So I made it back from California again (lovely business trips) and I am ready to give up diving altogether. I did three shore dives, two at Pt. Lobos and a night dive in Monterey. My dive buddy said on the way there, "Hey, did you hear about the Great White sighting off of Del Monte Beach last week?" so as soon as I get in the water I'm thinking "crap, there might be sharks here!" That is so first-year-diving mentality that I was ashamed of myself. My buddy could tell I was stressed and I told him why and that I must just be out of the habit.

My next two dives were almost equally as stressful, even though we saw things like monster scallops, monkey-face eels and lots of critters. It is so beautiful out there and I usually think "what an amazing God that creates such splendor that so few humans get to see and I am so privileged to get to experience it," but this time I'm thinking there might be a shark tooth with my name on it. I know I'm whining, but like Keck says, this is a blog, right? I got an e-mail from my buddy today and he wrote: "BTW, obviously diving isn't your main hobby any more." Maybe I'll take up cow-tipping.