Let's go diving

     Years and years ago I took a SCUBA class at UMass, I didn't know it then, but that class would change my life. So, "Who's your buddy? Where's your buddy? Get with your buddy," read and enjoy this next blog post together.

     How can a SCUBA class change your life, you might be wondering? When I was a student, there was a sassy little redheaded TA, who later became my wife. She has since become an instructor, and is now teaching that same course at UMass, for Project Deep. We are still friends with many of the same instructors, TA's and students. Every Friday night for the last eighteen years, we have been barbecuing at my instructor, Scuba Steve's house, and come to think of it, he gave my wife away at our wedding. Over the eighteen years my wife and I have been together, we have met some fantastic people, during classes, while diving and traveling for years and years, to many different dive destinations. Some of those people have become friends, and travel companions, and some of those are friendships that will last our lifetime. That is how a SCUBA class changed my life.

This story begins with Project Deep a non-profit organization that teaches SCUBA classes to the five colleges in Western Mass, UMass, Amherst, Smith, Hampshire and Mount Holyoke. 

Classes are, I don't remember, 10 weeks long, half of the class is in the pool practicing skills, the other half in the classroom. I attended UMass, but took my class at Hampshire College. The credits transferred and that class time worked better with my schedule. What I remember about my class, I sucked at the pool part, and spent most of the class floating on the surface, watching the class at the bottom of the pool. The other thing I remember, Hampshire does not believe in tests, students there do not take exams, and they were all freakin out over a SCUBA test. I have remained friends with my instructor, SCUBA Steve ever since.

After passing the course and exam, it is time to do your open water dives, and become a certified diver. There are two options for this, one being Rockport, Mass with Cape Ann Divers,

and two being, sunny Key Largo Florida, with Ocean Divers.

     Diving in Rockport, Massachusetts can be spectacular. You can dive the Chester Poling Shipwreck, go scalloping or lobstering if you prefer. I don't like lobstering, they look huge underwater and come at you with their big claws, they scare the crap out of me. Day is much better at it, and way tougher than I am underwater. 

See, scary, right? If you find yourself out in Rockport, book a dive trip with Cape Ann Divers and spend the day with Capt. Steve, fill his head with toilet paper and puke all over his boat, he likes that. Tell him I sent you.

You can also choose option number two, diving with Ocean Divers in sunny Key Largo, Florida. My wife and I have been many times and made many friends on these trips, some of whom we continue to travel with. Our latest trip to Key Largo was this past April, which I wrote about in my blog, if you are interested in reading about these trips.
Spring Break in Key Largo, Interstate 95, Forever, and my last post, A Great Week of Diving.

So, I spent a week with my wife in Key Largo, while she taught this motley crew of college kids how to dive, and I had a great time. It was a chance to dive, catch up with old friends and make some new ones. It was also a chance to be Day's SCUBA Sherpa, and let her boss me around in front of our friends, so they can tease the hell out of me. 

Hmmm...I could get into trouble for this one, love you baby. Day and I spent a few years hanging around Project Deep, Rockport and Key Largo, until life got too busy. She still teaches, but not as much. Project Deep will always be, where I met my wife, and many life long friends, and will always be a part of our lives. As I have written before, our lives are a book. In that book are chapters, in those chapters are pages, paragraphs and sentences. Eighteen years ago a new chapter in my life began. If I were to give it a title, it might be, UMass, Project Deep and a Bossy Little Readhead."  

When it comes to diving, you need to spread your wings, and Day and I have...

It takes six months to a year to plan a dive trip to the Galapagos Islands and the Galapagos Aggressor dive boat. You can then imagine how heart broken we were, as we sat on the plane in Newark, New Jersey on the tarmac, when an announcement came over the speaker, informing us, our flight has been canceled. After six or more months of waiting to go on this once in a lifetime trip to the freakin Galapagos Islands, and dive with hammerhead sharks, a volcano erupts in the city we are suppose to land in, on the day of our flight. The trip was suppose to be the week of Thanksgiving, so now we are home, with no plans, eating pizza and watching a movie from Blockbuster, ready to cry and feeling like losers.   

As you can see, we did finally make it to the Galapagos the following February, and dove with the hammerheads, seals and just about everything else.

If you are a diver, the Galapagos should be on your list, it is a trip I will never forget. It is also really expensive, so, Bonaire, here we come.

Bonaire in my opinion, is one of the top ten dive destinations in the world! Why? Bonaire is relatively inexpensive, has a ton of dive sites, easy, easy shore diving, 200ft visibility, spectacular reefs, and great fish life.

