Belly Dancing

Thursday night I went to Grand Rapids to see Katie perform in a belly dancing group at Mezze Cafe & Cabaret, a tapas restaurant/cafe. I ended up hooking up with Chris, a friend of mine, for dinner before the show and the two of us went over there together. I didn't really know what to expect from a belly dancing performance. The limit of my belly dancing experience was watching Katie do an impromptu performance at a party at my place. Having seen the performance I'm really impressed.

The group consisted of four individuals including Katie and her instructor. Though Katie has been performing for far less time than the other dancers I thought her performance was at least as good, possibly better, than the other dancers. Admittedly, I'm biased and inexperienced in judging dancing but I still think Katie was the best of the bunch. The show consisted of quite a few dances involving anywhere from one to four dancers. One of my personal favorites was the first of the dances which used large silken scarves. The scarves made for a very flowing, graceful, imaginative dance. I also greatly enjoyed Katie's solo performance and after discussion with Chris after the show we decided it was our overall favorite.

One of the dances involved dancing with swords (seriously, they had swords... it was cool). The dancers balanced the swords lengthwise on their heads and managed to move their bodies while keeping their heads still such that the swords didn't fall. It was an impressive display to say the least.

From what I'm told the show is more a "Vegas-style" performance. It used some modern music, the dancers seemed to be enjoying themselves, and there was quite a bit of audience involvement (yes, I attempted to dance... it was not pretty but it was fun). Though I haven't seen any of the more traditional performances I can say this way of doing things kept it fun, lively, and interesting.

About halfway through the performance I remember thinking, "wow, I'm glad this is a life experience I've had". It was really great to see Katie perform and I'm glad that I've seen a real belly dancing performance. The whole thing was a very energizing, very fun experience and I had an absolutely fabulous time.

Bonne Terre

Over the weekend I rode down to Missouri with some people from my local dive shop to dive the Bonne Terre Mines. The lead mine was operated for almost 100 years until it was shut down in 1962 when the demand for lead was dwindling. The pumps that kept the mine dry were turned off and over time the mine flooded. Today the mine provides a billion gallon underwater dive resort which is actually number 10 on National Geographic's "Adventure 100".

To start the dive, your guide gives you a briefing of what you'll be doing and what you'll see. Once the briefing is complete they have you suit up before they head over to the mule entrance which was the entry location for mules before it became the debarkation point for divers. After a long trek down stairs you arrive at the beginning of a graded path. The patch leads you even deeper into the mine. Ultimately you end up at a wooden dock on the edge of the underground lake. The cavern which houses the dock is enormous. Massive stone pillars have been carved out of the bedrock and extend to the ceiling sixty feet above. These stone pillars extend down below into the water to the floor which averages 40-60 feet deep. Calcium falls, manganese deposits, and a good amount of quartz add to the beauty of the place. It's hard to spend much time in the mine without marvelling at the fact that human beings dug the place out by hand. The sheer scale of the endeavour is mind boggling.

We did three dives on Saturday and one dive on Sunday. On our first dive we saw a drill sticking out of the wall in the mine. When the mine was closed the miners left their equipment where it was. The equipment remains and divers are encouraged to touch it (one of the few times this is true for divers). We swam down to an ore cart which had several pickaxes in it. I actually swung the pickaxe a couple times and managed to dent a piece of stone... I'm not much of a miner.

On another dive we entered the "chapel room", so named because there are white crosses painted on the walls. These crosses were used to note the places that core samples would be taken. The chapel room was interesting not only for the crosses but also because it's an overhead environment. You're unable to go directly to the surface while in the room. As the divers exhale you can watch the bubbles hit the ceiling and run around. It actually looks quite a bit like liquid mercury. The fact that it's an overhead environment is mitigated by the fact that the water is crystal clear and that there is a dive guide in front of you and behind you. Nonetheless, it's a little weird knowing that if you need to surface you need to get out of the room before heading up. The dive guides are very considerate and were careful to point out that if anyone didn't want to end up in the room they were welcome to stay with the safety diver just outside.

On one dive we swam through the iron and wood skeleton of an elevator shaft. We were at about 40 feet but the shaft itself actually goes down about 300 feet. We also swam through a short overhead before swimming back through another area immediately above it... we could actually watch our air bubbles coming up through the rock.

The mine has 24 trails that recreational divers can dive. The more advanced trails can only be done after the previous trails are complete. They do this so that they can be sure that divers are prepared for the more challenging conditions found on some of the advanced trails. For experienced technical divers there are opportunities to dive areas that aren't part of a set trail. One of these areas, deeper than recreational divers go, is an underground city used when the mine was operational. Miners spent six days a week underground without coming up to the surface. The city had a cafeteria as well as sleeping quarters for the miners.

