Our last ‘gig’ was on February 21 at Florida Grande RV resort in the middle of the state. Then we came back to Fort Lauderdale because Jimmy Lyon, Jim’s old-time dive buddy was coming for a visit and they needed to go diving! They chose to go out on traditional boat dives, so I sat it out to stay home and get some more videos done. As long as they came home with lobster, I would be happy!
And, here’s a video that Jim took with his GoPro camera and then edited with MovieMaker and uploaded to youtube. http://youtu.be/SApxr3SS2W0
Here’s a shorter one that just shows capturing the lobster. http://youtu.be/cHwX9NbdS6g
First on my agenda was to visit my Mom. There’s a wonderful little park called Royal Palm within a mile of her assisted living facility and I like picking her up and taking her there for a walk.
Then, another day, both Jim and I picked her up and took her to the beach up in Boca. Sometimes I think my Mom and I are twins instead of mother/daughter. Look at the pictures below and I’ll bet you agree?! I sure hope that doesn’t mean I have the same future of Alzheimer’s in store for me. But, just in case … I’m cramming in all the living I can do now … and trying to make enough money to save for assisted living too!
February and March in Fort Lauderdale is an impossible time to find an RV site. People book sites a year in advance for those dates and, of course, we had no reservations at all. Our home park of Paradise Island can usually find an overflow site for us, but even that wasn’t available, so we had to spend a few nights in a local parking lot. Then we were able to get a couple nights at our favorite park of Easterlin County park. After that, we had to go back to the parking lot, then one night at Paradise, then 3 nights at Easterlin but at 2 different sites. Then, finally we got a site at Paradise for the 8 days left before leaving for the FMCA convention in Perry, GA. The parking lot would have been cheaper, but we had lots of work to do to get prepared for the FMCA rally, we like full hookups!
Easterlin County Park is truly lovely! Except for the traffic noise, you would have no idea you are in the middle of Fort Lauderdale.
Here’s our site now at Paradise Island RV park.
I spent much of my time writing, re-writing, and researching the booklets for our hands-on classes next week at the FMCA RV Rally. As well as revising handouts for the Escapade in May because they need to be sent in well in advance to give them time for printing. One tough thing about our business, you simply cannot rest – as soon as you print some instructions, they’re out of date. Rarely do we use a set of handouts more than once.
But, there was one day this week that was just SOO gorgeous that I had to say YES! to Jim’s suggestion that we go kayak diving! After all, this is just about my most favorite thing to do in the whole wide world and this is the only place we can do it. So, when we checked the Fort Lauderdale beach webcam and the ocean looked like a lake on a sunny, peaceful day – we took off. Didn’t catch any lobster, and the water was a bit chilly for me (73 degrees) but I’m really glad we went. It just doesn’t get any better than this:
If you’re going to the FMCA convention in Perry, GA next week be sure to stop at our table in the Info center and say Hi!
Here's the complete program for the FMCA RV Rally next week. Once you open it, you can use the search tool to find everywhere that Geeks on Tour are scheduled! We'll be giving 6 regular seminars and 2 hands-on workshops for smartphones and tablets. The seminars are included with admission - all you need to do is show up. The workshops require pre-registration and a $40 fee. We'll start registering people at 7am on Monday from our table in the Info Center.
We are so lucky! Both Jim and I have the same #1 most favorite thing to do in the whole wide world. Scuba Diving. And our favorite way to scuba dive is off our Kayaks. Fort Lauderdale is one of the few places in the world where this is so feasible, and it’s only a 15 minute drive from where we are. The conditions do have to be just right though – you want a nice sunny day, and you want the ocean to be calm. Paddling a kayak in the ocean is a workout, you don’t want to be fighting wind and waves. So, we check the webcam from Fort Lauderdale beach just about every morning and, if it looks good we gotta go. Unless of course, we have some actual appointments scheduled for that day. Just having work to do doesn’t count. We woke up Monday morning and saw this webcam image:
I actually like the ocean to be flatter than that, but this is doable, and the weather report was for the sun to keep shining all day and the wind to stay the same. I had a lot of website work on my plate for the day, but I asked myself, “In a year from now what will I remember from today? That I got my website work done? Or that I went Kayak Diving!” That is such an easy question to answer! Also, it’s great exercise, and we need that. There have been 2 days during January where we got wet! The first time the water temp was 75, the second time it was 72 degrees. It’s a good thing I found an old wetsuit of Mom’s to wear over mine – I prefer to limit my diving to water over 80 degrees. I rack up extra ‘good wife’ points for going diving in January!
First dive – January 12
Jim caught 5 lobster that day.
![2014-01-12 15.16.10[1]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5JUi-ovXjlj8r0E_wWXbBcfUYJ59D4mibVZJHThPCrJr4rHof6wAK902ga-qS0TE-6nUQsYT_cxFINyN16rMXUYJvDGdIhstmTyfkfKYnSt1_4N-2obO6Jn4zVMOAaQ94e62x/s1600-h/2014-01-12%25252B15.16.10%25255B1%25255D%25255B3%25255D.jpg "2014-01-12 15.16.10[1]")
Next dive – January 27
![2014-01-27 10.04.32[1]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha_nKGNc6Q58krTek5Kku9FrkmruDXY99lDLpTpYqLCbB9-W-w5ABz1VALUQbP4Z5iAUiYehPRQZb1jaOao9aZAxfg_kSVz04mQOyg9jIBoA3SX_yQLpqUfYWx_T5uWm10ELeV/s1600-h/2014-01-27%25252B10.04.32%25255B1%25255D%25255B7%25255D.jpg "2014-01-27 10.04.32[1]")
Those are the only pictures I took, and we didn’t take the GoPro with us diving this time. It was a nice dive, Jim caught 2 lobster – enough for a good dinner! And, we definitely got a workout since the wind and current took us a ways north and we had to paddle against the wind and the current in order to get back to the beach by our car. If I had been exercising in a gym, I would have quit less than halfway saying, “That’s enough.” But you can’t do that when you’re in a kayak in the ocean – you gotta paddle! We made it and felt great. Here’s a video from a previous dive that shows what it’s like.
