Word of mouth!

Had a lovely morning scrubbing structures in Glover's Reef today. Stayed down for 2 hours! The massive (about 3 ft long) hogfish startled me a couple times, suddenly showing up in front of me or next to me as if to say "Hi. Whatcha doin'?" Luckily they seem harmless.

It made me very happy today to learn that one of the people I spoke to at the last Sea Gypsies meeting has started the process of joining the dive team. The dive coordinator is very happy with me as a result and even gave me shout-out in an email to the entire dive team for my recruiting skills. :) So happy to know that all my babbling about the dive team is spreading the word and helping the aquarium!

Always working out the kinks in my gear set-up. I had considered bringing the BP/W for a test dive in a wetsuit, as I've only worn it with a drysuit, but in the end decided against it. The Zeagle BC works great for the aquarium and it's much lighter to carry. Still, I should make sure that BP/W works well for me before I take it to North Carolina. It still felt a little awkward when I practiced with it in the pool on Tuesday. Today I wore my 3 mm wetsuit with hooded vest like last time. Stayed down for 2 hours and wasn't cold! Next time I have to remember to bring my octo holder, and maybe something to keep my inflator hose in place. I also need to remember that I don't have to wear as much weight when I'm in a lighter wetsuit. When I left today, I left all my gear in the dive shack because I forgot about wanting to go to Dutch in 2 weeks for White's demo day. Ideally, I would have one set of gear at the aquarium and one at home (at least during local dive season), but I will still need to carry my regulator back and forth, as it's too expensive to get another at this point. I also don't have a spare mask or booties, but those are easier to get. Oy, so much stuff!