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From Darth Vern . . .
Wabank "The Amish Caribbean" Aquaculture - Takes A Field Trip!!!!!!!
Frank McSorely got an offer from an Amish family [Levi Zook] to clean-up their quarry and grow fish in it. The one problem they had was no one had been in it for years. So Frank assembled a rag-tag bunch of divers to explore the small quarry [less than 2 acres] and see how deep and cold it was.
Frank called me this afternoon at 2pm and asked me if I would give him a hand in exploring this quarry [he must have been desperate] I asked him when he was diving and he said they were meeting at 3, so of course I said sure, never one to pass up a dive, let alone one that hasn't been dove by anyone in along time! I showed up at the Zook's residence in Leola at 3:15 [15 mins late as usual] and I got greeted by the family offering to lug my gear down to the quarry by little wagons. Pretty cool to have my own "Amish Sherpas"!!!!
After the rest of the divers showed up and we agreed on a plan, we proceeded to actually load up the wagons and head to the other side of the quarry [the only real entrance to the water] We donned our suits up on top of the hill and then "shimmied" down the dirt hill, with a rope, to gear up and get in!
Once we paired up and got in the water we realized it was gonna be real, real bad. Between the stench of sulfur and the zero viz it was extremely bad. You literally could not see you hand in front of your mask. We made our way over to the wall so we at least had reference and began to circle the quarry. We were checking for depth and temp. 20 feet and 62 degrees was all we got, well plus a stomach ache.
So after about 30 mins of that crap we called it quits and headed back to shore. We made a few small quick dives on the way back to make sure of the depth and called it a day.
After we exited and doffed our gear, Levi informed us the women made us dinner. Chicken Pot-Pie and some homemade jellies. It was very good, with peaches and ice cream for dessert. We prayed ate with Levi and all his family and neighbors. All during dinner they asked us all about diving. Then it dawned on my, they never seen this before. They were just enthralled with our dive stories and asked many questions.
After dessert Mary [Levi's wife] came over and asked Frank to give the neighbors a quick dive demonstration of the gear. Which Frank tried to pawn off on me, but once I disappeared for a few minutes [to get my camera] he had to do it. We showed them all his gear, mask, fins, BC, drysuit and even left them breathe off his reg. They asked some questions I think we take for granted: When Frank was breathing off his octopus and one of the children were breathing off his primary, Levi's father leaned over and asked me "can they talk through them there pieces underwater?" I thought it was amusing and I explained it to him, but that made me realize the situation we were in.
SO after Frank donned his drysuit and blew it up as far as he could, to show them how it was air/water tight he left the kids hit the valve and let the air out. Levi turned to me and asked me about sizing. He wanted to know if they came in different sizes and I said of course they do. Then he said "even for the women?" and I said yes and I told him the also make custom suits to fit and he said "oh that is what the flabby ones do!" We must have laughed for 15 minutes [although it was alot funnier there, than in this story]!
So all in all it was a good day, and we learned as much from them as they learned from us.
And the moral of this story is:
Never pass up a dive, for you will never know what you might miss!!!!
Keep On Diving and Live The Adventure!!!
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