By the way, if you’d like to learn how to make a video like that, you can do so with the videos on our website. Movie Maker is one of the things we teach. And, that’s how we make our living … y’know – that “Website work” that I didn’t get done because we went Kayak Diving!? Anyway, you’ll find Movie Maker Tutorial Videos on our membership website: www.geeksontour.tv. The first 3 videos in each topic are free for anyone to watch, for the rest, you’ll need to become a member – and you’ll help make it possible for us to put fuel in the RV and to do things like go Kayak Diving!
Today we hit the road again because we are scheduled to give a seminar at Royal Coachmen RV Resort in Nokomis, FL, and then Riverside RV Resort in Arcadia. It’s over on the west coast. We had no idea that our RV would still be in the shop at this point, but it is. So, we’re going to have to find a motel room rather than parking at the RV park. BUMMER!
In the morning, Jim went for a kayak dive. Check out the video to see why Fort Lauderdale can be such a great place to be.
Then, Mom and I went to her Society of Women Geographers meeting at Sandy and Georgia’s home in Coral Gables (South Miami.) We’ve been there before and we always know we’re in for a treat with the gorgeous garden. Georgia Tasker was the garden writer for the Miami Herald for nearly 40 years and now works for Fairchild Gardens. And Sandy grows award-winning orchids. There were too many pictures to post individually, so here’s a slide show: (if you click on the slide show it will take you to my Picasa Web Album where you can see the pictures full screen)
I’m sure glad we enjoyed Sunday’s weather because it’s cold today and getting even colder tomorrow. They say it may be freezing.
We got back just in time to go to our Kayuba Club picnic at John U Lloyd State Beach. We hoped to go kayak diving, but it was too windy.
See for yourself in this little video we put together.
I really do need to write in here more often. Once 3 days goes by – then I feel overwhelmed and I don’t know what to write about – so I don’t. It’s so much easier when we’re on the road and each day is it’s own separate event. When we’re parked, the days all seem to run into each other – and so much of what we do doesn’t seem ‘bloggable.’
What I want to tell you about is Monday. We tried to go kayak diving on Sunday (it’s the closest thing to church that we do) but it was too windy. Monday morning, we woke up to a perfectly calm day … here’s how the conversation went:
Jim: “We should go diving.”
Me: “No, we have too much work to do.”
Jim: “Which is more important? Work or diving?”
Me: “Work, because it’s what allows us to pay for our lifestyle.” I said, unconvincingly
Jim: “We can work anytime. When conditions are right, we need to go diving.”
hmmmm … I think he’s right. We went diving. The ocean was perfect – see video below. I still felt guilty though – we so often choose play over work. So, if our newsletter is a little late, or you can’t get all our Picasa videos yet because we haven’t uploaded them to the right webpage, or you’re a website client still waiting for the finished product, or we haven’t answered your email, or … well – you’ll know why.
I don’t think Jim feels guilty at all … do men not have the ‘guilt gene?’
What a gorgeous day yesterday. I decided to take a break from working on our new book … Beginner’s Guide to Picasa 3.5 … and go kayak diving with Jim.
What an excellent choice. Just take a look at that ocean!
We take our time getting the kayaks ready, and socializing with other Kayuba members who are also going diving.
I had a song in my heart to be paddling on this flat calm ocean. And, I might have let a few lines slip thru my vocal chords as well … sorry Jim and Bill :-) This is church to me.
Then, we went diving!
Jim caught 3 lobsters of legal size – we had a good dinner. We also saw a nice turtle, and my favorite … the yellow headed jawfish.
Here’s dinner, ready to put on the grill. It doesn’t get any fresher that this!
It was a perfect day on Thursday and then just slightly less so today. We went diving both days. Jim convinced me to go again today because I probably won't go again for the rest of the winter. The water is 73 degrees right now - that's a bit chilly for me. I like it at 80 or more!
Surprisingly, I didn't get very cold. I just love this diving so much!
Bill, the manager of the park here, has been bitten by the kayak diving bug too! It's fun to introduce someone new to our favorite pasttime.
Here we are getting the boats ready.
Here's Bill and Ray getting ready;
And, here's dinner!
Three divers ... aren't they cute with their silly hats?
![chris-kayak-dive[1]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEtBezcJc5iW5AEsUvFyEQVEFYZdaXG6cjXNdkr14PpQ9zd3Y8cfVk-ihhyYTudXQ9UwSXvU8YwC1QM6fpVUlR6T7MEf3uzutpTWVf9Nl_oB3cZKsaaaUAIXmjc2scF8955qwq/s1600-h/chris-kayak-dive%25255B1%25255D%25255B3%25255D.jpg "chris-kayak-dive[1]")