 Just
a few minutes ago my little computer genie popped up a message nagging
me about the deadline for this month’s article. I only caught it when I
wandered past my computer while trying to get the camera gear ready for
a weekend trip to the Keys. We’re sharing the transportation and hotel
room with our good buddies Bob and Janet and for a few wild moments I
wondered if I could balance the laptop on my knees while Bob maneuvered
his way across the Everglades and headed toward our dive charter in Key
Largo. We have packed every available nook and cranny in his truck with
dive gear, food, clothes, drinks and camera gear. Jan and I will have
climb over bags crammed with towels, sunscreen and hats and settle our
bodies into the back seat of the cab while Bob and Gary drive and
navigate from the front. It doesn’t look like the idea of writing while
on the fly is going to work.
I toyed with the idea of trying to write in the evening after the
dives, after rinsing the wetsuits, after dinner and drinks and in
between charging batteries and reloading cameras into housings. Somehow
the idea of trying to type when my eyes are slamming shut just doesn’t
seem like a possibility. How did our life get so busy?
During the year, the Caloosa Dive Club sets up a calendar of dives
that includes day trips to places like Ft. Lauderdale and Dania Beach
and weekend trips to the more distant places. The trips to the Keys were
set up so we could drive down on Saturday morning, dive Saturday
afternoon and Sunday morning and then drive back to Cape Coral in the
afternoon. That saves money on hotels and helps keep expenses down. Over
time, some of us thought we would just head down on Friday afternoon,
have a nice dinner, get a good night’s sleep and then be rested for our
Saturday afternoon dive. Also, many of the hotels were requiring a
minimum 2-night stay. Then, some of us got the bright idea that we could
bring food to BBQ and share on Friday evening. We noticed the Friday
group expanding and suddenly it was a regular event. Soon we started
thinking that if we left Cape Coral early Friday morning, we could
squeeze in another 2 dives on Friday afternoon, still enjoy our Friday
night BBQ and make it a worthwhile trip. After all, we already have the
hotel rooms for Friday night and the fact that we are sharing rooms and
splitting costs leaves us with a little extra money.
Sharing rooms is a really good way to stretch our budget but it does
present challenges. Last month, on one of our weekend trips, we ended up
with a large room and 5 divers. I should mention that was 5 divers with
cameras and lights and cell phones. Some of the places we stay in the
Keys are just a little bit rustic. That isn’t a problem until we try to
plug in 3 cell phone chargers, battery chargers for 5 digital cameras,
battery chargers for 5 sets of underwater lights and a 3 laptop
computers to download all of the digital photos from the day’s diving.
Our room was spacious and quite comfortable for the 5 of us but there
were 3 electrical outlets! The refrigerator was plugged into one of the
outlets, the television in another and the air conditioner in the 3rd.
And, have you ever noticed that all of these chargers have plugs that
take up lots of space. Even if an outlet has two places to insert plugs,
when you have plugged in a charger, it overlaps its space, leaving no
room for anything else to be plugged in.
Showers and rinsing cameras are yet another challenge. On most
Saturday evenings, we try to get a reservation for 22 or so hungry
people at a local restaurant. We get back to the dock, unload the boat,
rinse the dive gear and cameras then head to the room to clean up. Do
the math – 5 sweaty, salt encrusted, bodies, 5 soggy bathing suits that
need to be rinsed and hung to dry, 1 tiny bathroom with a slow flow
shower and 1 plastic towel bar. A standalone sink is there to hold
toothbrushes, soap, contact lens cases, and remember that all of the
electrical outlets are taken up with camera stuff so a blow dryer would
need a hand crank to work. There is only one way to make this work –
open the refrigerator and break out the wine.
Finally, we all crawl into our respective beds and chime out our
goodnights to our tired roommates. We haggle over the A/C thermostat for
a while – some of us have less tolerance for the cold and others have
2:00 am “power surges” that could melt an iceberg. We also discover that
most of the rooms in the Keys don’t have clocks or telephones. Is that
because they’ve been stolen or just that visitors to the Keys aren’t
supposed to worry about mundane things such as time. Thankfully we have
an assortment of wind up alarms as well as our trusty cell phones to
wake us up in the morning.
There is one other issue that could trip us up if we were a less
innovative group. Hotels require that we check out by 11 AM. Dive boats
don’t return to the dock until noon or so. We either have to pack up and
load everything into our cars before we get on the boat or we have to
pay for a late check-out. Wouldn’t you think that a “dive resort” could
come up with a better solution? The dive boat operators do everything
possible to accommodate us (and the dive charter is the least expensive
element of the weekend) – maybe the hotels could watch and learn. We
usually arrange for late checkout for one or two rooms in the group. We
still have to pack up the cars but at least we can get a shower and dry
clothes before we start the trip back home.
It might sound like I’m whining but I’m really not. The reason we
enjoy the company of our fellow divers is that we all share a common
goal. We find the best way to enjoy a sport that is challenging and fun
and have a great group of friends to share it with. We look for ways to
simplify our lives so that we don’t end up with deadlines the night
before we are headed away for a weekend of adventure. Well, for me,
maybe looking at my calendar once in a while would help. |
