I haven`t gone on any dives since my last entry, due primarily to the weather. It`s been freezing! It`s for this reason, also, that my open water checkout dives for the Diver Stress & Rescue and Underwater Navigation courses have been pushed back to next spring. What a bummer! I`d been hoping to at least get the DS&R one all finished, so that I would be eligible to start volunteering at the local aquarium & the zoo over the winter. But alas, it`s just not going to happen. The next opportunity for the Underwater Navigation checkout dive is in Florida. My dive shop`s going on a trip there in February. If I can afford it, I`ll sign up, but money`s tight right now ever since I quit the second job. Woe. In the dive buddy department, I`m still lacking. I`d been hoping that someone in my classes would be interested, but most everyone got INTO diving as a couple, and everyone was already paired up. There was one guy who was there by himself, but I kind of can`t stand him. Not that he appeared interested in finding a buddy, in the first place. Man, why is it so hard to find someone in my age range, around my same skill level, who would be interested in building up a good dive buddy relationship? Maybe I`m attaching too much significance to that. I can go (and have gone) diving with perfect strangers, and it`s been mostly okay. But I also went on three dives with the same guy once, over a weekend while his fiance was getting open water certified, and it was SO MUCH BETTER. It was amazing, how much better we were communicating and working together even after just a couple of dives! That`s what I want. It doesn`t have to be just one person...I`d be happy with two, or three, or even a small group. But I really want to be able to become accustomed to a buddy, know their equipment as well as my own, know their body language underwater, and how they think. And vice versa. For safety`s sake if nothing else. And in order to get to that level, of course, it would be necessary to actually, you know, GO DIVING with him / her / them on a regular basis. While I *have* gotten a few messages from people at this site, they all live pretty far away. Far enough that I wouldn`t be able to dive with them very often at all. So... I don`t know. My dive shop keeps recommending that I join Club Aquarius, and they say I`d have some luck there. But I don`t know how that would really be any different than THIS place. I`m stymied. Ah well. I guess it`s not a big deal at present, anyway. I`m pretty much done until February, at the earliest. So maybe I`ll just come back in four or five months and try again. - Jean