Hey y’all! Welcome to the final days of the Holiday Season! I cannot believe it is almost Christmas. This marks me being deployed now for 3 months! So you all were right…the time is flying by. Thank God! It’s a good thing I am an active person and always into so many things. If not, I can’t imagine trying to pass the time in CLU or at work. UGH! But here we are…the countdown for 2011 is upon us.
I hope this note finds all of you well. Since I last typed to you, I have had a number of things going on. I last left you with my first night dive in Djibouti, Dec. 1. It was amazing! On Sunday, Dec. 5, I did another regular dive with the gang. And then we did a second night dive on Wednesday night, Dec. 8. I will tell you about this one…as it was not exactly as fabulous as the first one. This dive included about 14-15 divers. So a much larger group than the first one. We were split into 2 groups. I dove with my friend Matt and about 5 other divers who had never been on a night dive before. So that automatically made me an expert! Ha ha The water here is getting chilly for sure. It’s sitting at about 82-83 degrees. I just ordered a couple of wetsuits to help me get through Jan., Feb. and Mar. here in the water…so hoping they arrive soon. Anyway…it was so much darker this night. The sky was not lit up with all the stars and the moon that had been out the previous Wed. night. So it was so much spookier. But we all jumped in and went for it. We dove in the same location. It’s called Canyon at Moucha Island. Very nice place to dive. We all had flashlights, thank goodness. I didn’t see as many fish out tonight as I had seen the week before. But it was still a nice dive in the beginning. At about the halfway point (time wise) we did a safety stop. Matt stopped us all to check on the air left in our cylinders. We were all fine, but somehow in that stop we must have drifted a bit away from the coral. In this area, the coral walls form a large “V” and we were near the widest part of that “V” so it was easy to lose sight of the coral wall.
Matt signaled for us to go to the surface. We needed to gather our bearings and find our way back to the coral wall. And it didn’t make sense to just keep searching in the dark and wasting our air. So we surfaced. Headed towards where we knew the coral wall was and decided to descend again. Man – this buoyancy thing sure is getting the best of me! Anyway, I tried to descend again…and I just was not sinking. Everyone else was already down and now all I could see were their flashlights and the glow sticks we had attached to our cylinders (for visibility of where everyone was located under the water). Anyway, Matt came to the surface to see what my problem was. “UGH! I am not sinking again! What the H is wrong with me? I was just fine under the water, now I can’t sink!” So Matt asks if I emptied my BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) of the air…which I promptly said “Of course!” We were about half way through our cylinders of air, which makes you more buoyant. Maybe that was the issue? Anyway, Matt gave me some more weight and unfortunately I just sank at that point. I sunk faster than I could control it and was trying very hard to equalize as I was sinking. I was not having much luck. I dropped the 40 feet to the bottom, hit like a rock and scraped my leg on the coral below! Ouch! That smarts! I finally was able to equalize and was also able to balance out my buoyancy, but I was never the same for the rest of the dive. Just one of those experiences that made the rest of the night crap. Well not total crap…I was out in the water and loving being off Camp.
So I just never got comfortable again. And finally with all the messing around, one of the other divers started running low on air, so we had to surface. We ended up surface swimming back to the boat. I actually liked that part. It was peaceful out there on top of the water. It turned out to be quite a swim. But we made it. And now I have 2 night dives under my belt. And that only gets me closer to my next certification – Advanced Open Water Diver. Woo Hoo! All-in-all we survived. And I am ready to give it another chance! I shall not be defeated! J And guess what – my BCD did still have air in it! UGH! Since they only had a Medium sized one left for me, I wore that one. It is just too big for me to figure out if there is still air in it. So I am only going to hopefully wear the small ones from here on out. Matt is always right…that’s why he’s the Dive Master! ;-)
So another night dive down. On Sat. Dec 11, I was able to video conference with almost my whole family. My Mom was in Northern VA, as were the PA Haleys…and Michelle and Seth and the whole Morton family were all together. So we video conference via Mac computers. It was great! It was almost like I was amongst the chaos! Ha ha It was so great to see everyone. Elizabeth was getting ready for her Confirmation, so that’s why they were all there. The kids crack me up as their number one priority is to see who can make the ugliest faces at me on the camera. I think Jack and John are pretty closely matched in that competition! Good grief! The faces those boys can make! It’s just painful sometimes. Elizabeth isn’t too far behind, but such a pretty girl shouldn’t make such faces! Ha ha And of course, being the coolest Aunt ever, I make the same faces back at them! I am sure everyone in the 11 Degrees Pub on Camp was enjoying all my faces I was making! LOL One of the things I really enjoy, just seeing my peeps! Thanks guys.
