This time last year my husband Mark and I weren’t yet scuba certified, however, we had been to a couple Try it Tuesdays and thought about getting scuba certified so the weekend of the Safari hunt we were invited down to the lake. Have you ever been on a Safari hunt? Well if you’ve been reading Facebook here these last few weeks, they’ve been talking about the Safari hunt so I thought I would share our experience with the Safari Hunt last year for all you new divers or divers who have been certified for a while, just never participated.
Last year the morning began with certifying a scuba diver. Dan La Due worked with him and he was certified which actually made him qualified to participate in the Safari Hunt last year.
The Safari hunt didn’t actually start until 1 pm, however, some of the divers were getting in the water earlier in the morning to check out their buoyancy and possibly to see if the animals had been set out yet so they knew where to go… hint, they weren’t. All divers were called out of the waters at noon, Grady and Dan went down to hide the animals and John Patrick went down to create a diversion, that way with 3 different sets of bubbles, who really knows which one was actually placing animals.
Now, if there is one piece of advice I can give to all the participates and spectators, it’s WEAR sunscreen!
Here was the collection of Safari animals that the divers were hunting for. Prior years it was referred to as the Gorilla hunt and you will still hear people call it that. The only difference is finding just gorillas has become almost impossible so they went to Safari animals. Each animal had a number. That is how they decided who would win what prize.
At 1 pm, everyone entered the water and here they go
While the adults were out on their Safari hunt, the kids were having a “safari” ring hunt of their own. Aerielle Cupp went around dropping rings for the kids to find while I was volunteered to take photos of the hunt.
Once each kid got their ring they won a prize. The prizes ranged from a fishing game to water guns to goggles as well as a few other things (I can’t remember anymore). Each kid had a ring waiting for them and each kiddo was entitled to one ring.
As I’ve been more into the Diving aspects around here I’ve learned a great deal, but I totally loved Pam Eaves’s hat and thought it was a great hat for the occasion.
Once the divers headed out, Mark Willoughby volunteered to start grilling the hot dogs. Lunch was provided for everyone involved.
Lunch consisted of Hot dogs with mustard, ketchup &/or relish, chips, and cookies for dessert, plus there was lots of bottled water. Bottled water is a Scuba Divers’s best friend!
Remember, I’ve said it many times, “we like to eat!” YUM!
And sadly there were even a couple party fowls. Shame on you Mark. Haha!
Once each participant found their animal they came up above the water to register the number that was found.
Then each number was assigned to a particular prize. Emma La Due’s prize for her monkey was this nice water camera that will go 200 feet underwater. I kept telling her that she won it for me for my birthday but the silly girl wouldn’t buy it. Hey, I had to try, right?
Extreme Sports Scuba is also involved with Kayak’s as well so Justin brought their Kayak’s down for anyone that wanted to try, to try out. Let me tell you how much fun this was! Oh wait, I’m not sure there are words to describe how much fun we actually had on the Kayaks.
Poor Leo the dog, Danielle La Due took him out on the Kayak with her. Leo wasn’t really enjoying it much…
Now Kim Brungard has a Diveyak which is actually used by Divers to go out into the middle of the lake to dive. It’s also known to us as the “babysitter”. Here Aerielle and Amy La Due took it out for a spin, watch out. Lol, j/k…
As I stated before I wasn’t yet certified so Jason La Due took my underwater camera down to get pictures of what we’d be seeing if we were certified to scuba dive.
There were a few animals that weren’t found during the 45 minutes of the Safari Hunt and when Jason went down, he actually found one of the lions. They named the Lion Leo, after Danielle’s dog.
At the end of a hard day, we had a few tired little ones. This cutie here actually fell asleep in her chair eating chips. Tiffany Hayworth told me that at one point she even had the chip still in her hand. I didn’t get to see that though, but I’ll bet it was sure darn cute!
Extreme Sports Scuba had a lot of great prizes that were donated for a drawing. Mark won a hat and I won a mask strap. (My mask strap is pink, which you absolutely cannot tell in this photo.) There were a lot of other great prizes that were donated and raffled off as well.
This Safari hunt goes to support a great cause, Newton County Rescue, and Recovery, so if you have never participated or this is the first year that you can or if you are a returning competitor, please, by all means, meet us this Saturday at Indian Creek Campground at 1 pm for a fabulous time for the 2014 Safari Hunt. (And please someone come win me an animal because I can’t dive again this year )