Chanb77's Weblog

Friday, March 13th, 2009 ~ 

Steve had a day off, so we decided to do what? Oh.. yeah.. go diving…  Jeremy was also off, so he met us up at the quarry for a skills dive. When we got up there, the gate was locked, so we went around to the back entrance, and around to the parking lot. 

We went over to inspect the hole, and the entire quarry was frozen over again. We hadn’t expected it to be, as it was breaking up the previous weekend. However, it wasn’t very difficult to break up the entry hole.

We geared up, got in, and off we went to the plane. Our goal of this dive was to work on skills.. valve drills, a couple of failures, tying in to another main line, and team formation. Steve was #1, Jeremy was #2, and I was #3.

After tying in to the main line, running to the boat, Steve had a primary light failure. We regrouped, and headed “out.” We cut the drill, then went on to the plane, to do our valve drills.

We did some finning as well, swam around a bit, then headed back in. It was really nice having the quarry to ourselves, on such a gorgeous day!

Bottom Time ~ 46 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 41′
Water Temp. ~ 39
Vis. ~ Great!

After our dive, we headed to the shop for fills, and to visit our good buddy Leigh. He’s been way too busy lately, and it was great to see him!

What a great way to spend a Friday!

Saturday, March 14th, 2009 ~

Today was the day… it was time to head back down to the RIVER!! Although it was still completely frozen over east of Rockport, it was magically open right where we wanted to dive. It was as if the river was calling for us, missing us over the winter months… Um.. ok…

Anyway, Steve and I met Kevin and Jeremy at Jeff’s dock, and went in for a splash. The UW camera stayed at home today, as the river is still only just above the freezing point, and I wanted to be prepared for anything.

The entry point did have some ice around it, but it was wide open just off of it. Jeff had the bubbler going as well, which was great.

Kevin and Jeremy splashed in first, followed by Steve and I. We did not head over to the Kinghorn, but swam west of the dock instead, where there are remnants of a wreck. We encountered a bunch of dormant bass, as well as sleeping crayfish. We swam about 20 minutes out, then made our way back in. As we tied our stage bottles in to the gear line, we saw Kevin and Jeremy behind us. They had gone the other way.

I had stayed pretty warm throughout the dive, although I seemed to have a small leak in my drysuit.

Bottom Time ~ 35 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 64′
Water Temp. ~ 33
Vis. ~ 30′ out, 50′ up

Although the water was hardly above the freezing point, it felt so good to be back in the river!

Despite the warmer air temperatures, Jeremy’s reg still seemed to have a nice frost to it…

Ahhhh… Spring is coming!!

Tomorrow, we’re headed back to the quarry to watch the free divers!