Thursday, May 26, 2011Good morning crew,
Once we finally got all of our gear for the SCUBA dive squared away we ventured out to a place called Blue Spring State Park just outside of Deland and Deltona.
When I asked my nephew Eric why we were diving in a spring an hour's drive away versus the ocean which is a five minute drive away, he said there was a lot more to see in the spring, it's fresh water, there are all sorts of rock formations to play around in not to mention a 160 foot cavern the spring gushes out of, plus it's virtually impossible to get lost in, unlike the North Atlantic Ocean.
So I didn't argue.
What I didn't know is that the parking lot for this spring is about a half mile from the actual river. Pfft! A mere 2,600 feet. However, in the 89 degree heat of the parking lot we had to put on a full wet suit (including boots) plus the 65 pounds of equipment, and then walk to the river.
I'm not embarrassed to admit I was hating life after about five minutes of walking. The girlfriend immediately abandoned me, walking about 20 yards ahead, leaving me to plod along behind.
But it was worth a little misery. The water is a chilly 73 degrees, gushing out of an aquifer about a hundred feet below the surface, and 73 degrees feels wonderful when your core body temperature is about a hundred and four.
The spring itself is pretty small, maybe half a acre, but it is the depth that is the real attraction. At the bottom of the pond is a crevice that goes down about 160 feet. While we were sitting in only a few feet of water at the edge of the pond the dive instructor was giving us some important last minute instructions.
"Remember not to go below 40 feet or you'll die," he said helpfully. "And once your down there remember not to swim straight back to the surface or you'll get an embolism and you'll die.
"If for any reason your air stops flowing find your dive buddy and use his alternate regulator, because if you swim straight to the surface you'll die. And make sure you equalize the pressure in your ears while you're going down, because if you don't your ear drums will explode and you'll die. Oh...and try not to bump your air tank into any rocks or it might explode and you'll die. Okay, everybody ready to have some fun? Let's go!"
By this time I was pretty much in a state or mortal terror.
The girlfriend, who apparently hadn't listened to a word of the safety lecture, swam straight to the cave and disappeared into the depths while I sat in five feet of water and hyper-ventilated into my regulator.
After five minutes I saw the dive instructor's head pop up and he swam over to give me the 'A-okay' sign, asking if I was alright. He managed to coax me into about ten feet of water where I sat testing and re-testing my regulator and buoyancy compensator, waiting for some malfunction to make my head explode.
In the end I made it down to about 25 feet before my air got too low to go further. The girlfriend had a blast, swimming into cracks and crevices. She startled a school of fish hiding in a crack which exploded around her in cloud of living silver. She even found an air pocket underneath a ledge 40 feet down big enough to allow her to remove her regulator and breathe. She was ecstatic.
I didn't make it that far, but on the plus side I did get to see some very exciting underwater plant life.
Laugh it up,
Joe
joe@gophercentral.comP.S. We have a *NEW* archive page! You can read newsletters from Clean Laffs to Bizarre News and dozens of titles in between. Years worth of issues! Just check out the link at the right of the page!
***"Harold Camping, who predicted the end of the world, says the new date for the apocalypse is October 21. If it rains, it will be October 22." -David Letterman
***"More than 250 colleges are using graduation gowns this year made from recycled plastic bottles. It's great preparation for the job most college students will be getting: collecting and recycling plastic bottles." -Jimmy Fallon
***"The other day in Indiana, a woman burst into tears while she was robbing a Long John Silver's and told the cashier, 'If I weren't down and out, I wouldn't be doing this.' Then the cashier told her, 'That's what all our customers say.'" -Conan O'Brien
***While I was dining out with my children, a friend of my neighbor, who recognized us, came over to our table, and we started talking.
He asked where my kids go to school. I told him we home-schooled them.
With a raised eyebrow, he asked if my husband is the sole breadwinner for our family.
I said, "No, I also work... but out of our home."
Then, noticing our two-month-old son, he mentioned that his daughter had just had a baby, and he wondered what hospital our son was born in.
"He was born at home," I answered.
The man looked at me and said, "You don't get out much, do you?"
*--------------- Guaranteed to Roll Your Eyes ---------------*In one of my classes, they were discussing the qualifications to be president of the United States. It was pretty simple - the candidate must be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age. However, one girl in the class immediately started in on how unfair was the requirement to be a natural born citizen.
In short, her opinion was that this requirement prevented many capable individuals from becoming president. The class was just taking it in and letting her rant, but everyone's jaw hit the floor when she wrapped up her argument by saying, "What makes a natural born citizen any more qualified to lead this country than one born by C-section?"