skippy dot net

When I was in Hawaii, I did a "Discover Scuba" dive in which we made two short dives from a boat. Hawaii was a great place, obviously, for a first dive: the water was warm and clear, the fish were colorful, and we even got to see a flock of sea turtles swimming through the water. It was magical, serene, and unlike anything I'd ever done before. I vowed to myself that I would get my scuba certification so that I could dive again.

Last fall, I signed up for "Scuba I" through my employee benefit at OSU. It was a 10 week class split between classroom lecture on scuba principles, safety, and dive planning, and dives in the OSU pool to practice the skills we had learned. The instructor, Marty Bailey, was absolutely wonderful. He has a real passion for diving -- he's recorded over 3,000 dives! -- and his enthusiasm comes through in his instruction. He's got a real eye for detail, and helped ensure that his students were learning proper technique as required by the book, but also that we picked up a lot of practical experience along the way to better prepare us for real-world diving conditions.

The class was fun, and at the end I was eager to do my four open water dives (as opposed to pool dives) that were required for the certification. Unfortunately, when I completed the class it was winter time, so I had to wait until spring for the weather -- and the water -- to warm up enough to do the dives.

This weekend the weather was sufficiently warm that I was able to schedule my dives! I met Marty early on Saturday morning, and we drove to Circleville Twin Quarries. The south quarry was extremely busy, so we headed to the north quarry. It was considerably less busy, with only a single class getting in the water, and a few independent divers suiting up. Marty and I took our time unloading and preparing our equipment, allowing the other groups ample time to get into the water and on their dives before we entered.

My first dive was 50-odd minutes long, in which I performed a number of underwater skills, like mask clear, weight belt removal and replacement, scuba tank removal and replacement, and air sharing. We took a leisurely tour of the north quarry, looking at a school bus, a boat, and a police car. On another boat rested a bowling ball, so we played catch with that for a while. We performed a few surface skills -- cramp removal and tired diver tow -- and then exited the water. The water was a little cooler than what I had been used to in the OSU pool, but overall the dive was very pleasant. I quite enjoyed how unafraid the fish were.

For our second dive, we elected to move to the south quarry, which had pretty well cleared out by this time. The water was much murkier, because the earlier groups had stirred up so much of the silt on the bottom. I also forgot to spit into my facemask to prevent it from fogging up, so my overall visibility was extremely limited. I didn't enjoy this dive quite as much. We stayed down for a full hour, and looked at an ambulance, an airplane, a bathtub, and a boat. I was leading the route on this dive, and ended up looping around twice to the same points. There were other objects in the water that I had wanted to see, but got myself slightly mixed up and never made it to them.

Both dives were about 20', which is about what I had in the OSU pool. Aside from the fish, the grasses, and the submerged vehicles, both dives were very similar to my pool dive experiences. This was by design, to ensure that my first open water dives would not be too taxing; and so that I could concentrate on my skills. The next day's dives were intended to show me a very different dive experience, and to educate me that not every day is entirely pleasant.

Sunday morning I met Marty again, and we drove to Lancaster to dive in the quarry there. This quarry offered considerably more depth, averaging about 30' with a deep trench that went down about 60'. I had been looking forward to swimming the trench, because I was eager to see what an extremely low visibility environment was like. My second dive at Circleville provided only a glimpse of what reduced visibility was like; whereas Marty described the tench as having almost no visibility.

I admit that a part of me thought that perhaps he was being overly dramatic, in order to set my expectations. After a briefing, and some discussion of additional safety concerns in the trench, we entered the water and proceeded down the line toward a platform. The water was much cooler as we descended, and as visibility began to decrease I became increasingly concerned that perhaps I had bit off more than I could chew. The visibility was not at all what I expected. I had expected dark, almost blackness, but that wasn't the case: it was greenish white. There was a lot of silt and sediment on the bottom that was easily stirred up, so we had to be very careful not to make things worse for ourselves by kicking too vigorously, or placing our hands on the bottom.

We had planned for a 40 minute dive, of which maybe half would be spent crossing the trench at depth. As we descended into the cold murk, I found myself struggling to relax. I put my arm out, and could just barely see my fingers. I could see Marty's hand in front of mine on the line we were following, but could not see his body. I began to appreciate how honest he had been on the surface when describing the conditions in the trench. I was, however, able to read all my gauges, and was pleased to see that we descended to a depth of 51'.

