First, as always, my thanks goes out to our hosts and friends
that helped to make this all possible. Sandy and John with
Tropical Isle, Doug, Tracey, Steve, Marty and the rest of
the Diving Solutions gang and Bill and the competent and
ever diligent Force E bunch. Without their help, we would
never be able to pull these trips off!
Where do I begin? Most arrived early-ish Friday night, so
there were a few cocktails on the pool deck. I think I did
a final bed check around midnight and all were present and
accounted for. I guess about 2:30 or 3:00, I crashed for
a little bit on the pool deck, but awakened around 5am to
begin the duties of the day.
The morning was beautiful. Light breeze and calm seas, so
we headed over and loaded up the boat. We headed down to
Bath and Tennis Reef, well most of us anyway… We had
a partial boat and they didn’t stay or play with us.
You could certainly feel the tension of being in the ocean
for the first time, but all of the divers remembered what
they had been taught, entered the water and headed to the
bottom. Visibility was 50ish feet and plenty of marine life.
A good first dive! During our SIT time, I think the whole
group stayed chatty until we told them it was time to put
the regulators in their mouth. Second dive was on Breakers
and it was equally as pleasant.
Saturday afternoon was open as usual. Some took naps and
sun, others of us headed to the Palm Beach Harley shop.
Nope, I didn’t buy anything – yet, but I sure
did see something that I liked!
About 6 or so, I fired up the grill to start dealing with
the 20 lbs of dolphin, but I quickly stepped aside as Franz
Kranzfelder, a former executive chef for WDW prodded me
out of the way and took over. Some say that I am somewhat
of a control freak, especially when it comes to cooking,
but I did feel quite at ease turning my spatula over to
him. After the dolphin, lamb chops, duck breast, chicken,
salads, couscous and desserts everywhere, I think I can
say without a doubt, we may have a new position in the J2
Diving staff and that’s of an executive chef…
It was nice to be able to mingle, socialize and make sure
everyone was having fun.
After dinner, we made presentation of C Cards and happily
welcomed a WHOLE bunch of new divers. I got a lot of compliments
about the dives, the trip and especially the food. Then
it turned ugly! Dancing, limbo, girls spanking girls, human
pyramids and lots and lots of laughter. Yes of course, SOMEONE
ended up in the pool – with his cell phone, but hey.
I’d like to say it was all in good clean fun, but Hurricane
Simon is 350 lbs, 6’9” and who’s gonna’
argue with him?
Sunday's dives were a little bumpy as we had a storm brewing,
but all gave it a go and with a slight amount of discomfort,
we dove Flower Garden and Breakers again. Another great
day!
All I know is that I was tired when we got done!
Everything came off without a hitch and that’s mostly
on the behalf of the J2 Staff – Gale, Dinah, Bill and
Kris. They actually did all of the work and supervised a
couple of pretty good days.
