Dinner and diving:

Not at the same time. That might be uncomfortable. I just got back from a potluck dinner to say goodbye to C-- who is heading back to the US and leaving the Navy. Good on her, and it seems like absolutely the right decision for her, though I will miss her very much. I made my trademark strawberry pie. While I didn't get to try any, I think the guy sitting there eating the strawberries off the crust out of the pan for the last slice probably means it was good. I also made a banana cream pie, which turned out about as expected. People thought it was pumpkin and then it was kind of a letdown though, and it was definitely not as big a winner as the strawberry pie. I enjoyed it, but bananas just are a bit too bland, I think.

I left early because I am going diving tomorrow. I have to be about 3 hours from Canberra by 0730. I'm planning on getting up about half past three and having it so I just have to brush my teeth and put contacts in, throw on clothes, and grab my bag (all the heavy stuff is in the car already). Hopefully the drive won't be too bad. These are my last dives before the reef (I leave three weeks from tomorrow!!)

A diving weekend:

I celebrated this Memorial Day weekend by going back down to the coast to do my advanced open water dive course. It was a good weekend, though exhausting.

The diving Saturday was pretty ordinary, my ears were playing up on the first dive (Underwater Navigation, actually using a compass accurately under water is really hard), the second, a Search and Recovery dive, was a comedy of errors (ten divers + a rope + a "missing" spanner that was picked up by one of the DMs after about two minutes = comedy gold), and the visibility on the night dive was pretty shit, though we did see some pretty neat fish at the end of the dive and I really liked diving in the dark.

But Sunday more than made up for that. We dived the two tugs out of Eden, the Tasman Hauler and the Henry Bolte. Both were sunk about 20 years ago, but the Tasman Hauler has stayed more or less intact over the years. It's just added a layer of barnacles and lots of fish life. The Henry Bolte has mostly pancaked in aft of the superstructure, so it's kind of like the Tasman Hauler has been dissected. They are both deeper than I'd ever been before, which a bit surprisingly made things like maintaining buoyancy easier. I didn't really feel narked, unfortunately, though my buddy did give me a hug (I think she was just cold). Saw a giant blue groper and lots of fish I couldn't identify and just looking at the wrecks was really cool.

I'm working on planning my next few dives. I'm hoping to go to Eden again the week after I get back from the States and then to Perth in July if everyone OKs my leave. Dive Rotto and hopefully Albany, though a lot of the dive operators seem to shut down in the winter. Then maybe a seal dive out of Montague in mid July... So many plans.