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From Rick Huck . . .
Saturday on the Seeker, I think it was the 12th of July.......
Sorry, but I couldn't get that Chicago song out of my head since our last holiday!! I did the Seeker on saturday along with Dr. Deco and Scott, "my neck seal is too big", Weeks or should I say Leaks. I drove down the night before, as I always do, and there was no one around. So, I signed my waiver, loaded my gear and got ready to go eat. I met the owner of the Depth Charge, the "not for charter" dive boat next to the Seeker, who also owns the marina and the restaurant at the entrance to the marina. Oh yea...... he and a friend found several good sized portholes off of an unknown wreck. They were truly awesome. They did eventually let me know that it was off a wreck in 260' of water somewhere out there.
As it turned out I had the Seeker all to myself for the evening. That was like having my own personal yacht with complete privacy. It was very relaxing.
The next day we dove the Coney Island, an old sludge tanker that they sunk back in '87 as part of the artificial reef program. It sits upright and intact on the sand at 130'. But I stayed on and around the main deck. I wasn't hunting for bugs and the deck is the most interesting aspect of the wreck to me. It had many areas that you could penetrate and go below deck. There was a slight current but not inside. You could easily navigate the growth encrusted 250' ship from bow to stern. It also had a large arch toward the bow that was impressive to dive through. Water temps at depth were in the very low 50s with vis being about 15' to 20'. I did one looooong dive with a bottom time of 40 minutes. Then I just enjoyed the seas, which were getting a bit 'snotty' as the day progressed and the cool ocean breezes. The captain called for a shorter dive for the second one anyway so I didn't mind not having to gear up and do the ladder again. There were a few green faces on board. Oh well, it happens to the best of us.
The next day Deco and I met over at our backyard diving hole for some fresh water rinse diving. Vis was good at Wabank. We spotted a school of striped bass which reminded me of the schools of fish down in the islands with the exception of having all that gear on! Anyone interested in the Seeker trip of July 26 to the Resor (3 hours out, 130' and $105 costs) either email Jenn on the Seeker or talk to Cindy.
From Tom Pritchard . . .
Terry Martzell, Linda Sackrison, Dave Hoshauer, and Rogers Heins, all packing doubles, were ending their dives when Jess Zellers and I arrived at the cement dock. I was pretty upbeat when Jess told me she was going to dive knaked. I told her to wait a week and I would dive knaked with her b/c next week would be my 100th dive. It turns out Jess's idea of knaked is going w/o ankle weights. My wife doesn't wear ankle weights to bed most nights and she's a far cry from knaked. We hooked up with long time Willow diver Tom Rohrbach who was sporting - and I'm not exaggerating - a 10 cf pony bottle. It's cute as the dickens and only about as big as a Lebanon bologna - and probably about as useful if your main tank runs out under water. After Jess couldn't clear her ears, she bagged her dive so Tom and I did the Quest, mystery boat, and outhouse circuit. I'd like to know who greened up the quarry while I was diving at Wabank the last two weeks. With overcast skies, the viz was a staggering 5-10 feet. With viz like that we could all dive knaked and nobody would notice. (Frankly, nobody would notice if the viz were 100 ft). All divers welcome, but we're kind of at capacity with guys named Tom. So, if your name isn't Tom, you'll be expected at Willow next Thursday.
From Jess Zellers . . .
Thursday- I'll try to keep this as short as my dive. One week at Wabank without a naked person and Tom comes running back to us! We went in and I was going to be diving with Tom and Tom. But if it's cold, wet and rainy all day and your ears are messed up... you're not getting far. As observed by the peanut gallery (Terry, Dave and Roger) 'hey what's wrong with Jess'. I come up the stairs and everybody's staring at me.
Saturday- I have never gotten to sleep in and dive on the same day before, ever! It's very very .... very odd and feels wrong. You're supposed to get up early, run to the quarry/boat, wait for the gate to be unlocked, get your gear setup ...then start the day. Me and Speedy Gonzalez the fastest diver in all of Bainbridge, aka Paul Berhert, planned a late start at Bainbridge. For the first dive Speedy and me were going to do the bowl, but there were three OW classes there that day. One of which was still in the water. After a short time in the bowl I decided to show Speedy the road. From the mixing bowl of silt to the wildlife safari road, wow what a difference! Tons of fish swimming through incredible viz and the sunlight reflecting off my computer face was near blinding. So for our second dive Speedy and me decided to go along the east rim just below the road then come back on the road. This is always an enjoyable dive to do. Especially when every time you come up on the road right smack in the middle of the railing!! (well, it helps knowing what the rocks below it looks like) Back on the wildlife safari road, there might have actually been more fish on this dive. Although they were all looking at us like 'you got a hot dog, you brought food, right?'. Well Speedy hasn't tried talking through his reg yet, but his eyes where saying WOW. A poor man's Caribbean right here in central PA!! And to think I had once moved to the islands just to dive with that 40mins from my house. Local diving rocks!!
