daughter’s scuba instructor, and two married couples with there SO’s and a gal from Germany who has since become an SD member. Then the six crew with an awesome captain. Most of the crew were Canadian, but I guess you have to get out of the cold sometime.
Well the trip began in St. Kitts, at least we had a dock to board from this time. Got the tour of the boat, met the people that were already there and begin to settle in. There was also a cruse ship at the docks, those things are huge. The diving began the next morning in St. Kitts. We had the chance to do 10 dives over two days at St. Kitts and I thought all the dives were great, but then again I enjoy all the dives that I get to do. Especially when I can see more then 10 feet in front of me. Saw all the PLF’s and other ocean critters. I don’t have a underwater camera so you’re just have to take my word on it that it was awesome. It’s always a joy to me to see the life underwater. The next day we went to Statia, there we had the chance to do 5 dives but I chose to skip one of the dives and do the island tour. Thought I would just
check out this island that we were diving off of. Like most of the islands in the Caribbean sugar cane
was its early draw to the island. Statia is special to the United States because it was a major supplier of
arms and ammunition during the revolution and they were the first foreign nation to officially recognize the newly formed United States of America. We got to see the old fort (I love to see old forts) and so a little tour of it and see the canons. At the fort the local historian showed as a copy of the US
constitution that was sent there in 1776. It was just about solid black and you could barely make out the
words. It was duck taped to a display case and on the other side was a photo copy of it.
The next day was Valentine’s Day. before the trip I thought I would get a card and a little bear
just in case I meet someone on the trip. But before I left for the trip I decided I would get a little bear
for all the SD gals on the trip, since I knew we were going to be on a boat for this special day. While we were on are first dive I had the bears put in each of the ladies room, it was just a little something for
then on that special day to maybe put a little smile on there face. They didn’t know who had them put
there at the time and was confronted once about it, I thought Kamala could just see right though me but I
did pull it off and they didn’t know till now. I really enjoyed the diving at Saba, Diamond Rock was my
favorite. On one of the night dives off of Saba I spotted a shark way up under a ledge. There were
about 5 of us that saw it. The next day we were asked by Kamala how big it was. Some said 5 foot
others 9 others said average; I gave my smartass answer of 20 foot. Then it became a group discussion.
The mathematician on the boat said he laid down his light and got in-between it and the shark and
determined it was 9 foot and went into great detail on how he came up with this. Everyone just starting
laughing because of how much detail he went into and his passion about it. Then the educator of the boat
got out the fish book and it read that this type of shark grew to be 5 to 9 feet and average would make it
7 so we stuck with that. It was quite a fun discussion and we all enjoy listening to the mathematician. We spent 3 days off of Saba in which time I got in my 100th dive and celebrated by 38th birthday with a morning dive on the 16th, got the birthday spankings and all you can see it when the
video come out, as soon as Larry is feeling better. After the morning dives on Friday we had a 3 hour trip
to St. Maarten. I liked the boat ride cause I got to ride out on the bow (some captains don’t let you do
that). When we got to St. Maarten there were 4 cruse ships there. The streets around the port where very
full with all the people off of the cruse ships. We decided to go out to dinner for are farewells and my
birthday. As we are sitting there talking and enjoying a few drinks, Larry leans over and ask me
what did I say to the marriage proposal. I am like what proposal? He said you didn’t get asked? And I’m
like what are you talking about? It seems like the European gal (I can’t remember names for the life of
me) had ask all of the other SD guys for there hand in marriage, Well everyone but me, ME. I guess the
European women don’t care for us short gun toting, shooting Texans. I was kind of a little hurt that I
wasn’t even asked, oh well.
Well its time to leave and had back to the states. A few of use load up in the taxi to take Kamala and OceanWreckDiver to their
hotel for a few extra days on the island and me and another couple that came along for the cab ride to the airport. We drop Kamala off and get to the airport they take out the luggage and the
taxi leaves, the other couple is gone and I am there with 5 pieces of luggage. I look at the name tag and
its Kamala’s. I get out my cell phone and try to call her; my cell phone does not work down there. So now I start to think about what to do, I can’t leave any of it unattended at a airport. So here I am trying to
drag all this luggage to get inside and find a cart to put it all on. Finally get it on a cart after about
20 minutes of doing a juggling act and get inline to check in, hoping Kamala sees that she is missing a
piece of luggage and goes to the airport, but no luck there. I get checked in then try to find a phone to
make a few phone calls to see if I can get a hold of Kamala. After a couple of attempts to her then Kim
and only getting there machines I don’t know what to do. I am just standing there thinking about checking
another piece of luggage or what else can I do. Well it finally came to me that other people were flying in
to get on the boat and maybe I can find a taxi cab there that was to pick them up and take them to the
boat and send it back to the boat because they knew were Kamala was staying. So I head down to the cab
pick up place and low and behold the same taxi cab is there, so I tell him what happened and he says no
problem he will take care of it. Now I have a big load off my back I go back inside the airport and get
ready to head back to the states. There is another story about my layover at Puerto Rico but it might be
still under investigation and I better keep it to myself for a couple of years to make sure everything
has died down.
This is just a little bit of what went on, on this trip you have to get signed up for the next trip as soon as you can to enjoy the next SD adventure. As always I enjoyed my trip with the SD group very much, I can’t wait till the next time I am able to go on a trip with any bunch of people from here. You don’t know what your missing till you been on a trip with these fun people. Well this is just my little interpretation of the trip and the way I remember it; the actual events my very a little bit.