The people from the dive shop are already planning the next trip to Bonne Terre in November. I'm definitely looking forward to going back!

Dave the Food Guy

Sunday night after our last day of the scuba class Dave made dinner. Susan and I knew that he was preparing a gourmet dinner which sounded pretty good to us since we were pretty hungry. We had just enough time to rinse our gear and get cleaned up before dinner was ready.

Before I describe dinner I need to give a bit of Dave's history. Dave has always been interested in food. He and I are both fans of shows on the Food Network. We both have an appreciation for fine dining. Dave's always been the kind to experiment with food. Back in college these experiments weren't always as successful as they are today. I can recall the demolition of a blender by orangicide as well as some mashed potatoes with sugar (which makes a really nice goo). I'm happy to report that Dave's culinary skills have improved greatly over the years and the dinner on Sunday night was great proof of that fact.

Dave prepared Cornish game hens. Each of us had our own little bird which was cool. Each bird was perfectly done and incredibly juicy thanks to the brine that Dave had prepped the birds in. Each bird was stuffed with sage, garlic, rosemary, and lemon. They were also basted with a lemon/honey glaze that also topped the cornbread that was served as a side.

Dave had prepared an artichoke... if you haven't had a whole artichoke before I recommend trying it. That being said I recommend having someone else prepare it for you. Preparing artichokes is quite a bit of work for the amount of food you get. Dave did a fine job with it and I'm glad I had a chance to try a whole artichoke for the first time. There was also a nice savory sausage with the meal. It added a very nice accent to the hens.

There was also a baby spinach salad with homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing, blue cheese, red onions, and chopped walnuts. The salad was particularly tasty and certainly seemed to justify Dave's happiness with the balsamic vinegar he had recently found.

For desert Dave prepared a wine glass with raspberry sorbet and filled with champagne. It was a cool looking, sweet, and tasty dessert. The entire meal was excellent. Dave's certainly come into his own as a cook. I'm sure it helps that with his new job he has more time to devote to cooking. Susan is certainly lucky to be the beneficiary of some fine meals.

To end the night Dave annihilated me at a game of Scrabble. What possessed me to play Scrabble with Dave I do not know... you'd think after so many years I'd know better.

Advanced Open Water Day 2

After a long delay I'm finally going to finish the last of my Florida vacation posts! On Sunday we did two dives, our deep dive and our Peak Performance Buoyancy dive. I was feeling quite a bit better after some much needed sleep. The weather wasn't being all that terribly cooperative as it was cool. Fort Lauderdale was experiencing a "cold snap" and the temp was in the 60s. It was the first time in Florida that I was eager to get into the water because it was warmer than the air.

Our first dive was the wreck of the Mercedes. We went down to about 92 feet and performed a simple task involving reeling in a spool. We had done the same task at the surface and the point of the exercise was to demonstrate that while working at depth you may become impaired, making it more difficult to perform simple tasks. It's a nice idea and I understand it but in this case I actually performed the task faster underwater with gloves on than I did at the surface. Practice makes perfect I suppose. After finishing the tasks Susan and I were set free to explore the wreck. It's a very nice wreck and there was some interesting sea life, including a sea anenome, on the wreck. I also saw a ray on the sandy bottom. The only stressful time during the dive is when I lost track of Susan for a bit. It felt like a long time but it was probably only thirty seconds or so. As it turns out, she was having ear trouble and was directly above me. I looked in every direction but straight up. About the time I was getting really concerned she made it back down to my depth and everything was hunky dory. While we were preparing to ascend we were treated to a great view of a 60-80 pound Greater Amberjack (big fish). It was certainly the largest fish I've seen yet... very cool.

Our peak performance buoyancy dive was also quite a bit of fun. We went down to a sandy area and practiced hovering in different positions. The one that was the most fun was hovering while vertical and inverted. As you breath in you move away from the sand. As you breath out you drop back until you're inches from the sand. It was kinda fun. As the last task on the dive we swam, first normally then inverted, through a PVC diamond that the instructor held up. I was fairly successful though I think the inverted attempt was a bit of a ballistic path. Susan and I explored a bit before heading back to the boat but we ended the dive relatively early since we were a bit on the cold side.

Once we made it back to the shop we completed our paperwork in a very warm room. Under other circumstances it would have been uncomfortably warm. In this case it was perfect. Susan and I left feeling a whole lot better and more awake than we had the day before. We are both officially advanced open water divers. Life is good!