Monday, December 13, 2021

Yesterday’s dives were again very nice. The first stop was Gold Chain Reef (#56), and the afternoon dive was another stop at Menagerie (#59). The repeat of Menagerie was just fine, as it’s a lovely and bountiful site. We did a drop-off on the afternoon dive, dropping at the Prince Albert wreck, looking around a bit and heading back in. On average, our dives are clocking in at 50-60 minutes; and we’re doing so with about 1/3 tank remaining.

Sunday, of course, was the first day of diving for the many folks who arrived on Saturday. So now the boat assignments are complete and we know who’ll be on “our” boat for the remainder of the week. We’d already met with 6 of these folks on Saturday, it turns out, so there were only 2 new folks. And of the 10 on the boat, Pattie and I are the only Cocoview first-timers.

Last night at dinner 6 of us enjoyed a fun few hours of conversation. The Texans, Christina and Ossie, we’d met the day before, and have been enjoying them. And now also Manta, an infusion nurse from Breckenridge, and Ed, a retired Circuit Court judge from Lynchburg, VA, now doing some teaching at both Liberty and Washington & Lee. We very much enjoyed getting to know them a bit, and everyone has interesting stories to share–increasingly, the stories are less about scuba and more about life.

3am last night brought a pretty significant rain/wind storm, so i imagine the visibility may be pretty poor and murky today, but we’ll see.

Below is just one video (i’m slow at downloading, sorting, cutting…) of what I’d thought was a ‘flower’ but, as you’ll see at the very end, is a different sort of sea life. Turns out it’s a worm of some sort.