Divers' Delight

We like to start our season with a super "cheap" 1-tank dive.  We think of it as a way to ease back into diving.  The boat has been standing around all winter.  The crew hasn't been able to do very much to stay in 'tank/bc lifting' shape.  And many divers haven't used their gear for several months.  We try to combine this dive with our duty of replacing the buoy marker on the Niagara. 

 

We scheduled our first cheap dive for April 25th.  11 people signed up.  I thought that was pretty good for so early in the season.  It gave me hope for the rest of the season.  However, mother nature had other plans.  Those of you who have been with us for a while, know how rare it is for us to cancel a dive due to weather.  The weather didn't keep us away from the wreck, but it did prevent us from placing the marker bouy, and caused an issue with the anchor line, and that all resulted in none of the divers being able to get in the water. 

 

Since nobody could dive, everyone was offered a "do-over" , same deal, different day.  This one scheduled for today,  May 9. 

12 people are signed up for this one.  Mother nature strikes again.  This is the near-shore forecast as of 10 minutes ago:

 

 

 

 

WOW, what a weekend. 

You know a year ahead of time when Ghost Ships Festival is going to be.  And yet, you spend the last 3 or 4 days before the start of it, getting ready for it. (why rush into it when you're so busy doing NOTHING all winter long?)

 

So I print the brochures and business cards and pictures to hang on our booth.  Plus the day before Ralph has me throw together a quick business card for the club, that he takes to Office Max to get a bunch of copies made. We gather up all the Dive Training magazines we've collected since our last "unload the free magazines event", dig around for all the dvd's we have of dive videos and slideshows, buy a bunch of candy to give away, find the box that our TV came in, so we can safely transport it to Milwaukee, double check the list of things we always seem to forget: extension cords, thumb tacks, tape, pens, paper, velcro, scissors, TV remote control, etc...

Load up the van with our booth stuff, head the gas station to fuel up the van and head to show.

As always, I ask before we leave the house if we know the way.  As always, the answer is "yes".  And as always, about 20 minutes into the trip, Ralph and Dennis start asking if this road is the road, or if that road is the one to take or does that road come out here or there and I wonder again why I didn't just print up the directions.  But we always get there in time without issue, so I guess it's not a big deal.

 

Once we arrive we have to set up the booth, stick the pictures on it, set out the magazines and business cards, fold up the new brochures, set out the "old" brochures, put a video on the TV, set up Ralph's laptop so people can sign up for our mailing list, set out a paper so people who don't want to use the computer can sign up the old fashioned way-I don't blame them, I'd rather just sign up on paper than on someone elses computer. Fill up the tank boots with the free candy, make a sign advertising that the Dive Training magazines are free and that you should take SOME (not just one). Stash the empty boxes out of sight and then we wait for the people.

All of the above covers just the Divers' Delight booth.

 

Normally, we are also doing the Urge To Submerge booth.  But not so much this year.  This year the club managed to find help from within that didn't just include me, Ralph and Dennis.  And that was a big help and huge relief.  We didn't have to carry their booth or TV and didn't have to try to figure out what put in the booth to make it worth visiting.  So a BIG THANK YOU to Urge To Submerge members who helped with the booth.  See, it wasn't so hard, now was it!  Thanks again Glen (Jerry Sabel) for being there for set up.  And thanks Erie for hanging out all day Saturday, and thanks Mary for the time you put in.  And thanks Kathy for the cookies you supplied and for the time you spent at the booth as well as hauling it all back with you. 

And, thank you Mike & Laura and Ben for the time you put in at the booths and for the help packing up after the show.  Having club members available to help with the club booth took some pressure off us.

 

And that enabled us to volunteered for a new "pressure".  Since I, "Mrs Captain", work at the Portico Gift Shop and since my boss, Kim, the woman who owns Portico, is also the one who runs Port Washington Pirate Festival, we volunteered to haul her booth items to the show.  (what can I say, I'm a company girl!!)

So while Ralph and Dennis set up Divers' Delight, I worked on setting out all of the Pirate stuff being sold by Pirate Festival.  This was a little trickier than the Divers' Delight booth.  I had a bunch of stuff to set out in a pretty small area, not easy to make it look decent.  Plus, unlike the Divers' Delight booth, where you can walk away and leave it unattended if needed, I couldn't do that with the Pirate Fest booth--never wise to walk away from a booth full of items that are for sale!! 

But I was only alone at the booth for about an hour while my boss was busy having literature printed up for Pirate Festival.  My pressure eased a bit once she arrived.  I hated the idea of possibly having to  leave FUM in charge of Kim's booth if I needed to leave walk away!!

 

Once all 3 booths are set up there isn't much to do other than wait for people.

Friday night and all day Saturday....basically spent standing around or sitting around and talking to people.  Just talking. 

Not doing push ups or jogging, just talking.  And not even difficult talk.  Just talk that we were all familiar with, all stuff that we know about. 

And yet, by 4 pm on Saturday I wanted to fall asleep.  And now, at 11 am on Sunday, sitting on my couch, laptop on my  lap, doing nothing more than thinking as I type and sort of watching Back To The Future, I still feel like I could fall asleep.  I don' t know how it could be so tiring.

Next year is going to be a killer!  Ghost Ships will last all 3 days next year. 

 

Enough of my whining. 

 

We saw a bunch of familiar faces and that's always nice.  It truly makes our day when our charter customers stop by our booth to talk or hang around. 

And we had a bunch of people sign up for our mailing list.   And that is always a good thing. 

I hope we see some of the new mailing list people on the boat this year!!!

 

Urge To Submerge also collected several names.  Hopefully they will have some new members soon.

 

Port Washington Pirate Fest handed out lots of flyers and sold lots of pirate stuff.  And it seems there are a great many people planning to attend Pirate Fest this year.

 

 

So, to sum it all up, it was a bunch of work, it was tiring, but I think it paid off. 

Thanks to all who helped!

And thanks to all who stopped by any of the 3 above mentioned booths!!

Divers' Delight has joined Twitter.

  http://twitter.com/diversdelight

I'm not sure why, I guess just because it was there. 

 

I can't think of too many things that we do that would really be of interest to anyone.

 

And even if we did do something of interest, I'd probably forget to 'twitter' about it anyway.

 

Also we are on Facebook. If you want to find us on Facebook, search for "Tracy Ripple" or "Ralph Ripple"

We also have a business page for Divers' Delight, it's linked to on both our pages.

Feel free to become a fan!