Recently I was invited by Marc Blackwood and Chris Hersch to attend a dive on the Spectre, which was one of the best dive boats I’ve been on. JetBlue currently offers a direct flight MCO->LGB, which was about 30 minutes from Marc’s house, so things worked out and it was an easy non-rev flight for me, with several open seats. Around 7pm Friday night I arrived at LGB, a very small airport where baggage collection and deplaning are both done outside. Marc was nearby and within a few minutes we were on the road to a friends house to pickup a scooter for Saturday’s diving. After that, we went to a burger place which had nearly every imaginable topping you could put on a burger, you simply mix and match…kinda cool, we don’t have that in Florida.
Our next stop was the Spectre dive boat, which is kind enough to allow divers to load gear and spend the night on the boat the night before their dive day. This was very helpful, especially for those of us who have come from out of town and don’t want to pay for a hotel! While loading, I met Chris and the rest of our group.