As we rose from the trench, we followed a line back toward a sunken Frito Lay truck. Here my right flipper fell off my foot! I alerted Marty, and he positioned me on the side of the truck, and signaled for me to sit tight. He then descended into the dark, and I was completely alone. It was a little unnerving, but it was simultaneously very relaxing. I had nothing to worry about: all the stress and bother of the surface world was above me, past 40' of cold water. All I had to worry about was breathing, and my tank still had plenty of air, especially since I was immobile and not using a lot of oxygen. After about two minutes, I felt Marty's hand on my foot. He then jammed the flipper onto my foot, and rose to ask me if I was okay. I gave the "OK" signal, and we set off along the line back toward the destination for our safety stop.

After we exited the water, we talked for a bit about the trench. It was, without a doubt, the most memorable experience of my diving certification. I can't say that it was my favorite experience, but neither was it really a negative experience. I think I'd like to do it -- or something like it -- again some time. Marty informed me that in the trench I was kicking powerfully enough to push us both along, and while we had planned a 40 minute dive, we were only down for 26 minutes! I guess I was colder and more anxious than I realized!

After our surface interval, we returned to the water for my final dive. This was a pretty easy dive. We followed a line toward a culvert that Marty had helped sink in the winter time. We swam through it, and then on to a sunken airplane. I felt a mild sense of horror as I observed a skeleton sitting in one of the cockpit chairs, but reassured myself that surely it was fake, and even if it wasn't it must have been intentionally placed.

Aside: one of my biggest fears regarding diving is the idea that I might discover a body. The prospect that a vague shape in the murky distance might resolve itself into a drowned human being was really unsettling for me, so seeing the skeleton made me feel somewhat uncomfortable. Similarly, I'm terrified of sharks, and afraid that one might come up to me from behind. In the south quarry at Circleville is a large plastic shark mounted to a frame. When Marty pointed it out to me, I had a momentary sense of panic, even though I knew it was fake!

We circled the plane, then entered it from the open cargo door in the side. We swam through the body, and exited out the front, past the skeleton. It was an interesting experience to be inside something while underwater. I can see why wreck diving is such an interesting hobby for some people, and it's something I think I'd like to try myself sometime.

After the plane, I started feeling very cold, and signaled this to Marty. We altered our path to follow a contour of the quarry back through slightly warmer water. We reached our exit point, performed our safety stop, and then rose to the surface.

All in all, the diver education and certification process was a lot of fun; and I'm really glad I did it. I'm looking forward to diving again. I doubt I'll be a regular diver, but knowing that I have the activity available to me should I choose to do so makes me pretty excited about the prospect of vacation in interesting places!

I'm going to San Francisco this weekend. I've been there a couple of times before, and have done most of the major tourist attractions: Alcatraz, Ghirardelli, Fisherman's Wharf, and Chinatown. Surprisingly, I don't think I've ever ridden a streetcar in San Francisco.

My first time in San Francisco was when I was young. I don't remember how old I was. My family went out to visit my mom's brother, and his family. We spent part of a day walking around, presumably doing the major tourist attractions, and a modicum of shopping. While my mom, sister, and cousin were poking their heads into one of the stores, I was left outside with my dad. Like most young kids, I was largely oblivious of the world around me, and began fooling around in the middle of the sidewalk. Most pedestrians simply walked around me, until this towering black man walked right up to me and stopped. He cast a malevolent gaze down at me. I know he said something mean -- and as I recall, it was also rather profane -- but I don't remember what it was.

I remember very clearly staring up at this imposing man, and being absolutely terrified. I was certain that he would hurt me. I was paralyzed with fright. My dad was somewhere nearby, and he quickly snatched me out of this man's way. There was no real commotion to attract attention, but I remember my mom coming quickly out of the store. To this day, more than two decades later, we still talk about this adventure.

I'm looking forward to having a number of new adventures in San Francisco this weekend. I'm very much looking forward to riding a streetcar. I'm looking forward to discovering new places, meeting new people, and making new memories. The more I travel, the more I've come to value the zany stories I can take home to share with family and friends. On just about every trip I've taken, some crazy thing has happened that I want to share. It's these moments -- the things that can't really be captured in a photograph -- that make travel so interesting, and so rewarding.

I actually don't know much about what to do in San Francisco. If you have recommendations for stuff that's off the beaten path, please share it in the comments!

For our five year anniversary, Carina and I took a long weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana. We stayed at the Ursuline Guest House, nestled in the heart of the French Quarter. This was a wonderful place to stay, as it wasn't too close to all the raucousness of Bourbon Street, but it wasn't so far away that everything was a labor to reach. Bill, the owner, was a wonderful host, and we thoroughly enjoyed chatting with him over the complimentary wine he offered every night. I shared with Bill that were it not our anniversary trip I would have liked to have rented a car to just drive around to see some of the reality of post-Katrina life. Bill informed us that there is a bus tour offering precisely that experience in a safe, controlled way and encouraged us to take it. "We need your tax dollars," he said, "so you should see for yourself just how bad we need 'em!"