We have been to Bonaire seven or eight times, and I never get tired of it. Without a doubt, one of the most beautiful dives on this planet, has to be, Town Pier. Town Pier, is just that, a pier in the center of town, and if you don't believe me when I say, "one of the most beautiful on this planet," check out my link, and be amazed!

This is a picture of us at "Town Pier" just before our night dive. In between all those trips to Bonaire, Day and I managed to dive many other Caribbean islands, some personal trips and some put on by Holyoke Underwater, a dive shop in Western Mass, that has since, gone out of business.  

Day and I took a trip to Grenada early in our relationship, for two weeks, by ourselves. Grenada was fantastic, the town of St. Georges is a great old Caribbean town, the beaches were pristine, the center of the island is a rain forest, there are plenty of spice and rum tours, and, the diving was great. Grenada is home to the largest shipwreck in the Caribbean, the Bianca C, A 600 foot ocean liner. If you do make it to Grenada, be sure to take an island tour with Mandoo Tours, and be sure to have dinner at Patrick's, which I have written about in a previous post.

 

"The Big Five" are lions, elephants, the Cape buffalo, leopards and the rhino, when referring to an African safari. When diving, the octopus is certainly one of the "Big Five." I am not sure where this picture was taken, but what a rare find to see an octopus out in the open like this, it has to be a late day dive. Octopus come out at dusk or night to begin feeding. Night dives are a chance to see different animals, and one of the best night dives I have ever been on was in Roatan. 

The Roatan String of Pearls phenomenon occurs about an hour after sunset. It must be pitch black with no moon and lights turned off. It is the mating display of ostracods which are tiny organisms about the size of a tomato seed. They act much like a firefly emitting a little light in sequence to attract a mate. (this picture is not one of mine, I got it off the Internet) There was so much of this stuff in the water, I could not tell where up or down was. Amazing!

The "Big Five"

Hammerheads or sharks, octopus and add to the list, turtles!

Everything underwater is faster than you are, so it is amazing to come up on a turtle like this. It doesn't happen often but when it does, wow, let's hope we all have cameras. Now, I asked Day what she thought the "Big Five" were, and we both agreed on sharks, octopus and turtles, she added Manta Rays. 

Now, I don't have a picture of a Manta, but surely a school of seven Eagle Rays is pretty damn good. I would love to take credit for this pic but, Jeff S. gets the credit for this one. Last on the list of the "Big Five" has to be a whale shark, which I have never seen, but when I do, that will be a blog post itself. The big things are great...

like this Grouper, but don't miss out on the small stuff...

like this shrimp or...

or this Frogfish. Can you see the fish? At this point, I deleted a huge part of this blog, it is a great story, and I decided to make it a post by itself. Look for "The Frogfish," in the near future. Anyhow, whether it's Bonaire, Grenada, Roatan, Utila, Belize or Cayman Brac, someone has wrecked a boat there, and it is sitting on the bottom of the ocean floor, waiting for us to explore her.

 

Day swears this is a picture of me, at the bow of the "Hilma Hooker" in Bonaire. She says it is just the angle, but it looks like she is sitting upright to me, and that cannot be...

because the Hilma Hooker is laying on her side. It is a mystery Susan, who by the way is the diver in this picture.
The Hilma Hooker is a great wreck dive, just past the wall, she lies in about 100 feet of water, and is home to some pretty big tarpon.

The USCGC William J. Duane, known simply as the Duane in the Florida Keys, near Molasses Reef. The Duane is a great dive and has a ton of history, and is worth a read. 

Other great wrecks in Key Largo, are the Spiegel Grove, as seen above, which I have never been on but...

Day has. Other wrecks would include the Bibb, the Benwood and the City of Washington. Click on the link above, to read about these great wrecks.

There is something exciting about descending into the depths of the ocean, until a wreck comes into view, and for a moment, it feels as if, you, were the first to discover her.

Years and years of diving together, and I can't find a decent picture of the both of us, together. Can one of our freakin friends take a picture of my wife and I?

 It's always difficult to decide, how to end a post. I wrote earlier, I cut a big piece of this one out, deciding it was a great story, and worthy of a post itself, and "The Frogfish" will be. But now, I am thinking of another post. As I was writing this one, I was getting a little nostalgic, especially when writing about Bonaire. Day and I have been to Bonaire many times, with many friends, is there a better place to be, when I turn 50, in just a year and a half? Is there a better place to be, with all my friends? Surely SCUBA Steve will have to go on that one, right? Well, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed my post, as much as I have enjoyed writing it.