From Tom Pritchard ...

May 18 - Tech divers are gear junkies and some days it feels like I'm wearing every piece of it.  Last night was a good example. To finish my trimix cert I have to do a "graduation dive." Jeff Schwartz, my trimix instructor in the Dominican Republic, thought that a trimix cert earned in the clear, blue, warm tropics might not mean much in the nasty-ass Northeast where I dive. Good point!  So next month we'll do a deep dive off the Eagle's Nest, which sails out of Long Island. Time to prepare. With GM stuck at work training (no word on whether that was paper-training or potty-training), I had to pay people to dive with me.  In no time at all, I had George Heck, Jay Bell, Donny Bradley, and Joe Hoeninger lined up. Once they saw me dressed to the nines with my doubles and two stage bottles, I'm sure they felt guilty taking my money because they knew this was going to be a clusterf*&*! of the first-order. We proved that five divers can make a real mess of the visibility, even at Willow. Our silt storm visited the steam shovel and then the habitat where I found a few of the pseudo zebra mussels hanging out; they were choking on our silt when we left. On the way to the tanker we spotted Martzall doing what he does best: dig. I figured he found another porthole, but it turns out he was disposing of two fish hooks that got caught on the line. By the time our group passed the tanker, I was tired of being the "caboose" and eating everyone's dust, so I joined George at the front of the pack.  George was in a hurry and I was too burdened to keep up, so I hung back and stayed with Jay and Joe. Donny "misappeared" when his air got low. I was doing fine with my gaggle of tanks - and then I spotted the diamond-shaped frames that advanced divers are supposed to swim through with their single 80's. Hmmm. What the hell, I'll give it a shot - what's the worst that could happen? To my utter amazement, I swam through with barely a touch - and not a soul saw it. Back at the platform I shot a bag and got out. No problems and no lost gear; it's unclear whether my dive buddies were more disappointed or surprised.

May 25 -  Did you know the deep part at the east end of Willow has a teardrop shape?  I didn't - until last night.  After GM and I headed east off the platform, I spotted a diamond reef and once again I squeezed a set doubles, two stages, and my fat ass through it without getting hung up. After spilling over the cliff and swimming east a while, we came to the "rock jetty" the runs off the north wall and took if it for a change. The jetty turns into a low wall that gradually loops west and then forms one side of the narrow pass near the perimeter of the deep area. Whodathunkit?  While near the motorcycle, I heard a scooter buzzing around, but in the 15 ft viz, saw nothing. And then a diver with one of Gerhard's tanks streaked by. Nah, it couldn't be the GMan; he's right behind me - and sure enough, when I checked a few minutes later, he was right there.  Later I learned I wasn't narced - Dave Ho had given GM a brief turn on the scooter.  We looped around and naved back to one of the platforms where I tied off my reel. GM inflated one of those long tubes that people use at sporting events to make noise and shoved it into the outhouse. We followed the reel back, untied, and then swam east. Then the viz dropped to about a foot. We suffered for a while and finally said, "Screw this - we'll head south!"  At the cement mixer the viz was so good that GM decided to swim/crawl under the belly of the beast. With his 80cf stage attached as a sidemount, he got thru without much trouble - although the viz took a beating. So I tried with my two smaller stages clipped in the conventional way - and promptly got stuck. With only 1000 psi left and no viz, I figured I'd back out and press the issue another day. The low viz, which we later learned was caused by the Willow crew moving swim platforms and looking for Jimmy Hoffa, was creeping east and had now engulfed the south tracks all the way to the outhouse. Back at the platform, I shot a bag and called it a dive. 

May 28 - Hot, Deep, Cold, Tired, and Hot
That just about sums up Sunday's dive at BSC.  Gerhard, Kulp, the always effervescent Huck, and I left Wild Bill, his OW class, DMs/AIs Diana Scholl, Mark Seymour, and Dave Barnhard, and the hot weather at Upper A and headed for the cold water a the bottom of the quarry. GM and I have milled through The Hole before, but have always managed to miss the good stuff. Half of our trips into The Hole have ended at the rim when the deeper viz went below 3 feet. Other times, we didn't have directions or a decent guide, but this time it would be different. With Huck in the lead and Kulp riding shotgun, we sprinted down the incline, took a side trip to the deep boat, and zipped along the rim to the step van.  I was more in the hole than at the rim admiring the bottom almost 20 ft below.  At the step van, we turned left and with none of that bizarre smoke that hovers 6 inches off the bottom, we found the railroad tracks in short order. The boiler is at the far end of The Hole, just north of the tracks. Dark and cold, but the best viz (20-30 ft) I've ever seen there.  In fact, the viz was outstanding at all depths.  We looped our way back and up to the deep boat, which we could see from stem to stern, even from 15 ft away. We didn't run up much deco and did most of it on our way up the slope. We were a little cold at the end but with air temps in the mid-80's, we warmed up too much and too soon.  Summer is here!  Get out and Dive!  52 minutes, 118 ffw 41 deg (Thanks for grub Willy!!!)

May 6, 2006 at 4pm and I was finally arriving in Belize City, Belize to begin a 7 day liveaboard trip on the Nekton Pilot. I had been planning this trip for about 9 months and after several flight changes and issues with Delta I was glad to now be in the capable hand of the Nekton Crew. I was met at the airport by one of the crew. We waited a short period of time for a couple other divers to get thru immigration/customs and then we were all loaded into a van and taken to a local Hotel to relax and wait for the balance of the passengers to arrive.

