A Heartfelt Thank You

Hi everyone. I wanted to say thanks for checking in on me over the past week. With so many of you checking in on me, it'll take forever until I can get back to all of you, so I wanted to make sure that you knew that your kind words haven't gone unnoticed - they are very much appreciated. Here's an update...

With regards to my friends, they were very bright guys, well trained and experienced. Like most diving accidents that end fatally, it's rare that it's only one mistake that makes a bad turn of events, but rather a string of wrong decisions that add up to a whole bunch of trouble. Most times, the accident chain begins building links before the divers even get in the water. There are still many details that are not known to the public, but with the little bit that we do know, a failure in navigation led to a depletion of breathing gas and they never made it out of the cave alive. In other words, they got lost and ran out of air. A terrible way to die. Like most relationships that end like this, I knew them well enough that I'll miss seeing them around, but I never got to know them as well as I would have liked. Mike was a lawyer, a marathoner, a diver and more that I never got to know. Kent was a dentist, a cyclist, a diver, a scuba instructor and also so much more that I won't ever have the opportunity to know. Thanks to the usual assinine grandstanding of a local dive shop owner, those of us that dove with these guys were made to feel that we would be really unwelcome at the funeral services, so I'll leave my eulogy here.

I met Mike and Kent in my Ice Diving class back in Feb of 2001. What I remember most about them, was that they truly enjoyed diving for what it meant to them. Exploration, entertainment, diversion - hunting for "bugs" in many of the wrecks along the east coast of the US and exploring countless underwater caves in Florida and Mexico. I miss Kent's quick wit and fast talking. He always seemed to be excited to tell you everything he could and would talk a mile a minute sometimes just to make sure he got it all out without leaving anything unsaid. I miss Mike's even nature. He was as nice a guy as you'd ever want to meet. He was serious when he needed to be, but he certainly smiled a lot. My most permanent memory of Mike is the picture I took of him during our Ice Diving class (see picture below). It was the last dive of the class and we didn't need to do any more skills - all we had to do was dive and have some fun with the ice. We took turns getting upside-down under the ice and "walking" on the underside of the ice while the other person tended to the surface line. The grin on his face is priceless. I can still hear him giggling his butt off

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As for me, my ankle is healing up. I picked up a middle of the line walnut walking cane and I can really move at the speed of sound (squeak-squeak-squeak) with it The doctor wants me to play it by ear, but she wants me to use it at least until this weekend. If I take care of my ankle now, in about 2 or 3 weeks, I should be able to put in some miles walking and possibly light jogging if it feels good. In the meantime, I'll stick with some upper body strength workouts (one of my biggest weaknesses) and swimming once the pool opens after New Year's Day. I probably won't be able to build up to running the 10k that I wanted to in March, but that's life. I'll make do with what I have and do the best I can. I know that I can't do any better than that, but I won't accept anything less from myself either. Things at home and work are a little crazy this week, but I'll be back soon enough. Take care and thanks again. Oh, before I forget... The radiologist wouldn't let me take my film home, so the foot X-Ray in my avatar was something that I found on the internet. Besides, my feet are much better looking than that

-Frank

Edited by scuba-punk 2004-12-15 12:05 PM






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