It was a lovely evening for a dive and great to take a break from trying to inventory the damages of our garage fire!  Even the rest of the family joined in above the water.

Special thanks to Jake's Scuba Adventures for letting me crash their weekly fun dive. With a handful of divers picking up a few items and a few more dedicated to the task with bags in hand, we manage to quickly accumulate 35 pounds of trash! Just imagine how much is actually down there!! So sad!

I was also successful in having a weight distribution hitch installed to address the sway I was getting on my trip back from Seattle with the little trailer.  While the trailer is super light, I carry a lot of scuba gear and I think things were just slightly out of whack allowing the semi-trucks to cause me some fishtail grief!  We should have the fire stuff wrapped up here and I'll be heading down into Wyoming for the creek cleanup being hosted by the Wyoming chapter of the IOC!  I'll have to back-track a bit with the delay to address the fire issues - but it will all work out!!

Cheers and happy bubbles!!
Pam

Sometimes life throws more curve balls... and maybe just because it's the year 2020?

Our Redondo Beach cleanup dive was a success thanks to Northwest Dive Club and other local PNW Divers.  Redondo was actually looking so much better underwater than it has over the past couple years thank to diver's like Scuba Jess and LeAnne Livingston who have been cleaning more frequently.  We gleaned a beautiful sunset, a couple of spiny dog fish shark visits, found a full beer with a tip, and lots of other diver shenanigans. ​

Afterwards, I headed back to my BFF Kathy's to decompress - literally and figuratively.  Earlier in the week, the very first night on the west side of the state, I was up late trying to photograph the comet when I received a frantic call from my daughter informing me the neighbors work shed was on fire and the firefighters woke her to get inside our detached garage to shut-off the breaker box. Only before anything could really transpire the entire upper portion of our garage went up in flames as the fire spread.  Luckily they were able to contain it there and thankfully nobody was injured.  While the neighbor's house was damaged externally and another neighbor's fence, it was just the initial work shop and our detached garage the took the brunt of it.  As a diver I cringed a bit when I learned they suspected batteries to be the blame. Ugh!  We just can't leave these overnight!!

Sadly - everything we owned was stored in that garage as we traveled in our RV's. You name it, it was in there.  

I headed back to Spokane the next morning and have been here working with my family to inventory and recreate the best we can what was stored in there.  We had high hopes of salvaging a few things but after talking with insurance and the salvage company they educated us on the reality of what can and can not be salvaged.  Basically if it wasn't burned, it was damaged by heat, water, foam, smoke or the fiberglass insulation that fell.  We will be lucky to save a few tools and will try to have a couple of antiques evaluated - but at this point I'm not holding out hope.

I feel very fortunate to find a ton of photos still intact. While the outside of the albums burned the inside photos were wet but salvageable for the most part. We had some warm weather to dry them out (now they are all curly) and will eventually need to scan them all as they all smell noxious.  

Starting to input the inventory into a spreadsheet the insurance adjuster provided.  Can I just say PITA!!  Oh, well.... we've been working for about a week now and probably have at least another week as we dig deeper upstairs where things are less recognizable, if at all.  This is one cleanup I had never imagined on my route - but here it is!

Sometimes it takes being a little crazy to get stuff done!  Hello CRAZY!
Here's to tiny living, scuba diving and making a difference as an Ocean Ambassador for the Inland Ocean Coalition!