I'm Always Mentally on Vacation

In Case you Missed it....

The Bachelor aired a 2 hours episode from St Croix last week when I was on the island. This is two hours boiled down to 3 minutes. There is even some fuzzy bosom shots if you like bosoms.

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For My Readers Who Don't Read This

From The Blogfather Gazette. This is quality reading folks. Whatever you are consuming Phfrankie, please keep doing it.

Scene 1, Act 1

Why did Bob bring the goat home? Nobody knows, or at least they aren't saying. All I know is one day, early June it was, of last year,Bob comes rollin' in to the compound and unloads a goat from his GTO and says Phfrankie! Come on look at my new goat! Why he picked me out of the group can only be pondered on. Did I like goats more than everyone else? No. WTF??A friggin' goat! And not a regular goat, either. It was a blue goat. Yeah....blue. Not your sky blue...or your Wedgwood blue...no, the goat was a vibrant, shimmering, deep, electric, the-Pope's-underpants-blue. Dude! I said, Yonder be a swell goat! But git it the hell outta here! Are you outta yer friggin' mind?? But Bob he just unloads the goat and brings it right into the living room and commences to bring it some chow. Got any more o' that tuna casserole?, Bob asks me. Lucy ate it, I says.

Sundown came to the compound and there I am stuck with a vibrant, shimmering blue goat. Bob said Lucy shouldn't of oughta ate the tuna casserole, because Lucy should be eating the DRY, but he got over it and the goat got some chow and Bob had a beer or two and it SEEMED like everything was settling down to normal, for having a blue goat on the couch. I say "seemed" because as soon as Bob went to his cabin, the goat looked at me and said, plain as day, as if he was speaking to the Commonwealth Club, he says Pssst...Phfrank...my name is Naaango and if I don't get back to my peeps, chop-chop, there's gonna be trouble. What kind of trouble, I ask. Well, he says, in all seriousness, the gang will come looking for me, with their croquet mallets, and all hell's gonna break loose. These guys are NOT NICE, Naaango says. They are from a lost tribe of The Blues and they're gonna want to thump the shit outta Bob, and probably you too. Git me outta here, Phfrankie! I'll call Ken, I says. Nooooooooooo Phfrankie, noooooooo! Not Ken! But Naaaango, I says, Ken can help. Noooooooo Phfrankie, Noooooooooo!

I took Naaaango to Donny's for a late night cuppa joe and he let it all out, man, told me the whole story of his wacked-out life. Sometimes he was crying and and sometimes he was mad but mostly he seemed just glad to get it all out. As it turns out, Naaaango had quite a story to tell. He was born in the Marquesas Islands, in a beautiful valley, he says. Life there was golden; immaculate. Every goat had his own grass shack, which he could eat iffin he wanted to, but nobody did onnacounta there was plenty of other better things to eat, instead of a guy's OWN HOUSE. He says he never thought anything of the fact that all the goats on the island were red...it was the only thing he knew so it was rilly strange when a gaggle of blue goats landed on the beach one day and started thumping his bretheren and hauling them into their boats. I ran like a bastard up into the hills, says Naaaango, but they found me and thumped me with their thumping mallets and tied me up and put me on the boat...say, Phfrankie....could ya spring for a couple o' McDoubles...I'm frickin' starving over here. Sure, Naaaango, I says, and while I'm at it I'll call Ken. Nooooooooo Phfrankie, Noooooooooo! he says, so then he continued his story...

Monday Crab Races

The Monday Night Crab Races are always good for a few laughs. You place your bet (rent a crab for $2), name the crab, buy a beer and some shitty half roasted peanuts from Miss Judith, and watch the festivities.

I never win, but my friend did win a bottle of rum this time.

A Short Film

I didn't shoot much video on St Croix…I was too busy doing other things. I did manage to shoot this short section of video mainly to test out the camera. I hate this camera and will sell it on eBay and get a Go Pro. It was one of the rare times I bought in to the wrong technology.

As it starts we are all floating on the surface getting last minute instructions. Isn't Reliance beautiful on the blue water? No filter used, the water is that blue.

We drop and descend toward the bottom. You hear my breathing and then a few bursts of air being inflated in my wing. This stops me from dropping further. At this point we are about 40 feet and getting out bearings.

As I go down, I put on a lens filter to bring in the colors at depth. Later I removed the lens just to see the difference.

At 2:17 into this epic film….I burp. Sorry.

The rest is surface film as we chase a whale but he never surfaces again. This was a big whale.

The majority of my time was classroom or training on side mount diving.

Enjoy:

The Time Came

It came time to go home. I cleaned, sorted, and packed the dive gear. I love those tile floors...they feel so good under foot.

The famous "Yellow Boys" swim trunks were securely packed.

