Palm Beach, Topside

The M/V Shear Water leaves out of Palm Beach, Florida, and several of us arrived a couple of days early to hang out and do some local diving. Some folks don't use their cameras for months at a time, so a few local dives are the perfect way to get back into things.

Photographers (and friends) Douglas David Seifert and Todd Essick met up with us for dinner, which was very nice. I always eat a few meals at the Reef Grill in Juno Beach when I'm in town. I love that place.

As we prepared to leave on the Shear Water, all of the married folk ended up talking on mobile phones at the dock, saying their goodbyes and reassuring loved ones that we weren't going off to a watery, sharky end. :) Jimmy loads up the Shear Water with frozen bait, and then we are off to the Bahamas! A storm had hit Palm Beach only the day before, so I was pretty nervous that we would have a horrible crossing. Miraculously, the seas were nearly flat by evening.