Bobby,
When you go to Miami, head up to Ft Lauderdale and dive the Captain Dan. Fill Express just north of Lauderdale will rent you doubles and they fill them to bursting with whatever gas mix you want! All you need to bring is your plate, wing and regs. (You're one of us, Bob, you don't need no stinkin' wetusit in FL in April.
But, back to the Captain Dan, it's the former bouytender USCGC Hollyhock and I spent two years serving on her. It is GREAT dive!!! I think it's at around 110 feet. Last time I was there I went down into the crews berthing area and swam over to where my rack used to be. It was a surreal experience to float in the middle of the compartment in about the same spot that I slept for two years and be 100 foot underwater. I went into every damned compartment aboard that ship except for the Capt's cabin and the engine room. (Too damned hot in the engine room!)
(Go in thru the watertight door on the aft port side of the bouy deck. When you get thru the door the crews head is on your right (port side outboard) If you turn amidships you will head into the messdeck. Right before you come to the messdeck there is a compartment on your left (forward) that used to hold the gyrocompass) and a watertight door opposite that on your right leading down to the crews berthing area. If you head down into the compartment and then head back at about a 45* angle you will come to another ladder heading up. Go up the ladder and when you get to the top turn 180 * (Forward) and you will come to the door that you entered the ship thru. There wouldn't be any backtracking if you went the other way but then you wouldn't see the gyro-room.
At that point if you head back to the messdeck (gyro-room on your left) and turn aft you will come to the messdeck The crews dining tables were on your left (Starboard outboard) and the gally on your right. (It doesn't seem possible that a crew of 50 could be fed out of that closet but they were, and it was good.) Immediatly after that you will come to a ladder going up. Go up the ladder. There is a WT door on your right but turn left (amidships) and go to the other WT door on the port side. Go up the ladder to the bridge, stopping and peeking in the Captains cabin just under the bridge. (25 years after the fact I wouldn't go in the Captains cabin without having been invited. Weird Pavlovian **** man.) Up in the bridge the wheel and binnacle was amidships and the quartemasters chartroom is the compartment immediatly behind the bridge. That's where I spent my days. So you have now been on three different decks inside. You don't need to run a line unless you want to in the berthing area, every other compartment has outside access. If you run a line in the berthing area just tie it of without a clip so you can reel it in without it catching on anything.
You've never smelt anything as bad as the smell of a bouydeck in the middle of summer. Foul doesn't begin to do it justice. Man, I miss it! I loved being in the Coast Guard. There was a thrill to it that you just don't get in regular day to day life. I love what I do now and it's quite a thrill to save someones life and to know that they can live or die based on your abilites. The pressure is sometimes immense, if you F*** up, they will die. But looking back at those days, offshore in a storm, or taking a 44 ft motorlifeboat out thru a break in 18 foot seas, knowing that if you F*** up this time YOU might die... I really miss that thrill!
Crap Bobby, now I feel like a freakin' old fart. I AM a freakin' old fart but I don't like feeling like one