As most of my friends and my three blog readers know, I have been looking for a SCUBA diving vacation destination for 2012.

I went to The SCUBA Show specifically to find a vacation place, but ended up going off the beaten path.

I immediately eliminated Brazil as a destination, for personal reasons – mainly, I could not handle one crazy Brazilian woman, let alone a whole country full of them.

I also considered a few more things:

– It can’t be a tourist trap, especially a resort geared towards just taking tourists’ money.

– It can’t be too crowded.

– I want contact with locals; I don’t want to hang out with tourists (I eliminated North Korea on this).

– It has to be economically feasible as far as the cost of hotels and beer.

– I need to feel like an adventurer, not a tourist.

– I want people to look at me with that “WTF?” expression when I tell them where I’m going or where I’ve been.

I narrowed it down between going to Cuba or Albania…

And the winner is…

ALBANIA!

Talk is cheap, and anything can come up between now and next year, but I am determined to go.

I have applied for a US passport as of today.

To get into Albania, a US citizen doesn’t need a Visa, just a passport that’s more than six months old.

So, taking that into consideration, along with the money, I should be able to book my trip in January or February with the intent on going after California lobster season – April or May of 2012.

Diving opportunities are rare in Albania, but I did find one place located in the town of Saranda that is run by a group of Poles:

Polish Diving Base – Albania

Here is their introduction video on Youtube:

To watch this video on YouTube, click here.

So, I have about nine months until I anticipate going – plenty of time to save money, book the trip and practice Polish and Albanian.

I will elaborate more on this planned trip as it gets closer.

Promptly showing up at 8:15 AM, I noticed that the free lot was almost full and divers were starting to gear up.

But I didn’t recognize any of the divers; where were the regulars?

I decided to check out the conditions.

Talk about starting immediately?

Three boxes of cheap snorkel gear was by the trash.

A group must have just came from Big 5 and decided to see if their gear fits – I am guessing.

The Cove looked foamy, I met the group of regulars who were walking from The Point.

In Nice Bob’s words, “You would be risking your life entering off the Point, for barely any visibility.”

Conditions at the Cove looked divable from and entry and exit point of view, but the conditions looked crappy.

A few divers dove here and later reports confirmed five to eight feet of visibility.

The group decided to check out Honeymoon Cove; I followed.

There’s some kind of construction going on at Honeymood cove; probably another mansion.

Dive conditions looked good, but the trail still sucks.

I have dove here before and have been here when the group decided to dive.

The trail fucking sucks, and I had a lot of stuff to get accomplished today, so I called the dive – by the way, I didn’t get much done regardless.

Most of the group decided to dive Honeymoon Cove, but I split and ened up in San Pedro at Rebel’s Bar to watch the FIFA officials try and fix the Womens’ World Cup kickball match in favor of Brazil – The USA still won!

Ha! Ha! Screw Brazil!

If I’m going to start whimping out on macho dives, I think I should go back to Wednesday night dives at Veteran’s Park – at least I would get wet.

To get off the subject of diving a little bit, for the past few years I have been helping to set up professional fireworks shows on the 4th of July.

This year, Professional Debriefer Paul was able to document the occassion with two of his award winning videos.

So, this is my one day a year job:

To view this video on YouTube, click here.

To view this video on YouTube, click here.

Next weekend is Military Bob’s last potential dive with us; I think it’s time for another parking lot party to say farewell.