Birthday fun and family visit were both over with, and it was time to get back to normal life again. We’d been promising the kids they could try out scuba diving this year, and with a dive shop always within spitting distance on Roatan, this was as good a place as any to do it.
I can’t tell you how much it irks me that two of our solar panels are different sizes. We brought that last pair back with us after visiting Grammy this summer. Same panels as all the others according to our Amazon order history, and we had no idea when the boxes arrived, but when I went to install them they had shrunk by a couple inches on each side. If we’d been in the States they would have been returned and I would have tracked down the right size, but down here there isn’t much to do but let it bother me every time I take a drone pic of the boat.
West End, Roatan.
Gearing up for the first dive.
This was Ouest’s true tenth birthday. One last bit of birthday fun.
The kids took to scuba like they’d been doing it their whole lives. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find a scuba outfit willing to take an eight year-old beyond the pool and into the depths like Lowe would like to go. Ouest did great and could just keep going towards some sort of certification, but they both want to do it together, so it looks like next level scuba is going to wait one more year. Then we’ll fudge Lowe’s age a teensy bit and I’ll take the course with them.
Grandpa sent along some birthday money which they were both happy to translate into new snorkels and fins. They’ve never had a dry snorkel before, and have always been jealous of mine, so they were pretty stoked about the upgrade.
7 Comments on “First Dive”
I took a look at your solar panel shot, which I agree, is annoying. If you have no other boat projects going on, (like that is a probability!) why not align all the bigger panels in rows, and then have the two smaller panels at the rear of the assembly. At least it will then look balanced. Something like this:
biggggg biggggg
biggggg biggggg
biggggg biggggg
small small
I like your plan but you would need 8 panels and I think we are looking at 4 panels.
I agree, that was the first thing I saw as well, shouldn’t be too hard to relocate those unless the mounting holes would need patching and that’s a whole different deal.
Pictures are awesome as usual.
David.
My wife and daughter got open water certified in Cozumel after doing the classroom work via the app. I did a refresher course (certified in the ‘80s) with them and I was glad I did. Have fun.
Would love to know the place you used? Ethan isn’t ready yet, but perhaps in a year? Would love to try him out in the pool when he is 9 though.
Take care and Happy New Year!
We used Splash Inn in West End but there were a few places that offered it. From what I understood, 8 and 9 year olds can only do pool sessions. At 10, they will still need to do 3 pool sessions before going in the ocean. So we decided to wait for next year when Lowe is 9 to do it again.
Happy 2020 to your gang too!
Pat, just paint a black border around the small ones to make the outline the same as the big ones and don’t say another word about the sized . I took a scuba class with a 10yo in Newport RI, he did well, and I know your two will do even better.
Happy New Year to you all!
Bruce T. Shark