The big problem with writing a log/blog of the trip is that you get to let on stuff that you were doing that other people did not know about.  Last time it was the tiger shark on the twilight dive - this time it has to do with the tiger sharks again!  Below the pictures you will see the log/blog - please enjoy the pictures and the ramblings of my post narcotic mind!  Also check out the PEOPLE OF THE FLOWER GARDENpage for people pictures.  

 

So let's explore the things that go through Andy's mind arriving at Freeport. First it is the 'do I have everything I need?' phase, and that requires that I check and recheck all my gear - and still leave something in the truck and have to run back and get it at the last second.  I have been through my gear a thousand times, angst over whether I should take a wetsuit and a dry suit.  I am overpacked and overloaded, again!

 

Then I need to find the group leader for the shop that I booked the trip through, and that is like being a puppy sitting behind the glass at a pet shop going - oh, will they pick me?  What about them?  Surely not them!  So I am in the Riverside restaurant watching respectable dive puppies being adopted by responsibile dive parents.  Person in dive shirt meets person with dive shirt, dive hat AND a clipboard.  There is a bonding; food is eaten and complete dive puppy packs are formed and happily bounced off to the dock. 

 

So I am sitting there, obviously the ugly dive puppy left on my own at a table that would seat six.  I think that I am normal.  I think that I am a good diver.  I think that I manage to look the part, but I still have my nose pressed up against the glass looking out for my new adoptive parents.  And then the pre-formed puppy packs with dive shirts, dive hats and clipboards with dive stickers parted like the Red Sea to expose...THE BOYS OF INTERNATIONAL SCUBA.  I said to myself - yep, you are about to be adopted!  Now - don't let my literary exaggeration paint the wrong picture. These are GREAT guys, and great divers, and we were quickly joined by Ava and Terry.  So suddenly I was no longer a stray pup - I had a family, albeit a quirky one!

 

From the restaurant it was back to the boat for the 8 pm (2000 hrs for you nautical types) load up, and that is when the third big thing occurs for me.  It is part sizing up (sniffing the butts) of the other packs, but mostly it is my need to look at (sniff and pee on) other people's equipment.  Yes, it is good old gear envy, and if you are carrying a camera, size does matter! Todd of Synergy Productions had the biggest Gates video camera set up that I have ever seen.  I looked at my camera and moved it away from his.  Bigger hard pack dive boxes with more stickers than mine - oooh.  Deco bottles - I have some of them.  I could have brought one!  Luckily, all this ends with the call for a briefing and then the rush to the boat.

 

I have already learned that if you want a bottom bunk you need to run a little faster than your average dive puppy; move quickly and confidently ahead of the pack with a small bag that will not restrict your movement through the cabin door, down the stairs to the lower cabin and through the narrow bunk room door, and YES - I have bunk 26!

 

With the bunk secured, we enter the next phase of dive boat mania - get the tank space that you want on the back deck.  Now bear in mind that it is 8 pm at night on Friday night, and we will not be at our first dive site until 6 am on Saturday, but I (and everybody else) rush to put my gear together.  We literally climb over each other to do it, but we all want to know that we have all that we need before the boat pushes away from the dock and the umbilical lifeline that connects us to our cars and trucks that contain all the stuffed toys and other gear that we finally rejected from taking just prior to being adopted and stepping on to the Fling. 

 

With that done, we went through the crew introductions and safety briefings with Captain Ken Bland.  We vigorously fluffed out Fling 'Regurgitation Containment Devices' - also known as drawstring trash bags.  Very handy, because sea sickness is not like other forms of sickness - like food poisoning.  You really do not get much warning with sea sickness.  Generally you just feel bad, and then just as you notice the one bead of sweat that has formed on your forehead - boom - it is too late!  You have puked on someone or something.  And Capt. Bland made it very clear that dive puppies that poop, pee, or vomit on the deck or in the heads on the Fling will have their noses rubbed in it, and then be made to clean up the mess (unlike regular puppies and cats, there is no option to just leave it and come back later and eat it - mmmm recycled kibble).

 

I LOVE that first night sleeping on the boat as we steam out into the Gulf.  My cares melt away with the ATT phone signal, and that is a little more romantic than the reality. which is that ATT phone reception SUCKS and that placing my phone in a slightly damp paper bag will block the signal from a tower that I can both see and almost touch.  But, you get what I am saying, and I drift off to sleep thinking that I am Captain Jack Sparrow again. 

 

All too soon it is 6 am, lights are on, and the alpha male dive dogs are barking.  That would be Kenny and Mark, the dive masters that control our every move on the back deck.  They have the ultimate power - they can tell us that we cannot dive!!  So always be sure to tip them well.  I almost want to write my name on each one of the $20 bills that I put in the tip jar, because everybody thinks that the English have bad teeth, don't shower, and tip poorly....Ok. so two of those things are right, but I really did tip well. 

 

However, none of that was in my mind at the time, because I was looking out of my bunk and watching a pair of hairy legs slowly lowering themselves past my vision and my bunk as the person above me emerged from their cocoon.  Please keep sliding down that way round, don't turn to drop to the floor.  I guess someone was thinking that about me on the last trip when I was in an upper bunk.

 

The first two dives are on the west bank and the most striking thing here is the coral stucture.  Brain coral, mushroom cap corals with hooka smoking sea cucumbers sitting on top of them and the viz - 50 ft of clear viz.  Two dives at this site, and our eyes were all out into the blue looking for hammer heads and we were rewarded.  What stunning creatures they are!  The pics that I got were okay, but they were shot at a distance toward the sun and have been cleaned up as best as I can.  One of my land-based photo buddies told me that if I wanted better shots, I just had to shoot 'in the raw' but I told him straight to his face that it was way too cold down there (that is a photography joke!).  Everybody was well satisfied with those two dives, and all puppy pack barriers were completely broken down as everybody shared their dive experiences freely.

