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Thankful? / Fried / Weather Games
I do believe that the list of things that I’m thankful for is diminishing. It was really sad parting with hope and optimism, but I never thought that my thankfulness would be challenged. My list is still considerable and it starts with family and friends, as I’m sure most of our lists do.
Decisions / Frequencies / Misc.
Life really is just a continuous series of decisions. Some are trivial. What flavor of ice cream do I want? Should I get a waffle cone? One or two scoops? As a diver, the importance of making good decisions is amplified. Diving truly is a safe sport. Most accidents and especially fatalities are the result of multiple poor decisions. Dive conditions and circumstances can also ramp up the need to make right choices. Deep diving, strong currents, and bad visibility make proper critical thinking all the more important. Experience and repetition are factors that lead to making good decisions. As a diver, it’s important to stay active to keep our skills sharp and our confidence up.
Staying longer / Rainbows / Help Me!
There are several ways I could take the theme of staying longer. Like when a houseguest that you didn’t really invite in the first place decides they are going to stay longer than you expected. There is a very popular blue pill that allows males to stay longer. I think the phrase erectile dysfunction is misleading. Most men at least my age have followed that thing around for over 40 years now (some of us recklessly). Seems like erectile exhaustion would be more appropriate! You guys all know that I’m talking about Nitrox though.
Widespread Mistakes / Mike Lamb Love
So many ways I could take the opening topic of widespread mistakes! Not gonna go political or philosophical. I could but this is a Captain’s Chronicles about diving from the owner of a dive shop. Let’s keep this baby positive! We’re human, so every diver is going to make mistakes along the way. New divers with little experience or even older experienced divers that have taken some time off from blowing bubbles. Shoot, even a seasoned Instructor in his prime can make mistakes… Ask John about his first check out Dive while he was certifying his youngest son. Let’s discuss the three most prevalent issues I see repeatedly.
Good Dives / William Anders - Earth Rise
Good dives is what we’ve been experiencing aboard the Psychquatic recently! We are enjoying calm seas, plentiful marine life and warm water. Even the currents haven’t been too strong. All in all, the last six weeks have been above average for local diving this time of the year. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that!
Crossing Currents / Invasive People/ Wearily Hot
There’s a lot of strong currents out there. We are a big country and it’s an election year. Wait, what… I mean it’s a big earth and there’s a lot of water on it. I experienced first hand how not to swim across a strong current a long time ago, while diving by myself. Although solo diving ads risks, it isn’t illegal. You can add additional risk by driving a boat out all by yourself, anchoring it, and jumping in the water to spearfish.
Love / Mother / Nature
Evidently, I am not excessively fired up over any issues right now because I’m struggling to come up with topics to talk about. So let’s keep things short, sweet and simple! I love to dive the Gulf but just as I wrote last month, as local dive conditions get sweet, the next cold front comes through and crushes our visibility. It seems like each winter and spring brings a higher frequency of cold fronts. It is what it is and certainly out of my control, I’ll just stay prepared and ready to dive when the conditions are right. But so far in 2024 there’s been more golfing than Gulfing going on around here. Focus on love and try to stay positive… That’s a good mantra for us all.
Washing Machine / Summiting / sCUBA!!!
Normally, agitation is not a good thing, but it is if you’re washing clothes. The herky-jerky back-and-forth movement of the agitator was how the clothes used to get cleaned. Front-load washers nowadays no longer have agitators, I imagine our clothes aren’t getting as clean as they used to. When the the wind is blowing at or close to the opposite direction from where the tide is flowing, that creates surface water agitation all along the Gulf coast. The stronger the wind is blowing and the tide is flowing, the greater the agitation. This ‘washing machine’ effect is magnified in and around the passes as the current speed increases. It makes the seas rough, and the wave period short.
Loop Current Woes / Tribe loss/ ‘Tisn’t the Season
The loop current is warm water that enters the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean between Cuba and the Yucatan peninsula. It makes its way north before looping east and then finally south along Florida’s West Coast. It is part of the reason that we have not ran a dive trip into the gulf since January 2nd. Cold fronts are the main culprit though, the alternative title to this segment would be ‘cold front caca’. Cold fronts here generally blow out of the northwest which crashes waves along the shoreline. That action quickly thrashes near shore visibility. The west Florida coastline has an extremely gradual drop off so that allows for large areas of shallow water to be churned up.
My DDC? Construct / Is it what it should be?
First, let’s tackle the local diving report. I have a very small sample size to draw upon but the report I got was encouraging. Joshua and crew braved a cold, rainy Friday morning last week to run offshore and do some spearing off of his sweet, recently acquired 26 foot Glacier Bay. The water was too cold for most of us locals (mid 60s).
Endangered Species / Ethical Ignorance / Chins Up
I heard a short blurb on the radio last week about manatees being added to the endangered species list. I thought to myself, they got that one wrong because they’re already on the list. I realized I was wrong (yes, that happened) this morning while reading an article about a study that is making environmentalists happy because the research is likely to land the sea cows back on the list. I was in disbelief, how and when did they become threatened not endangered?
Dodging Disasters / Circling Around / Good & Loud
The weather this summer has been unlike any of the other 49 summers I’ve spent down here. That’s probably a true statement for the majority of people wherever you are. I’ve always been a student of the weather, but when you’re trying to run a boat back into port and have to deal with massive thunderstorms rolling off the coast, it personalizes the relationship between man and Mother Nature. Whenever I knew we were going to dance around lightning I started saying the phrase, ‘it’s time to play dodge the thunderstorms’ as we would get underway.
