Day 19 – Tuesday, February 15, 2011 - Key West, FL
Today I am scuba diving on the sunken vessel the Vandenberg. The Vandenberg was a US Air Force Missile Tracking vessel, it has large satellite dishes and other antennas on it decks. It was sunk about 18 months ago, so it is a new underwater reef, in fact it is called an artificial reef.
The dive profile is go down to 100ft, which is the main deck depth, then after about 20 minutes start a slow assent to the surface. The visibility is disappointing at about 30ft, so that is normal for what I have seen for the other dives so far here in the Key's. Lots of Barracuda's on guard, but was impressive was the 5,000 bait fish swimming as a ball, they blocked the view of the bridge, anyway I did swim through the bridge and explore the antenna, as on my decent I landed in the middle of one and had to swim out (up). That was unexpected.
The second dive is back on the Vandenberg, which is a plus and I am glad not doing a shallow reef dive again, which would have been the case in the Cayman's, so after an hour surface interval it is back down. This time we are spending more time mid ship, this vessel is over 700ft in length, this time we are exploring the lower bridge area and some of the antenna arrays, but the ball of bait fish is still hanging around as are the barracuda's, a slightly different dive profile, as we bottom out at 89ft, vs 100ft, assent will be the same. I am diving on mixed air NITROX at 32% oxygen, so my decompression time is reduced.
In the afternoon we are going the “Little White House”, in Truman Annex. BTW Truman Annex is now a very high end gated community (http://www.compass-realty.com/) for more info.
When Harry S. Truman was President of the United States, he spent a lot of time (175 days in total) in Key West, he had a vacation place at the time inside of US Navy Base at Key West, this home has been turned into a Presidential Site, and the tour is well worth the 1 hour. All the rooms and furniture are authentic as his the President's desk with my favorite sign “the buck stops here”. I lived by his motto most of my working life, not sure my bosses liked my approach, (ruthlessness) but it worked for me for 40+ years. So check out this link (www.trumanlittlewhitehouse.com/key-west/historic-home-museum-tour.htm) My other favorite line for WWII, is “we take no prisoners”, that worked too.
Besides the railway connection, Frank was heavily involved in the Niagara Bruce Trail Club for a number of years as I and is an active hiker even at age 80. Frank is out on most of our railway trips so his age is not slowing him down.
Ken and Karen in Key West, FL
No comments:
Post a Comment