You for Scuba?

Sooo Jake Berman is FINALLY scuba certified! It was a long, boring drive to Panama City where I stayed at a janky Red Roof Inn but man, what a fun trip!

I got there Thursday night amidst a group of bikers (it ended up being Biker Week, kind of scary). Checked into my hotel at 10pm and prepared for the next day. 

On Saturday we went to a place called Vortex Springs in Ponce de Leon which was a natural spring with about 150ft caverns. The water was crystal clear and 68 degrees. Lots of really cool fish, eel, and neat caves to explore. The deepest I got was about 40ft so nothing too special but it was still a cool place to go dive!

There were some other people there, about 20 of us, a lot of sheriffs, and EMS people getting re-certified. My diving buddy was a guy named Austin. 

I spent the rest of Friday evening reading Econ and eating delish Chinese food!

Saturday morning started out early, arriving at the docks at 6:30am to go about 30 minutes out into the Gulf to scuba on a sunken bridge. Very, very, very cool. It was really weird first jumping out into the ocean. Very different from a pool. Hard to get used to the waves, how deep it was, not being able to see the bottom. We made two separate dives. The first dive I made it to about 50ft and the second one I stood on the bottom and I was at 70ft!!

It was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done. There were schools and schools of fish, Grouper and Barracuda. The bridge was full of coral with all sorts of interesting fish on it. It was so great. 

The countdown is at 7 days! WOW. I cannot believe in a week I'll be moving to San Antonio. Too bad I have 4 finals before then :( Come oooon Thursday evening!