Ankle weights belong on tank valves!!! In pursuit of trim and aiming to please, Thursday I told Tom we were gonna do some nude diving. With poor trim, I knew the ankle weights had to go, but I've been putting it off. It's like bacon-n-eggs, gin-n-tonic, the Captain and Tennille ... gearing up-n-ankle weights, it's not natural to separate the two! Although Thursday I got in the water without, my ears proved more resistant to change than I was and refused to permit a dive. But ahh Sat! Dive one, no ankle weights -marked improvement. Dive two, one on tank valve- better yet! This coming Thursday, both on tank valve- NIRVANA!!!!! Although this experiment was met with alot of resistance, the conversion was quick! Ankle weights belong on tank valves.
From Kent "Dr Deco" Hirsch . . .
I'm becoming a fixture at Wabank Quarry these days. Who can blame me, when its 3 miles from my home and has great viz. I dove there last wednesday evening with my friend and excellent dive buddy, Mike Nast. We were draining air out of my tanks in preparation for a weekend dive on the Seeker. We did our usual dive to the bottom at 140, cruising up to the plateau at 100, then a quick spin under the platforms. 140 on air really helps one appreciate mixed gas diving, as I was noticeably looped on narcosis. After the dive, Dwayne entertained the crowd with some post-Independence Day bottle rocket shenanigans.
Thursday found me back at Wabank with Scott Weeks. We made a very late entry, much to Cindy's dismay. The rest of Smokey's crew had already done their dive and were discussing dinner plans as we hit the water. Scott has been out of the water for a while (a new baby changes your priorities) and he needed to tune-up his gear and dive skills. Excellent bouyancy and trim. All gear functioned well from weighting to drysuit to pony to light. Scott asked how he looked and I said he was reminiscent of the guy with the cymbals between his knees, the harmonica on his neck and the bass drum on his back- a literal one man band. Takes a lot of gear to be a diver!
Saturday, Scott and I met at the Ephrata Walmart at 4:00AM for the trip to Brielle, NJ and the Seeker. Destination, the Coney Island, a tanker sunk as part of the Shark River artificial reef project. As usual, Captain Crowell's boat had an assortment of divers onboard, from Thursday irregular Terry Martzell, good friend Rick Huck to a few newbies on their first ocean dive. The Coney Island is sitting upright in 125 ft of water. Only saw a few small lobsters and a couple of scallops. It a nice wreck to penetrate with large passageways and no dangling wires or pipes. Scott did really well and followed his dive plan to the minute. Viz was down to 20 ft at the bottom and 30+ on the top of the wreck. The ocean continues to warm and many of the customers dove in wetsuits.
Sunday, Rick Huck and I met up at Wabank (again) to "rinse the saltwater" from our gear. We started on the 20 foot platform and I signalled Rick to swim at 15 ft on a heading of 270 degrees. Huck had no idea, but as usual, went along with the plan. I wanted to explore a platform recently sunk to the bottom and it was marked by a buoy near the far wall of the quarry on that heading. Through incredible skill (read dumb luck) we hit the line marking the platform dead on. Amazing. We quickly dropped to the bottom to check the platform, then did a slow circuit of the quarry in a clockwise direction. Lots of fish in the shallows, including a school of striped bass. Also found two goose eggs on our journey. Viz, as usual was spectacular, easily 40+ feet from 60 ft to the 100 level. The water in the shallows was actually too warm for a drysuit. Join the team this thursday at Wabank. Frank is planning on submerging another boat to join the growing fleet of bottom dwellers. Wabank is a great place to take a specialty course from Peak Performance Bouyancy to Night Diver to drysuit Diver to Enriched Air Nitrox. Sign up with Cindy in the shop. See you in the water!
From John Gross . . .
Diver Report from rescue class this weekend:
Well what can I say. We had a great group of people, Mary Nicholson, Mark Muenzen, James Zimmerman, Jeff & Kristi Raykos, Paul Kady, and Steve Platt. I had Pete Bohling as my DM and Scott McLeod & Liz Zyla as DM's in training. Thanks to Pete, Scott & Liz for all the help and great job watching out for everyone. The weather was great and visibility is finally clearing at Bainbridge.
