I woke early, about 5:30am. I'd been looking forward to this dive and for once I had everything all packed and ready the night before.. 

For those of you with children you will fully understand my next move.. this was my first opportunity for payback.   I jumped out of bed and danced around in the kids rooms yelling.. hey it's Christmas day Woohooo, I bounced off Lizzy's bunk several times and 
then jumped up and down on Vicky's bed a couple of times just to make sure.. Needless to say even the teenager was awake, so we all checked to see what Santa had brought us. They weren't too mad at me either ;-). 

After this the girls got ready to head off to Dad's house and I headed down to Islamorada.. I was so happy to be driving early, this is my favorite drive.   With the sun just beginning to come up,  along the 18mile stretch the everglades are like a sea of mist with little islands in it. 

I passed Z on the way down (but he didn't see me LOL!!). I arrived at Lady Cyana painfully early and we got drafted to help set up the tables for lunch.. To my surprise there was also a wedding going on at the dive store, and we watched the bride and groom get married on the dock in their bathing suits. It wasn't an underwater wedding since the groom had recently had a ruptured eardrum :-(. 

I can't tell you enough about how nice the weather was.. the seas were TOTALLY FLAT, and even had that silky look.   Not only this,  it was sunny too :-).  Unfortunately I had forgotten about the Lady Cyana mandatory snorkel rule, and had left my little pink gem of a snorkel in the bathroom at home. Not to worry though, they seemed to have smart green snorkels for everyone (including Z, whom I have never seen with a snorkel before!!).   The first dive was on the Eagle. We grabbed our gear, intent on being the first down on the wreck.. yet I still didn't see any big ol' fishies today. There was a slight current but nothing to really worry about.   We explored the entire length of the ship and I took several pictures of JR with his camera.   Z was of course grabbing pictures too,  and I was really grouchy because I had forgotten my own camera, it was still bobbing about in the bucket of water on deck (my fault for trying to be first on the wreck I suppose :-/..).

The Eagle is about 280ft long and is laying on it's side in the sand and is also broken into two halves (this happened in an earlier hurricane, it used to be in one piece). It actually became a better dive after it broke into two because now there is more access to the interior of the cargo holds. Visibility was pretty good,  I'd estimate about 60-70ft. I had made a commitment to dive in my dry suit from now on until the winter is over.  Mainly for the reasons of ensuring that I have it completely under control before I try a 200ft ascent in it!!. It seems to be working,  i'm actually getting used to the thing,  and I haven't been cold or wet for a whole week now <big smile>. Well; I mean after all the water is down to 74 degrees, Yikes!!

The second dive was on Alligator reef.. This time I managed to remember my camera and spent most of the dive taking really bad pictures as usual.. However I did do payback since Z never gets pictures of himself underwater I made it my business to get lots of him. The reef is just like diving in a giant fish tank. If you simply hang out in the water and try to stay still, the fish swarm around you almost as if you aren't there.  Because it was sunny the water was really blue and I noticed how striking the little yellow grunts are with an intense blue background. I also spotted several humongous lobsters all hanging out waving Merry Christmas with their antennas (I'd swear they know it's a no take zone). I could have stayed there all day, but those guys on the boat don't like you to run out of air so eventually we had to leave, and go back to the real world.

Christmas lunch at the dock was great.. Turkey, green beans with bacon, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy.. YUMMMY... and then followed by Champagne and Wedding cake.

This is definitely an awesome way to spend Christmas day and one I won't forget for a long time to come.

Thanks to my excellent dive buddies, Z and JR.

Click below to see a wreck documentary and  pictures
Eagle Documentary by Mark Zurl