I just realized I hadn’t written a blog since last August.. People that know me, know I’m not known for keeping quiet, so to go this long without talking about something is unreal for me.. :)
Since the last blog we’ve actually done two trips. Our yearly mantee trip to Crystal River, FL and a a quick trip to Rainbow River while I was TDY to Tampa for a couple weeks.
Our yearly Manatee trip was great. Althought it didn’t start our on a good note. WE had so many people drop out of the Friday springs dive, we cancelled that part of it and most of worked that day and decided to drive down tot Crystal River after work. For me that didn’t work out because I ended up getting a speeding ticket outside Cordele, GA where the construction is going on. So, there was $331 I spent that I didn’t budget for this trip. :) The rest of the trip was great. The Rainbow River drift was fun and there were a large amount of manatees on Sunday morning for us to hang out with. We had about 14 people on the trip and some traveled down as far as from Tennessee to join us. The entire group had a great time and we met some new life-long friends while down there.
In March, I traveled to MacDill AFB in Tampa for a class. While down there, we set up a charter to do some meg tooth diving out of Venice Beach. The day before the charter, we got a call from them saying they had cancelled all weekend charters due to weather in the Gulf. Crap. So, we made a few calls and ended up just going up to Crystal River and doing Rainbow River again. And, for the second time in as many trips, our Capt/Divemaster was "Dude" from American Pro Diving. (Very cool guy) We only had 4 of us on this trip, but we had a good time and always get good food in Crystal River.
Unfortunately, this will be my last dive report for a few months. I go under the knife (again) next Friday to finish up my neck surgery and I’ll be out of commission for most of the summer while I heal up from that.
I wish everyone a great and safe dive season. I’ll see what I can do come late Summer/early Fall of 2010.
Dale