Getting there

Day 1 & 2

In the early hours of June 20^th, Michael woke up at 2:30am and announced he couldn’t sleep, lets go. As we packed the car the night before, we loaded up the cooler and Alex and were on the road by 3:23am. We left a rainy and cold New Jersey and made our way south. 19 hours later, we wearily arrived at our stopping point for the night, the Days Inn in West Palm Beach.

The next morning after an IHOP breakfast, we scouted out West Palm Beach. This was a potential destination for our second week of the trip, as we still hadn’t finalized our plans. We didn’t know how Alex was going to like Florida. Around 11:30 we were on our way to Key Largo. Once arrived, we checked into the Marina del Mar and got Alex settled with the central air-conditioning set for 70 degrees.

As I didn’t take the photo class, this report will not contain the details of that. What I can say is that there were some really amazing shots taken over the course of the week and we met some really awesome people, many of which I’d love to dive with again.

The Marina del Mar is convenient for this class. It’s a nice facility and its pet friendly. Though the policy states pets less than 30 pounds at the front desk, we obtained prior permission to bring Alex.

We used Ocean Divers for the diving. There large boats are ideal for this type of class. They were super and handle a group of 28 (twenty with camera equipment), quite well! Captain Craig was very animated and very knowledgeable while the divemaster Tim kept everything running smoothly.