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Voyager en Floride avec mon équipement de plongée

"You can't tell me you didn't have fun!" John, the ship's captain yelled over at me after he heard the story from the other divers.

I knew I had. But, it got a little hairy down there.

It seems that there was a huge 9,000 lbs. fishing net deposited miles off the Florida Keys. A diver had spotted it one day on a dive and was a little perturbed at all the marine life he found caught in the net. So, he put together a nice expedition that included quite a bit of volunteer divers. It was a nice little SCUBA package.

I was lucky enough to hear about the expedition and hopped on board as soon as I got the chance. Our job was to dive down and cut the net. We were supposed to tie up pieces of the net on air bags so they could be taken to the surface and placed on the boat.

Oh, it was a great time and it was for a good cause. But, there were some scary moments I have to admit. There was absolutely no visibility when we started cutting the net. Particles from the net started floating around and little bite size creatures started swimming everywhere.

With no visibility, I found myself in quite a situation as I felt the net start to rise. It seems that the others had already fastened their air bags and were ready to deploy the net without me. 300 lbs. of net had been cut in half an hour and rising to the surface.

Little did I know, I was actually inside the net instead of on the outside where everyone else was in the clear. I looked around and saw quite a bit of bones and skulls. The other divers were looking at me and I was a bit spooked. There was a whole shark caught in the net. I backed out quietly and was soon back on the other side of the net.

We couldn't stay down much longer. My Aeris SCUBA Equipment Computer Package was telling me that. One trip per day was all we got. It took us several days to finish the task and get the last piece of net. You'd be surprised what else you find in the ocean.

It's not a pretty sight when you see everyone's garbage just hanging around in the ocean. I wish people cared more. The ocean is a beautiful place. The trash only takes that away from us who love to dive.