One hundred...and...thirty six feet.

Hello All,

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks because sometimes it takes that long for enough interesting things to happen to make it worth sitting down and telling you about it.

First of all, a belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all.  I for one have a laundry list of things that I am thankful for including my wife, Sarah, Chase, and _________ (insert your name here).

I have been diving a lot lately and, honestly, if I were not doing that, I am not sure how I would fill an entire day off.  I was out on Sunday, Nov 20th, and got a real surprise. 

I was meandering along at a relaxed pace down at 45' feet checking out the reef (below me and to my left) when I looked up and noticed a large dark mass.  I looked to my left and a giant whale shark was passing me going the opposite direction.  It was like we were on a two lane highway each going the opposite direction.  It was only about 8' way from me!! 

When I looked over, its head had passed by and I was about mid-body.  By the time I turned about to give chase, I was at its tail.  After about 10 seconds of robust kicking, I had caught up to its head and remained just out of its field of vision.  I swam with the whale shark for about 150' before I broke off.  It was REALLY cool.  The whale shark was about 20' long, graceful, and swimming almost with no effort. 

If I had not looked up, he would have passed right by me.  If I had not looked up and was swimming about 8' to the left, I think I would have swam right into its mouth!

Went out again Wed night before Thanksgiving on a night wreck dive.  That dive was just ok.  There was a lot of plankton in the water and visibility was not that good as a result.

So, what's the one hundred thirty six feet all about?  Well, it also equals 41.5 meters and it is the distance a car traveling 46 mph covers in 2 seconds.

With nothing going on for Thanksgiving and having the entire day off, I decided to go out on the dive boat again.  On the second dive of the day, a master dive instructor, a dive master in training and I descended to the depth of...136'.  If you are not familiar with SCUBA diving, this probably doesn't mean much, but it is actually a little beyond the depth a recreational diver would be permitted to dive to (at least if they are following PADI guidelines). 

At 136', the pressure on the body is 4x that on the surface.  Because of the extreme pressure, the rate at which nitrogen leaves the body slows dramatically.  Our wrist mounted dive computers (like a watch but it doesn't tell you what time it is) indicated that we could only spend 5 minutes at that depth before we would have to go through a rather complex decompression sequence.  After a few minutes, we started ascending in order to avoid all this. 

Most divers will never dive that deep so I am happy to say, "been there, done that". 

Again with not much going on this past Sunday, I decided to dive again.  The first dive was uneventful but the second dive was a bit of an exploration.  The same two listed above and I went into an area no one had dove in before just to see what was there.  We ended up finding a really neat reef had developed on a large boulder field.  Since we found it, we get to name it and it will be referenced on future dives to that location.  Again, very cool.

The last bit of news is that I moved out of my "shared dry CLU" (roommate, no bathroom, containerized living unit) to a "private wet CLU".  My new digs are a little older then my old room but what an upgrade.  The best part is not having a roommate and having my own "head" (naval shipboard term for bathroom).  The location is also a lot better being in the center of camp vs at the opposite end from my office. 

Well, that is really about it.  Next week I am off on an adventure to other dark continent, North America, where I will be studying the behavior of the indiginous population as well as sampling local foods and beverages.  I'll keep you posted on my observations/explorations.

Until then,
Michael