Nov 28
My Pal Richard and I wanted to sharpen our diving skills on this first trip down. He wanted to finally get Certified and I needed a refresher after 30 years. We found a very good value for money at Yucatec in PDC. This is Richard on his first open water dive in the Caribbean. Note all the sediment in the water from the wind driven swells
Richard waving to camera on first open water dive. (very turquoise)

We probably would have not done so well if we hadn't been trying to impress our young french instructor named Juliette. When scheduling class dives they can't wait for the best of conditions. Wind and surge scoured up a lot of debris this day. This is Juliette, I'd recognize those ankles anywhere. She has a hard plastic ball tied onto her tank with an elastic cord. When she wants to get our attention she pulls the ball out against the elastic and releases it. It makes a destinct ringing sound like a gong.
Julliete swiming UW

The conditions were so poor that it took over 40 editing moves to fix this shot of me. It's still not very good. Might be the subject =)

As a reward for treating us so well we took Juliette to our favorite $3 dinner place at the end of the training. She out-ate both of us and didn't put anything in her pack (I watched).
Graduation dinner

After every dive Richard would complain that one ear wouldn't clear. When Thomas, the equipment wizzard, heard this he pulls out a bottle of Peroxide and offers to pour some into Richards ear. He said to dump it out when the Rock n Roll band stopped playing. AND it worked.
Richard clearing his ear with Peroxide.

Part of this diving class deal was also to check out this older 'Hooka' floating dive compressor I got off eBay. It works fine but needed some air pressure and engine speed adjusting and cleaning some things up internally (I'm getting so good at that). I used it in the practice pool to get accustomed to it and the hookups but haven't had it in the sea yet.

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