From Tom Pritchard...

How Do You Use One of Them Compass Thingamajigs?
         It was a skeleton crew at Willow this week. Colin, who missed dropping Terry's Tube, was eager to see it, so we departed the platform along the NW wall. I didn't use my compass and with my mask-a-flooding, wasn't paying enough attention to the wall, and did it again: I pulled a yoo-ee and ended up at the torpedo.  OK, I'll take the path less traveled to stay away from the bottom crawlers by compassing from Bubba to the Mystery Boat.  Even though my compass was spinning in circles and hanging up at times, Colin and I hit the Mystery Boat spot on and then swam to the ridge.  The compass sputtered a few more times, but we finally spotted a dive light in the distance and found Kulpie filling two lift bags attached to Terry's Tube.  I didn't think Kulpie could get it up, but you don't have to be a brain surgeon to figure out that this would be a bad time to swim thru The Tube.  After loitering a bit, Colin and I took a heading of 200 deg. figuring that might bring us close to the Quest. The compass began coughing and wheezing so after some bizarre hand signaling, I absconded with Colin's compass and decided to bag the 200 deg. heading and get the hell out of Dodge. It was a real winter dive with an air temp of 18 degrees and a bottom temp of 41. 

The World Famous TNIs
         The TNIs almost got 2 of their 15 minutes of fame last night.  WGAL did one of their "Film at 11" promos for some guy in a wet/dry/leisure/somekinda suit kayaking down the SusQ River.  If WGAL thought that was manly behavior, what would they think about scuba diving in this weather?  So I wrote to WGAL and told them about how Thursday was the Diving High Holy Day for the TNIs.  I was told, more or less, that they'd send a film crew.   At 3:30 Joya, one of the new owners of Willow, got a call that they were trying to get there, but alas, they never made it.  Perhaps they got sidetracked by some other breaking story like the outbreak of world peace or the Perry County Pickle Parade.  Or maybe the guy in the leisure suit finally launched his kayak.  Perhaps the film crew will come next week - or maybe they're still looking for us - anyway, come to Willow next week in case they come to deliver our well-deserved 2 minutes of fame.  Because if you come, you can pull a Vern and growl in your deepest, manliest voice, "Me and da Guyz is here every week."

 

Live the Adventure!!!