Retirement Anomie (part 2)

Ok. So here we are in Florida. It’s October. The Gulf Stream water temperature is 82 F.

For the last six years, the only time I went SCUBA diving was when I went to Puerto Rico in September to work on prepping an affiliate for audit. Then I would do 4 to 8 wall dives down in the sleepy fishing village of Parguera with Captain Angel.

Last year I had the pleasure of taking my son down to Puerto Rico. He wisely decided to snorkel and swim at the dive site (he hadn't dived for 20 years and he had six children hoping he would come back).

So, in the grand scheme of things, why not spend the next two months diving in the SCUBA Mecca’s of Palm Beach and the Keys. What is retirement all about, anyway?

My 1985 gear has gotten me though a lot of dives, but the pieces have been failing. The face mask fell apart in Puerto Rico last year. The buoyancy control device (BCD) blew out in Arkansas. The fin straps broke in Key West.\

Your gear keeps you alive 150 feet down. I think I need new regulators, new fins, a compass that works and a new BCD. I don’t really trust the old stuff anymore.

No…I’m not going to buy a dive computer. Real divers refer to their plastic dive table cards. I’ve done maybe 1800 open water dives. I’m a certified PADI Dive master. I should be diving more.

Back in the day, I always got more mileage and time out of my tank than the younger divers. Last year that wasn’t true. 51 years of heavy smoking is beginning to outweigh a relaxed frame of mind in terms of air consumption

That’s my take on the meaning of life. It should get us though a few months.

Doan Go THAT Way

La Parguera, Puerto Rico

I sit next to my son on the flight to Puerto Rico and remember bringing him and Mrs. Phred back from Tallahassee Memorial Hospital 37 years ago. He is sleeping next to me now. This is the first time we've spent together in many years.


We pick up the rental car and head west from San Juan to Arecibo and then down into the mountains to La Parguera. It takes three hours to drive 50 miles though the mountain switchbacks. We come to the intersection of 128 and 428. We decide to take 428. A man come out on his front porch and yells “Doan go THAT way!”. The road degenerates quickly into one lane and we expect to see banditos with machetes.We find a turnaround point and the man comes out and yells “I toll you!”. We laugh and wave.

The first dive is at 100 feet. I see stoplight parrotfish, queen angels (iridescent blue and gold) and trumpetfish. We do a five minute safety stop at 20 feet to bleed of nitrogen and a one hour surface interval and then go down again. Our divemaster is from Miani..we talk about visiting Cuba.


The 14 pounds of lead I’m carrying take me down very quickly. I’ve lost 30 pounds of fat since last year. Fat floats. 12 pounds is enough this year.

The next day the sea is much higher. Everyone on the boat is puking except me…I offer a bite of sandwich to a customer from Topeka who pukes on the deck next to me. I rented an underwater camera. The CD will be ready in the morning. I hope the shot of the green moray eel comes out.