Dive Fest 2009, part 2

After finishing up our dive we drove back to HQ to drop off our empty tanks so we would have them by the next morning. There was some live entertainment by a few of the divers that work for MSD. As entertaining as it might have been we opted for dinner instead. Since Gary’s, our favorite pop-by-the-can restaurant, had apparently closed it’s doors we drove around Crosby looking for a tasty looking place. I spotted a restaurant off the main drag called Ya Betcha. It was a nice little place with delicious food and a sign that said “welcome bikers” (no mention of whether or not they welcome back door guests). I’d eat there again.

We were all pretty tired after dinner so we decided to head back to Blog Cabin to hang our stuff to dry and hit the hay. I think we all knew that nothing was going to dry in the rainy condition that the weather was in. Dried wet suits are pipe dreams during Dive Fest. However, I would much rather struggle to put on a soggy suit for the entire weekend then have the water pump be on the fritz. That was unfortunate.

In the morning we were all out of bed by 6:30ish. That’s 6:30AM… Happy Birthday to me indeed. We left the waterless cabin by 7am and opted to try a new place for breakfast. That decision may or may not have to do with Mike and Kristen finding ants in the syrup at our regular haunt. Since North Country Cafe was on the Dive Fest sponsor list and was listed as having “fabulous breakfast” we decided to try our luck there.

We picked a nice round table at the front of the restaurant. The service and the food was good. We even met a nice gentleman who asked us where we were from, then proceeded to tell us about all the gang bangers in our areas and how he used to hear gun shots all the time and even got stabbed in the face *pointed to scar* when he lived in the cities. Yikes. I don’t even think I’ve seen a “gang banger” in real life. Good thing my back was to him because I kept having to face away from him to hide my smile.

Once at HQ we packed up our filled tanks and waited for the next medallion clue. Adam was there waiting for us already, another welcome addition to our quest. Todd gave us the question regarding the dive table. Good thing Ted had a table with him. The question involved finding the minimum surface interval required between two dives, that number would be a hint for the dive site. It took us a bit of speculating since we all have computers and no one remembered how to use the dive table. Todd did coach us a little bit as everyone had cleared out to go dive. We finally figured it out… 1:19 was the answer. As Math Wiz Kristen pointed out, the answer is also 79.

On the way back to PADI #79 I kept having nightmarish visions of all the vehicles that had time to beat us there, but as we pulled down the hill there was no one. There were other people spotted with dive tables, did they not figure it out? Or were they not in it for the medallion? It made no sense. We wasted no time suiting up for the dive.