From Greg Kulp ...

On Sunday Oct. 15th TNI's Roger Heins, G Man, JZ, Doc Tom, and Kulpie and non-TNI John ????? made a road trip to a place we call Roger's Quarry (just because we don't know its real name). After waiting on shore a respectable time, the above group, sans Doc Tom, took a tour of the quarry in a Zodiac graciously provided by the local municipality. When we got to the far side of the quarry a dark SUV appeared in the parking area. Brief debate ensued as to if it was Doc Tom or Vern who had just arrived (since both were expected). It was noted and agreed to that it must be Doc Tom since we couldn't hear anybody yelling from across the quarry. This turned out to be true.

We returned to the parking area, began to gear up, and cursed Vern for making us wait. Since beautiful weather is a benefit of Vern being absent, we happily proceeded with the dive. Two teams of 3 divers were ferried by the Zodiac over to a spot where old drainage pipes exited the quarry. These pipes served as a reference to begin the dive. Visibility from the surface down to the thermocline at 32' was quite good. A thin milky layer was encountered about 60', below it the viz improved but the ambient light greatly decreased. About 70' 2 shacks appeared, one intact and the other fallen in. The general direction of the pipes was followed to a maximum depth of 79', since they disappeared in the silt just after the shacks. The pipes could not be located again in the 5' to 7' thick layer on hydrogen sulfide which hugged the bottom. The only things seen at the bottom were a few small sticks protruding. They were coated with a thick layer of particulate matter which made them appear at least 5 times the actual size. A compass heading of due South was followed to return to the parking area. Upon beginning the ascent large numbers of good sized bass were seen starting at about 40', they had no fear of divers. Thousands of fry were noted in the shallower weedy areas.

After breaking down our gear, we enjoyed lunch at Boston's Restaurant near 78 & 100. A lively discussion during lunch mainly consisted of busting on Vern, whose presence was missed since it would have been much more fun to pick on him if he were there.

From Tom Pritchard...

Moving Day, Part 2 - October 12, 2006
            Gerhard and I had better luck last night arranging the table and chairs for Willow’s exclusive underwater cafe, tentatively named, “Chez Willow.”  Our plan was to locate most of the furniture and then return to move them one at a time to their “final” resting place.   We found one chair off the port side of the Minnow and two off the starboard side.  It took longer to find the table than expected, so I ran a line from the table to the Minnow to keep the table from swimming away. GM and I moved three chairs to the table; Kulpie and the always effervescent Huck moved one.  By this time it was getting a little messy down there, so we quit. Maybe the last two chairs will move themselves. After that it was a quick lap around the bowl. With 15 ft viz, it was a nice night to amble through 57 deg water checking out the perch, including the large flock that greeted each group of divers heading down the line to the platform.  Kulpie spotted a huge trout and there were scads of those bottom crawlers on the platform and in the rock crevasses.  My old POS lawn mower, sans grass catcher, is wedged into the cab of the fire truck.  The damn thing never caught grass when it worked; no reason to start now. Back at the Shack, it was chilli, bread, cubed deli meat, and Huck’s specialty, fresh fruit with gravy.  And a good time was had by all.  This Sunday: Roger’s Quarry. It’s cold, deep, black water sounds like a challenge. The TNIs are still haggling over a date for the 5 hour dive, but we're hoping for mid-November.  Last year we did it during the second week of December. The only thing dumber than a 5 hr. dive, is a 5 hr dive in December.  Guests are welcome to dive all or part of the 5 hr dive - or just marvel at how much dive crap we own and can actually lug into the water.

From Don Bradley...

From John Gross....

On Sunday, Oct 8^th, I finished Mary Beth Waidley’s Wreck Specialty.  What a beautiful day for diving.  We were at Willow Springs diving on the Quest and no one else was there until early afternoon when two divers showed up.  For our first dive MB used her wreck reel around the quest.  I noticed that MB tied into the wreck with a loose connection and after she swam away around the wreck I waited until she tied off along the way and somehow her line became disconnected from the wreck,  Gee I don’t know how that happened?  Ha Ha.  Put she did handle it well on her return trip.  From there we went to the fire engine and pickup truck and then to the caboose.  Someone has placed a microwave unit on top of the caboose and yes we could see the entire caboose.  Viz was really pretty good.  We went once around the caboose and then back to shore to exit.  After our surface interval we again went to the Quest but this time Mary Beth tied off and entered the Quest.  She and Josh went from one end to the other and  I met them inside and told her when to turn around and to exit the same place she entered.  As I was coming out I noticed she had managed to get a birds nest with her wreck reel, which she handled by wrapping the line around the wreck reel manually.  From there it was back to shore by going to the fire engine and following the line back to our exit point.  MB was a little cold put glad to have finished this specialty.  Congratulations Mary Beth on getting your Wreck Specialty Cert.  But bad for someone that just started diving this spring.  She had now finished AOW, Enriched Air Nitrox and Wreck.

This one's a little old, but submitted by Bob Hannah - 

Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!