Bonneville Seabase

In first getting to know Jay and Rich, we found out that we were all scuba certified. I have to say... when you find this out about people, it is an instant bond, an instant connection. I guess it is because you don't meet a lot of people who are certified and I feel like I am always trying to find buddies to dive with. So when we all found this out... we talked about going on a dive together.

There were a couple of problems with this. One being that we live in Utah and there are not many places to dive there, and two being that Jay had not gone on a dive since he was certified about two years ago and Rich had not been on a dive since he was certified about 4 years ago. Normally, if you have not been on a dive in that long, they like for you to take a refresher course with an instructor which who knows how much that costs. I then remembered that James and I had talked about scuba diving together at a place called the Bonneville Seabase. James had told me about it and we were both certified and planned on going but then never did. My brother in law also had told me about it, so I started looking into it. I called the guy that runs it and asked him if Jay and Rich needed refresher courses before diving there and he said no. This was PERFECT! This way Jay and Rich could dive, get some practice in and when we go to the Channel Islands to dive, they will have a recent dive. So I scheduled a day for us to go. Star Wars day (May the 4th) and we took the day off of work and drove out to the middle of nowhere to go diving. We were excited. It literally was out in the middle of nowhere an hour and a half away. In fact, we drove right by it and didn't even notice right away. When we realized this was the place... we laughed. When looking at the pictures... you can see why.

Although this place is out in the middle of nowhere... it was going to be great practice for me because we would be diving in salt water with actual fish. The guy was very nice and called me and made sure I was going to be there for the fish feeding. This is when we saw a little of what we would be getting in the water with. Sting Ray's, Nurse sharks and many other tropical fish.

Then it was time to get in the water... this is of course after my wet suite problems. He put us in 7mm wet suites, which with my big hips was not the most easy task in the world. There was even one point where the guy told Jay to help me put it on and while I bounced up and down him and the guy would get me in. ha ha. Yeah, totally not embarrassing at all. He also asked me if my eyelashes were going to stay on. ha ha. I guess he had noticed they were fake but he still waited until the boys had gone back to the car for something. Anyway, in the water we went and he gave us each a head of lettuce. This was one of my favorite parts. The visibility was super crappy! Unless someone or something was right in front of your face, you couldn't see it. So the lettuce was awesome, because we would dive down with the lettuce and hold it out and TONS of fish would gather and eat it right out of your hands. Super awesome. Jay tried to get a picture of this... this was the best we got. I know...

After we finished up with our lettuce, we swam over to the other pool. Again, the visibility was SOOO bad. We were starting to get frustrated because we would all go down together but we would lose each other so fast. There was one point where we finally were all next to each other by the sunken ship and I was so happy, I just wanted to take in the moment and stay there together. There was an underwater box and Rich and Jay had both found it, but I did not. Rich started running low on air, but Jay and I were fine and I was determined to get to that box. Jay decided to try again to help me find the box. We went back down and he held my hand the rest of the time we were underwater together. Couldn't lose each other that way right? Next thing we know, we are swimming 20 feet deep and there is the box. Jay and I go in the box under water... and it is cool because there is compressed air in there. Jay and I said a few words together in there and then we were on our way.

Once we came back up from that, we were done diving. The guy decided before we got out, there was one more thing he wanted to do...  feed the really big fish. He had us all link arms and the last person  had their hand on a railing. He then threw raw fish meat right by us and all the big fish came out of nowhere to eat the food and I for sure got wacked in the face. He also told us to put our hands into fists so the fish don't eat our fingers like they enjoy doing. It was fun. Even though the visibility was so bad, we still had a blast and it was good practice. I just had to laugh when I came up from a dive and saw a semi drive by. So ghetto. We just laughed and made the best out of it. We still had a lot of fun. We are hoping now we can go to the channel Islands! Thanks Jay and Rich for a good time. I always have fun hanging out with you guys.