Divers In -- Trash Out

This is a picture of four of our best diving buddies; Micky & Debbie D. and David & Debbie Y. We had a great time diving in the Comal River a couple of weeks ago. We participated in a trashfest sponsored by Texas Gulf Coast Council of Dive Clubs in New Braunfels, TX. There were three teams of eight divers each representing our East Texas area and Scuba Steves Aquatic Adventures, we all did quite well in the competition, earning a second and fourth place in the weight category, and a third place in the number of items picked up. My team was the Reef Rangers we weighed in 556 pounds of trash. The Angelfish weighed in 372 pounds and the Chicken Divers had 1083 pieces of trash. Our divers worked so hard to get that trash out of the water, bagged and then up two very long flights of stairs. The TGCCDC reports:

"We had perfect weather and 294 participants on 42 teams. All told, we weighed in 4353 lbs of trash from the river, and counted another 7215 cans, plus 229 shoes and sunglasses. The participation figure is a record for this decade, and the shoes and sunglasses number was the highest count in 10 years!"

Saturday evening we were all treated to a fabulous BBQ dinner
and awards were handed out. All our of teams earned "Super Scooper" dive
shirts. There was also a drawing for some nice prizes and a few of our folks
were lucky then too (not me this time). The best reward for me was when some of the people floating down the river thanked us for cleaning up the river. That's what it was all about and we had some much fun doing it. We have such a good group of people we dive with. They have all become friends and we look forward to our next adventure.

Geocaching

Geocaching is one of my new interests. (Pronounced 'geo cashing') I was introduced to this new sport last spring by my oldest son and his wife. They took me on my first hunt and it was so much fun!! If you haven't heard of it this is the definition from Geocaching.com.

"Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache."

A cache is a treasure, so basically it's a treasure hunt using a GPS. This is a sport done all over the world and in almost every one's home town. All you need is a decent GPS and a computer to download your coordinates. You can keep to the simple caches that are easy to get to, or you can do the off road, out in the boondocks searches.

I have now figured out how to find caches in my area on the computer and load them on my GPS. The next step is to go find them, which I am planning on doing very soon. My name on the geocaching site is smithtrekkers, if you want to look me up. The picture is of me after I found my first cache with my kids in the Virginia area. I hope some of you will try this new sport. It's really something different, a lot of fun, and a good way to get out of the house. You might even get a little exercise. Go to the geocaching site and read more about it.

My First

I have read plenty of blogs, but this is my first to actually write myself. I'm not sure how good I'm going to be at this. I've never been much of a writer, but it seems like a good way to share things with friends and family. My family is scattered across the fifty states and I don't get to see them very much. This will give me a way to share things about the traveling my husband and I like to do and all the other exciting stuff going on in my life, which might not be exciting to anyone else but me...

So, stay tuned and I will try to add tidbits about things I love the most: scuba diving, beaches, books, cats, good food, bargains, and my wonderful family.