First up, let’s discuss the dive experience as a whole. Overall, I would say that it was an excellent time, and would do it everyday of the week and twice on Sunday. The people were very nice and were ready to help if needed. A few of the safety divers came up to me to let me know that because of the lack of experience that I had that they would be keeping an eye on me. Being the awesome dude that I am I said “Why don’t you jerk-offs keep and eye on this” and grabbed my junk. It was pretty sweet at the time, but not to smart, looking back on it.

The safety at the mine was outstanding. All of the divers are master divers (although there was one Apprentice Baiter their, he hoped to pass his test soon to be promoted to Master Baiter real soon) All have been diving for many, many years. If you are worried about safety when you dive then at this place you don’t have to worry about it. If I felt very comfortable (and I am NEVER comfortable around new people) diving there and so should you.

The only draw back to diving there is the temperature of the water. I can’t even put into words how fucking cool that water was and what a total shock to my system (and my testies, a.k.a James Blackfellow, the right one, and Julius Johansson, the left one. They are both very glad to meet you all), it was when I first jumped in the water. I have never experienced such a high shrinkage factor in my life. I felt like an 8 year old boy. But a nice 20 minuet hot shower and some jumping jacks got my boys to drop, and everything was back to their normal position, if you know what I‘m sayin’. So ladies you can stop worrying about them they are just fine.

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When I arrived at Reggie’s house in Overland Park his wife Chrissie made a comment about how much weight I have lost in my face (which of course gave me an instant woody, but that’s beside the point…). I told her thanks and to stop hitting on me right in front of her husband, it’s disrespectful.

As we were sitting around Reggies house just visiting (as my grand mother calls it) Reggie walked past the front of the house and said “The D, your car’s in the street.” The funny part is that he said it like it was no big deal. Like that happens all the time at his house. I really didn’t believe him at the time so about 5 minuets later I get up and check out the drive way and sure enough my car had rolled down his drive and was sitting in the middle of the street. It was, not half way in the street with the front wheels still in the driveway, the WHOLE CAR was in the middle of the street. My first thought was, that ain’t right, did I leave it in gear? Why is my car in the street? Reggie must have done something to my car. But he was in the same room with me the whole time. It had been snowing pretty good for a few hours and it just slid down the slope of the driveway. If Chrissie had not gotten off her ass, like a good wife, and shoveled the drive way it wouldn’t have happened. But no one ran into it so it was no big deal. I just went out and moved it. No blood no foul is what I always say.

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I was supposed to have the stuff that I rented back to the dive shop on Monday afternoon, but because I am a moron, I kept forgetting about it and did not get it returned until Wednesday night. But the gravy part of it was that they did not charge me for having it back 2 days late. EXCELLENT I thought.

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One of the reasons I kept running out of air on every dive was because the BCD that I had rented kept leaking air. You see, the vest is connected to the tank via a hose (obviously) so you can put air in the BCD or take it our depending on if you want to sink or float. That crappy BCD just solidifies the whole reason for wanting to get my own gear but the vest it’s self is 500 to 750 bucks.

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If you are thinking about getting certified don’t let my experience discourage you from getting it. It’s really a fun sport, but it’s an expensive sport. You could easily drop over 1000 bucks on purchasing your own gear but then you own it and you don’t have to worry about renting substandard stuff again.

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The pictures are up on my space page if you want too check those out (I’m not going to email them) but you will have to be my friend to see them. So come on, you know you want too see them you know you want to be my friend, Please? My page is so lonely.

I had unknowingly set my profile so you would have to know my last name or email address in order to send me a friend request. But I have turned that off so if you tried once before please do it again. I’m really sorry it was set like that, I apologize from the heart of my bottom, it will not happen again. Will you forgive me? Please?

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That was the Dive Quest hope you enjoyed it.

The End

On Sunday our first, and only, dive was at 9:00 so we slept in until 8. I of course did not want to get out of bed, not because I was sore or anything like that, quite the contrary I was not sore one bit, mostly because I am one awesome specimen of a human being. But because I was tired and it was a Sunday and I always, ALWAYS sleep in on Sundays (it’s one of the top 10 rules that I live my life by).

During the briefing before the dive, the dive leader, which was a different dude from the day before, was telling us that on this dive we would be going through a series of caves and that we would have rock above our heads for 80% of the dive. I remember thinking “Holy Shit!” I was a little anxious about the two caves that we went though yesterday. He then asked if anyone was freaked out about going into the caves that we went on yesterday’s second dive. I looked at Reggie remembering what I told him the day before after the second dive.

“Dude, going though those caves kinda gives me the he-be-je-bees”.

“The D”, he says. “Stop being such and pussy, get the sand out of your vagina and just do it” He said encouragingly. I don’t like being talked to like that, so I punched him in the face and walked off.

Just as the dive leader asked the question Reggie and I both looked at each other. I just shook my head from side to side and gave him this look as if to say “If you say one word that I was anxious about the caves I will not only murder you. I will murder you BTK style”. Reggie and I have known each other since grade school so we kinda know each other pretty well; needless to say he got the message, and kept his mouth shut. Besides the dive leader asked if any one was “freaked out” I was only anxious, which are 2 very different things in my book.

