Welcome to Thunderdome

Wife and I moved fast on some reopening travel deals. Going to Hawaii next week, staying in Honolulu for the first time. Big plans to break out the dive gear and spend lot of time underwater. Ballin'

Took me a few minutes to figure out how to move an individual post.

GORDON wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 1:01 pm Took me a few minutes to figure out how to move an individual post.

Jeez where did I put this?

"Swimming," in health and fitness

Troy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:22 pm Wife and I moved fast on some reopening travel deals. Going to Hawaii next week, staying in Honolulu for the first time. Big plans to break out the dive gear and spend lot of time underwater. Ballin'

Have a good time!

Update: Already got yelled at by the locals for diving in the surf line up. Fuck em.

Troy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:48 pm Update: Already got yelled at by the locals for diving in the surf line up. Fuck em.

CULTURAL APPROPRIATOR

Surf nazis will beat you up. I learned that in Point Break.

GORDON wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 1:02 pm Surf nazis will beat you up. I learned that in Point Break.

In their defense, they were trying to keep me from getting hit by boats and I wasn't using a dive flag which is required for any up downs in HI. But I had just gotten off the plane and my gear was thirsty for ocean water, no regrets.

Ahhh, no dive flag. Yeah, they'd be pissed if they didn't know you were there, hit you , and broke their boards.

You can usually rent flag and float when renting tanks... But are you free diving?

GORDON wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 3:25 pm Ahhh, no dive flag. Yeah, they'd be pissed if they didn't know you were there, hit you , and broke their boards.

You can usually rent flag and float when renting tanks... But are you free diving?

Yes, free diving. I have a nice Hawiian style hard float but need to buy a replacement flag and weight after I lost it or it got damaged or both somewhere along the way. Hoping the dive shops have one of these: https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-2buyus9 ... 28.jpg?c=1

I dragged one of those once, and dragged a styrofoam ball and flag once. Rented, both times.

Unless I can find a dive buddy I'm dawn patrolling somewhere on the north side of Oahu in the am solo. Sexy new flag and all. Will give my fish to an island grandma or something.

*researched, West side, Electric beach and up

TheCatt wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:16 pm

TheCatt wrote: ↑Wed Dec 26, 2018 5:20 pm Good

I was looking at it or something similar to do with my kids one day

GORDON wrote: ↑Sun Dec 02, 2018 11:51 am Just made hotel reservations... for his Christmas present, I'm taking my son scuba diving in the Georgia Aquarium, on December 23.

With the Whale Sharks.

https://www.georgiaaquarium.org/experie ... ale-sharks

We are looking to do this in July 2021. Going to get a scuba refresh and then do this as our dive. Looks awesome.

We did the dive today. It was fun, and having the whale sharks practically mount you was awesome. Seriously, they swam right over us at least twice, the fin nearly hit C's head. Speaking of which, 3 fish did decided to run into me. Fuckers. Told them I was taken.

It was pretty chill, and they do indeed do everything for you. They over-weighted me by a fair amount, and under-weighted C. She could barely get down to the bottom. I had to inflate my BCD to keep from dragging, but it was fine. They talked up their computer program to do weighting, but it apparently isn't perfect. Sadly, we had just calibrated our weight in a pool 3 weeks ago, so should have used that.

Unfortunately, our video messed up. So they gave us a free video of whatever they could salvage, which just has us up top in the beginning, and a couple of times down below.

Still, was fun, and C did well enough that we're going to get the kids certified and do some trips in the future.

Awwww, sucks about the video.

GORDON wrote: ↑Sat Feb 01, 2020 3:06 pm That fucking shark.

WOULD NOT stay off me. I.went in and started the feed show, and it was constantly there, circling within 18 inches. I kept pushing it away as instructed, and it stayed on me. They unplugged my microphone from the visitors watching, and I let the zoo staff know it was all over me. "I.can see that. Wow.". I stayed down a few more minutes trying to wave at kids while fending off a shark... I wonder what THAT looked like... Then it lunged at my midsection and went for a bite. I called the dive at that point.

Zoo staff was watching, "It hasn't done that to anyone else." Sigh.

I think I'm going to volunteer to.come in offhours and let it have at me, so they can observe and try to.figure out what's going on... But I don't want to do that in front of.kids/zoo guests.

Went back in that tank today, for the first time since that happened. It's been over a year, since they shut down the feeding shows over covid. Today was a tank cleaning.

The blacktip sharks are a little bigger, and a little less afraid of divers. They got a lot closer than they ever did in the past.

And that fuckin zebra shark ... Less aggressive. I'm not sure what they did. But it did came at me once, and I thought we were about to have an interesting moment. But we made eye contact, and it was like, "YOU..." and veered off. So it was all fine after that.

GORDON wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:46 pm and it was like, "YOU..." and veered off.

"Been there, done that"

There's an arch in the artificial coral, and I was under it with a scrub brush. Zebra Shark decides to squeeze through with me , as it was doing it's laps around the tank. I gave it a good shove to keep it off me, in it's midsection. It didn't do that again.

So yeah, punched another shark, today. Not too many people on the planet can say that.

Gordo, I've got some good news for you

Gordon's back to diving...