Scrambling

Short post today, as we are scrambling to keep up.

We are again at the Isle Pompano Casino and Racing; we arrived Wednesday afternoon after wrapping up with the tire guy. We finally had the chance to try the buffet for dinner, which was surprisingly good, considering it is only ten bucks on weeknights. Soon after we arrived, we pulled the scooters out and ran over to Scuba Network to rent our dive gear, meet the instructor, and get the paperwork in order.

Yesterday morning Martin and Stephanie picked us up at 8am, and we all headed over to the marina at Hillsboro Inlet. A bit more paperwork for the boat, and we shoved off at 9am for the Sea Emperor wreck, a sunken barge that is part of Florida's artificial reef program. We had a fantastic dive with near-ideal conditions: calm seas, and a warm sunny day with great visibility. We saw a friendly sting ray who likes to be petted by divers, as well as a bright green eel that has also tolerates them. Louise finished up some of her skills, and I followed along since, apparently, our last instructor, umm, left a few things out.

Our second tank was at Horseshoe Reef, which was just teeming with fish. We had two really great dives, Louise finished all her skills, and we are now both certified open-water divers. We hope to exercise that privilege on our upcoming cruise in another week. Steph took some photos, so check back here -- we'll post one or two if we can when we get them.

After diving we had a nice lunch with them at Houston's on the ICW, then spent the whole afternoon catching up here aboard Odyssey over Pinot Grigio. We'll see them again this evening for the Del Ray holiday boat parade.

This morning we ran out to Walgreens across town to get H1N1 immunizations ahead of our cruise. I also spent most of the morning making more travel arrangements, unfortunately for a much less pleasant reason than another cruise.

A good friend in California, who earlier this year was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, has taken a turn for the worse, with his kidneys shutting down. They are giving him a few days to a few weeks at most, and I am flying out there Sunday to see him. We tried to work it out for both of us to go, but the logistics are daunting. In part, that's because the dog is going through another bout of colitis, and needs fairly close attention; she's had two accidents in the house in as many days, and we can't really ask anyone else to have to deal with that. So Louise will remain here and tend the home fires.