Smokeys Divers Den - Dive Reports

On Saturday November 18th several of the TNI's met a Myerstown hoping to complete the 5 hour dive talked about for at least 1 1/2 years previous. Participating were Terry Martzall (T Bone), Roger Heins, James Zimmerman, John Katerenchuk (non TNI), and Greg Kulp. Roger was feeling ill and decided not to try for 5 hours, preferring to make a shorter dive and then assume the role of fire stoker and soup stirrer (which was much appreciated). James and John decided to do a long rebreather dive, but far short of 5 hours. Terry and Greg both completed dives 5 + hours run time.

Terry is now the Champ of endurance diving at Myerstown with 5 hours and forty some minutes. Greg was in for 5 hours and fifteen minutes, 12 minutes short of his dive last year. Both emerged from the water tired and achy. Should this dive happen again, both agreed that they would be spectators at any future attempt(s).

11/30 What A Mess. I thought G-Man, the always effervescent Huck, T-Bone Jr and I had a plan when we left the platform, but I might have been wrong about that. We swam to the van and then to the truck in search of mussels. I thought I had the others in tow when I ascended to the airplane, but alas, I was wrong - and alone. I hustled back, but it was too late. On my way to the Quest I stumbled into Don Bradley along the line surrounded by a humongous cloud of silt. I thought, "Donny, you gotta work on the buoyancy thing." As I pressed on, the viz got worse and worse - and I kept thinking about Donny. Then I found out the problem wasn't Donny after all; T-Bone was in the mood to raise Bubba a few more inches so Kulpie brought his scooter to blow some of the silt from under the hull. What a mess! For a few minutes I shed some light on the hole that Kulpie was digging and then left coughing and gasping along the line to the Boat in the Bowl. Kulpie's silty mess spread South to the middle of the bowl, and according to the chief messy maker himself, the silt cloud spread North to the Mystery boat. After passing the boat I found a 15 inch pickerel lounging along the wall near the fire truck, checked on the status of my piece of crap lawn mower in the cab of the fire truck, and then started back with one wet hand in a wet dry glove. I finally caught up with T-Bone Jr, G-Man and Huck at the school bus. Back at the Shack we dined on Dave Ho's always excellent sausage sandwiches, along with coconut cream pie, bread pudding, Huck's fruit with gravy, cheese, and bunches of snacks and soda. Next week we might send a search party to find the table and chairs, which seem to have packed up and left the Minnow. Even in a quarry, it's location, location, location. Life is good!

12/7 “We don’t need no stinkin’ compass”
Although last night wasn't the first time we've had ice on the dock this year, it still seemed like the inaugural winter dive. Flurries greeted the divers upon their exit into the frosty 30 degree wind. This won't be the last time that the water temp will be warmer than the air temp. Colin and I didn't plan where we were going to go, so it’s unfair to say we got lost. We swam from the platform to Bubba through the silt storm from hell, so I assumed that Kulpie was scootering silt from beneath the boat again. Wrong. Rumor has it that two of TNI’s finest were having buoyancy problems last night. It was time to get off the rope, so we compassed to the Mystery boat and then to the road. We hopped the road and headed west toward the pump, and full of confidence, decided that we didn't need a compass to find our way. Colin and I proved, once again, that if you don't use a compass in crummy viz, you'll eventually hang a yoo-ee. By the time I pulled my compass out, we were swimming east toward the far wall. After reaching the wall, we turned right (south) and followed the wall for a while and -presto- we were swimming west. Huh!?? Time to take out the compass again. After plowing across the dead zone, we ended up at the truck along the west wall. It’s amazing what you can do with a compass. After wiggling through the rear window of the truck cab and out the door, we followed the wall to the platform before climbing and sliding our way to the parking lot. Per tradition for the first Thursday of the month, JZ, Colin, Kuplie, Jay, George, Joe, and I went to Paulos to dine and swap lies. The TNIs are having chilli next week. You’re welcome to join us to dive and eat – just bring some food, fins, and your dazzling personality. Dive stats: 50 minutes, 48 degrees, 3-8 ft viz, dark, wet.

