove the Menagerie which was a drift dive. That meant we dropped off the boat and drifted with the current and the boat would pick us up at the end of the dive. This site had the most fish we had seen in all of our dives. It was a beautiful site and I maintained perfect buoyancy throughout the entire dive. Fantastic!
So, we're low on air and hanging out at 15 feet doing our 3 minute safety stop and waiting for the boat to show up. Hello boat! Where are you? Finally, the boat showed up, we surfaced, and climbed aboard. Charlie tried to talk one of us into doing a drop off since this was our last dive, but we were all too beat so none of us did.
That afternoon we took a tour of the island. Roatan has an iguana farm. Holy shit! Those suckers get huge. There is also a bird sanctuary, mainly for parrots and toucans. Our guide also told us some history and who the rich Americans were and some dirt on 'em.
That night, we had steak and lobster for dinner. There was also a party with rum punch. I only had one since I had to get up the next morning and fly home.
All in all a great vacation and the best diving I have ever done. I'm looking forward to returning some time. If you are a diver and want a great diving experience Cocoview is a great place to go.
I'm glad to be home and sleeping in my own bed.
I watched Bush deliver his speech last night. The only thing missing was "The reason we starting bombing Baghdad tonight was ..."
So, I guess I'm back to what passes for normal.
Damn! I wish I were hanging off that wall right now.
Posted by denny at October 8, 2002 03:51 PM