12 Oct 2023
Good morning, dive boats!
Not pictured, the crazy wind that woke me up howling in the middle of the night.
I checked the weather when I booked this trip and noticed wind and storms in the forecast, but hoped it was far enough out that things would change and it wouldn’t affect my diving too much. Unfortunately, I have terrible luck when it comes to diving in the Keys.
We were allowed to board and started gearing up when the report from the scout boat came in: 3-4′ waves with occasional 5-6′ swells. Too rough for the boats to go out; morning dives are cancelled.
It looked like the wind should be dying down in a few hours and hopefully the waves will die down enough so we can go out in the afternoon, so I decided to grab some breakfast at Doc’s (chocolate chip pancakes, my traditional last morning in the Keys breakfast, but sounded like a nice pick-me-up after a disappointing morning).
(no picture because they were delicious and I forgot)
I left my gear packed and ready to go, just in case, but my bad luck is strong and the afternoon boats were cancelled as well.
Shoot.
I tried editing pictures from yesterday, but just wasn’t feeling it. I thought about visiting the turtle hospital, or the bird sanctuary, but honestly, I’m kind of over the Keys. Yes, it’s easy to get to and inexpensive, but I’ve had more dives cancelled here than anywhere else. There’s not really any shore diving available here and the staff at Jules Lagoon (the place everyone goes when the boats don’t go out) won’t let me dive without my solo certification.
So I drove up to my dive shop and chatted with the staff about getting my solo certification and what extra gear I would need to acquire for the class. I think it’ll be a while before I go back to the Keys, but when I do, it’ll be to take the class so I have options when the boats don’t go out.
On the way back to my hotel, I decided to treat myself to a key lime pie on a stick:
Unfortunately today just isn’t my day and this was probably one of the worst pies I’ve had down here. The texture was more whipped than creamy, and it was just sweet- no lime tang. Plus the graham cracker crust was stale and not at all graham-y. It was so disappointing that I almost drove down the road to the Blond Giraffe, where my favorite pie-on-a-stick lives, but settled for some comfort mac’n’cheese from Publix (which was actually pretty decent).
Ugh, such a disappointing day.