"All you blog about anymore is diving!" a friend said to chastise me. "What about your gustatory adventures, your hippie cuddle-slut crap, or your crafts?"
Um... yeah. I'm still doing all of the above, and admit that elements of each do deserve reporting. Time is at a premium, however, and the truth is often the more blogworthy things you do, the less time there is to actually blog about them. Oh, the irony!
Things will balance out here in a bit, in part due to the intervention my husband sprung on me. See, being gone 4/4 weekends diving seemed just fine to me, until he pointed out things like 1)my dogs don't know who I am and 2)we have a house to maintain and he was pretty sure we had an agreement to do that together, equally and 3)he'd like to see me now and then, too.
He pointed out that IF that was what I really wanted to do, that was fine, we'd just need to sit down and talk about certain things and make sure everything was covered. That would require me to give up some freelance agreements, get some help in other areas, etc. but it WAS doable. That's one thing I love about him; ultimately his view of the world is, "Decide what you want, then figure out how to do it." Reality is, though, I miss my dogs, too; I miss a lazy Saturday, too; and there are other things in life I want to get done. The compromise that works without giving up much of anything is diving twice a month.
Or we move to Seattle. %-) Not happening.
Dive report for 8/21-8/22:
We drove up Friday afternoon, hit a pet expo for Petwerks, hung out a few of our fav shops in the area, and picking up tanks for everyone and the assorted gear Ivan and Rhonda needed. This allowed us to meander to our hotel in no hurry. What a relaxing change! Later we met Ivan and Rhonda in Olympia for dinner at Budd Bay Cafe for dinner. Good company, but a general, "Meh," on the food.
Up early on Saturday we met Ivan and Rhonda at Alki; both were needing some help, he getting back in the water for the first time in a long time, and she getting in the water for her first time after certification. They both did great, and we hope to share a day like that one with them again! Two dives in Cove 3 were easy and fun. Wish I'd had my camera (Kris was using it) because I spit my reg out laughing so hard when we came up to the buoy and there is Kris, sitting on the block, kicked back and lounging in style as he watched the guys do something. It just struck me as hilarious.
A great dinner w/ Chris, Christy, Megan, Ivan, Rhonda, Scot, Kris and I at Vince's capped off a great day. Too. Much. Italian. Food. All I can say is how can you NOT like hard breadsticks smeared in butter?
Sunday was just the three of us, and we vacillated on where to go. We wanted to explore some place new, but all agree having a member of the group that knows a site is much more fun than poking around yourself. Also seemed like each one we chose had an issue. Parking was limited or small (we had the truck); no facilities. On and on. So we went to the old fallback: Redondo.
Diving Redondo at the dead bottom of a 10 foot swap results in just a little bit of current. Teeny bit. We deployed our dive buoy (first time I'd used it). I went down to find the big rope leading deep to the boat as that was our plan. It was right where I left it. ;-) The first drop together into craptacular viz landed us right on the small rope; we'd been ahead of the the large rope when we started to accommodate for current (thinking it would land us in the right place). Wearing 100's but weighted for 80's, we all took the express elevator down (love that!) but still missed it. Quick dive plan change to follow the small rope and not go deep. Leading, I figured it would ease up as we descended.
Um, no.
At 45 we're hanging onto the rope and trailing out like flags in the wind. Current in low viz is something that keeps me up at night, so this dive was actually awesome as I confronted it. But, it wasn't making for a fun dive, or one where three people could reasonably stay together. I thumbed it, and we crawled back up the rope. Hanging out for a moment at 15, the current switched! It was much milder, so after convening on the top we head down again, going for the pipe and then out along the trail of goodies to be seen. It's been a while since I've dove Redondo. (A "while" being relative to my short diving life so far.)
Someone said vis at beginning of slack was good. I knew incoming waters would stir up the muck, but methinks that person (HALLIE!) was pulling my leg because at the bass boat, vis was 2-3 feet... and that was an improvement over some pockets. (Ok, I can't blame Hallie as he had been topside in his boat and was relaying what someone else reported to him.) After a few circles of the boat looking in and under every nook and cranny, I waited on the outgoing line to the next attraction, thinking that obviously my buds would continue around the boat until they stumbled upon me. Nope. I lost both S & K, but recovered S after about two minutes with some light play. I remained on the rope and played the light while S did a search. No luck. After a few minutes we followed our dive plan and headed up to a stop, then to find K on the surface.
We bobbed on the surface and contemplated... we had enough air for another short descent. No one jumped up and said, "Yeah, let's go!" So I said, "Um... I'm cold..." and another chimed in and said, "Yeah, me too!" The diving wasn't fantastic that day, but 30 minutes leading in challenging conditions made for a good dive to me.
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