March | 2010 | Chanb77's Weblog

Sorting Out

28 03 2010

Saturday, March 27th, 2010 ~

Today was a good day of fun at the quarry. Steve and Jay went for a scooter tour, Kevin and Jeremy were balancing their scooter fleets, and I went for a swimming tour with Cameron S., who was trying out his doubles for the second time.

I was sporting my fancy new hoody, from AM… Thank you!!!

Since I was going to stick with Cam for a while, Steve took my scooter with him, in case we did a switch later in the dive.

Cam and I swam out to the plane, where I showed him the infamous valve drill. We swam around the plane for a bit, then headed to the boat, where we swam in and out of it a couple of times.

We then went over to the “wood pile,” where we goofed around a little more. We tried to throw a couple of rocks back and forth, but that didn’t really work out very well. Rocks don’t really travel well through the water.

We decided to head down to the sub for a bit of a tour, then we ascended up the wall, and back to the beach, where we were the last back in.

Bottom Time ~ 52 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 57′
Water Temp. ~ 39
Vis. ~ Awesome

I caught a picture of George Jetson hanging around…

Since we got started later in the day, we were able to go to the famous Chinese Buffet restaurant, that is usually closed to get ready for dinner. I think we all had eyes bigger than our stomachs. Of course, this was the day that I didn’t bring extra pants or shoes with me, so it was drysuit undies and crocs for my buffet dining pleasure.

I can say that we are never bored. 🙂

Until tomorrow! Thanks for being my buddy, Cam!

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Tags: DIR Ontario, Gavin, GUE, Morrison's Quarry, Scooter Dive, Skills
Categories : It's 2010!

Frankie’s Back!

22 03 2010

Sunday, March 21st, 2010 ~

Since Francois and Melanie had their first child last December, we hadn’t seen Francois in a while. But… he’s back in action! He and Steve went for a dive in the river on Saturday, and we were quarry-bound on Sunday.

Eric and Scott met us at our place, and we made our way up to the quarry. Along the way, we came upon a fellow towing a small airplane. Not something you see every day.

When we arrived, we were greeted with a fully open quarry, and absolutely amazing visibility. It’s not usually until about the first week of April, that the quarry is mostly open. Thanks go out to Mother Nature, who gave us a week of incredibly warm temperatures.

Evelyn had the fire pit going…

We could see the plane in full view, from the surface, at about 25’…

We could even see the boat at about 45’…

I decided to leave the camera at home today, so that we could work on skills. Eric and Scott were paired up, and Steve, Francois, and myself were a team.

We did our predive checks, dropped in, did bubble checks, stretched out, did modified valve drills, and headed down to the sub, for an ascent. We settled just above 60′, Steve blew a bag, handed it to Francois, and we made our ascent to the surface. We chatted for a minute, then went back down to the plane, where we did our valve drills.

We noticed that Eric and Scott were also doing an ascent, so we made sure that we gave them an audience. Eric is gearing up for T1, and is sharpening up his skills… very well, I might add. Although Eric did check above, before blowing the bag, Steve hid in his blind spot. Just as he threw it up, Steve moved in for the grab. That was met with a couple of middle fingers…lol. Since Scott and I were getting a bit chilly, he and I went in, while Steve, Eric, and Francois swam around for a few more minutes.

Bottom Time ~ 52 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 57′
Water Temp. ~ 41
Vis. ~ Great!

Eric’s computer mod…

…and gear…

Welcome back, Frankie!!

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Tags: DIR, DIR Ontario, GUE, Morrison's Quarry, Skills
Categories : It's 2010!

The Free Divers Back In Town!

19 03 2010

Saturday, March 6th, 2010 ~

It is that time of year again, when some of the members of AIDA Canada and CASM come up to Morrison’s Quarry, for their free diving adventures under the ice.

This would be our third time watching our free diving friends under the ice, and the second time I had been invited to take some pictures of them. It is a pleasure to watch their mesmerizing grace under the water.

There were six of us in the water with them. I had my stills camera, and Steve had the video camera.

Harold and Anne were the special guest stars of the day, and came diving with us too…

I let Kevin take a stab at my camera, and he snapped a picture of me…

Then he donated his reg to the camera…

Steve took video of the day’s events…

Steve’s video…

Steve also brought in our red-shrouded scooter, that I blew up last year, to see if all of the hard work to fix it would pay off. It seems the fix worked!

Kevin found the other one, and had a joy ride.. Nice find…

After approximately 40 minutes in the water, I started to chill a bit, since we weren’t moving around much, and I had a leak in my drysuit. Kevin grabbed the reel and brought us back in.

What a beautiful day for a dive!!!

Bottom Time ~ 48 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 21′
Water Temp. ~ 40

Sunday, March 7th, 2010 ~

Today, there were more people in the water, and many more cameras. I think we all did a pretty good job of working around each other, and we all had alot of fun.

Posing for the camera… The other camera…