The Nekton Pilot is one of two vessels owned and operated by Nekton Cruises in Florida. They are US registered vessels and come under the standards of the US Coast Guard. The Pilot holds 32 passengers but our trip had only 16 scheduled. This was primarily due to the fact that our trip was the last one scheduled for the season in Belize. The Pilot was scheduled for some updating, USCG inspections and repositioning to handle trips in the Bahamas. I was hopeful that my careful scheduling and good luck might result in being assigned a single cabin. I was not disappointed and neither were the other passengers as we were all assigned our own cabins. At the hotel I was able to get to know some of the other passengers, have a couple of Diet Cokes (Coke Light in Belize) and eat a nice dinner before we were all taken to board the vessel at about 7pm.

Upon boarding we were all introduced to each other and the crew, rooms were assigned and a very complete briefing on the operation and safety aspects of the ship was completed while we were served some tasty snacks. Following the briefing we immediately left the dock and headed for Lighthouse Reef. Most of us turned in for the evening with our clock set to awake at 7 am for breakfast. The daily schedule went as follows:

6 am Continental Breakfast available also Dawn Dive if enough interest 

7am Hot Breakfast available

8:15 till 11:45 Dive deck open for unlimited diving (Hot fresh cookies available at 10:00)

1:15 - 5:45 Dive deck open for unlimited diving (afternoon snack available at 3:00)

I really liked the unlimited diving approach as compared to a Dive Master led dive that imposes a dive time limit. All dives needed to be within recreational limits but you and your buddy were free to go diving at the time you wanted when the dive deck was open and take as much bottom time as your air and NDL allowed. If your buddy did not want to go on a dive then you could ask for one of the 7 eager Dive Masters to go along with you. As a result I completed 28 dives with a total bottomtime of 1750 minutes(29 hrs 10 mins) and average max depth of 78 ft. Water temps range from 83 to 85 degrees.

The dive sites at Lighthouse reef are wall dives with little to no current. Typically we would start the dive deep down the wall examining the coral formations and creatures hiding in the nooks and crannies. The visibility was usually 75 feet and when at recreational limits the bottom of the wall could not be seen. We would gradually move up the wall until reaching the top which was usually between 40 to 60 ft. Upon reaching the top I would either view the abundant fish and coral or follow some of the many grooves formed by the coral at the top of the wall. The coral was in very good shape and plentiful. Of note were many of the large barrel sponges some which were close to 5 ft across at the top. The fish life was on par with other good Caribbean destination such as Bonaire or Cozumel. Gray Angels, Queen Angels, Crabs and Lobsters seemed to be more plentiful than other locations. Moray eels seemed to be less plentiful. Although I did get a nice photo of a large old green moray being cleaned by a banded cleaner shrimp that had a chuck of flesh missing from the side of its mouth. Some notable sighting included a Gray Reef Shark, Spotted Eagle Rays cruising the shallows and a Hawksbill and Loggerhead Turtle that almost had a mid-air collision while swimming at the top of the wall.

We spent most of our time at the many dive sites around Lighthouse Reef, made a land stop at Half Moon Caye to see the famous bird population and then spent the balance of the trip diving the sites around Turneffe Caye. The sites around Turneffe are closer to the mainland and are characterized by large sandy areas with turtle grass and gently slopping spur and grove coral formations. The diving here was shallower and many additional creatures were observed such as large colonies of Garden Eels at 50 ft, Hermit crabs and Conch moving ever so slowly across the sandy bottom and many stingrays playing hide and seek in the sandy channels between the tall coral heads.

I was suitably impress with Belize as a Caribbean dive destination. The Coral and Creatures are on par with many of the better locations with the Caribbean. The diving can be interesting for both newly certified and advance divers. I would strongly recommend that if your primary purpose for going to Belize is to dive then the best way to see the best reef is by liveaboard. As for the Nekton Pilot and its crew I cannot pass along enough praise. The crew was always available and ready to help, the food was very good and the accommodations were spacious.

From Bob Hannah...

And from Bob about June 10...

And finally from Mark ...

Yes, a dive report from Mark.  Boy, you take a year off to move and everyone thinks you forget how to dive!!  Since my old buddies all moved on last year while I was packing boxes - some to instruction, some to tri-mix, and other places, I figured I'd have to home brew a new one.  Daughter Savannah and I headed out to Bainbridge last Saturday afternoon to get one in before she left for summer camp for a week.  The only drawback of diving with a knowledgeable 10-year old is that she insisted that I either purchase her a drysuit, or leave mine in the car if I was going to be her buddy.  Something about 56 degree water for her checkouts....  Since a custom drysuit is not in the works for a 10 year old, I sucked in my gut, and crammed it into a 7mm wetsuit for the first time in several years.  Our plan was to drop down to the platform over the bulldozer and get her a little experience at depth, but the drop in visibility at the first thermocline - and almost as important, dad's reluctance to encounter anything colder than 66 degrees in a wetsuit lead to us coming back up after hitting about 24 ft.  We decided to head out the road where it was clearer and warmer.  48 minutes later, after visiting the fish nests, running into one of the resident bass, and carefully examining 1/2 inch long little fish of some kind swimming around the 'Deco tree', we decided to call it a dive.  Visibility - 15-20 murky feet, 71 degrees at the surface, 66 at the first thermo.

 
Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!