Anticipating the Weekend

You may recall that the boys and I are Scuba certified.  I hesitate to call myself more than an occasional vacation diver, but I do enjoy it.  My son is a little more adventurous doing a drift dive in the Niagara River and my husband is one dive away from his Advanced Diver certification.

So the wonderful husband scheduled a dive trip for the three of us for this weekend.  Granted this is probably the worst weekend to go away seeing as school just started, I am in the midst of a new job and we have about 10 birthdays to celebrate.  But it was thoughtful and he is really excited.  A weekend away looking a ship wrecks 70 ft below the surface.

Seems harmless enough until I get the details.  First of all the location is 6 hours away in upper Canada.  It appears that the hotel we are staying at is on park grounds and that park closes at 11pm so we must, must, must get there Friday night before the gate goes down or we are sleeping in the car.  Also, Sunday we need to be back home to attend an info session on Max's POTENTIAL trip to Japan, which means we must, must, must leave Sun morning before 8 am.  That's about 12 hours of driving for 5 hours of diving.

Well, we have had tight schedules in the past so this isn't that bad.

Until I hear the next part.  I need a 7mm we suit because the water can be as cold as 40 degrees.  You heard me - only a few degrees above FREEZING. The packing list includes gloves, coats and hats to put on in between dives because it is so damn cold.  Did I mention we have 4 dives Saturday?  In between we sit on board wet with cold water.

I spent close to $1000 on wet suit, hood, gloves and more weights as the suit will make me more buoyant.  I can't even bend my arms it is so thick.  Image the shoes I could have bought for this price tah.

Let me paint this picture. Before entering water I am loaded down with a black wet suit and full vest, hood which covers my entire head only the face peering through, gloves, slippers and fins, a bc loaded with air tank and a regulator in my mouth, leaping off the side of the boat.  Once I finish the first dive, I I am back on a swaying boat.  My hands and feet are blue (I have Rinaud's syndrome).  My 7mm wet suit is on from the bottom down, from the top up I am wearing layers of fleece, a winter hat and most likely a blanket.  You know my nose is running cuz I am still dealing with allergy season.  I remove the blanket to periodically vomit over the side of the boat, because I am continually motion sick.

What happened to beautiful fish and coral under the sun as the water glistens on my warm skin?
I will try to get photos for next week.

No one can say I am not adventurous!

Cutting the umbilical cord

Today my baby leaves for a 10 day trip to Spain.  I am wearing a happy face, spewing last minute cautions and encouraging him to have a wonderful time.  But I am selfish and don't want him to be gone so far away and for so long.

Last fall he came home from school and asked if he could go to Spain with his classl.  When pressed for details, all I got was "Everyone's going, don't worry Anthony's brother is 16 and he will chaperone us".  Great as along as there is such strong supervision.  Well of course there was a lot more I needed to know, but there was no way I was going to stop him from such an adventurous experience.  I kept thinking how much he will see and how his eyes will be opened to cultures and people that I had never seen.

Besides Madrid is really only about 4,00 miles away, why should I be so concerned?  Well the real fear started when that volcano erupted and every TSA headline included "ash cloud".  Then the images of rioters while the Greek economy collapsed.  How about protestors after Israel's boat strike?  It's not that I think he will be safer in the US and its not like I believe he will be targeted overseas.  It's just that I won't be there.  Maybe this is good practice because in the immediate future I won't be there a lot...I want to be there but let's face it I really can't.

I'd like to say I am going to spend these next several days working on myself; exercising daily, writing more, finishing some house projects.  But most likely I will obsess about his trip.  I will follow him online from Madrid to Burgos to San Sebastian to Barcelona and on and on until he is back at the Buffalo airport.

Safe trip my luv!