Greetings gang! Sorry that I didn't get the opportunity to post any pictures this past weekend as I was kept pretty busy. I was however able to log on, thanks to Dejah and her cool wireless toys, and check in to see if there was anything that needed immediate attention. Glad to see that there were no technical issues this weekend while all of us were away.
First of all, I would like to thank Jim, WW, and Dejah for putting this event together. I believe it was a HUGE success and looking forward to doing it again. There is talk about making this a monthly or semi-regular event, but WW will give more details on that when we get everything worked out. I would also like to thank EVERYONE for coming out. to have fun and to help support SingleDivers.com! So we have a few awards for people who were there!
BluBlood (Gar) gets the "Long Distance" award for traveling the furthest to the event flying in from New Mexico, Dandy Don gets the "Last Minute" award for making the 900 mile round trip for one day on the spur of the moment, and B2B gets the "Better Late then Never" award driving in after working all day from Arkansas. Leslie and Angela get the "Right Place at the Right Time" award for showing up at Athens just when WW happened to be in the dive shop and discovered that they were single and didn't know anyone at the park...boy did she hook them up! 'Chie, DiveCutie, ScubaHoney and ScubaBK get the "Angel Patience" award for spending most of the weekend modeling wetsuits in 90+ weather and STILL smiling even when several of the shoots had to be repeated! The local divers sure loved the fact that our angels were modeling MOST of the weekend...I know I did! Kim aka FinGrabber (make that BIG MALE FINS ONLY...) gets the "Funniest" award cuz she kept us all in stitches this weekend but ESPECIALLY WW. GLPirate and CyclingMike get the "Photog" awards for being our official resident photographers not only of the angels but also of the rest of the event! Wayne gets the "Best Decision" award cuz he cancelled OTHER diving plans to come and dive with us! GLPirate and Narwhal get the "Best Cooks" awards for bringing fried chicken and bbq fixens not to mention our morning java respectively. Sunlover gets the "Roughing It" award for sleeping without a tent and air mattress the first night...boy he NEEDED the hot tub the next day! Sandy-Ke gets the "Almost Shy" award...she tried to be shy all weekend but just couldn't make it...I guess she'll be an angel in no time! Marc YogaBoy gets the "How do I get THAT job" award...he was picked to model with the Angels in a number of shots....hey WW...I think you need to work on agent contracts for this gang! Cycling Mike also gets the "Tool Time" award for having the best camping tools...now now ladies...you JUST had to be there to know exactly what tools we are talking about! Scuba Texan gets the "Early Bird" award for being the first one there on Friday...almost before the organizers! Marc aka TekDiver gets the "Most Toys" award for bringing a TRAILOR of dive gear which he also helped to explain to people...dive with people...set up the navigation course for people and of course serve and drink beer with people! Gena gets the "Artistic" award...ya just had to be there for that one and of course there were more people who joined as we grew in size this weekend! And yes...WW gave me Zendiver the "DeFeathered Angel Carrier" award as I was revealed this weekend or was that defeathered this weekend??? and I had to eat my words and carry an angel AND two tanks at the same time. Thank goodness she only made me carry her to the car and not all the way around the lake!!!
Thanks you ALL for the tremendous support you showed for making the long journey and for coming to have a great time with some really great divers and new friends!
Now I will attempt a trip report of the event along with some photos:
I left the Houston area approximately at 4pm on Friday as I wanted to make sure that I made it to Applebees to meet everyone for dinner. Traffic was lite so I made it to Athens just prior to 7pm and checked in at the park. Some had already left for Applebees while others were getting ready to leave. I had the pleasure of meeting a quite few of our members before leaving to go to dinner and then a LOT more once we all arrived. Applebees was packed that night so needless to say, we had to wait quite a while for our table. That was ok with me as that gave us all some time to get to know one another. Below is a group shot of the majority of who went to dinner:
(Left to Right)
Gina, cyclingmike31, BluBlood, Narwhal, WreckWench, sunlover, Scubatexan (from ScubaBoard), fingrabber, sandy-ke, waitress, Dejah
After dinner, we went back to the park and then several of us went to the pool/hot tub area. We had a blast there until Calvin (owner of Athens) decided that it was time to call it a night at 2:30 am. I personally think it was because he figured out that he couldn't hang with us any longer.
Saturday morning consisted of breakfast, diving, photo shoot (Angels in their new Pinnacle wetsuits), more diving, lunch, more diving, then we all went back to the office for the Scuba Radio interview. If you havn't heard the interview, Click Here (3.18MB).
Later that day, we had a fantastic dinner: brisket, ham, turkey (all smoked) and then we all went diving (do you see a trend here?) That evening consisted of everyone sitting around getting to know one another and telling dive stories. Before we knew it, it was already after midnight.
Here are some images of our very own Angels modeling the wetsuits:
Other photos:
(BlueBlood and finGrabber)
Our very angel scubacutie and Calvin (owner of Athens Scuba Park)
Bubbles2Bubbles and Dejah
BlueBlood and Dejah
Dandy Don and B2B
Fingrabber and Sunlover
The Gang
SandyKe and Wayne
SandyKe coming out of shyness
Shannon, Calvin (owners) and Wayne
Athen Scuba Park
Our campsite
