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From Bryan Palmer . . .
Wednesday night BSC- A few people were out, Scott the Rock, Scuba Steve from York, Cindy Lu who, Dennie Middleton, Speedy (I think I recall seeing him) Ron Lobb, James Zimmerman, Mike Nast Harry Avril (great cave Instructor- Instructor to the Instructors) and myself. Well I had Steve, Ron, James and Scott in my group so I can’t vouch for anyone else, we had in the 40-50 minute ranges with a depth of 115ish. I was diving doubles that were SO GREATFULLY donated to me by Mr. Zimmerman himself. We also were diving the scuba pro regulator as a trial it was kind of like passing around a shesha pipe at 80ft since we were breathing 40%. All went well that ends well. Harry told us some cave stories as mike narrated his cave pictures from Mexico back in December.
Saturday BSC - Sharon, Scott the rock, Gerhart, and my self dove. First dive was all together out to the deep boat and the tanker and then over to the base of the road and worked our way up. the dive was ok till we hit 40ish feet and then it was a who’s who of divers do to visibility. We worked our way back to the lagoon and over to where the fish were but some how ended up getting separated. Well we all surfaced with me at the exit by the pavilion and everyone else at the road. How did that happen? Scott left so the rest of us did a second dive went just as well except we stayed together and saw all the fish over at the weeds in the lagoon
Sunday Chaparra- Gypsy blood, NJ - Kent and I dove the gypsy blood in NJ we arrived at few minutes after 7 to see we were almost the only ones. We ended up with a Capt. Anthony, a mate, a northern NJ diver, Kent and myself. All of us for a 50’ boat, you do that math 10’ of boat per person no to bad. To dives Beautiful weather and Calm seas I don’t think the seas could have been better. We were diving the Atlantic Pond and it was Glass. I ended up with a 3 ½ # lobster with in the first 5 minutes and some good pictures and video. Kent ended with some practice running a wreck reel and both look forward to our next trip to see Capt Anthony. Anthony is a class act Capt. and gets an A+ in my book heck he even provided us with lunch.
From Mark Myers . . .
Savannah, Jack, Karen and I headed up to the Bainbridge Scuba Center this Sunday to enjoy the holiday picnic hosted by Cindy. It was the second straight weekend of snorkeling for myself and Savannah – who is turning into quite a water rat. Susie Freedman was in the water playing with her new digital camera, and Cindy, Ron Lob, and Bob Middleton were suiting up to head in when we got there. Vernon and ?? were headed in for their second dive – and of course Vern ended up with a partially flooded drysuit again!
Since there was no instructor present, much to her disappointment Savannah – being less than 10 years old – was limited to snorkeling for the second straight Sunday in a row. Last year I didn’t bother with the family pass, but this year it looks like it may be a necessity. We entered at the corner with everyone else, and finned over and across the road, and around the north wall, looking for the swarms of young blue gills that followed us last week. These youngsters have absolutely no fear of snorkelers, who make far less noise than divers, and will follow you around like a pack of young puppies looking for a handout. We headed around the corner and out the “road” before turning back at about 45 minutes. Water temps are pretty nice on the surface, but when the sun is hiding in the clouds, a hour in a 3mm suit is about enough. I had light weight recreational gear on over my 3mm, and could easily get to the first thermocline at around 18 – 20 feet before heading back up in pain. That’s early for Bainbridge which usually isn’t warmed into the 3mm comfort zone until mid July.
From Bob Hanna . . .
My friends Dave Gaiski, Tim Sprinkle, and Vince Mitchell asked me if I wanted to do an Ocean Dive on May 30th, I said certainly and so it came to pass that the 4 of us plus Scott Mitchell, a combat engineer recently returned from Iraq, dove a wreck called the Manhattan from a boat called the Surface Interval. What was interesting to me was that Dave had never dove in the ocean before, Vince had never dove on a wreck, and Tim had just a few ocean dives. They had a good time and want to do some more boat dives. The Manhattan is describe on the Surface Interval's web page as follows:
MANHATTAN: Passenger-freighter which sank in collision with the schooner Agnes Manning. Built: 1879. Sank: 1889. Length: 228 ft. Depth: 90 ft. Most of the wreck is flat to the bottom with the hull plates collapsed outward. Two big anchors remain at the bow with the engines and boilers obvious and squares of the cargo holds clearly discernible. A good digging wreck as well as a good lobster wreck. We've seen a ship's lantern, women's high top leather shoes, mantle clock and lots of other goodies come up in recent years.
