We are at Captain Slate's Atlantis Dive Center, on Key Largo (map).
Today was the third and final day of our NAUI open-water diver class; I'm really sorry we spent two full days in the campground at the state park, however, since these last two days have been horrible diving conditions, with barely 10' visibility, heavy surge, and rough seas, whereas the two days before that were excellent. I managed to make it all the way through the class, but Louise is two dives short -- between the first dive each day being less than perfect, followed by half an hour on a pitching and rolling boat in choppy seas, she was too queasy to go on the second dive each day.
We could easily stay here another day to finish up, but conditions tomorrow are not forecast to be any better, and the no-see-ums are continuing to take their toll. We've elected instead to bail out of their sovereign territory; Louise has finished her class work, two dives, and most of the skills, so she'll take referral paperwork from here and finish her last two dives someplace else.
We enjoyed a bit more of Key Largo during our stay, shunning the greasy spoon right next door here in favor of riding the scooters to dinner. Wednesday night was prime rib night at Sundowners, which we can recommend, and Thursday we went to the Fish House on the recommendation, which we can now second, of our friend Steve in Ft. Lauderdale. We happened to have a coupon for this latter restaurant that they handed us at Pennekamp when we checked in.
In a few minutes we will load the scooters and head north to the mainland. I am not sure where we will end up tonight; we have plans to connect with our cruising friends in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
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Did you guy get a chance to go to the Italian Fisherman restaurant? I was raised in the keys and that place was always a treat. Even though you seemed to have a full itinerary, I wish I would have stopped in sooner. I have a couple of spots you might have liked checking out. It has been a decade since I have been there, tho. I sure some things might have changed.
ReplyDelete@Jenn: Thanks so much for commenting. No, we did not get to the Italian Fisherman. Now that we know you were a "local," though, watch out: I'll be contacting you before our next trip :)
ReplyDeleteThat's if we ever go back; Louise had so much trouble with the bugs that we'll need to have a different strategy next time -- either a different time of year, or a different system of defenses.