SLSU032413A – Sunday March 24th, 2013

Day 1 – Arrival Day

 

I contact all of my crews before they arrive; first by email a few months before arrival then I call a week before scheduled arrival. This crew was no different except when I received the confirmation return email from their leader it stated that they had been here 5 years before. When I called the week before I was told that they had been here 5 years before, on board the Conch Pearl, with me. Since I really never had a bad crew I became very curious as to which crew it was; there have been a lot of crews since then.

 

I was also told that they would be arriving a little late. Since they had been here before I was hoping that their prior experience here would make check-in and preparation to go to the ship that much easier, and speedier.

 

The other crew member this trip will be divemaster Paul Mangone. He’s my age and a graduate of the Divemaster Academy that I taught two years ago.  He’s an excellent divemaster and brings a skill set of teaching methods that widens the abilities of the Florida Sea Base Staff.

 

I just spoke with the crew’s leader. It’s almost 6pm and they’re just leaving the Miami airport. I don’t think we’re going to get much done tonight. We still have to feed them so all we’ll get done is orientation…maybe gear issue. It’s really going to effect tomorrow. “it is what it is” as Denny says.

 

The crew finally arrived a little after nine. A lost bag had delayed them even more. Upon meeting them it was good to see some familiar faces. There was the leader Bob, a ‘retired’ dive instructor and Mike, a firefighter. They had both been with me on the Conch Pearl six years ago and if I remember correctly, we had a pretty good time. The rest of the crew seemed like a good bunch of folks; a good first impression.

 

Paul and I fed the crew with leftovers the Galley had left for us, ravioli and vegetables, and then it was off to the dorms. We put the crew in one of the big crew rooms and left them for the evening. It had been a long day for them so it was no use torturing them with the orientation presentation. Tomorrow will be a longer day with a very fast pace.

SCSU031713A Arrives - Day 1

Today my first crew of 2013 arrived. It's a certification crew. I will be team teaching with new instructor David Kirkiner. Sharp guy...he has to be; he was taught by Burt Hubby. The crew is made up of six people; two adult females, three youth females and one youth male. The two adults are not diving. They're going to ride around on the boat and maybe snorkel. Of the youths, one of the girls, may not be diving. She is taking a medication that may disqualify her from diving. Captain Steve is going to talk with the dive doctor tomorrow to see if anything can be done but it doesn't look good.

The crew is somewhat familiar to me. One of the adults was here last year with a certification crew. She had some issues in the pool so she did not finish certification...SCUBA's not for everyone. I don't remember alot about that crew except that they were a fun bunch.

The crew arrived right on time, about 4pm. Check-in was held up while Captain Steve dealt with the medication issue. Once that was settled, for the time being, we met with the photographer and had our picture taken at the Sea Base entrance. Next it was off to the dorms. The crew dropped of their luggage and then we headed to the classroom. We needed to do paperwork and review the upcoming week. We discovered that the students had not filled out their knowledge reviews. This was a problem so they have to make it up on their time.

We finished up in the classroom for the day, went to flags and had dinner.

After dinner we headed to the classroom for the welcome presentation. Divemaster Scott Patton ran through the presentation and got us out of there in about a half hour. After that the crew was on their own, hopefully to go back to their dorms and complete their knowledge reviews.

I'm here, the gear's here...now what

I'm here, the gear's here...now what? That's what I'm asking myself. I want to get in the pool to check it all out but I can't seem to get myself to do it. Now's not the time to get complacent. I know all the gear has to be checked thoroughly, in the water, before my certification crew gets here. I went over it all at home but it's not the same as a 'wet test'. I haven't been diving since April 6th, 2012. I need to weigh my self out too. The new wetsuit may be more buoyant than I'm used to and I've put on some weight which will effect how much weight I need to carry.

I haven't taught Open Water since last March, in Port Antigua. That was fun (not). I need to review all of my teaching materials tonight so that I'm familiar with it all again; don't want to look too stupid. I'm teaching with a brand new instructor which means he should be right on top of everything. At least that's what I'm hoping...old dog, new tricks. I've probably forgotten more than he knows right now.

New Stuff

It seems every time I come to Florida Sea Base I end up with some new gear. This year it's a new wetsuit. I had a few glitches getting it but it all worked out.

First I waited and waited for LeisurePro to put the Pinnacle Wetsuits on sale. They usually put them on sale in late Winter. As the time for me to leave neared I decided to go ahead and order the wetsuit. I hadn't gotten around to trying it on yet when, lo and behold, the wetsuits went on sale. Since the prices had dropped  I was now able to afford what was their top of the line wetsuit. I boxed up the first suit I received to return then went to order the new wetsuit. Suddenly the price changed back to the MSRP. WTF? I fired off an email to customer service and was promptly answered with the offer from them to honor the sale price if I called Customer Service. I called and ordered the wetsuit at the sale price.

What made this wetsuit different was a front zipper that went across the front. I thought that might be more convenient than the conventional back zipper. When the wetsuit arrived I tried it on. First, it was too small. I thought a Large Medium might fit since my last suits were the same size. Wrong! Over the past nine months or so I had gone off of the grid and off of my diet, and it showed. Secondly, the front zipper design was not as easy to get on and very difficult to get off. In fact, I couldn't get it off. I got it pulled down around my shoulders and it got stuck. Here I was home alone, stuck in this heavy wetsuit, dancing, jumping and gyrating around trying to get it off. I thought I would pass out before I got it off but with enough movement I eventually slipped out of it. Lessons earned...I didn't like the front zipper and I needed a bigger suit. I checked the wetsuit prices again and they were back on sale so I ordered another wetsuit, like the first one, in a bigger size. I boxed up the one I had and returned it.

