Fall colors are really starting to show through, and I'm walking to dance now as much as possible to elongate the time I get to spend outside enjoying this gorgeous weather. Speaking of dance...
It's almost in full swing! I've already started teaching the choreography for my competition dances, I've met with at least half of my solos and duos, and I'm currently at the studio three nights a week. It's been crazy so far, and it's only going to get more crazy. SO many ladies and tap shoes and sequins and smiles! I'm already picking out costumes for the year, and even though I say this every year, I feel like I'm going to have some of my best dances ever! OH my goodness!
In other news, I finally got around to starting up the climbing club at my college!
We have a small bouldering wall, and on Wednesday I spent a good hour doing inventory of holds, gear, and even set a quick route (see the blue tape? ME!). I've put out some emails to contact gear reps about educational orders, and hopefully I can turn this in to a once or twice a week get-together for our students! We'll see what happens...
My other big (BIG) news for the week was I went on my first Lake Superior dive! It turned in to a lot of new experiences; for instance, I dove in a dry suit for the first time!
Lake Superior is cold, especially down deep, so wearing a dry suit was pretty important if you plan on being in the water for any extended period of time.
I dove with two exceedingly experienced divers, so I wasn't too concerned when we got to the diver's parking lot next to Split Rock Lighthouse near dusk.
By the time we had all our gear on and did our safety checks, it was dark.
This meant that I also did my first night dive, where you can really only see where you shine your flashlight underwater. That created an added layer of eerie to the experience!
Oh, and we were also diving the Madeira shipwreck!
(Photo taken from www.superiortrips.com)
This is one of the bigger wrecks on Lake Superior, famous because it's the reason the Split Rock Lighthouse exists! It was unfortunately too dark for us to get any pics of us diving underwater (don't worry- those will come later!), but the above pic is of the bow of the wreck, which lies about 30 feet down. We stayed mostly on the bow for our dive. We got to peek through the holes to the inside of the bow, look at all the fish, and even though diving in darkness was really really spooky, it was an incredible experience!
(With my dive partner Tony, after we got in from the dive)
I can't even describe how exciting and terrifying it was. It was my first Lake Superior dive, my first dive outside of a structured "class", my first dive in a dry suit, and my first night dive. My flippers fell off, I had a few moments of panic, but overall, it blew my mind.
And it made me excited to go back for more!
Hopefully the next time, it'll be in the daylight, so I can see the entire wreck laid out before me...
OOOOOH MY GOODNESS... :)
1 comment:
We still smile when reminiscing your call to describe this dive. We have some great memories diving the Madiera, but nothing like your 1st dive. Uffda!
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