Thursday night, after two bottles of wine with Bill, we spent a lot of time and money enjoying all that Bourbon Street had to offer, and I paid for it all day Friday. We ventured out to see Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral, Cafe du Monde, and a few other major sites, but I spent the bulk of the day in the hotel room convalescing. Not exactly how I wanted to spend our romantic weekend.

Saturday morning we rode the street car out to the Garden District to look at the fancy houses. We stopped first at the cemetery and marveled at the age and number of occupants of some of the tombs.

We walked for a bit around the Garden District, but quickly tired in the heat and humidity. When we returned to the French Quarter we visited the aquarium for an easy-to-do air-conditioned activity. The albino alligator was absolutely stunning. Carina and I were convinced that it was a replica on display until the thing closed its mouth and moved its tail.

Re-energized, we took the ferry across the Mississippi River for a stroll around Historic Old Algiers. There's not much there outside of Mardi Gras World, which we decided to skip. We had a late lunch at Tout de Suite, a little cute diner that was horribly understaffed, and then rode the ferry back to the French Quarter. Upon Bill's recommendation we ate dinner at Coop's, and absolutely loved every morsel served to us.

Sunday morning I woke early and took a stroll throughout the French Quarter while Carina slept in. it was a very different experience to walk around the French Quarter at 7 AM, though I was hardly the only person up and about. As I walked up to Bourbon Street it was not entirely incongruous to see an ambulance passing one way and a street sweeper passing the other. Lots of people were hosing filth off the sidewalks of their establishments, and I passed a fair number of people jogging or walking their dogs. I only saw two or three obviously drunk people, though I did note that a number of street performers were sitting in the early morning shade with beers next to them.

I returned to the B&B in time to wake Carina for the swamp tour we had booked for the day. When looking at the available tour options, we elected for the swamp because it's the one thing we're unlikely to see anywhere else any time soon. Our guide, Captain Gerry, was an affable and articulate man who really made the trip worthwhile. He was clearly passionate about his homeland, and imparted on us his own deep sense of respect for mother nature. We learned the difference between a swamp and a marsh, an awful lot about alligators and cypress trees, and a little bit of Louisiana history.

Capt. Gerry surprised all of us when he threw marshmallows to an alligator swimming in the water. He calmly explained to us that he refused to throw meat, nor to use meat to attract alligators to the boat, and that they loved marshmallows! Even though there hadn't been a single recorded alligator attack against a human being in Louisiana for a long time, Gerry did not want to encourage the gators to associate human beings with meat or easy meals. While Gerry wasn't afraid of a lone gator, he was extremely concerned about the possibility of three or four gators investigating a tour boat that had been throwing meat to them: an alligator can launch its body more than halfway out of the water, and all it would take is one inquisitive -- never mind aggressive! -- gator to jump onto a boat to hurt a single passenger. We passed several other swamp tour boats operated by different companies, and we all shared Gerry's deep disappointment to watch the boat operators put hot dogs on sticks and splash them about in the water. Alas, it's not illegal, so there was nothing for us to do but feel glad that our guide was a bit more cautious about the matter.

We had po' boys for lunch at Johnny White's -- Carina had roast beef and I had oyster -- and then took a short nap back at the hotel. We joined Bill again for wine, and chatted comfortably for a bit. Bill helped us try to make reservations at K-Paul's (closed) and Nola's (booked), so we ended up eating at Galatoire's, a restaurant recommended to me by a co-worker before we left. The service was phenomenal. When we were seated, the host asked us if we had a server who usually took care of us, to which I responded no. "You will soon," he replied, and whisked away to seat someone else. He was right: if we ever go back to Galatoire's, I'll absolutely ask for Shawn to take care of us. The food was absolutely exquisite. Oysters Rockefeller and sauteed shrimp appetizers preceded the most delicious sirloin I can remember.

After dinner we strolled down Bourbon Street, in no particular rush and with no particular destination. It was fun to watch the city get crazy around us, but not to get swept up into that craziness. We stopped for a few drinks, and enjoyed holding one another's hand in quiet contentment as we casually made our way back to the Ursuline Guest House. Monday morning we left for home.

While we didn't do too much, I think we did just enough. We weren't hurried, and we didn't come home so exhausted that we needed a vacation from our vacation. We enjoyed one another's company, made some wonderful memories, and had plenty of opportunity to appreciate our free time. Several times both Carina and I did something of a double take as we experienced the liberation of realizing "Hey, we don't need to do anything at all. We're having fun just strolling along here. Let's enjoy doing this for a little longer."

