I love the smell of neoprene in the morning

[fisheater]

With apologies to Col. Kilgore of Apocalypse Now fame, I really do love the smell of neoprene in the morning.

I'm packing up the truck and meeting with the North Coast Divers club to do my first dive as the proud owner of new C-Card. It'll be on the Sonoma (California) coast at so-called Stillwater Cove. Reports are that the swells aren't too swell, meaning that conditions are marginal.

I'll be with a group of experienced divers, including local instructors, so I should be in good hands when making the dive/non-dive decision.

I'm so excited! Full report upon my return.

[mitchy]

Good luck. Fill us in when you surface.

[mwhities]

Congratz on your cert and good luck diving. You sound like you will be in good hands, enjoy the diving.

[fisheater]

Alas, I didn't get wet, after all. (Not counting the accidental step into a creek on the way back from one of the coves when we were surveilling the conditions.)

The considerable swell was coming from a direction that defeated all of the "protected" coves that any of the North Coast Divers knew about in the area. We checked them all.

We'd get to a cove. Things would look diveable and they would be devising entry and exit strategies. Then, a huge set of rollers would come through and crash through the entire cove. "Nope. We'd die in that," was an expression I heard repeatedly.

In the end, conditions looked a lot like the photo on the club's website front page. Welcome to northcoastdivers.org!

In the end, I enjoyed meeting new friends (and running into someone I knew through other connections).

Next time. We'll get into the water.

[Suther2136]

Bummer, but there will be another time. Congrats on the cert and congrats for making a safe decision not dive.

[Dark Wolf]

Too bad about not being able to get in the water. Congrats on your cert, by the way!!

DW

[St.jimmy]

Well, look on the bright side, You met friends and didn't die!

[MLenyo]

too bad you didn't get to dive, that stinks!

ah well! better than dying.

[scubajane]

I love the smell of neoprene... I dove in September and then stayed dry through Christmas. We were at a Christmas party at the dive shop....Ahhh it smelled so good. I then got to try a new regulator and wow it tasted good. do I have a real problem????

[KGNickl]

Guess I'm crazy, I think Neoprene stinks. But as long as it does its job I'm not going to complain .