I went into town for a few last minute items and then lunch with a dear old friend.

I managed to nod most of the flight back. We landed early only to get caught in a huge east coast backup caused by a short but vicious snow storm.

It seem Charlotte was caught off guard by rapidly falling temps and sudden ice buildup. There weren't enough de-icers to keep traffic moving like in a northern city.

It turns out it took us 2 and a half hours to taxi to the gate. Then almost 45 minutes to exit the airport.

Home safe.

I Learned a Lot

12 dives this week, 4 technical dives included. I learned new equipment and a new mindset. I learned to be a more self reliant diver. I learned tips and techniques from other experienced divers that you just can't learn in a book.

I also realized just how convenient this dive operation is the the snack bar for lunch and a cold beer.

Winter Colors

A free hotdog if you can identify that second plant. Credit can be given towards a tire rotation in lieu of hotdog. Must be over 18 to guess. Not available in Maine and California. Open to residents of the VI.

I'm legal

I was up early with the morning sun. Three little birds came to my door step and said, "Don't worry, about a ting, every little ting, is gonna be alright".

And it was true. I made my dive plan. 100 feet for 17 minutes to kill lion fish. Then ascend to 60 feet for 17 minutes where I was to deploy a lift bag. Then ascend to 15 feet for a decompression stop. 39 minutes and it is over.

The dive was executed without any hiccups.

I found out is is common among side mount divers to get meat pinched off of both thumbs.

I got my cert card in the afternoon and now I too can breathe the evil voodoo gas just my showing my card.

On a side note, the second dive was skills. One drill was out of air. I signaled I was out of air and the instructor hands off a regulator to me. I take two breaths and it goes dry...no air. I gave him out of air signal for real and I grabbed my good regulator under my chin.

It turns out that his hose was crimped. Before he found that out he tore down the regulator at 50 feet trying to determine what the cause was.

Yep...did it

A technical dive with real tech divers. It was thrilling.

Seas were rough around 5 feet with frequent swells. It don't matter...we are tech divers.

The currents exhausted me.

I managed to perform my tasks....some were very clumsy.

On a different note, Keith the fellow in the blue shirt is a familiar homeless person. He has mental illness but is friendly.

Any hoo, every day when the dive boat comes in we fill up big barrels with water to rinse off our gear. Keith takes this opportunity to bathe.

He washes his hair, then uses a tee shirt to was the rest of him self and rinses with a spare plastic bottle. Then he had washes some clothes for tomorrow. He just continues to take clean water with the plastic bottle. It's not like he is bathing in the barrels.

Clever I say. We just worked around him.

Best Intensions

I got up early and headed to the nearest gasoline station. Most gasoline stations here have a kitchen in the back. There I got this ham and egg sandwich with the thrifty use of the bread end. The coffee was good too.

I headed to conch territory and set up.

This was the beach beside the villa I used last summer.

But the others thought we were meeting elsewhere so we missed this opportunity.

In the afternoon I had about 3 1/2 hours of pretty intense classroom for my Advanced nitrox class.

Then we took in a crab race and supper at the Pickled Greek.

Dive 99, 100' and 101

Got my dive on first thing Sunday. Two tanks in the morning side mount. The first was clumsy and sloppy while I sorted out this new equipment. The second dive was better.

Lunch with a view.

Then I headed west.

To Carambola for a shore dive.

Then relaxed at Off the Wall with a beer.

And saw a whale. We heard them in the morning.

See the tiny plume in the middle?

Conch Diving

I was met by my local friend Westin and he was ecstatic to inform me that it was conch season here.

Apparently, for a short while, it is open season.

Westin and his friends are seafood enthusiasts and planned to free dive a place when he had an idea. Get wReggie to do the diving and have a conch feast at wReggie's.

Westin even pointed out that there is a brand new 22 inch weber grill. he knows I love grilling.

So tomorrow morning, with local fishermen and free divers, I will go ah conch hunting. Sounds like fun.

We Reach

The fancy new bypass.

Gifts await us from the grounds keeper. Fresh coconut, fresh mahi, and a partially consumed bottle of rum with a big bag of fresh limes.

Out door pool.

My old friend Izzy.

This Could Work

Just imaging a few additions of flat panel TVs, a nearby wine rack, and some kind of anti drown mechanism for when I fall asleep in that warm water.

T Minus One

Three couples are headed down tomorrow.

Anticipation. Anticipation is the blue flame by product of a planning ahead. It rises in my soul and gives me extra energy.

My packing is all staged now and I am merely waiting for a few favored dive tee shirts to come out of the dryer.

I have one more dive test to complete today. I have financial affairs to handle today.

Then, about 4PM I will be on vacation….a state of mind. Worries cast away. No clouds on a sunny day.