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Click To Enlarge
We are back in full swing with writers, but before we get started I wanted to add some pics [first 3] and a story I ran across on the internet the other day, please excuse this but I lost the URL of the story:
Aerial photos of sharks with swimmers near Palm Beach, FL
What a stunning day, what a perfect time to be alive on God's earth, to take in the sounds and sights, smells and sensory inputs of a perfect day to do anything. A perfect day for flying, running, walking, boating, swimming - even Swimming With The Sharks. These breathtaking pictures from my balcony show the incredible sights of the place I was swimming and could see sharks in the water. I came back to take these pictures. You will be amazed at the clarity of the images, taken at 8X Optical Zoom with a Nikon 5700, from almost 800 feet away, and you will see the sharks feeding right next to the swimmers.
From Tom Pritchard . . .
It was a tough decision this week. Stay home and watch the Republican National Convention (RNC) or log yet another dive at Willow. Once I heard that there would be music and dancing at the RNC, I had this image of George waltzing with Laura to the tunes of Wagner while Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove goose-stepped in the background. It sent such a shiver through me, I chose to dive. Crowds are up at Willow these days with the Irregulars coming regularly now and new faces such as Shelly O'Neil and Terry Parsons showing up. My semi-clogged sinuses complained a bit about diving, but finally equalized after it became apparent that "not diving" was not an option. Gerhard Maree, Terry Parsons, and I headed off toward the cave, where the viz was 10-15 ft in front of Terry and about 2 ft behind him. It wasn't clear how Terry Martzall's dive scissors and a 5 inch conch shell made it into the quarry unattended, but we found both and brought them back alive. We dined on Roger's sweet and hot sausage and Terry's fine baked goods, while the skeeters dined on us. Now that we have George Heck's quarry tub of eating utensils, we hardly notice when he doesn't show up. George will probably show up this Thursday along with James and Kulp who were wreck diving in Connecticut and Canada, respectively. Wetback GMan is in England this week trying to convince the South African embassy that they're better off with him in the U.S. than in the Motherland. I'll be there, but that's no reason not to dive Willow where the food is great, the viz is decent, the Irregulars are, well, irregular - and that's on a good day!
From Uptown Jim Brown . . .
Just like old times...back in the saddle, uh, dry suit, at BSC. So much for the warm and clear water of Saba. It was really good to be back in the local waters though. Joe Dormer, newly certified AOW diver (congrats Joe) and Topher showed up to escort me back into the cool and clear at BSC. Steve Halliwell from days of old was there too with Jeff from Hershey. It was good to see Steve. His diving days may be numbered though with a very active 18-month old daughter and a son on the way. In the near future, relocation to Florida could be possible for Steve as well. Bud Bracken and Harrisburg Scuba were also on site with students.
I think I set a new personal record for arrival/setup/gear up as we were in the water by about 6:30pm. Apparently there were not enough people around for me to talk to. Despite the small crowd, we were still the last ones in the water. Getting in promptly helped us get packed up and headed out by 8:05pm, just before a light was absolutely necessary to find our way around upper A.
We dropped in at the steep path in the Bowl, cruised past the dozer and down to the deep cruiser. Vis was good at the dozer but was a little stirred up at the cruiser. We checked in with each other then turned south (per plan) under the platforms to the pumphouse, Joe's first visit here. Joe and Topher had their torches going peering into the pumphouse and around boulders during our slow ascent to about 30'. The south wall return to the tunnel is a nice cruise with fish and cool topography. The tunnel was loaded with fish, right up to the point where I entered and blinded them with my light. Joe said it was pretty cool to see them all fishtailing out of the tunnel. Heading to the exit we cruised the west wall, recovered a birdhouse at 29' (and placed it gently upon some branches for subsequent nesting), spied a jelly and pointed out some navigation landmarks for Joe and Topher. We had a really nice relaxing dive (sans freeflow for a change) to 95ffw for 41 minutes on air, 42F bottom temp.
Steve at BSC asked me to pass along an 8:00pm exit time on Wednesday nights, especially with the early sunset. So, note to self, arrive early, keep mouth shut, set up, gear up and dive! Hope to see a few more locals join us through September.
From Bob Hanna . . .
There were a number of Smokey Classes taking place. There was a Dry Suit Class, and Advanced Class. Dave Gaiski and Lisa Corsetti had completed their course work for their Nitrox Certification. Neither had completed the required two open water dives using Nitrox. Dave combined his Nitrox Dives with Advanced. Since Lisa already had her advanced, we did two independent Nitrox Dives plus a night dive.
We did a deep dive for dive number one. We both dove with SCUBA PRO wrist mount air integrated Nitrox Computers. We decended to the boat John Gross takes all of his advanced student divers to. Its depth is approximately 90 feet. Temperature ranges from 36-44 during the year. It is a cold dive as well as deep. We swam around the boat, then headed for the road. Given the Nitrox mixture, and because the Dive used the PADI tables, the max dive time allowed was 35 minutes. The actual dive time was 27. The max depth was 97.
