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The life and times of David Geisert

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Under The Jungle

Steph and I headed to Mexico for a week of cavern diving training.  We got to use Steph status from her work trips for probably the last time, but use of the lounge and an upgrade was very nice.

We got to the airport in Cancun and pretty quickly got to the transfer we had booked.  We got to the dive shop and Rory was willing to drive us to the grocery store that evening.  We got a good amount of food and headed back to the room to crash.  The next morning we started the training with a checkout dive in about 7 feet of water.  It went decently well as we went through all the drills.  We got out of the water and redid a good bit of the gear before debriefing.  We were pretty tired so we went straight to the room and relaxed for a bit before calling it a night.

For the first trip with videos click here.

The next day we did a lot of navigation theory, and did dive plans for the Taj Mahal cavern.  The dives didn’t go exactly as planned as we were going slower than expected, and I called out the first reference point in my dive incorrectly.  We still got through most of the skills with minor hitches.  I lost buoyancy pretty badly on the turn of my dive and hit the ceiling.  That evening we again just relaxed, and I got some good cuddles from one of the cats that frequents the area, the aptly named Mustacio!  He jumped into my lap and started purring, kneading, and drooling.

 

The next day we went to Cenote Chiken Hal.  These dives didn’t go as well, and we had to repeat the first dive, focusing on the command chain: breathing, buoyancy, trip, position.  These were really hard for me, and the better I was doing the more uncomfortable I was getting.  The correct position had my neck, shoulders, and back hurting.

I decided that I was done with the training at that point.

I did go on a guided dive through a cavern called Dream Gate after that, which was gorgeous, but otherwise I sat at the room/shop.  There wasn’t much else to do in that area, and there were limited transportation options.

Steph completed the course and is now certified in Cavern Diving and Intro to Cave Diving.

We then went to Cancun, and had some amazing food.  We especially enjoyed the Benazuza restaurant, which is a course based meal.  They had some great mixology to start out the dinner and amazing food throughout.  It was better than some of the best dining we’ve had in the bay area and I can see why it was ranked in the top 5 in the world on trip advisor.

We went to Chichen Itza and saw most of the city.  It was pretty amazing.  Tikal was only slightly more impressive.

 

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Social Wednesday

I took Steph’s car to Shoreline lake, and got there a little after 10am.  I had a long meeting with, then Tina and Irene showed up and we chatted while hanging out in the shade.  Adam got there with his mother and we decided it was time for lunch.  We got in line at the cafe and Jeremy joined just in time to order with us.  We chatted for the better part of an hour before Adam had to leave, and then chatted for another hour before Jeremy and I decided to go kayaking in the lake.  We hopped in and did one and a half times around.  We got out and Tina joined us for some more chatting and helping to pack away my kayak.  The photo below is partly obscured by the rubber band holding the phone.

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That evening Steph and I had a nice date dinner at Pazzo, and Italian place nearby.  We hadn’t been there before so I thought it would be nice to try it out.  The food was tasty, but I found it to be a bit loud.

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Solo kayaking Corkscrew Slough

I went for a long solo kayak in my new Oru folding kayak.  It went really well for the most part.  I started at about 10am and ended a little after 1pm.  I was able to get Lyfts both ways and it was pretty convenient.  The route on the map is shorter than the real one because on the left side of the map where it goes through the middle of the wetlands I was lost.  Navigating when everything looks like water from the surface, but you get close and it is mud bars just under the surface, its tricky.

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There were also two choke points where the water was flowing rapidly.  The first one was going the way I was going so I just rode it, but the second was going the other way and I had to portage around it.  That proved tough, but since the kayak is so light it wasn’t too bad.

I saw a ton of birds, at the end there was a flock that was murmating.  I also saw some harbor seals relaxing on the bank.

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Kayak Camping in Tomales Bay

I got a group of 7 together to go kayak camping in tomales bay.  Five of us got there on Friday around noon and got onto the water as quickly as possible.  It was a 5.6 mile paddle to the beach we had been given, Tomales Beach.

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We had a long stopover on Indian Beach, which was approximately the halfway point.  There we pulled out the stove and cooked a bit of sausage.  After everyone got some food we got back on the water and made the final push to our campsite.  The fog was rolling in low and it was difficult to make out the far shore.  We started up a nice fire pretty quickly and got everything nicely set up.  A Prius showed up later from the service road and a few guys got out and set up a camp.  I was pretty sure that they weren’t allowed to drive in.  They looked like they were crabbing and fishing. We had a good fire that night and good food.  Riley cooked up a storm, and had brought way too much food, but we weren’t complaining.

