I met Crazy Ivan and Instructor John for another night of lobster hunting from the Red October.

So, basically the night ended up like this:

– I was still a little congested from my constant cold and I felt a little weak; I was going to call it, but felt better after a nap.

– Instructor John was late due to work issues, then gets a call that he has to go back to work after the dive.

– The boat wouldn’t start due to a dead battery, so we jumped it and took the emergency charger along with us.

– We started arguing about the location code that we need to fill in on our lobster report card.

“We’re going to 58,” I said.

“No they changed it, it’s 57…look,” Crazy Ivan said, as he handed me his lobster card.

“Why is your card a different color?” I asked.

“That’s because you didn’t buy this year’s license,” Instructor John said.

Crap!

If you are planning on fishing or lobster hunting this year, don’t forget to buy your 2010 fishing license, ocean enhancement stamp and lobster report card!

So now, I’m merely going on a night dive.

We started heading for the open water, but noticed a little fog rolling in.

At the breakwater, the fog was thick.

Maybe 20 feet visibility at the most; then, we heard our first blast from a fog horn.

“Well…,” John said.

“I think it’s unanimous… we’re not going,” I said.

Not finding the boat once we surfaced was almost guaranteed, plus the odds of someone hitting our boat or running us over were just as likely.

At the lip of King Harbor, we could not see Redondo Pier; we turned around and enjoyed a nice harbor cruise back.

High surf is expected through Monday, but our plan is to head out Tuesday night.

Since I have to buy this year’s fishing license and lobster card, keep your donations coming!

You can purchase CA fishing licenses online here, along with the ocean enhancement stamp.

I did not see lobster report cards offered online.

I try and stay politically neutral here, after all this is a diving blog, not a political blog; however, it was pointed out to me that if Obamacare passes, I might not have anything to blog about in a few years.

As seemingly ridiculous as the headline states, there may be more truth to it than you think.

So many laws have been passed in the name of “public safety.”

Seat belt, helmet, smoking, drinking, jay walking, and other “nanny state laws” were not passed because the government cares about your well being.

The real “reason” is to lower the supposed costs to society when you are hurt – and according to most politicians, everyone will eventually get hurt.

So what will happen to sports like SCUBA diving, hang gliding, rock climbing and bungee jumping that are considered “dangerous” pastimes if national healthcare passes?

Randy Shaw,* the training manager at the National Association of Underwater Instructors, which organizes scuba diving teachers, said he wouldn’t put it past Congress to at least inadvertently include his members in a higher-risk pool, but that he hadn’t seen anything that would lead him to be concerned.

“Right now people are more worried about how they’re going to keep their dive shops open,” he said. “But if the health care bill were to include diving as a hazardous risk, and increase premiums, we’d try and fight that any way we could… you can pretty much statistically validate that diving is less risky to your health than walking in a major city.”

Shaw had strong feelings about the bill overall.

“The whole thing is just an excuse for them to be able to control your life a little more,” he said.

The health care bill is more than 1,400 pages of government entitlements, taxes and special interest provisions – nobody really knows what this monstrosity will do, because nobody has read the whole thing.

Look at countries that have, or have had, national healthcare – The Soviet Union (USSR) and East Germany (GDR) extended “free” health care to all, but outlawed hang gliding, hot air ballooning and private aircraft for “public safety” reasons.

Greece, which has national healthcare, severely restricts recreational SCUBA diving off of their shores.

Maybe outlawing SCUBA diving altogether will never materialize, but how will they offset the imaginary increased “risk to society” unless they impose some kind of additional tax?

*Randy Shaw was quoted from an article published at www.freerepublic.com.