 

The day was stunning, and we all laid about in the sun as Captain John moved the boat to the High Island 389 Platform for the rig dive.  As soon as you hit the water and pull yourself down the bridle line to the first riser, you are met with fish - thousands of fish; everything from tiny blenny's in the structure to yellow tail to silky sharks that always patrol around the outside of the rig.  I love the structure and think that many of the pictures on this dive are the best that I have ever taken - so far! Take a look at all the pics above :-)

 

I could have easily done another dive there but we took the short trip to Buoy #5 on the East Bank Reef.  I like this spot because it is my tiger shark spot, and I really really wanted to see another one.  It seemed promising as divemaster Kenny did see a tiger while he was working on the bottom of the boat , so we were given a brief warning about staying together and watching for sharks. 

 

Ok, so here is where I have a confession to make.  When diving in the Puget Sound in Seattle, we would carry empty plastic water bottles with us down to the mud at 150-180 feet and crackle them in our hands, because it was supposed to attract sharks.  Kenny said that he thought that the tiger he saw had been attracted by the sound of him scraping at barnacles on the bottom of the boat -SOOOOOO I thought that I would slip an empty water bottle into each side pocket of my dry suit! 

 

So, while others were huddled together in small packs exploring and keeping a wary eye out for sharks, I was hovering 20 feet off the bottom - camera in one hand and crunching an empty water bottle in the other!  I think that strapping a dead chicken to the back of my tank or borrowing one of Lady Gaga's meat dresses would be more effective than my water bottle.  I kept it up until I got hand cramps; then went off in search of hooka smoking sea cucumbers on mushroom shaped coral caps. 

 

Prior to the night dive, we were taken to the upper deck by Captain Bland and given a big talk on the dangers of night diving, of being rammed by barracudas that are blinded by our lights, that tiger sharks actually feed at night, and that opportunistic hunter fish will wait over your shoulder until you light up and blind some poor innocent fish and then sweep past you and devour them.  I had an image of a tiger shark doing that - just waiting behind a diver until he shined his light on his buddy and then.....well, you get the picture.  He also said don't hang about in mid water doing a safety stop as the shark not only eats you, but gets to floss using the downline!

 

As I put my dry suit back on, I reached into my pocket; took the water bottles out; sidled up to the trash can and dropped them in.  DM Brandon was my dive buddy, and we took our time to explore the sandy canyons between the coral walls looking for shrimp and seeing arrow crabs (very cool, see the pics).  There is also a picture of a tube dwelling anemone, and you can see all the tiny (mycid)  shrimp that form a layer up to two feet off the bottom at night.

 

I love diving at night!  There is so much to see, and it is exciting (and a little scary) to see all the dark shadows moving, lots and lots of big barracuda, fish of all sorts flitting in and out of the loom of your light.  This is when I know that I am a little dive puppy in a cat's world - I am the odd one out; I do not belong there; I feel fragile. 

 

 

However, I was soon to have one of those duh and palm of the hand on the forehead moments. 

 

As Brandon signaled the end of the dive, we both slowly ascended under the spooky green glow of the lights of the boat.  As we approached 20 ft, I made my way to the down line, adjusted my buoyance and hung there in mid-water under the boat playing with my camera.  After a short while, I looked round and could not see Brandon.  I looked up, and there he was 20 ft above me on the ladder with his light pointing down tracing the familiar 'O' for OK.  I signaled back that I was ok and checked my computer 2 mins and 40 seconds into my 3 min (normally 5 for me) safety stop.  As I shrugged my shoulders and flutter kicked myself round to face the line that we hook cameras to so that they can be lifted safely to the deck, the smiling face of Captain Bland drifted across my mind - that's odd I thought - and then the words that he said on deck before the dive came floating back to me 'Don't hang about in mid-water doing a safety stop, because tiger sharks like to feed at night'.  I made my way back to the ladder and the safety of deck without further delay!

 

JT and Wendy provided us with yet another great dinner, and as the full stomachs cause us to yabber incessantly about diving trips, places and people with all and anybody that would listen, and like fisherman - sometimes the stories get larger with the telling :-)

 

As the night drew to a close, the hairy legs elevated themselves into the bunk above me, and Captain John drove us smoothly to the Stetson Bank.  I love the Stetson bank; it is colder than the rest of the Gardens; there is lots of fish life but very little of the big corals, but the fish are tropical and stunning - angel fish, sergent majors, butterfly fish, morays, huge lobsters, and the two dives in the morning never seem to be enough, and I really do not want to leave and go back to land.  But, leave and go back to land we do :-( 

 

Back at the dock at 5.30 pm (that is 1730 for you nautical or military types!), exchanging of cards, hand shakes as gear is packed and thrown back into trucks and cars.  I settle back into my truck and point the nose back to McAllen with nothing but good memories and vivid mental pictures of the dives that weekend. 

 

      

Dive stats

 

Dive 1, 89 feet, 47 minutes

Dive 2, 92 feet, 49 minutes

Dive 3, 73 feet, 55 minutes

Dive 4, 76 feet, 57 minutes

Dive 5, 75 feet, 50 minutes

Dive 6, 89 feet, 55 minutes

Dive 7, 80 feet, 51 mintues