The next morning Riley cooked up a lot more great food, and I headed out to meet up with Tina and Amit, who were coming in a day late since Amit had to work on Friday.  I got some good alone time on my paddle back, and made it to Inverness much faster than anticipated.  It only took me 1:45 to paddle the 6 miles back.  I got in early enough to have a nice meal and rest at the diner next door, where I got a huge veggie omelette.

Tina and Amit got in and we got onto the water pretty quickly.  The wind didn’t gust as fast on the way out with them as it did on Friday, but there was a lot more consistent of a wind.  We did a break at Indian Beach again, after which Amit took off and outpaced us by a large margin.   We were paddling near a large group that was heading towards Marshall Beach.  They were somewhat annoying, and had been slowly leaving behind their slow members.  The fist ones they left behind I don’t think made it to the campground.

Once we got in Steph got the fire going again.  She had a log with lots of sap on it, and once it started burning it put off a huge flame and lots of black smoke.  I was pretty impressed.  We had a great fire that night, as we had only gone through a third of the wood on Friday.  The food was amazing again, with Riley providing asparagus and bacon, with Adam providing spit-forks to roast them on.  We sat around the fire and talked for hours.  Eventually we ran out of wood and went to bed.  The next morning we had a long trek back, that was mostly uneventful.  We grabbed lunch in Point Reyes Station and dropped by the Cowgirl Creamery.   We got back and took care of the gear and vegged the rest of the day.

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Michael and I had a fun day together, with a hike in Pacifica along the coast, then an evening where we went to Cupertino for Shakespeare in the Park of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  It was very well done, and the picnic with everyone was lovely.  The show was much funnier than I was expecting and the acting was some of the best I’ve seen in any play.  I brought some of the rosemary cider from Redwood Coast that was made with the rosemary from our yard.

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Pinnacles Hike

Adam planned a hike for us to go to Pinnacles National Park, and it was an interesting time.  We headed to Tina’s in the morning to carpool the two hours there together.  We got in a little early and I grabbed a few apricots from the tree that overhangs Tina’s driveway.  They were delicious.  We drove to the park which had a surprising amount of traffic heading south on 101.  Once we got to the side roads there wasn’t any more traffic; although there was a little construction.

We got to the park and took a few minutes to get situated before starting on the hike.  The first part was steeply uphill, and directly into the pinnacles for which the park is named.  They were gorgeous formations with lots of bright red/orange and green/yellow lichens.  We got up to the high pass and I was already running through several liters of water, despite it only being about two miles of hiking.  We stopped by a reservoir on the way down so I could filter some just in case.  Then we got into the first cave system.  It was a short bit, but the caves were nice and cool compared to the 90’s and sun that we had up to that point in the hike.  We scrambled around the caves, eventually finding the exit and continuing down to the eastern parking lots for a lunch at the picnic tables there.

Adam pulled out a salami and ate it, while the rest of us had nuts and trail mix.  A few miles later Adam was regretting the salami, as it was strongly messing with his hydration and thus temperature regulation.  The hike was mostly flat on the second half of the day, with a longer caves section that was prettier in my opinion just south of the western parking lots.  We emerged a little worse for wear and tired.  Tina was amazing enough to drive the entire way back home, and we all crashed pretty hard that evening.

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Big Basin Camping

Lindsay organized a camping trip to Big Basin.  This year it was just the three of us for Friday night and then Steph joined us on Saturday.  We didn’t do much hiking, but we did get a good bit of MTG in; 25 games in total.  We had a lot of fun playing some spades as well.  The highlight of the evening was the campfire and cooking.  I combined both on Friday night with a steak cooked directly over the flame.  It was pretty good, despite being dropped into the fire as I tried to pull it off the grill.  We made smores both nights and they were tasty.  We found a rogue flaming hot Cheeto, making us thing that Debby was there in spirit.  The mosquitos were pretty bad, especially Friday evening.  While playing magic I was bitten through my shirt at least 30 times.  I had a few small constellations on my back in red dots.

 

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Shoreline Lake Picnic

Tina organized a group to go to Shoreline lake for a nice picnic with some kayaking.  Adam brought his kayak and was probably the person who spent the most time on the lake.  I got some time in his kayak and then we both went out together and I used one from the boat rental.  I had a good time and ate tons of great food.

While there Adam, Tim, and I played some Troyes.  Afterwards we went back to Adam’s place and played more Troyes.  I lost pretty soundly both times.  I had a great engine in both games, but one use of one card for more than 10 points in both games caused a big swing that won it for the person doing it.

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Wings of Glory

Irene organized an outing to Moffet field and we got to see the Wings of Glory exhibit, a WWII airplane collection.  The planes were neat to see and they had been kept in working order.  We went through the two bombers and got to see one of the smaller planes take off.  We then went back to my place and played a good bit of Beat Saber.  I was able to beat the last of Brian’s high scores, this one on expert.  I made some Shakshuka and we had dinner before they headed out.

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