Chanb77's Weblog

Saturday, August 1st, 2009 ~

Steve and I ventured down to meet Jen and Jay at Centeen Park. Today, we were going to scooter out past the wall, drop into the channel, and drift away. When we arrived there, it was so busy, that we had to park farther away than we knew there was parking for.

We brought our gear down, and noticed a new friend in the park…

Apparently, the town of Brockville put him there, to deter the geese from playing in the grass. There sure are alot of goose bombs everywhere.

We entered the water, discussed the plan, and away we went.

Once we made it to the drop off, we descended and made our way out on a different path. We saw so much wreckage that we had not seen before, and some that we had as well. There were bottles galore, and pieces of ship machinery scattered just about everywhere.

We didn’t drift onto the Gaskin this time, but carried on past it, looking at other cool things. We eventually made our way back into the basin at Centeen Park, where we played in the shallows for a while.

Bottom Time ~ 130 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 100′
Water Temp. ~ 71

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 ~

Woo Hoo! Another trip to the Jodrey! A bunch of us went out with Jeff, and planned for another goodly dive on the massive wreck. Jen and I were teamed up, Oren and Sean were Team Grey, and Steve joined Jeremy. We also had Andy aboard as a Bubble Watcher!

We went through customs, and made our way to the mooring tree. Steve was anchor man, once again!

Getting ready for the dive…

The currents were a bit odd this time around. There seemed to be back eddys galore, and very strong currents. We were a bit slower than usual descending, and ended up on the port side of the wheelhouse…. where the current is rather nasty on a good day. We were happy to have our scooters with us, that’s for sure. We headed back over to the center, where you are sheltered from the current, and started our tour. We investigated some areas that we hadn’t been to before, and peeked in some more crevices. Alas, we had reached our bottom time, and made the trip back up. Our deco was relaxing, and I had to giggle at Jen’s goby feeding. We finished our deco, and scootered back around to the boat. We hung around on the surface for a while, ditched our tanks, then jumped back in to relax in the water.

Some pics on the ride back…

I swear… that crayfish was THIS BIG!

When we got back to the dock, we waited for customs to clear us, then headed over to the Family Restaurant.

We saw this treat in the parking lot…

Another excellent day!

Monday, August 3rd, 2009 ~

Four of us headed to Cornwall, where we were going to check out the Paper Factory Basement. The current is always stronger in this part of the river, and scooters are a wonderful tool in this environment.

We made our way out of the public dock area, and went for a line search. Once we located it, we headed towards the Basement. I was thankful for the warmer water, as I had a leaky neck seal, and was pretty soaked. We made it to the basement structure, and Steve was communicating to me, on how to find the entrance. I gave the “ok,” and we proceeded…. um… “Uh ohhh…” I took my hand off of the trigger, but my scooter was still going. I gave it a couple of love taps, to see if it was jammed, or if there was something stuck in it. Nope.. pft…

I signaled to Steve, and he came over. I pointed at the trigger, and while he looked, it took him a second to realize that I wasn’t holding it. “DOH!” There wasn’t much we could do, except for pull out the thumb.

Since the scooter was still moving, we opted to keep it going. We were headed back against the current, and any extra scooter power is appreciated. Jay had my little 18ah attached to his butt, so at least I had back up, should I need it.

We went for about 15 minutes, and Steve asked me if I wanted to switch scooters with him. I figured he’d probably handle it better, once we got to the shallows, so I was happy to oblige. Since the current was ripping, I was able to anchor the scooter, and pull it back, so Steve could unclip it. He clipped his 26ah to me, and took the 35ah. It was a pretty smooth transfer! He also tried knocking it a bit, to see if he could unjam it, to no avail. Then.. out came the palm. Ohhhh… this was gonna hurt… One tap… nothing… Two taps… there she goes… He clipped the scooter to his butt, and took my little 18ah from Jay’s butt, and in we went, dodging the weeds, near shore.

Bottom Time ~ 80 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 50′
Water Temp. ~ 72
Current ~ Rippin’!
Vis. ~ 20′

When we got out, we had a look inside. It seems that there was a loose terminal, that caused it to overheat, and fuse the wires together, sticking it on.

So with the smell of burnt wires in the back, we ventured to Kelsey’s for some grub and laughs. Although we had a kick in the butt end to the weekend, it was still fun to hang out with friends, and do some cool diving.

I guess the Basement will have to wait!