A yucky day, our 9am tennis is rained out. So I stayed in the 80° pool for 0.5 mile. I also swam and recorded my very first individual medley, with the wrong order. The correct order is butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. Guess I don’t watch enough swimming events, or watched but not paying close attention. Oh well, senior moment.
By the way, relay order goes differently, by speed: backstroke breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle the.
One of this year’s goals has met: swim the fly stroke. Although a lot of implements are needed but I can swim the length of the pool and back. So it’s an achievement for little old me.
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.
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.
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.
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:
$255 (52% off)
$199 (52% off)
$219 (47% off)
$275 (48% off)
$389 (53% off)
$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.
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 …)
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
