Captain's Chronicles April 2024

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.

One of our presidential candidates holds the belief that only love is real. Only behaviors and actions rooted in love are real in the grand scheme of things. Of course, she has withdrawn her candidacy.  Even for me, the concept of only love being real is a stretch.  Maybe that’s how our creator judges us as we stand at the Pearly Gates. Only those of us averaging 10 or more acts of kindness based on love per day get in. Most mothers have a deep love and affection for their babies… At least while they’re babies.  If only all mothers felt that love for their babies even as they are grown.  I’ve thought of the earth as our mother for a long time now and I didn’t come up with that idea. The ‘Mother Earth’ concept originated long before the hippies popularized it in the 1970s. So, we actually celebrated Mother’s Day this past Monday. I wish that collectively as a species we were more deserving of our mother’s eternal love. We are only responsible for ourselves individually though… trying to keep it positive here!

We all need to spend less times on the couch in front of the television and less time on the chair in front of our computer screens and get outside! Nature is beautiful and fills us with a sense of wonder, tranquility, and belonging.  For me and possibly you, those feelings are amplified when I’m outside and underwater. That will be the case at Scuba Marco tomorrow as we are heading west and then down to breathe in nature’s aquatic realm. There’s still a big beautiful world out there! Let’s get out there and enjoy it while we can. Yes, I’m hitting up on a double entendre with ‘while we can’. For one, to experience nature’s beauty before we draw our final breath. The other is to get out and experience it before we impact nature to the point where those beautiful places are either gone or diminished.  LOVE MOTHER NATURE!!!

As always, Live Love Dive!  —Jeff