SHARK!!!!!

Now there's a word that will put fear into a scuba diver, or at least this one.  Just a note, the guy who sued everyone got nothing.  His insurance covered the medical bills and he had signed (like all of us) an air tight agreement that said neither we nor our families could sue for any reason, including death.  All of that made me extremely cognizant of the truth that everyone isn't meant for diving.  

Here's one huge piece of chicken I smoked in my handy dandy Masterbuilt.  It's SO much harder to use than my Bradley, in case you were in the market for one.  I finally got to taste test it yesterday.  YUM YUM!!

Back to diving .. as soon as that deep dive certification was under my belt, I headed off to Hawaii for two days of deep diving with a specialty dive shop.  

You can make several dives every day if you schedule them correctly, because with every dive, you get more and more nitrogen in your blood.  If you don't off-gas for a day or two in between, YOU will end up in that hyperbaric chamber.  

So our first dive was to 110 feet.  To make it even MORE exciting, I was dragging along all my underwater movie camera gear, which means I was only looking through the viewfinder.  You know that mirror on your truck that says "makes things look farther away"?  Well my lens made things look CLOSER.  

I panicked when I saw a moray eel come up out of his den into my face as I floated over him!  I'm pretty sure I screamed!  The Divemaster from the boat who is always in charge, came swimming over and patted me on the head.  Well that was embarrassing ... and from then on, I looked around more than I did at the camera lens.

And then IT HAPPENED!  I heard a horrible scream coming through the water.  Boy that will wake you up!!  SHARK!!!!!  Oh great ... just what I need to add to my lengthy list of underwater fears.  Sure enough there were three sharks swimming behind our group.  

The most amazing thing happened as I pointed the camera their direction.  In a flash they hit the coral and came up with two big fish to eat.  At least it wasn't one of us!  Later the crew said they have never EVER seen any sharks out there, let alone sharks FEEDING.  I sucked my tank dry in about three minutes and headed up to the boat.

Next up .... a night dive with the same Divemaster ... our third dive of the day.  Keep in mind I'm not even a Divemaster myself at this point.  We all had our underwater flashlights, but in 50 feet of water, the light doesn't go far.  

My PARTNER (you know, that husband) who was supposed to hang with me, took off on his own.  It was dark and cold and I had just about enough diving for one day.  I finally told the Divemaster I was low on air and needed to go find the boat.  He said NO.     WHAT????  

SHOW ME THE BOAT!!!!!  At last he relented and pointed.  I swam off, still not knowing where the heck my partner was.  The boat Captain told us there would be lights at 20 feet off each end of the boat.  Swim to the light and do a rest stop (to offload nitrogen from your blood) for a full ten minutes.

Luckily I found the first light and grabbed the line, holding on for dear life.  But WHERE is my diving buddy???  I got scared and finally headed to the second light at 20 feet ..... only it was at 6" on the back of the boat (they forgot to let it down), meaning I didn't stay underwater long enough.  My dive computer had me barely in the red.  

Suddenly my dive buddy tapped me on the shoulder, screaming at me because I went up too soon.  Apparently he was ABOVE me in the water and I never knew he was there.  We had to be monitored for the next two days.  That was the last of my Hawaii Diving adventures!!

Oh there's SO much more, but for now, here's my two latest purchases for my trailer.  This is a silicone ring so I don't have to grease the hitch ... a new invention since I had a fifth wheel last.

And of course a hitch lock to keep the honest people from stealing my rig.  If anyone has any other favorite gadgets, let me know.  I can use all the help I can get.

I spent much of the day fiddling with my game camera.  Apparently I deleted something important.  After 286 videos of the branches moving in the wind, it didn't want to record any more.  For two days I've gotten nothing.  I'm hoping I got it fixed ... this morning will tell the tale.

It's getting close to TRAILER day and I'm getting both nervous and EXCITED!