The weather was comfortable, the Ocean flat, and the bottom temperature 52. There was a significant current especially on the wreck. We ran a wreck reel (as did others). While we uncovered no treasures, it was a very nice day.
From Mike "Caveman" Nast . . .
More scallops and lobster than we could eat, what more can I say about offshore diving? On Sunday, the Tuna Seazure left Mystic Island marina at 7 am, and cruising at 25 knots on calm seas, we arrived at our destinations, the Southern Lillian, 30 miles out, to find a fishing boat already on site. There was no room for us, so we went to a set of numbers that Bill had, that's hardly ever been dived.
It was deeper than we originally planned; and I was glad I blended my mix light 27 percent 02 and 30 percent helium. It was perfect for 135 feet. The conditions were calm after hooking the wreck (or so we thought), I jumped. Viz was great about 50 feet, and you could see the wreck from about 80 feet or more. The conditions were so good, we weren't hooked in at all. The hook was just resting on the sandy bottom. So, I humped to the only piece of wreckage I could find nearby. It looked kind of fragile, so I tied it off to a more substantial piece with some sisal Capt. Bill gave me.
The wreck is unknown, but it looks like its from the 1850s-1880s. It's got a iron or steel hull, a boiler, and a huge mast. It lies on its side, and we were anchored by the tip of the mast, so we could follow the mast to the wreck. I put my strobe on the anchor chain, and decided not to use a line since conditions were so good. The bottom was covered with scallops and I grabbed a 4 pound lobster. The wreck has some huge taug and sea bass on as well.
After a two hour surface interval, I cut a new schedule using decoplanner on a palm and wrote it on duct tape and taped it to my fin. I had my Nitek III, but at 135 on trimix, you want a back up.
I jumped, and was saw that the hook had broken loose and now was just held in with the sisal. I had tied it around a piece of piping, and it looked like it wouldn't last because the current was starting to pick up. I decided I had to move it. I cut the sisal and looked around for a new piece of wreckage to hook into. I found metal ring that once held the bottom half of the mast and hooked into that and tied off. About forty more scallops and two lobsters later with a 25 min bottom time, it was back up to the surface. 25 minutes run, 1 at 50, 2 at 40, 3 at 30 and 13 at 20 on 75% for those that are interested in that type of thing.
My relatives declared the scallops the best ever, even better than the lobsters. I'd definitely recommend the Tuna Seazure’s offshore trips. The viz is almost always good and the boat is so fast, it doesn't take that long to get there.
From Tom Pritchard . . . [edited to be PC]
Damn Swimmers!! I guess swimmers don't like weeds. Much to the chagrin of the TNI divers, Willow Springs Park decided to pull the weeds in the swimming area. Willow takes a lot kidding about poor viz but, in truth, the viz has been 15-40 feet for last few months - at least until the weed pulling started. After Gerhard Maree and Greg Kulp did an early dive, GMan said it was "like diving in elephant '###'." This, of course, raises more than a few questions about where Gerhard has been diving of late. I was afraid to ask how he knew what diving in elephant '###' was like - so I dove in Willow to find out. The water was clear down to 10 ft, then green, then a dense milky white and finally absolutely black at the very bottom - which didn't matter to me since my ears would clear, my mask flooded, and my light would come on. I followed my nose straight thru the gloom to where the platform should be and ended up at its base where I sorted out my problems and then ascended to find GMan and Chris Gabel waiting on the platform. The viz was 3 inches, if that. To read your computer, you had to hold your it against your mask and shine your light into the side of the mask. Chris and I lost GMan as soon as we went off the platform. I signalled Chris to ascend by groping for his hand and forming HIS fingers into the "thumbs up" ascend signal. We met Gerhard on the surface and tried again by dropping down the buoy line. We lost Chris at the bottom, then each other, then ascended. Bear in mind that in two tries we haven't moved more than 2 feet from the platform. We decided to do a shallow dive around the east end of the quarry - and then surprise, surprise. the viz opened up to about 10 ft. So we dove all the way to the far end and visited Dave's truck and the snowmobile, all at 40-50 ft. In retrospect, I thought it was more like whale '###' than elephant '###'. Besides, I've never seen any elephants diving at Willow.
Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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