Interludes In Miami

Author’s Note:  This post covers the day of July 7^th.   I wrote it on the morning of July 10^th in Smith’s apartment.

For a third straight day, I had to get up early.  But that I didn’t really mind, because I was going SCUBA DIVING!  Got up at 6:30, shaved, packed my scuba stuff and cameras, grabbed some McD’s and started the drive down to Key Largo.  I had made this reservation 2 weeks earlier, and wrote down the time and place I needed to be at, but had lost it.  So I was really going off of memory, hoping that 8 AM was the time I was supposed to be there.  Thank god that sometimes my brain can hold its own, as I got it right.

Got fitted for a wetsuit and the other equipment and hopped on the boat.  I started talking with a woman, Sharon, originally from Australia but now living in London.  Here’s Sharon:

Our dive guide, Kevin, also paired us up, so that worked out well.  Here’s Kevin:

The dives were awesome, much warmer water than the Ginnie Springs refresher dive I did a few weeks earlier.  The fish were incredibly colorful.  On the first dive we saw a sea turtle, a HUGE puffer fish, some fish that I called Maryland Fish for being red, white, black, and yellow, colorful parrot fish, an eel, and some beautiful swaying forests of sea plants.  We came up to change out tanks and went back down for a second dive.  On the second dive we saw a huge lobster, some trumpet fish, and one of those schools of fish that almost seems to dance in big choreographed movements.  I don’t have pictures of much because I mostly took video.  I'll see if I can post any of that to youtube later.

Here’s me:

And here’s one of the good pictures.  I was trying to catch that big brilliant blue guy down in the bottom right hand corner.

After scuba diving, I drove back to Miami, got a HUGE Pollo Tropical lunch, and took my laundry to a Laundromat, where literally NOONE spoke English.  Did laundry, got screwed over by having to put 5 dollars on a Laundromat card and being left with 4 on it, so I gave it away.  Packed up, mostly, and went to meet my UF club soccer buddy Josh at a bar in downtown Miami.  The bar sits on the river, which I didn’t even know Miami had.  I tried to take pictures of the river with my phone, but the phone is terrible in low light.  It was great to catch up with him. 

We also saw the big Silva-Chonnen (did I spell that right?) UFC fight.  I’m not a UFC fan and neither is Josh, but his friends are.  Watching Silva win felt like watching a Mayweather fight.  I’m not rooting for him, but I know he’s going to win, so there’s almost no point in rooting against him.

I said my goodbye to Josh and drove back to the hotel to get some rest.