SCUBA at St Thomas 2011

My dive buddy Hank from Lake George, NY made his trip to St Thomas to coincide with ours again this year. I really appreciate diving with Hank because he is a Rescue Diver at the Lake George Fire Department. He watches over me while we dive so I feel very safe diving with him. We normally do all of our dives with the Coki Beach Dive Club but their boat was being repaired. We can do beach dives at Coki Beach and we did 3 there, but we wanted to go to some other sites that were more interesting.

We scheduled some dives with Blue Island Divers and got to dive on two different wrecks. The first day we dove on a reef off Bluebeard's Beach Club plus a second dive on sunken Navy barges. We saw a small (2 1/2 ft) nurse shark but I missed any pictures of it as my camera battery did not last long enough.

I got disgusted with my camera so I bought a new one and on following dives I got some decent pictures. The second wreck we dove on was a 300 foot long barge that sat upright in 100 feet of water. The main deck was at only 50 feet and when our boat anchored it's anchor was on the deck attached to a fitting.

Here, I am following the Dive Master along the edge of the deck at 50 feet. We then dropped down to the keel level and 100 feet.

Here you can see the other divers following behind me at the 100 foot depth and you can see the side of the barge. We went to the stern of the barge and then entered it and swam up to the main deck going through compartments that were actually open due to the explosions to sink the barge. I chickened out and did not go up through all of the compartments but went up on the outside and met them up near the main deck (50 ft).

Here I am in what is left of one of the compartments at about 60 feet. We all then swam around the main deck inspecting the various parts of the ship and going in other compartments that were somewhat open. While we were there a turtle came out of one of the compartments and I got several good pictures of it with Hank in the background.

The turtle finally headed for deeper waters but Hank and I did not follow him.

On Thursday of the second week Hank and I did one last dive from the beach at Coki Beach. It was just Hank and I (no dive master with us) and it gave us an opportunity to do a little practice in safety procedures like, removing your mask and putting it back on and clearing the water from it and sharing air from the others tank. We also got to see some of the novices out for their first Discovery Dive. An instructor takes a few first time divers out to introduce them to diving after giving them sufficient instruction, of course.

Back From St Thomas

Carol and I got back yesterday from our annual 2 week stay in St Thomas. It was great time and we got to see some friends we have not seen for several years. However, in the past 8 weeks we have been away for 6 of the weeks! We both are glad to be home so we can get back into the routine here in Riverwalk.

Naturally we had some pool time, Carol got some shopping time and I got enough SCUBA as you will see in another post.  One of fun places we eat at is the Room With a View since they have $5.00 wine and appetizers at the bar from 5 - 7 PM.

 

The appetizers are large enough that one is like having dinner for Carol or I. If it isn't large enough you can always order an additional one!!

During the second week, we got to visit with friends that have not seen for several years at St Thomas. It was a good reunion and we all went out to dinner at Iggies at Bolongo Bay.

Here are Steve and Shelly Berman with us at Iggies. We sat at a table right next to the entertainer for the evening and when he started playing it hampered the conversation considerably.
On Thursday, while I was SCUBA diving, Carol was taking another walk downtown and tripped over a speed bump in a parking lot and fell. She skinned her left knee quite a bit and also put lesser scrapes and bruises on her right knee and elbows. Thank goodness she did not break any bones or do any more serious damage.
When I finished my dive I called her, as usual, and found out about her accident. Rather than walking back to the condo she stayed at a shopping area and I picked her up on my way back.
On Saturday we caught our early flight to Miami and arrived early, about 11 AM, picked up our car, got gas and headed back home. On the way home we stopped for about 2 hours and visited my college classmate in Naples. It made a  nice break for the drive. Jim and Nancy are going on a cruise with us in January so we had some time to talk about that. It will be their first cruise and they are looking forward to the experience.
It sure was nice getting in bed and sleeping with my own pillow. We both slept very well!