My mom always encouraged me to view every trip as a reconnaissance mission for the next time I would go to that destination, and that advice has always served me well. This weekend Carina and I were able to do what we wanted to do, while taking notes for things to do when we visit New Orleans again. We'd love to spend a few days there with a few friends. Hopefully we can make that happen sooner, rather than later.

Thursday morning we flew to Kiev, Ukraine with a brief layover in Riga, Latvia. The Kiev airport was markedly different from anything we had yet experienced, and was something of a portent of things to come. There are very few organized lines, instead folks just congeal into large masses and fight their way to the front. Ann met us just outside passport control, and took us to the taxi that she had waiting. We had a pleasant catching-up in the taxi, which was a nice distraction from the terror induced by driving in Kiev.

There are traffic laws in Ukraine, but they aren't meaningfully enforced. As such, they aren't generally followed. The police often pull over motorists for no specific reason, and detain them until they can trump up a charge or until the driver gets frustrated with the delay. Either way, both situations are usually resolved with a bribe. After the exchange of money, the motorist is permitted to go on their way. Since anyone can get pulled over at almost any time, there's no real incentive to obeying what rules might exist. Ann commented to us that it's quite common for cars to drive on the sidewalks, and then honk at the pedestrians to get out of their way. We were incredulous at first, but it didn't take too long before we witnessed several examples of exactly this.

The taxi dropped us off at the apartment at which we were staying, where we unloaded our luggage and had a quick celebratory toast of Jameson Irish Whiskey. This was to be the first of innumerable toasts and shots of alcohol. We walked with Ann back to her apartment, where we met my dad, my son Kyle, and my aunt Mary Ellen. Shortly thereafter we were joined by Dick and Madeline, and then a man named Serge who was to be our guide to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. More toasts were made, and drinks consumed, and there was a lot of laughter. Finally Igor came home from work, and we got to meet the groom-to-be. He was a very warm, friendly person and we all looked forward to getting to know him better in the days to come.

It was a nice start to a terrific weekend, and an overall wonderful visit filled with family.

We stayed for a few days in Finspang with Siw and Eilart, friends of Carina's mother. On Sunday morning we had coffee with Eilart's wife and her husband while the twins played for a while with Rebecca, one of the granddaughters of Siw and Eilart. Again I was struck by how welcoming and gracious everyone was, and it was relaxing and refreshing to have a great conversation over coffee and snacks. Sunday evening we went to visit Ulla Brit, Carina's aunt. At her house was her daughter Gunilla, and Carina's cousins Michael and Nicholas (whom we had previously met in Boston when they were visiting their aunt Birgitta). The evening was filled with comfortable, familial conversation and more coffee and snacks.

Monday morning we took the twins to two Swedish schools. First was Corrin's class of 10 year olds. In Sweden, 10 year olds are in 4th grade, and they start learning English. The class was very excited to get a chance to speak to native English speaking kids their own age, but they were all terribly shy. So too were our girls! I tried to encourage them to speak -- after all, they had an interested and captive audience that would have enjoyed almost anything the twins would have said -- but they only demurely answered questions asked of them by the teacher. Both Carina and I were particularly interested to see that each child had a votive candle burning on their desks. It was dark in the morning, and the candles gave a nice warm light to the classroom. I don't think many schools in the U.S. would permit 10 year olds to have lit candles on their desks, which frankly is a bit of a pity. After a brief conversation, we then moved on to Rebecca's school, and her class of 13 year olds. Rebecca was extremely excited to introduce the twins to her classmates, and she gave a nice short speech in English. Her class wasn't nearly as interested as the younger class, though, and they quickly ignored the twins. I could tell that the twins felt very intimidated and out of place, but Rebecca did a fantastic job of asking them to participate in the lesson on which she and a few friends were working.

Monday afternoon we went to Linnkoping, where we stayed in our first hotel of the trip. The afternoon was spent at Bus fabriken, another giant indoor playground. The kids had a lot of fun, and so did I. After a few hours of releasing energy, we met Michael for a brief tour of the city of Linnkoping. Of particular interest were the church and the public library, both of which were gorgeous.

Tuesday morning we took the X-2000 train back to Malmo for a few more days with Helena and Mickey. We watched movies together, and generally relaxed in an effort to save up some energy for the travel to Ukraine, and for the festivities of my sister's wedding.

I didn't see as many sites in Sweden as I would have preferred, but we made some great connections with family and friends, and I'm looking forward to seeing all of them again!