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From Tom Pritchard. . .
After missing a week at Willow, the doctor faced the inevitable and OKed me for diving again. I left the TNIs alone for 1 week - 1 crummy week - and you should see what a mess they made of the quarry. Viz was sometimes better and sometimes worse, but usually about 3 ft. Eric Henry, GMan, and I headed out for a conservative dive near the ropes in case I needed to tow myself back. Eric, with a new drysuit, was underweighted and left after a brisk 8 minutes in the 41 degree soup. I was too light as well, but I wasn't ready to give up. After swimming through the bowels of the Quest, I decided it was time to grab some ballast. Screw the ropes! We headed to the bottom and wandered around looking for rocks. It's a lot harder finding rocks in a quarry than you might imagine. I finally found a decent size rock and traded up a few times while we tried to figure out where we were. After rattling around in the cul de sac, we hit the rope west of Bubba. The viz was so bad we almost got lost swimming through the school bus. Having done most of the dive shrink-wrapped in my drysuit in order to stay down, I was pretty damn cold at 40 minutes - and with my tank half empty now I was having trouble lugging enough rocks to keep me down. It turns out that GMan was underdressed and had developed a bad case of frozen boyz. It was kind of humiliating to cut the dive at 40 minutes, but it was time. And a good (but short) time was had by all!
From Bryan Palmer. . .
All right I know I haven’t written anything lately but some of that is cause the “weekend” weather hasn’t been that great on my days off!!! However I had the opportunity to get out on Sunday and dive with a coworker John and a guy named Chris from Croatia over for a week. We did 2 dives on 2 different reefs first dive was to a depth of 85 ft and the second dive was to a depth of 60ft. I do have to tell my truth that I took the easy way out this weekend and dove in my drysuit water was a 72 degrees on the surface but a chilly breeze on the boat so in just didn’t feel like packing a jacket. Dives were nice and I broke out my camera and was able to start practicing with it again… I hope to be back to were I was in a few weeks Hopefully it comes right back to me. I have enclosed a few pictures for your viewings.
From Mark Myers . . .
Well, the earth stood still and it got very cold in a very hot place this weekend....
About 8pm on Saturday night, a friend from Baltimore called and asked if I was planning to dive on Sunday. This being the weekend we picked to start re-entering everything from our latest computer crash, my original intent was to say no. My wife and I were at the tail end of an 8 hour shift of re-entering invoicing and AP data and were pretty burned out. Luckily for me the "love of my life" - which she confirmed with this one statement - said "oh, just go diving before you go postal from stress and kill someone..." What this special woman was agreeing to do with just that one little statement was go solo on a trip to church and dinner with MY, not her, parents and the kids so that I could get a little bottom time in. "Oh no, Marks' not here. He blew you off to go diving." Would your wife willingly pass that message to your mother?
Since I haven't been in the water for about two months (head cold at New Year's) and I was making the decision to dive at the last minute, my gear was a cluster f(@#%@#. Regs here, computer there, tanks empty -- so Sunday morning I was operating on "Vern" time when I pulled into Bainbridge 45 minutes behind schedule. For some strange reason there were people still waiting for me. Nick had taken his time getting ready, and batting the breeze with some of the staff at Bainbrige, and happened to find Jim Brown and buddy Ron getting ready to investigate the "Catfish Pipe." In case you didn't know it, the water level is so high at BSC that it is forcing water out through the old pump pipe with some nasty suction - something a local catfish learned the hard way. We hit the pipe and measured it for a safety cage Steve is building. Nick nearly learned the hard way how much suction there is. A warning here - DO NOT mess with this pipe. You could become seriously injured and permanently attached to the end of it if you happen to accidentally plug it with a glove, leg, arm or whatever. There is some SERIOUS suction. Just ask the catfish who went flying over to the river -- and Nick who nearly had a very nice set of dry gloves follow the catfish.
After checking out the pipe, we headed over past the bulldozer and out the road. visibility deep is still a little poor, so we elected to stay shallow. About half way out the road we found the resident bass that likes to hang out there and startled him from a sound sleep. 35 minutes in 40 degree water.
The second dive found us trying to assist Jim Brown in re-tying the barrels that mark platforms at BSC. The high water level has several of them under the surface. The plan was to float 3 cement blocks out with a lift bag, and tie them off to the barrel giving us enough slack to pull the line loose and re-tie it. Let's just say that three cement blocks don't even budge a keg full of air. After another shallow dive up around the tunnel and the west end of the quarry, we headed out - 25 minutes. It wasn't glamour or fancy, but we had fun and got our allotment of bottom time in!!
The Deco Procedures class was out at BSC on Saturday practicing skills and learning just how screwed up their gear configurations were. I was not there, but I understand the class went well - with Instructor Alex learning that even though we're a bunch of boneheads, our dive stills are pretty good!!!
From Darth Vern . . .
Not to much going on lately, so only a few reports. But if you follow the dive reports you know Mayo, JameZ and myself have been taking some "tech" courses and we finished up the classroom portion of the TDI Decompression Procedures class last weekend, plus the first day of diving. The class was great, not to hard, most of the emphasis is on gear and scenarios. You MUST have your equipment set-up a certain way to pass this class, which for the most part is better than most of us have been diving anyway, IMHO. I am def happy with my changes. We have 1 more day of diving hopefully this weekend and we are finished.
I am available and will gladly discuss the more advanced classes, gear or "tech" classes with anyone who is interested. I am always around for some "scuba speak" esp about gear, going deeper and taking pictures.
I would like to throw something out there for everyone. I did manage to finally try out some "spring heel straps" they were even some home made cheapies and they are AWESOME. Very easy on and off and you never have to worry about breaking any plastic clips or rubber. I would advise any diver who dives regularly to try a pair, YOU WILL BE HOOKED. I am sure the shop will have some VERY shortly for sale.
Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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