Marianna and I had our first academic session with our SCUBA instructor today! We are on the way to being able to dive these gorgeous reefs in the Florida Keys. Today we covered the basic equipment; masks, fins, and snorkels, BC's and tanks. Tons of paperwork was filled out as well and Marianna was suitably appalled at having to put her name on each page and sign and date in more than one spot. I couldn't blame her, I feel the same way everytime I go to a doctor and have to fill out the same old info in triplicate too.

On the way home we stopped to see the progress on the Wall. Our timing was perfect. Wyland was just climbing in the lift.



Wyland sketched the manatee first with chalk. If you look closely to the left of this picture you can see the head of the manatee. We learned today that he is the only large scale muralist that does not do presketching/graphing for his murals. That flabbergasts me! The thought that there was no sheaf of work prior to facing the building, nothing to pull a graph off from and enlarge the sketch is amazing! The entire manatee family was free sketched within 15 minutes during what passes for rush hour down here.



Then he picked up a basic household paint roller and began filling in the sea cow. The most amazing details - the eyes, the wrinkles of the neck and snout were apparant from the first rollings. The first cow's base layer was completed in maybe 20 minutes. Again, amazingly fast!



We were so hoping that Wyland would include manatees in the mural, the original art on this building was a scary green mermaid. She must have been up on that wall for 50 years, she was looking pretty rough! These three are a much better representation of the Florida Keys than what was up previously, in my opinion.