Chanb77's Weblog

Saturday, July 18th, 2009 ~

A crew of us gathered together, for a weekend of friends and diving. We were off to the Jodrey! Steve was off doing instructor stuff, so I had to leave him behind in Kingston.

We all convened at Rockport Dive Centre, loaded the boat, and off we went. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we were happy to get out diving, and to the Jodrey, no less! We had one full boat load on Saturday.

Ralph and Ed…

Oren…

Claudia and Sean…

Mer, Jackie, Oren, and Gina…

Jen and Jay…

Jen, Claudia, and I were diving together, and it would be my first time leading a Jodrey dive. My previous dives on it were with Steve, and he is the one with the “Spidey Sense” navigational skills. We discussed our plan on the surface, geared up, and in we splashed. We let a couple of the others go in before us, as we all had different profiles and run times, so the pair with the longer run time went in first.

Claudia, Jen, and I, doing predive checks, taken by Jackie Kaley…

We did our predive checks, and in we went. The plan was to drift over the edge, stay close to the wall, and hit the wreck at 140′. We came down on the “ghost line,” and hit the wreck in exactly the right spot. Woo Hoo!! We made our way around different parts of the bow, and circled the wheelhouse a few times, peering into doors and windows. The three of us really worked well together, and had a nice, relaxing dive. Coming up on the ascent, I missed part of the crack in the wall, that leads you to a nice spot for your 70′ gas switch, and eventually to a relaxing 20′ deco stop. It wasn’t that bad though, as we found some nice rocks to tuck in behind, to avoid the absolutely screaming current. I’ve not seen the current that strong here before. Not being at the normal deco spots wasn’t that bad, as we ended up closer to the boat anyway. We relaxed on the surface before climbing up and debriefing our dive. It seems everyone had a good dive.

Me, taken by Jackie Kaley…

Of course, we had the obligatory Kool Aid shots…

Once we cleared customs, and were allowed off of the boat, we headed back to Caiger’s for some grub! Ralph had arranged for a dinner there for us, and there was a little bit of everything to try.

We even had Birthday Ice Cream Cake!

Then it was off to sleep, for the next day’s adventures.

Sunday, July 19th, 2009 ~

Another sunny day, and another trek out to the mighty Jodrey. Today, we had a couple more people, and were able to get Jeff’s second boat.

Today was just Jen and I, as Claudia was joining Ralph, Ed, and Gina for today’s dive. We dropped in, did our predive checks, discussed our plan, and away we went.

As we descended, we were slightly more shallow than the last dive, and followed the pipe down to the wreck. We were only very slightly to the left of the ghost line on the way down, but still ended up in the planned spot. We did some exploring around the bow, peeked in a couple more doors and windows, and made our way safely around the wreck. On our ascent, we managed to stay on the crack up the wall, and got to the 20′ stop with no problems. We ended up having some pretty fun conversations during deco, to which Sean and Oren both laughed about later on. We also enjoyed feeding some zebras to the gobies.

Once we had fulfilled our deco obligations, we made our way back to the boat once again. I wouldn’t have believed it, but the current was actually stronger on the way back today than yesterday. Holy smokes, it was a-rippin’! We surfaced once again, with grins on our faces, and happy that we had found the right spots. I also had about a foot of hair cut off the previous Friday, and it was amazing to surface without a rat’s nest underneath my hood!!

Jen and I, taken by Jackie Kaley…

It was an amazing couple of days, diving with friends, with much laughter, and more diving goodness!

She-P shot!

Thanks to all of our friends who made the drive out to play!!