Making the Best of a Rainy Day in Florida

The only bad thing about scuba diving is getting up early to do it. We were up at 7:00 today to get ready so we could be at the dive shop by 8:00am. We dove with Conch Republic Divers in Tavernier, the same company we used last year. They are really nice and friendly there, and we liked the dive sites, so we gave them our business again this year. We rented equipment, got on the boat, and were off by 8:30 on our way to Conch Reef. This was Allie's first dive since we got certified last year, and she did a great job. We saw lots of good fish, and Allie found a big green eel in one of the caves. After we dove Conch Reef, the boat took us to Davis Reef, which we had visited last year. Davis Reef has lots of good fish and, again, Allie found a huge green eel. I think she has eeldar. I hereby name her Queen of the Eels. After our Davis Reef dive, it was raining, so we sat in the front of the boat to dry off while we rode back.

After diving, we are always ridiculously hungry, and there is a restaurant a bit down the road from the dive shop that we like. It's called Boardwalk Pizza and advertises itself as offering "Real Italian Food from Jersey." I had a cheesesteak (on an Amoroso's roll!) and Allie had a spinach calzone. Mmmm! After lunch, we were ready for showers and relaxing. It was still raining, so the pool was out of the question. Allie took a nap and I decided to go to mile marker 82 to visit the History of Diving Museum. On the way down there, I saw a sign at the city rec center for a "float-in movie." Awesome. I wish I had a boat.

I think Allie has eeldar.

The History of Diving Museum is in a small building with a huge Guy Harvey mural of sea life on it. The exhibit is extremely interactive -- they want you to go ahead and touch anything that is not under glass. I did not realize that diving technology started in 360 BC with Aristotle...pretty basic, just an upside-down tub with air trapped inside, and you put your head inside the air to breathe. I also checked out an 18th-century diving bell invented by Edmond Halley (yes, the one with the comet), which was an air-filled chamber that was submerged with people inside to allow exploration. The museum has an incredible collection of old school diving helmets, like the old brass kind that they show in old movies and TV shows. I learned about William Beebe, who started the field of marine biology with diving expeditions, and Matt Johnston, a guy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who did two scuba dives in 2006 to become the first ventilator-dependent scuba diver ever (there was a video about him at the museum, and I am 95% sure he dove with our dive shop!). I also saw a good exhibit about scuba diving and Jacques Cousteau and rebreathers, and then I saw the super-deep-diving suits, which are like robots that can go hundreds of feet down with men inside. They each weigh about 1000 pounds, which makes my scuba gear seem ridiculously light.

The museum only took about 90 minutes to see, but it was really well done and extremely thorough. After I was done, I hung out in the gift shop waiting for the rain to stop and chatted with Karen Anne, the woman in charge. Once there was a break in the rain, I ran for the car and headed back north. On the way I stopped at a souvenir shop near our hotel at MM92 and got magnets and a silver pendant for myself that is made from silver recovered from a shipwreck. Groovy!

Allie and I went for an early dinner at Marker 88, a good seafood restaurant on the bay side of Islamorada that we liked last year. We were there in time to watch the sunset, which was a good treat. We had fish for dinner with key lime mojitos and key lime martinis. There was a guy there singing fun chill-out music -- we borrowed his bug spray because the no-see-'ums were eating us alive. After dinner, we came back to the hotel and watched What Not To Wear. What an awesome day!