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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. I think an occasional adrenaline rush is a good thing for just about everyone. Lightning crashing near one’s vessel in an angry thunderstorm is a little bit too much adrenaline though. It appears that we’re all playing a new and exciting game called; Dodge the Disasters! Actually, it’s not a new game. It’s been around a while but the current number of people playing and the frequency of which we are playing is growing exponentially! This game is daunting, but let us not go gently into the endless… ( sorry, a Rush song popped into my head). I really wish you were here for direction and motivation Neal! R.I.P.! The Psychquatic hasn’t had to play ‘dodge the thunderstorms’ this year. They haven’t been rolling off the Everglades in the afternoon religiously. They’ve been popping up at any given time of the day or night and moving every direction possible on a compass. Buckle up my fellow dodgers!
Circling around or circling back around to something you intended to do previously or something that you like to do regularly is a beautiful thing. I started certifying my little sister 25 years ago to scuba dive, but she abruptly quit. I’m lying, she got pregnant before class started. Scuba diving and pregnancies aren’t allowed. I don’t think moderate depth dives would affect a pregnancy, in the early stages anyway. Tough to get a sample group together to research that one. Sorry, I digress, then she had another kid and embarked on her career. I had the pleasure of circling back around with her to certify Jennifer (I call her Renee, or Bat-mite) and her bestie a couple weeks back. Jessi says I came out of retirement to teach, Instructor John says it was semi-retirement. Either way, don’t let me get to that point again because it was wonderful to come out of semi-retirement and get back on that seahorse! Thank you, John for allowing me to go there in the first place… You’re an Underwater Machine! Is there any circling back around that any of y’all have been thinking of? I fully intended on listing out several things that I would love to circle back to but there’s too many to list. I will have to narrow it down, I think a visit to Cedar Point would be on the top five. That’s an amusement park in Sandusky Ohio, close to my birthplace of Willard. My earliest childhood memories are from there. Hmmm, at one point having big fun and excitement was a priority! A pizza-philly steak from Joey D’s and going to new dive spots are also on my circle-around list. Despite the hurdles traveling can present right now, Scuba Marco is going to circle around to taking you guys to really cool Caribbean and beyond dive destinations to blow bubbles and enjoy life! Let’s talk about where you would like to go to at our gathering Friday and circle our dive-wagon train back around in that direction!
Our local diving is good, but shouldn’t necessarily be loud. Not unless an O-ring fails or you’re diving in an area where they dynamite for fish. Long time shop friends and personal neighbors went out a couple weeks ago and did very well spearfishing mangrove snappers and gag groupers. Mark and Andy were diving artificial reefs and ledges between 18 and 33 miles out. Thanks for the update! The visibility has actually been good in the 5 to 10 mile range and has declined as you move further offshore. That’s been the norm throughout the summer and fall the last several years and my theory is: the nasty water running out of the Caloosahatchee mixtures in with our gulf water further offshore.
I sincerely thank all of you that reached out to me after reading my last Captains Chronicles. I was in a melancholy state of mind (at a minimum) and I know I came over as depressed. I can’t deny that, but I think we all go there from time to time. Minimizing the amount of time we spend there is what it’s all about. Even when my mind goes there, I’m not going to do anything drastic. I have soooo much love and meaning in my life and I hope everyone reading this does too! I want to thank new friend of the shop, Kathy, who shared an article earlier today that really made me feel good and gives me hope moving forward. I’m not trying to be political (water is my political affiliation), but nearly everything is politicized nowadays, nor religious (God created water so he’s the ultimate diver) Anyway, the bottom line is; John Pavlovitz feels like there are a majority of good hearted well-meaning people out there but we are mostly silent. Now is the time to not just be good, but to be Good and Loud! It’s a short read: https://johnpavlovitz.
Until then, which hopefully will be seeing you at the shop this Friday at 6 PM!
Live Love Dive —Jeff
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K D Lackey Jr.
September 27, 2023
Good Chronicle, Jeff. I so want to come down and dive with you again. I must get over two months of Dr. vists first. Maybe then if the water is not too cold or maybe next spring. I need to get back around to it. Take care.