This year's calendar has surprisingly few pictures from around here, and I guess Rob would say that's because he didn't do "any" diving last year. It does sort of seem that way... we had a bunch of boat cancellations, plus plenty of travel (especially Rob) sprinkled around, so it seems like we weren't doing as much diving, or at least local diving (we'll get to the numbers in a moment), and more of the dives were sans camera.
I noticed that in my previous "new year's" post, I resolved to have more pictures on the blog. I'm not sure that I lived up to that, but I think I made up for some of that with videos this year. The stars have finally aligned so that I can actually get some reasonably good video (with my "new" Hero2, which is already obsolete!), and process it easily from anywhere (thanks to the MacBook Air that I got myself for Rob's birthday). And conditions have allowed me to get some pretty cool videos this year... sea lions, juvenile rockfish and molas, more sea lions, sea nettles, and a big mola.
I guess my blog resolution for this year is to give the blog more attention. It seems like it has been chronically behind, and I just noticed (to my horror) that a trip we did to Florida in May is *completely* missing from the blog. (I'm still trying to figure out if I have some unpublished posts lurking somewhere, because I just don't know how that happened!) So I will try to work on that. My first order of business is to write about my New Year's trip to Florida.
Anyhoo, back to the calendar. If you want a shot at the calendar, leave a comment on here before Monday, January 14 at 11:59 pm (Pacific time), which says something about your diving in 2012... maybe a favorite dive, or a favorite critter, how much you love your p-valve, or whatever. I don't think I can pick a favorite dive, since I've had a surprising number of really good dives (despite a somewhat low number of overall dives). But I really liked the flamboyant cuttlefish that we saw in the Philippines (which is, of course, featured in the calendar).
Once again this year, I ran some numbers to summarize the year in diving (and once again I punished myself by using Excel, instead of a relational database). I did 86 dives this year, which is only barely lower than my count for 2011 (88), but since like 25 of those were concentrated in one week (in the Philippines), you can see why it seems like I didn't dive very much. Also, only 37 of the dives were local. (I didn't include any dives assisting with classes, which was probably another 8 days or so. Plus for some reason I didn't count the dives for the BAUE project, I guess because they weren't blogged, which was another 7 dives, I think.)
This year I dove with 18 distinct dive buddies, which is up a bit from last year. The top 5 buddies by dive count has changed only a little:
| Rob | 68 |
| Kevin | 20 |
| Ted | 7 |
| John | 6 |
| Clinton | 4 |
And the numbers by type of dive are:
| Rec | 39 |
| Tech | 24 |
| Cave | 25 |
And I know those numbers don't add to 86, but you're all smart, and I'm sure you can figure out why if you think really hard about it.
Happy New Year!
7 comments:
Lots of memorable dives in 2012 for me, even with the unfortunate lack of diving late in the year. I think I'll go with a 2 part story.
Part 1 starts out returning up the slope at breakwater after a night dive in bad vis. I heard a blood curdling scream and looked to where Vanessa should have been and instead saw an adorable little swell shark. Naturally I tried to take pictures of it. Apparently this is not the right thing to do when your buddy is attacked by a shark.
Part 2 was back at the breakwater for revenge where you, Vanessa and I found another swell shark. It tried to get away from the cameras but it turns out an organized team of 3 can wrangle a shark pretty effectively.
Swell Shark
Clinton
I finally got to the Saint Lawrence River to do a few dives. Granted, I did it during the summer months to avoid the cold water. This was the first time that I have dived on a wooden wreck. The way the structure was built simply fascinated me. I plan to go back again this summer and expand my wreck experience.
Great year of diving for me, Got my AOW and Rescue cert while doing some great dives. Monastery north was my favorite dive with visibility in the 30 to 25ft range. my first night dive was also very impressive with the complete change of charterers in the kelp. 2012 was a great year, here's to hoping 2013 is even better
It was a year of trying to get a reliable can light and a tiny piece of almond getting stuck in my p-valve resulting in some cold extremities. :)
2012 is my most memorable year of diving yet.. All of it in cold water too!
Low numbers for me too though.
Here's the breakdown.
Total in 2012: 53
Technical: 12
Recreational: 33
Rec - assisting w/class: 8
Rec - singles wing: 10
Rec - 32% AL80 stage: 9
w/Scooter: 24
Vacation dives: 0
Air: 0
Buddies
Erik S: 20
Ted P: 10
Karl R: 10
Jon M: 4
Dionna H: 1
Ben V: 1
Beto N: 1
John H: 1
Matt V: 1
Andrew B: 1
Clinton B: 1
Mykle H: 1
Brian B: 1
Teresa S: 1
Most memorable dives and probably #2 and #3 all time favorites now for 2012;
* Somewhere on the Outer Outer Pinnacles -- amazing conditions, beautiful site and my first (only) Ratfish sighting.
* 3 nixies and dos gatos with a massive bait ball and 100+ viz.
Other memorable moments;
* Playing with sea lions in 20', lobos rocks, scooters -- dive buddy Beto
* Sur19 w/80-100' viz
* Cupcakes - The site 1st, and the story behind the site name 2nd
-Doug
Drat! If I knew that you had only partnered with Clinton on 4 dives, we should have buddies up on all the dives in Florida. I would have made your top #5 list.
Thanks for playing everyone. I have posted the winner here.
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