Diving -
Bad luck this time around. Dove with Aldora but the pencil necked geek that runs the harbor
closed the port all day on Saturday and by the time it opened on Sunday it was too late for
us to dive. That means we only got to do 2 dives. Since the main purpose of the trip was to
look for a house, we had more time for that (but I would rather have been diving.)
Friday -
Dive 1 - Santa Rosa 96FSW 81F Viz - 60 feet
Santa Rosa is pretty boring to me at this depth. Did see lots of fish and Horacio scared
up a buried urchin and a scorpion. Didn't take the camera so no pictures. Jeannie was wearing
a new wetsuit and misjudged the weight it would take. Figuring she would, I had taken extra
and gave her a weight out of my pocket that (I thought) should have been a 3 pounder.
That time I misjudged. It was a 5 and I wound up a touch light on the safety stop. When we
got back Jeannie wanted to know why I spent the safety stop head down.
Chankanaab 48FSW 81F Viz - night dive
We started out on the afternoon dive with four divers. All competent and no problems. During the SI, we motored
in to the Fiesta Inn and picked up a fifth. No wetsuit, rented gear and looking pretty unsure. When asked
if he had done any night dives the answer was one. He didnt have a wetsuit and while we were
at the dock Horacio asked if he wanted one. He said no. About half way out, he decided that
maybe that was a bad idea. Horacio had an XL shorty on board but I wear an XXL and this guy
was about 3 of me. He tried to no avail. Jeannie took pity and he actually got wedged into
her polartec vest (which will never be the same.) Now it's time for the weight belt. 4 lbs he said.
Horacio looked at me and shrugged. Gave him 4 lbs and then strapped an extra 20 or so on
himself.
Time to get in the water and guess who couldn't get down? The four of us dropped down and
watched as Horacio got the guy negative and dropped him down to the bottom where he put him
through some bouyancy drills. Sometimes DMs have to work too damned hard.
Once we finally got it underway, it was a fun dive. We found an octopus that we played with
for a while octopus again. When the octopus had had
enough fun, it decided that the pocket of Jeannie's BC looked like a cave and decided to take up
residence there. Once we got the octopus out of the pocket we went on our way and found a
sculptured slipper lobster which I had never seen before. Found a golden crinoid out on
some brain coral (top of the page) and the mother of all lobsters (picture didn't come out but trust
me - as long as my arm.) A small spotted moray and some
social feather dusters topped off the critter watching. Played some
follow the leader in the phosphorescence and called it a night. The trip back was kind of rough
presaging the cancellation of the trips the next day.
Rest of the time:
We spent a lot of time looking at houses. And we found one and have made an offer on it.
Took the ride around the island and napped a lot other than that.
On Sunday night we sat in Pepe's Grill on the second floor and watched the Carnival
parade. Its not New Orleans but it was fun. A lot more 'family oriented.'
Food:
Rockin Java (next to the Naval station) - VERY good breakfasts and lunches
Lobster's House (next to the Barracuda) - great lobster (grilled but smaller is better)
La Choza (downtown) - Fish/shrimp in mustard sauce (now called tropical) - yummmmmmmmmm
Pepe's Grill (downtown) - Extremely nice place. Good food, good service, reasonable prices. Good steaks and prime rib. The wine list is not extensive but they have some pretty good Mexican wines.
chuck@chopf.com send some E-mail to Chuck
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