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From Tom Pritchard . . .
7/21 - Diving, Rastafarian Style.
Willow water has had a Mountain Dew cast to it for a few weeks now, especially above 30 feet. I arrived a little late, so GM dove with Kulp - at least for a while. Don Bradley made a cameo appearance to dive with T-Bone, Dave Ho, and Roger Heins. Jay Bell and George Heck were back in gear. I dove with the Huckster for a change of pace - and if you think the two us are weird on the surface, this was weird squared. Huck, instead of casting his light beam across mine every so often to maintain contain, swims over your head, gives you "nuggies," drops detritus on your compass while you're navigating, and dangles wiggly stuff in your face. But that's Huck! We decided to head to the east end of the quarry and stay deep where it was dark but the viz close to 10 ft. After checking out the caves along the south wall, we hit the blue boat at the east end and then took a west compass heading. The middle of the east spur of the quarry is pretty bland so when we hit the ridge, we followed it to the north wall. I ascended to locate the rope that runs along the wall and ran into a few weeds. The thicker the weeds got, the more certain I was that they'd end in another 2 feet. I finally began using my arms to breaststroke and pull my way through the weeds that were gradually engulfing me. By the time I hit clear water, I looked like Swamp Thing with a grass skirt and a Rastafarian doo. Even with viz of only 10 feet, Huck clearly didn't want to be seen with the Rastafarian Swamp Thing, so while we laughed our asses off, he spent 5 minutes pulling gobs and gobs of weeds from my gear. Oh, if I had just packed my Agent Orange! Free once again, we headed across the quarry to the railroad tracks, followed them past the outhouse into the silt, then turned south and ascended the wall to the main set of tracks - and out. 62 minutes, 57 degrees. What a blast!
7/31 - After Sunday's dive on the Varanger was blown out, we decided to do some nitrogen loading at Bainbridge. Wild Bill and Diana Scholl were conducting an OW class, which by all reports, was a very capable group. Beth Hess was running a refresher course and being the social director. The highlight of my day was when Beth was introducing a newcomer: "And that's Tom over there," while I was trying to discretely hook up my pee valve. In a classic case of irreconcilable equipment James "Doubles" Zimmerman was going to take Mark "Single Tank" Seymour down to the step van - and stay within the NDL for air. Meanwhile, Gerhard, Darth Vern, Kulp, and I decided to take a tour of the hole and look for stuff. Viz in the west end of the hole was about 10 ft, but as we headed east, the viz dropped to 2-3 ft, so we headed up to the rim. We wandered around the flats - wandered being the key word - as evidenced by the fact that we found one of the toolboxes twice. We also found the barn and the step van fortunately. Vern, wearing 5 mil wet gloves, got cold hands - whodathunkit! We kept pace as Vern sprinted past the deep boat and up to his deco stop in pleasantly warm water. Thanks Bill for letting us mooch your food. This could become a tradition: the tech divers mooching food from the OW class. Yeah Baby! 121 feet, 76 minutes, 41 degrees.
From Cindy Lu Who . . .
It is that time of year again...
The water is warm, the fish are in bloom and we are once again CALLING ALL LADIES!! Diana Sholl, the new girl in the shop and I are heading up Ladies Day Dive 2005, with the assistance of Beth Hess and Kathy Stevens-Jackson. (we are hoping to get Fran, our other female DM out as well?) Feel free to bring your drysuits, your 7mm or your 3mm-if you are planning to stay warm and shallow along the road where the fish are just waiting for you. If you do not have a dive buddy, we will be happy to set you up with someone interested in diving the same profile. I will be bringing the chicken, Diana will be bringing her grill. Please feel free to bring whatever side dishes and your own beverages. Remember that we ALWAYS eat better and have more fun than the boys do! If you are in need of rental gear, please contact Diana or Joe at the shop. Some of you may not be aware that I am no longer working at the shop. But I am still OUT DIVING. Feel free to RSVP to the shop so they can have an idea of the numbers of ladies joining us. I hope to see you there!
ALSO the boys are camping out the night before the ladies day dive. August 13th. They asked that I spread the word to some old friends or anyone that will put up with them. No need to RSVP. Just bring what you need for you and/or your family for camping gear and food. It will be good to be out with these two classics again.
From Jim Brown . . .
Here's a nice update on the now UPRIGHT Spiegel Grove in Key Largo. The pics are very nice. [Link 1] [Link 2] Hope everyone is enjoying their diving summer. We're still at BSC every Wednesday night.
Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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