Palm Beach, Topside

I elected to forgo local Palm Beach diving this year, mostly because I had just come off of a few months away from home and had an idea that I would spend two days relaxing. Instead, I had to fight with the ExtendedStay Palm Beach people, who called me two days before the trip to inform me that they had overbooked and would have to move our group to a hotel in Boca Raton (an hour away). And, of course, James and I were given a smoking room. Boycott ExtendedStay hotels! I'll never staying there again.

James and I spent considerable time shuttling the group around as individuals arrived at the airport, but we did get to hang out with Douglas Seifert and his crazy old cats at his place in Juno Beach, which was nice. We also had a huge group dinner at an Asian-food buffet recommended by a friend. It was pretty good, but having lived in San Francisco and New York City (where there is fantastic Asian food of all types), seeing an "Asian food" buffet scares the crap out of me. :) Aside from our group of divers, we were joined for dinner by Ryan Canon, Ken Weemhoff (plus his son, wife, and a friend), Jim Abernethy, and Laz Ruda.