I expected the newest wetsuit to arrive in two days like the others had, giving me enough time to try it on before leaving for Florida. Even though free shipping states a 7-10 day delivery time I live close enough to LeisurePro to expect items to take only two days. Wrong again. When I checked the tracking information I found out that the wetsuit was drop shipped from the factory, in California. That gave it a delivery date two days after I was leaving for Florida. Once again I emailed LeisurePro Customer Service and asked if they could redirect the package. They said they could for $12 so after a few more emails the wetsuit was on it's way to me here in Florida.

The wetsuit arrived yesterday, as promised by UPS. Now all I have to do is try it on. Well the new wetsuit fits...barely. It's a good thing I'm losing some weight because it's going to be tight until it's broken in a bit. I don't want it to stretch out too much or else it won't fit properly once I lose this weight.

Another goody I purchased was reading lenses for my mask. Although the water magnifies things a bit I still need lenses to see small stuff properly. Now I just have to get off of my butt and install them.

It's that time again...

Well it's that time of year again, time to get my dive gear ready and packed up to return to the Florida Keys for my annual stint as a volunteer SCUBA instructor at the Boy Scouts Of America High Adventure Florida Sea Base. I think this is my 9th year. I'm leaving about a month later than usual as there would have been a four week gap between assignments.

Most of the gear is ready to go. Everything looks good. I even have a new wetsuit on the way. I did maintenance on the lights, tested the BCD and made a list that I checked one, two, three times. I'm sure I'll unpack and re-pack everything at least one more time. (that's my OCD kicking in)

I wish I was in better shape for this year's session but I'll have a week of a certification class to get the muscles broken back in again before I get on the Live Aboard. Hopefully I'll be able to watch what I eat and lose 5-10 lbs. while I'm down there.

This year should be interesting as we take two Divemaster / Instructors on board now and they're giving me a brand new divemaster to 'mentor'. We do far less than we used to but I plan to get back to helping more; filling tanks, mooring, etc. It's boring, sitting around between dives (except when I nap).

Oops..there goes the logbook!

I had an unfortunate incident happen with my computer the other day, The hard drive decided to hiccup and I had to re-format the drive. Luckily I backup 98% of my data so I didn't lose much. I did lose my address book which was a major loss, but I have rebuilt most of it.
Although I didn't lose my logbook the only backup I had, even on my external drive, was from dive 996. It was the same for my paper logbook. I was on dive 1009 which meant I had to dig up data on the 13 missing dives. I know "...a good dive logs his dives daily...".

The first thing I did was to check my dive computer. When I tried to turn it on it didn't respond...the battery was dead. I feared that all of the data was lost but after installing a new battery I was able to acces my dive log. I filled in the dive data for the dives I was missing but I still didn't have the dive site information.

I sent an email to the Conch Pearl but they didn't have any information on the dive sites we had visited for that time period. I was at a loss for ideas. Then I started reading this blog, checking to see if I had documented the activities for the dates that I was missing. Success! I had.

From the blog entries I was able to complete the missing information for the dive log. I used the information to bring my computer dive log and my paper dive log up to date.

This incident showed me that I had lost some of the discipline that I had for scuba diving. I will take some time and examine other areas of my diving to see if I have become as lax in any other areas.

SLS033112A - Friday

I didn't post this right away because I was packed and gone by 03:30 Saturday morning but now I have a little time.
The last day isn't as bad as the first day, but it is a busy day. We started with a quick cold breakfast. We had to get going because it was windy and we knew it would take awhile to get to the dive site. We headed out right after breakfast and we were right...the wind was really blowing, making it a bit 'sporty'. We headed back to Toppino's buoy since we knew we could moor there and be protected from the bigger waves by the reef. We were suspecting poor dive conditions since visibility had been dropping since wednesday but when we arrived we were pleasently suprised. The conditions check reported great visibility with a moderate surge. Not too bad!
The dive went well and everyone enjoyed it. It's good to end the week with a good dive.
The ride back wasn't too bad and everyone spent the time packing their personal gear and scuba gear. WE also managed to have lunch. We had a little trouble docking the boat since the wind was up and it was pushing us off of the dock. Once on the dock we emptied the boat and gave her a good scrubbing.
We said our good-byes, loaded the vans and headed back to base. It was a 1 1/2 hour drive and I think everyone slept. Back at base we unloaded the vans, washed our scuba gear and checked the crew back into the dorms.
We met for flags under the threat of rain and then headed under the dorms for our Luau. The crews that were in attendance performed skits and songs and we were all suprised when young Andy got up in front of everyone and performed a song that he had written. It was great! After the skits and songs we moved over to the volleyball courts for some luau games then it was time for dinner. At dinner Megan awarded the crew their Florida Sea Base patches, Duty to God patches, SCUBA BSA Cards and the Captain's Club Award.

It was a great week with a great crew. Thanks for being so much fun and being civilized.