Pete was having fun with the Underwater Problem scenario's. On one he had removed his rear dump valve on his BCD so that it wouldn't hold air. James spotted the problem and brought Pete to the surface but Pete kept tipping over so all the air came out of his BCD and he started to drop. James caught that and kept Pete from descending. Good job. On another Pete became passively panic and just stared straight ahead. Kristi said it was really strange...like he was looking right thru her. Good job on bring Pete to the surface. Of course the best one was saved for last. All day Sat Mary said she wants to get an underwater horn like I have on my BCD. Pete told her if she does he won't dive with her any more. So on the last dive Pete went down and did a free flowing reg. Mary said she wishes she had the u/w horn now. Since I always want my students to have a good time I agreed to let Mary borrow mine. I disconnected my horn and placed it on Mary's BCD. This was to good to miss so I followed Mary down. Poor Pete sat on the platform with a free flowing reg waiting for Mary. When she arrived she went right into his face and blew the horn. Pete was laughing so hard I thought he'd swallow enough water to drain the quarry.
There was another rescue class taking place from another dive shop. One of their students lost his weight belt and Kristi found that guys weight belt while snorkeling and looking for our missing buddy. She snorkeled down and retrieved the weight belt and managed to take it to shore for the other diver. That was some load to carry without a BCD for buoyancy! Everyone had a great time practicing removing the victims equipment and their own while rescue breathing and towing the victim to shore. We had one casualty! Scott McLeod lost his mask! But this class wasn't going to allow that to happen. So after all the practicing and before their final exam they organized (very well done I must say) an u/w search for Scott's mask. They found Scott's mask. BTW, after Kristi found the weight belt for the other dive shop they started looking for Scott's mask. I guess there was a little competition going on between the two classes. So the score was Smokey's 2 the other dive shop 0!
I think we need to start calling Pete "Slick Willy." During the complete rescue scenario Pete came out and reported his missing buddy. As usual I told Pete to try and get back in the water. He was so slick this time that not only didn't any of rescuers spot him but neither did I! One of the rescuers asked where is Pete? I looked around and he was gone. I looked out in the water and saw his bubbles. Way to go Pete! When the class surfaced with the missing buddy (a weighted BCD) I had Pete take the place of the buddy so they had an actual person to rescue. Of course several people were surprised when they finally revived Pete and he spit up enough water to fill a quart bottle! I'm not sure where he stores it?
I want to thank everyone for a great time this weekend! On Sunday I'll be diving at access "B", at Bainbridge, in the afternoon. If you have the time stop by and checkout access "B".
From Chris and Betty Ward . . .
Well, our marriage passed another test... We dragged our three the kids (10, 8, 5) and went to North Carolina for the 4th of July weekend for 2 days of diving and it went great.
During our first day we were given the option of going on the boat or not. The wind was blowing very hard and we were told the Indra which was going to be the wreck we would be diving had a viz of 10 feet. Last week it was only 2 feet. Needless to say it was a very bumpy ride. For this dive I used a skin suit and I enjoyed every minute of it.. Since viz was so poor we had to tie the reel near the anchor line at 65 feet and swam with it.
This was Chris' 5th dive on the Indra and Betty's 4th dive.The next day wind conditions were not any better but got to go anyway. They took us to the Atlas which is a 430 foot long tanker that rests in 120 feet of water with the highest decks at 90 feet. It is about 12 miles from the Knuckle Buoy and about 5 miles east of the shoals of Cape Lookout. Water temperature was 77 at the surface and 72 after the first 45 feet and 62 at the bottom. Yes , there was a thermocline in NC. The captain was explaining to us that in 40 years he's been there he's never seen anything like it, probably because of all the rain and flooding they had this year. Viz was 50 feet max, no crystal blue waters. Beyond the 50 feet it was pitch black!! This was a shark dive. There were lots of 5-6 footers We took close-up pics of sharks, barracudas, see bass, and tropical fish such as the Queen Angel and French Angel and schools of fish. After all the lobbying many of us did they took us later to do our favorite shark dive, the Caribsea. Conditions were the same as in the Atlas (dark), but when the 10 footers came by (yes, sharks) you couldn't miss them. As usual our kids loved their time at the beach and hotel pool. We plan to make NC in our plan at least once a year.
From Bob Hanna . . .
Bill Hockley, Bob Hanna, and Rob Hanna dove Willow Springs on Sunday. Rob Hanna's deepest dive (as XO on the NR-1) was approximately 3,000 feet, and he has numerous dive certifications, this was his first 2 dives of the year. Good Shake Out Dives. His Cave Diving light failed! Better there than.....but the rest of his gear worked fine.
Willow was comfortable temperature wise but the Viz in places was poor. The best Viz involved getting off the ropes (they don't call me the "Map" for nothing)
Next Saturday we will Dive at Dutch as the Rob Hanna family makes its way back to Grotton. If you haven't made plans come join us!
From Darth Vern . . .
According to Frank @ Wabank we can sink a boat this Thursday night. I am going to hopefully videotape this event. Should be good for a comical time! One and all invited BUT as Mr Pritchard is running short on "Tom slots" we are running short son "Jim slots" so if your name ain't Jim we will be lookin for ya Thrusday evening!
Get Out And Dive - LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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