On Dec. 13&14 I sat in on the last 2 nights of the Open Water Class. When I got my Scuba Diver Certification on the cruise in April, it was not the full Open Water cert. So I needed to finish that up. I took the final exam on Dec. 14. I passed without any issue – but damn it, I missed one question! UGH! I should have gotten them all right! The one I missed was on wetsuits…so I guess I should have just told them since I didn’t have mine in yet, I didn’t know the answer. Oh well…at least I passed. I have since received my email from PADI that my certification has been processed and I will receive my new card in the mail soon. I believe it will be sent to VA, so Blake might have to forward that to me. Next up – Advanced Open Water and then Rescue Diver. I might as well do something with all of this diving I am doing. And it might come in handy back in VA – since we do have the occasional water emergency in the nice cold Potomac River!
On Dec. 17 we had our department holiday dinner. This was a really nice evening. Again, any chance to get off Camp. We had dinner at a place called La Mer Rouge. It was very good. Seafood, steaks, sushi, etc. I had backed crab and some shrimp summer rolls of some sort. Very yummy! And the ambiance in the restaurant was fabulous. It almost felt like we weren’t in Djibouti anymore. Water fall, open air seating, kind of a Spanish them with the tile floor. Service was great. Just a nice evening with all the HR peeps.
On Dec. 18, we had our PAE Holiday All-Hands Party. Wow – that was a fun time. We had so much food to eat, beer and wine (yes, 3 beverage limit), and Bingo, dancing and Christmas music! It was a great time. I did not win, as usual, at Bingo. Sigh…maybe someday. I am always so close. But so close just doesn’t cut it. I also found the time to hang out with my new fire department friends. They are a riot! We had a great time. And somehow ended up with a few more drinks than the allotted 3…sssshhhhh…I won’t tell.
On Dec. 19 I decided to take the day off from scuba diving. I went with my boss and our Sr. Recruiter to the Kempinski Hotel for a day hanging out by the pool and then a fabulous spa treatment! Aaahhh……nice. http://www.kempinski.com/en/djibouti/Pages/Welcome.aspx Just in case you want to check out the hotel. Very nice hotel indeed! Anyway, I ended up pulling over a big umbrella and taking a 3 hour nap in the shade. It was so awesome to just be outside loving the breeze and the smell of the salt water. The spa treatment I selected was the Chocolate Indulgence Package (of course!!). It was divine! A body scrub and Swedish massage, then body wrap with the Chocolate Indulgence…whatever that was. It was awesome though. And I tell you what; just being able to take a shower in a real shower where I didn’t have to turn off the water to lather up (combat shower) was fantastic! Oh yeah! What a great and relaxing day.
And so here I am in the middle of Christmas Week. This week is the Softball Tournament. Single Game elimination. PAE lost its first game. But it’s a lot of fun to keep score. I am not umpiring or anything like that this time. Just keeping score. Friday night will be the Championship Game.
So that about wraps things up for now. Just wanted to pop in and say HELLO! Happy Holidays to all my peeps reading this! I miss everyone so much. This week is tough. Thanks for sending me good vibes and keep in touch! It means a lot to me to hear from peeps from home! I think of you all so much.
Y’all take care and many blessings for the New Year!
Ciao for now!
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