Photo Dump

It's been a while since I blogged any photos from my DSLR. Then again, I haven't been taking that many photos.

Tonight I had planned on packing for the DR trip, but I seem to have misplaced my metallic wedges and dive log, so that has me in a funk. First world problems, I know.

So I decided to take a break from my frantic searching and dump some photos from the last few months.

Enjoy.

This year's tree

Open Water Class. We got to help set up all of that equipment when we took Advanced Open Water.

The four people closest to the camera were in our Open Water class at AACC

 Can you tell that Sean is a cop?

 

 Sean visited during Punkin Chunkin... he and Jay spent most of the weekend shooting each other with Nerf guns.

I'm still finding darts all over the house

Funfetti cupcake for Jay's birthday

Make a wish

This is Monkey, the resident dog at Lake Rawlings... he has quite the reputation there. He has stolen everything from fins to Subway sandwiches. He's so freaking cute though, how could you be mad?

Monkey waiting for Jay to abandon our bag of Dunkin Donuts. This was the morning of our Advanced Open Water Class. Definitely the coldest weather I've ever camped in. 28. Brr.

Above the water, a beautiful lake. Below the water, fun things to see.

We finally got the fly right on our tent

Our collective Advanced Open Water Class gear. We didn't want to get it mixed up with the Open Water student's stuff. Well, that and it's OUR gear. I don't want them putting their grubby fingers on my shiny new Aqualung Pearl BCD.

Our dive computers the morning of our second day of diving, warning us of the dangers of DCS. Diving is very safe, as long as you practice your skills and stay within your level of experience. Plan your dive and dive your plan.

We are still loving Fanny the Forester. She is much nicer off road and on dirt roads than Sweet Roxie.

I love Christmas lights

 

And good news... while I was waiting for my photos to upload, I found the shoes that I was looking for and Jay told me that my log book is in his truck.

 

I think it's time for bed! Tomorrow is another day.

Advanced Open Water Diver... check!

We had an awesome time this weekend... I took some more photos around the campsite and quarry with my D80, but I'm sharing some blurry and crappy screenshots from this fun little digital video camera (waterproof to 100') that I got on Amazon for super cheap. It doesn't hold a charge for more than an hour and a half, but it should be great for diving in the DR. I'm going to try plugging it in to a conventional wall charger to see if it works.

This was our buddy group for Advanced Open Water... me, Jay and Travis. We were the only AOW students with Sea Colony over the weekend, so we were the cool kids to the Open Water divers. 

After our Navigation and Peak Performance Buoyancy skills, we were able to explore the quarry on our own 

This is "Blackhawk Down" at Lake Rawlings

Going to the rear of the helicopter

Diving at Lake Rawlings... Priceless.

Jay and Travis were kind of a bad combination to dive with. I was the voice of reason while they wanted to push the limits. Here, they contemplate going into the deeper water. We'd been told to keep it above 40'. My dive computer says we got to 40' exactly.

Those fish smell terrible

Blurry screenshot of the computer graveyard... there's all sorts of fun stuff at Rawlings

And a better screenshot of the monitor

This is the bus... Jay and Travis of course went inside, but I was a good buddy and stayed on the outside in case someone got stuck. Hey, someone has to be responsible.

I wish that I'd been able to record our Deep Dive and Search & Recovery dives. Those were probably my favorites. After those, we were left to finish our tanks and goofed off around the sailboat from The Replacements. The opening scene was filmed there at Lake Rawlings. Our instructor, John Kiser, alleges that he taught Keanu Reeves how to dive. John has certified more divers than anyone in the world, so maybe he has? Anyway, it would have been fun to get that stuff on video, especially since my skills were better on the second day of diving.

If you want to get motion sickness watching the Blackhawk Down video, you can find it here: