Archive for water sports

Unbelievably bad line calls

It’s the Thanksgiving Day, and I’m thankful for my family and friends and foes in my life, and an interesting life I lead so far.

I started my day with a warm up swim, then tennis, pickleball, and capped the morning with another short swim – static stretching. I know the verdict (if the static stretching after a game is good or suitable …) is out there, and swimming is certainly NOT static stretching, but I like to do it, to relax.

Tennis:

I’m still trying to correct my serve: to keep my left tossing arm high longer and eliminate waiter’s tray (why is waiter’s tray no good?)

Two double faults in my first serve game – I didn’t practice much in between matches – my bad. Bad line calls one after another; one of the opponents said he can bagel me. I replied, “not off me.” I thought I was going to have a relaxed game on a holiday, but it turned out not to be the case. So I reverted back to my waiter’s tray serve. We lost 4-5, 5-3, 4-5 (first to five and 1 point decides a game – no deuce).

Pickleball:

Played with a new group of players. The best player (3.5 – apparently there is a rating in pb? ) in the group teamed herself up with her husband who’s equally good, vs me and one guy who’s also a newbie. The couple has been playing for more than three years. I’d think they would split up to make the game more interesting, which is the way I would have done. Oh well. We lost 2-11.

 

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Water volleyball


My first time playing this … don’t know how, except serving … thought I could just wing it … but didn’t work well. So my hands hurt.

Taking a lesson or two would be a good idea.

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62′ dive @ Blue Grotto – my record

Setting record on my dive isn’t really my goal but it just happened: I went down to 61.9′ with Chris, an instructor @ Blue Grotto Williston, FL. It’s a few minutes north from Devil’s Den, on the other side of the road.

.. more pix n videos on Google Maps

The entrance fee is $55. It’s the first time that I pay for my cylinders, at $12.50 each – they were covered during the training period. Blue Grotto rents out at $11.50 (air & Nitrox). But EAN32Fill is $15.50.

Woods & Water’s t shirt is pretty nice, I wear it everywhere. To manage the weight, I bought a wagon to transport my gears. It’s neat in the bag in the morning, and messy after the dives.

There are many creatures in the water. The most famous are two turtles, Virgil and Turbo. I saw both but only caught one on my video – the sealed case didn’t work well, water got in … fortunately I  saw it and stopped the bleeding – the phone still works.

 

… and the compound

… and my newest handbag: Sherwood ST1000 flash light -:) finely made, that includes the package box.

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Utility wagon

After a few dives, I realized that I need a wagon to carry the heavy load of my diving gears, especially after the dives – they become extra heavy due to wetness.

Coincidentally, the day I received my wagon from Amazon, I also got IndiGogo email promoting  the next new thing – Lithely: Electric Utility Wagon with Power Bank. It’s with six purchasing options:

  1. $255 (52% off)
  2. $199 (52% off)
  3. $219 (47% off)
  4. $275 (48% off)
  5. $389 (53% off)
  6. $429 (48% off)

Pretty costly (compares to mine) but only loads up to 132 lb. It looks almost identical to the $52 that loads up to 200 lb. When it folds, it doesn’t look compact to me, looks bulkier than mine.

The new new thing has always been in the eyes of beholders.

Charlie Munger says a lot of venture capitalists screw their investors, per Fortune magazine.

It was 2012, I ‘invested’ $250 on a projector that you could use your laptop to display, bypass a conventional projector. It was by a Beijing team. … of course I didn’t receive anything, and never heard from them again. I understand my risk and could be park with $250. I made no noise, till now -:) Vulture capitalists, as one reader wrote.

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4 strokes of luck

the pretty moon this morning

I often use ‘front crawl’ as the breaststroke. Why? I’ve no idea. Actually, front crawl is freestyle lol

My bad.

Don’t know what I’m talking about.

Butterfly at its peak, is faster than free … but freestyle is an endurance style that can go miles on end.

So, once for all (myself mainly), the four style of strokes of swimming are:

  1. freestyle – also known as front crawl
  2. butterfly stroke
  3. breaststroke –
  4. backstroke

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Speciality diving course: flash lights

Section 6 of Advanced Adventurer is Nigh & Limited Visibility Diving, my second specialty course. Home read would be enough but SSI makes you to go to the hone hour long class and pay.

The content can’t really fill the hour, so we talked about other things.

 

I saw this ad for a small cruise going to Galapagos, when the diver only has a snorkeler.

“It’s a free dive,” the master said. Then he looked closer, and said, “I would fail her: wearing snorkeler is fine but it shouldn’t be in the mouth …”

Ha, one of the misleading advertisements.

Galápagos Islands is part of Ecuador, population 33,000 (2020), in the eastern Pacific Ocean, around the equator. It’s about 5 hour fly from Miami. The normal cruises that offer diving, is during the port time, using the land diving operators.

Diving from the boat, is liveaboard that offered overnight stay, can get in 5 dives a day (of course you can do less …)

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Speciality course: navigation

After Open Water Diver, comes SSI’s continuing education: Advanced Adventurer. They call it specialty course. The reading material for this bundle is 160 pages. It has 12 sections, with overview and quiz but no exam, at the end.

Section 5 Navigation, done in two hours, review and practice of how to use compass. We went outside to practice, counting out steps. A little silly tho… who’d count their kicks in the water?

The shop sells writing pad too – the slates. One of the slates is Saekodive, made by a Taiwan company. Wondering is it as good as Sherwood and Genesis brands?

Not sure how useful a slate can be. I’ve no desire to buy one at the moment.

There was another lesson going on prior to ours. It has only one student. On the table, are many gadgets and the tv screen says Communication

Underwater communication devices
Surface communication devices

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Oh well …

A management company posted a sign

Please be advised locks must be removed daily or they will be removed if left on.

Thank you.

A common practice at the health clubs as well, that you can not lock a locker overnight / to yourself. (Some health clubs do rent them out, monthly or annually, when and where you can keep a locker to yourself.) But a week later, someone wrote FU … I take it means fuck you?

… actually I didn’t get it at first glance bec I’ve two mates on my tennis team with Fu as their last name … one’s primary school teacher.

 

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The graduate


So came the graduation. We all passed, just with varying degrees: one got snorkeling only, I got the scuba diver, Ralph got his instructor’s certificate after 200 dives under his belt – congratulations.

It’s a dive social, coincides with the halloween party. Some mates baked a cake and cookies, pizza ordered, I brought two bottles red wine – no one touched it except me lol. … no one drinks wine in a dive bar … ha ha ha.

Meeting other divers from previous classes is great – you need a buddy to dive after all. If you’ve no one to dive with, you’ll have to hire a dive master. Unless you’re on a private boat.

As door prizes, I won the very good looking t shirt for wearing my face mask.

  

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A fishing trip @ shipwrecks

Went to lunch with my tennis buddies at Hooks. Afterward, one of them offered to take us fishing.

It’s a beautiful day, with calm water under a clear blue skies. Hook’s doesn’t have a deck hand, and the water is several feet below the normal waterline on the shore. The buddy said, it’s the global warming … which makes in and out of the sailing boat a little difficult.

The shipwrecks … are usually sit at the bottom of the water. But these two have been there for a while. The owner(s) really should have towed them away.

The two buddies went out on Sunday and caught many fish … So they took us to the same spot again. Although I saw many fish jumping out of the water, however, I’ve no luck to lure one onto my hook. One of them comfort me, by saying, “… that’s why it’s called fishing, not catching.” ha ha ha

We did see a manatee -:)

 

It’s fishing 🎣 not catching [得意]

昨天他们钓到好的鱼 俺跃跃欲试
然后… 就没有然后了 (虽然鱼诱非常漂亮 – 顺走当耳环吧 [调皮])

人家解释 所以是钓鱼而不是捉鱼 [大哭]

全球暖化下的小民生活,  水位下降 上岸难

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