Sunday is considered day one, even though the crew arrives on Saturday. Sunday is our first full day. The day flowed along very well. The crew was up and had all of their personal gear packed before breakfast. This is a good sign. We attended 'flags' and then it was off for a breakfast of biscuits and gravy.
After breakfast we met at the commisary to take care of our food and ice. The crew had to pack six large coolers with ice (very heavy) and also had to inventory all of the food we would be taking along. There's alot of food for 14 people for a week. This was all loaded into a trailer and then the trailer moved over to the scuba area. Here the crew loaded 12 scuba tanks, all of their dive gear and their personal gear into the trailer. It's a small trailer and it was packed tight and heavy.
Finally it was time to depart. We all hopped into the two vans, one for youth, one for adults (their choice, not ours) and off we went. There's always a 'sigh of relief' whenever we finally leave FSB property and get on the road. The trip takes about and hour and a half to Stock Island, right outside of Key West, where the Conch Pearl is moored.
It's always a pleasure to arrive at the boat and be greeted by Captains Denny and Holley. Now it was time to unload the trailer and vans and haul all of the stuff down the dock, about 75 yards, to the boat. It was hot so this was a workout but everyone pitched in so it did not take long. The next step is to get everything on board and put away; the food, the scuba gear and personal gear.
With all of that done it was time to relax, go through the boat briefing and have lunch. Until the end of the trip, when the boat is unloaded, there is no more hard labor. Basically a normal day consists of...eat, dive, sleep, repeat.
We motored out to the reef to a site called Western Sambo, the Haystacks, for our first dives. The first dive is a lead dive where the crew follows the instructors around the reef. This is when the instructors get to work out any kinks and to assess the crew's abilities. Again, this went very well, except for Merry who had some weighting issues. The second dive is a 'buddy dive' where the divers are free to go off on their own with their buddies. All of the youth in the crew are under 15 so they are junior divers and must dive with an adult. The second dive also went well which is a relief to the instructors.
Once the dives were done the crew stowed thier scuba gear, rinsed off and changed into dry clothes. Rinsing off or showering is accomplished with a freshwater hose up on the forward deck. It isn't very refreshing because most of the hose is lying out in the sun. We had dinner, hamburgers (crazy dream burgers), and motored to our mooring for the night, Key Lois.
I fell asleep so I don't know what else happened...sorry.
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