We then go to the locker room put on our wet suits and, head down to the dock, where we get our tanks and finish putting on our gear. In this dive we had a much smaller group. On the 2 dives yesterday we had a group of about 10-15 divers (counting the dive leader and the safety divers). But today there was us 4 and 2 others from Great Britain (they talked funny) Plus, the dive leader and one safety diver for a total of 8 people on this dive.

This was hands down the best dive out of all of them. I was calm, cool, and confident. I went down to a depth of 50 feet and sat on the floor of the cave for a few moments and finally had a few minuets to just relax and enjoy the surrounding. I remember thinking that just about 50 years ago or so that miners were busting there humps to get lead out of these rocks. As I was looking around just sitting there I saw some mule cart tracks, a few hand tools (chisels, hammers, picks) and a miner’s helmet. As we were swimming from one cave to another at a depth of 45 feet, I was maybe 5 feet off the floor, when I saw something bright green in the distance on the floor. I swam down to it and realized that it was a kids Frankenstein mask that someone had left behind. Weird, I thought, really weird, why would someone bring a mask like that and just place it there on the cave floor? Fucking litter bugs.

This dive felt more like we were just swimming around underwater and less like we were being rushed though a maze of rocks. We could actually hang out and “talk to each other” (using hand signals) instead of having to constantly watch the dive leader. Dives like these are the whole reason that I got into the sport in the first place.

But of course I was not concentrating on my breathing, so I was using more air than anyone else. At the second safety check the dive leader again separated me from the rest of the group, pointed to my air gage. And gave me the surface hand signal (basically it’s just a thumbs up). “OHH COME ON!! I’m out of air again?!” I say rolling my eyes. I take my time surfacing by just inflating my BCD slowly. A safety diver comes up with me and tells me that I can just stay at the surface and follow the rest of the group back to the dock while floating on the surface. I just inflate my BCD all of the way so that it acts like a life preserver. I take out my regulator and just watch the other diver from above as we all swim back to the dock.

After the dive we all changing back into our street clothes and agreed that the last dive was the best dive of the weekend. We changed back into our street clothes, packed all of our gear back into the truck for the anticipated 4 hour drive back to Kansas City. But before we left we thought it would be a good idea to stop by the gift shop and pick up some souvenirs to remember the trip. As with any souvenir shop everything was over priced, just as I had anticipated but I went ahead and bought a tee shirt for 20 bucks. Reggie almost bought a statue of a diver but then thought his wife would freak out if he paid 70 bucks for it. Not because it was 70 bucks but because it was ugly, so he didn’t get it. Everyone else bought stuff for their kids and wives, but as you all know I don’t have a wife or kids, so I got out of there with only dropping the 20 bucks on the tee shirt.

On the drive home we stopped at Imo’s Pizza, which is the best pizza EVER! As we were getting gas I was telling Curtis that when I lived in St. Louis my fastest time from my mother’s house in Overland Park to my apartment in St. Louis was 3 hours and 10 minuets and challenged him to beat it. He said he could beat that time easy. But I did not tell him that I accomplished such an amazing feat (it’s usually a 3.5 hour trip if you do the speed limit) at night and that there was no traffic.

While Curtis was doing his best Dale Erenhart impersonation on I-55 the rest of us, Reggie, Larry, and my self were settling in to watch few movies. The first movie was American Pie 5: The Naked Mile HI-LAROUIS!! This is a definite must see. The best part of the movie was the overabundance of some really awesome boobies, and in my book a movie could not have too many boobies, it a great move and I highly recommend it, if you like boobies and I do so hit your local movie house and rent it.

The second movie in our double feature was The Departed, Starring Leo, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damond, and Mark Walburg. This move was awesome! Lots of killing and violence (I don’t think there was anyone that did not get shot in the head). Great story and very well written. It should defiantly win the Oscar (mostly because that is the only movie that I have seen that is up for an Oscar tonight).

Back to the Missouri 500 that Curtis was apparently trying to win. When we got to the intersection of I-270 and I-64 in St. Louis, I leaned up too look at the clock and told him that the time was starting now and the he had until 5 o’clock to get to Larry’s house it was 1:45 p.m. He said he would beat it my time like a rented mule. I said “That time is more like a limp dick, you can try but you just can’t beat it.” At one point in the drive back I leaned up to have a gander at the speedometer. I looked at Reggie and told him we are going 95 mph, in a SUV on I-70 which is just insane! He just might do it I thought. But then we hit the traffic that was coming back to Kansas City from St. Louis for Mardi Gras.

[The Saint Louisans like to claim that they have the second largest Mari Gras in the county, but we all know that New Orleans is the place to go if you want to party during Mardi Gas. Going from Mardi Gras in New Orleans to the St. Louis version of Mardi Gras is like going from the Super Bowl to Pee-wee flag football, you just can’t compare the two.]

We arrived at Larry’s house at 5:05 he missed it by just 5 min, I told him “Maybe next time Dale, maybe next time”.

I took Reggie home then made my way to my house, I got home unloaded my gear and hung up my still wet wet suit in the shower to dry overnight, and laded down on the couch to catch up on some T.V. shows that I had missed.

Up next: Chapter 4: Lessons Learned, Forgotten Stuff, Random Thoughts