Dive Fest 2008, part 1

**Disclaimer – I know the dive fest posts are terribly backdated, just roll with it**

Happy Birthday to me on Friday 9/26. Not only did last weekend mark my 28th birthday, but it marked MSD’s 10th Annual Dive Fest, and it was my first year in attendance. The weekend started early. Mike Sweeny picked me up on Friday afternoon and we headed to the cklahr residence to grab Curtis. It was a cozy drive to Brainerd with the 3 of us crammed in the front seat of Sweeny’s truck. We were one big happy.

Our first stop was MSD to get some tanks filled and pick up a dry suit for Curtis. Our timing was perfect because Ted showed up right after we did. After filling up, the four of us headed to the Dive Fest headquarters at the campground we were lucky enough to not have to stay at.

We hung around for the big reveal of the first three mines with poker chips. More importantly we wanted the clue for the medallion, which was worth a free season of fun dives. My personal goal was to find the medallion for bragging rights, and then give it to Curtis since he is the one who would benefit the most from it.

The first clue was “you have to be fit to get out of this pit.” My worst nightmare was starting to be realized as I remembered the place that Curtis and I took one look at before saying “[censored] that!” It was Feigh Downaway. Refer to my previous post where I said, and I quote, “One of the sites had a treacherous entrance point.”

Actually at the time it wasn’t all that bad. I never intended on diving Friday night because of my cold, which conveniently moved from my head into my chest Friday morning. Looking down the treacherous entrance point I was quite happy that I wouldn’t be scaling it. But inside I started to feel a little left out. We were the only ones at that particular dive site, and as Sweeny put it so eloquently, we were either geniuses or really stupid. I decided if the group victoriously found the medallion on the first night, I wanted to be a part of it. Sheer cliffs or otherwise. I went ahead with the dive.