11/30 The TNI OG's gathered at the lobster dock in daylight but since Jay Bell was running late it was very dark until we got our act together to attempt a dive together. The plan was to meet on the platform and head off for "Another Damn Wall Dive" with Georgie Boy in the lead. All went well as we assembled on the platform and performed our buddy checks before heading out. We did great to the van which we did a swim through of and then headed to the Kenworth. All was not well there! We hit the biggest silt storm I have ever seen. At first I figured that we Old Guys are getting really bad with our buoyancy and need to do some work on that. Well, we did cause a portion of it but this was off the charts bad. After feeling my way around the tires and frame I decided that I might have better luck coming up a few feet which I did following the shape of the cab until I spotted some very faint lights in the "fog" which I figured had to be my OG's. Wrong! I followed the faint lights into fish alley and somehow ran into the line headed to Bubba. I was surrounded by at least 5 other divers who remain unknown to me at this time as I did not recognize anyone. I stopped at Bubba to try to rejoin my group which had headed off to fly the airplane without me. I saw Terry working on what I figured was a grave for me so I pulled back and watched the guys hover around like bugs at a night light. What a sight! I spotted a few lights moving off towards the Quest so I decided to get "Out of Dodge" before Terry put me in that hole he was digging. I figured that I was gonna catch the blame for the silt clouds as usual so I moved on. Again at the Quest the lights disappeared, I think the guys were on to me and pulled a Stealth act. I ended up at the firetruck and could not find anyone so I backtracked and ran into a few unknown divers at the school bus. I followed them up the wall and did my safety stop. What a night! You just had to be there to appreciate it. After stowing my gear in the truck I rejoined the OG's for a trip to Paolo's for a frosted mug or two. Great time with good people. Get out and dive, live the adventure. We did. What did you do last night?

PS - Now that I read Doc Tom's dive report I know who it was I was shadowing all night. It sounds like I was partial dive buddies with Doc, Huck, G-Man,and T-Bone, Jr. Apparently Doc and I did pretty much the same dive separated only by the silt cloud. I'm used to diving with the OG's and seeing the diver's name on the bottom of the fins so I was trying to see something on the divers that I could recognize to identify them. Hey guys, I enjoyed barging into your group uninvited and being a pain in the ass with my "Dual Headlights". I guess G-Man is permanently blinded now from me. Sorry guys. To anyone that did not dive Thursday night you sure missed it, I think we had the largest turn out that we have had for a very long time. There is still room for a few more so head on up to Willow Springs and join in the "Cluster Diving". Get out and dive.

Once again, I'm pleased to exploit the free use of Mark's bandwidth for my own person uses. This time I do have a few legitimate announcements ... as well as the usual tales of kinder and warmer waters. The first is that upon stepping back through the looking glass, at the end of my student-teaching this week, I will be graduating. Finally, graduating -- University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL with a BAE in Social Science Education. Now I just need to find a job doing anything other than that.

The other announcement, the legitimate one, and on Mark's behalf. The U/W tree decorating is quickly coming up, and as tradition dictates the Smokey tree must be the most tasteless and tacky site for aquatic life forms anywhere to behold. So I support you all in doing your duties there. And call upon you all to face another duty of tradition. In addition to the assortment of tacky ordainments the Smokey tree must be dressed with garland that has on it the names of Smokey's divemasters and instructors.... a task I have joyful seen to for the last five years. A long series of recent events has dramatically highlighted to me how out of touch I've gotten with the Northeast diving scene. It is time for the torch to be passed, and someone new must carry on this tradition. I am retiring.

Now, the tales of kinder and warmer waters. First, the water is still 72F, as it will be all winter. But now as the air temp drops we are in 'winter diving' season. The best thing about winter around here is that you can shameless overfill tanks well before a dive. Also it helps when the compressor operator has no morals when it comes to overfilling a tank. ... especially when she's going to use those tanks herself.

There hasn't been that much diving since the last time. My gas needs are changing and I needed to O2 clean my manifolds, an afternoon activity when you do it on your own time, but when you do it at work it takes two weekends. Then I was finally a victim of a bug my students had been passing around, that was another week. So three weeks after leaving some of my gear back the hill 400 line during that last class drill, I finally got in the water Friday night. The plan was to head back that way and pick it up. The three of us had a great dive, but gas limits prevented us from getting anywhere close.

The dive today was a repeated attempt with repeated results, but with more distance. This is a really scenic dive, but I've done it so many times that I'm eager to hit my mark and go do a different dive. But now the attempt to match the pervious dive is becoming a minor obsession. The dive at Devils starts in one of two places, the Ear or the Eye. The Ear has more flow to enter against, but drops you into the system closer to the mainline. From there it's aerobic swim across the top of the Gallery, a horizontal rock-climb against the flow through the Lips, brief chance to catch your breath before squeezing through the Keyhole, keeping your head down through the Cornflakes, that low section opens up into the junction room, the mainline goes left, the jump to Hill 400 is up the line only a 100ft or 200ft, just enough time to unclip and prep your spool for the jump, tie in for the jump, run the jump, tie off, this is where the dive gets very sweet from here on in on this line the flow only decreases. From the start of the mainline to a little past the jump for Hill 400 the cave as a very specific look, it dramatically changes once you're on the Hill 400 line. I like it.

It's been a long weekend, I'm still offgasing and quite tired. Need to get some sleep... I have plenty of evening diving planned this week.