Lisa was using a Nitrox mix. I was diving normal air. If I had been using the PADI air tables which requires all time to be computed at the deepest depth, I would have exceeded the NDL by 7 minutes. Lisa using Nitrox was still within the NDL for her mix. The Dive Computers gave us credit for the change to a shallower depth so the reality was that both of our dives were ND dives. When Lisa did her second dive still using the course required tables, her pressure group reflected a first dive of 27 minutes at a depth of 100'.
For her second dive Lisa dove with a 36% mix. I continued to dive normal air (21%). If I was on the written air tables, I would have been required to do an 8 minute emergency decompression stop at the end of dive 1, and stay out of the water for 6 hours. Lisa would have had to find another Dive Master/AI to be her partner. Instead for our second dive we did a max depth of 50 feet (achieved by following the pipe from the tunnel to a depth of 50', turning N and observing the cement mixer and shovel part of a steam shovel, and working our way over to the wall next to the road, and doing a 1 hr dive. Lisa was still within the limits of the Nitrox table which assumed a 50' dive for 1 hr. I was within the air tables because the computer gave me credit for the actual depth I was at. We inhaled John's Burgers and Dogs, did a night dive on regular air, saw lots of cat fish, and went home.
From Mark Myers . . .
I'm back in the shop after a week's vacation - nothing exotic, just a visit to Rehoboth Beach with the family. I had not taken dive gear along, because the Surface Interval was booked both weekends - so of course on Wednesday I got an e-mail from Trish Boyer telling me that the group for Saturday had canceled and over half the boat was now open. Of course all my gear was sitting at home.
I had taken my boat and snorkeling gear with the hopes of taking my daughter critter hunting in Rehoboth Bay at some point during the week, but unfortunately heavy rain on Tuesday pretty much turned the bay into chocolate milk for the rest of the week. At one point we tossed the anchor overboard in literally two feet of water - and could not see the bottom. Oh well, maybe next time.
From Darth Vern . . .
Well James Zimmerman and myself decided to do the 700 mile round trip to New London CT and back to join Atlantis Charters and dive the U853. What we thought were perfect conditions on the way out Friday morning at 5:30am turned into a East Coast nightmare. We reached the sub 2 hours later with flat seas and a nice breeze. There were swells about 6-8 ft high every minute or so and Capt Gary informed us they were actually from Hurricane Charley. I didn't believe him, but dove none the less. Viz to 50ft was ok, but about 80 ft it turned dark and I mean very dark. I was first to back-roll in so I saw the mate at 110fsw or so with his light. I knew I was at the sub when my knees hit it. I never really actually saw the sub, but I did fondle it pretty good for about 45 minutes. I made the best of it and what I really wanted to do was penetrate the sub. I had a plan after I looked over the paper plans on the way out. I found the hole I was looking for [imagine that] and I dropped in [or so I hoped] a few feet to see the surge picking up the silt inside and rocking it back and forth. SO I decided against any penetration. Well it was a long dive of hand over hand and my camera was taking a beating. So I decided to call my dive after 45 mins and no pictures [which was the worst part]. Since there were 2 permanent moorings I of course decided on the wrong one and did my hang all by myself. I surfaced and found myself about 25 yards from the boat. So I started finning toward it, easy swim with a swell or two in between. Mate Kevin was nice enuff to throw me a line and tow me the rest of the way. To my dismay we scrapped the 2nd dive, but there really was no point.
Me and JameZ found a great side benefit from diving in CT, The Mohegan Sun. We had an outstanding dinner at Bubba's BarBQ and listened to .38 Special in concert, did a little gambling [well it was losing not really gambling] and we back at our hotel by midnite.
Of course the boat left dock by 6am for a more sheltered dive spot behind Block Island, an old fishing trawler. Not a bad dive 80fsw, so me and JameZ decided one long dive instead of 2. Easy dive partially intact dive, nothing to great, but better than not diving. Viz was about 10-15 ft. the usual EC wreck diving. The return trip Sat night sucked. 95S the whole way thru NY was bumper to bumper. Took us 5 hours to get there and about 7.5 hours to get home.
I will def be going back next season to try the U853 again. From what I felt it was a very cool wreck. The boat was a 6 pack and VERY comfortable. Best 6 pack boat I have been on. The Capt and Mate were great. No stress, no real extra diving rules except the boat leaves in 4 hours, so be on it or swim. I would recommend them to anyone. Plus they turned us onto some dives in Gloucester MA that are supposed to be great! They even have plenty of shore dives up there as well!!
Keep on diving and LIVE THE ADVENTURE!!!
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