Smokeys Divers Den - Dive Reports

I'm going to pull rank and put my dive report first this week. Why? Because I can!

Well for those of you who missed it, we did our annual Christmas Tree Dive at BSC this past weekend. This tradition was started years ago as a way to raise money for the Ovarian Cancer Alliance.

The sun was up and surface temps were -- well, not toasty -- but at least not freezing on Sunday. After a lot of milling around waiting for someone to take charge - I finally assigned the "techies" - Gerhardt, Dr. Tom and Bill Hockley to find a couple of cinder blocks to use for a tree stand - and Jeff Raykos and I headed out with the tree. The tree, by the way, was donated by Stauffers of Kissle Hill, so there's the required plug. Water temps were around 50 - actually up slightly after the warm week and visibility was pretty typical for BSC.

Jeff and I waited patiently until FINALLY we saw my lift bag coming at us through the fog. While we were doing our thing - Greg Kulp was working on his attempt to top last year's electric train - and when Christmas Carols suddenly flooded the quarry we knew he succeeded. We could decorate the tree to music!!

Joe "Cowboy" Dormer escorted the wetsuit divers in once we had the tree set - yes, there were wetsuit divers - and then we commenced to decorating. Steve Zelinski and Brad Smith both dove wet to decorate the tree, then did a fun dive out around the bulldozer. You gotta hand it to Brad - who was just back from a Florida trip - so his water temps did a 40 degree swing in a week. Zelinski - I have decided - is just insane as he planned to spend the entire day at BSC diving wet. I swallowed hard and allowed Joe to take my camera along with him - but he didn't take any more pictures!

After a quick dive, it was back to the beach for FOOD, and to check out York Diver's tree. As usual, they went for traditional and classy, showing up with an enormous tree and an actual tree stand. I didn't get to stay and see them finish up because of family commitments, but I'm sure it was a good looking tree. Our approach of "no ornament over $1 - and hand made is better" though sure provides for more fun!! and we had music!!

The trees will be in for a couple of weeks - and if you are so moved by the effort - send donations to the Ovarian Cancer Alliance. www.ovariancancer.org/ Whoever raises the most money, gets bragging rights for another year!

Live the Adventure!!

Mark

Lately I've been writing more than usual, so many reasons -- finished the Apprentice class, graduation, my retirement from the garland industry and the saga of my line arrows. There were the dive reports from the class dive when I had to leave them, the dives attempting to retrieve them, and now the final installment of the trilogy -- Fate of the Orphan Arrows.

After Commencement Friday night -- yes, it's official now -- I had spend the night in Jacksonville. It was the day after graduation and didn't know when I was getting back in town, so I took Saturday off. My first weekend day off since I started at Ginnie ... which I spend diving at Ginnie!!

While hanging around Devils and Cave Excursions I meet up with Reggie who was giving a tour to someone getting back into caving. I joined them for their return trip to Devils. Getting out from those two dives I see Kevin getting out from his. I don't have to be at work until 1pm the next day, and try to temp him with a dive the next morning.

Here's a chemistry question -- what do you get when you mix nitrogen and limestone in a primordial ooze? You form the amino acids that will evolve into cave divers. This is the only rationale I can think of to support the impeccable logic of Kevin's response to my morning dive offer. He had to work in the morning, but made a counteroffer ... why not just go do another dive !! It was an offer I couldn't refuse. We got gas and raided the fridge with is stuffed with leftovers from the staff party. I'm off and still spend the whole day at Ginnie.

I've made a handful of dives trying to get back where my arrows are, but always had the dive turned before that. Kevin's a local diver and known the system very well, I knew he could hit the Bats. This was the best dive yet I've had in Devils, and one of my best dives ever. Going through the usual motions of a dive up the Hill 400 line -- drop deco bottles at the sign, cross the Gallery, pull through the Lips, turn at the Junction room, put in the jump, run up the Hill 400 line. From where I left them and previous dives I knew they were somewhere between 1200ft and the Bats.

So, once I see the 1200ft distance marker I keep my eye on the line until I find my arrows. Next thing I know I'm starring at Bats, they're not there. There's several factors in play here. One, I left them there almost two months ago. Two, the personalization of my arrows is highly decorative. Three, Glory Markers are not good. GLORY MARKER-noun- a personalized line arrow left to announce to the world how great of a diver you are for being able to leave a line arrow that far back in a system. As each week passed my expectation of finding the arrows decreased.

So we're at the Bats, and I still have nearly a third of my first third left. This is amazing gas consumption, and one of those dives where absolutely everything in the universe is going just right. So there's no reason not to keep going, although I didn't expect to see the Hillier Tunnel for a while yet. The Hillier Tunnel looks great. Very few squirrel marks back here. SQUIRREL MARKS-noun- dents and depressions in the clay/silt bottom made by careless fins, stage bottle, scooters and anything else that people can't have streamlined and manage with good trim. We kept going for a couple hundred feet more, almost hitting the jump to the line for the Double Domes.

I was leading this dive, which means on the way back out I get to have Kevin in my sights the whole time. His interest level in the unremarkable walls of the cave was abnormally high -- completely stopping and searching a plain wall, pointing out an average rock, and other things. It took me quite a while to figure out what he was doing. See, he has a thing for fossils. I know Devil's has fossils, and I've seen a few. After I figured out what he was doing, they were literally coming out of the walls. There are part of this cave I've been in 2-3 dozen times and not noticed it before, now they were just jumping out at me. There's tons of fossils in this cave. It's pretty cool to think I've been there so many times before never noticed them and now that I'm getting a hand on the technical side of the dive can afford the mental RAM to notice this stuff.

Oh but he had another treat waiting for me. Coming back the mainline through the Junction room the cave and line makes a hard turn to the right, goes through the Cornflakes then up to the Keyhole. Just before the Junction room he goes to check out more wall.... and starts going down a tunnel... that doesn't have line. I stop and waiting wondering two things -- one, what is he doing and two, is he coming back. After he clears the tunnel, and is not coming back. I'm visually searching the tunnel from where I was and see gold line. At which point I figured out what he did, it's a little shortcut around the Junction room. Because I saw the gold line on the other side, I was willing to followed him.

Now when I said this was a dive where everything in the universe was working perfectly, this continued into deco. When you make your third dive of the day on a 26 nitrox mix, go 1700ft in the cave, and the dive is 4 minutes short of two hours

-- you are obliged to a visit with the deco logs. We were in the water so long I think some of the fish believed we were fish as well. Every diver knows that fish do not get in your face to 'check you out' unless you have a rebreather or food. These fish were coming up to us treating us like out of town relatives home for the holidays. Then I got a friend to play with. I'm not sure what the real name is, but I call them sand skippers. They're about 2-3 inches long and act a lot like sting rays, bury their flat bodies in the sand and dart away if startled. Well I had one land and bury about five inches away from my mask. You never get this close, without them leaving promptly. I wanted to see just how sensitive to movement they were. I dropped some grains of sand a few inches above it -- a perfectly natural phenomena -- which it didn't mind. Then I started mini-avalanches to see if it would allow itself to be totally buried. It allowed itself to be almost completely buried and I ended up with the faces of both my computers and other hand covered in course sand ... both of us were annoyed by the second experiment.

So ends the third and final installment of the line arrow trilogy. They are officially MIA. But now I can go do a different dive ... and make up some more arrows for personal use. Ah, it's time to go crawl in a cave again. Now that the trilogy is resolved, I don't plan on sending up a dive report for a while. Unless if something monumental happens, expect the next one in a few months when I do Full Cave -- the fourth and final course to be considered ... well, a 'full' member of the cave diving community. Also sometime this spring or definitely by next summer, I'll be willing to venture above the arctic circle and head north for a trip. Will keep posted.

In late October a Fast Attack Sub (Boise) SSN 764 departed Norfalk, Va. with a load of Torpedoes (Boise II Pic 1) and with XO Rob Hanna (Pics Boise II 2,3) and went on Patrol going North eventually they turned West and surfaced at or near the N Pole. In the process they obtained photographic proof that Santa was at the N Pole in 06, then they continued West and are on patrol there (somewhere) at the present time.

Commissioned in 1992, Boise lives up to its motto as “A One Ship Fleet.” A Los Angeles-class submarine, Boise is 360 feet long, displaces 6,900 tons of water, and can travel in excess of 25 knots. Boise’s armaments include Tomahawk cruise missiles and MK-48 advanced capability torpedoes. It carries a crew of about 120. We have about 50 of these Subs. We depend on them for our freedom.

I last saw Rob in August at Lake George where we went diving with Captain Mark Mason on the Ratteau which is the oldest preserved warhip in North America dating to about 1758.

Rumor has it that Vern will be leading John Gross to this new Ice diving Location where Terry Grogan will take the underwater Pics assisted by Mike the Mad Irishman. Bill Hockley's next marathon run will end at that location. Ralph Spayd will be flying in from China! And Natasha reports they are all crazy and is heading for a warmer location. Just a rumor! Maybe some form of Narcosis.