Dry Dry Dry…

27 04 2010

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 ~

Well, it seems I am out of the water for a while, until I receive my drysuit back from DUI. I am not pleased with the supposed “overnight” service, that was not performed by Purolator. I shipped my suit last Thursday, with a delivery date of Friday, and as of yesterday, it was still sitting in the Ottawa Puro depot. I have had a few discussions with them, and they don’t seem to care that I am paying out the wazoo, for a service that I am not getting.

The last I heard, was that it would leave the depot last night… *checking website.*

It seems it is now in Kentucky.

I am hoping for a speedy suit recovery, so that I can get my butt back in the water. I do have a back up suit.. but.. well… its back up days are over.

*Crossing fingers*


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Categories : It's 2010!

Island 99

18 04 2010

Sunday, April 18th, 2010 ~

Since we hadn’t been back to Island 99/Teapot Island in quite a while, we decided to give it a whirl. We wanted to get in there before the weeds overtook the shallows. It can be a royal pain in the behind to scooter through them in the summer.

DGTU…

We weren’t sure what to expect for visibility, due to the rain that we’ve had all week.

Steve, Jeremy, and Jay, scouting the area…

We brought the gear down the hill, and got ready for business…

While gearing up, Jeremy blew a wrist seal, and was unable to dive. Had the water been a bit warmer, the tape option may have worked…lol.

What is great about this spot, is that there can be so much to see. It may appear to be just a giant slope of rock, but there are holes and crevices, fish, crayfish, various items, and even frogs. There was quite a layer of algae along the bottom as well, which we didn’t see as much of last year.

Steve had to look closely for this fella…

Our first find was a sled, which was a pretty cool find…

The terrain is a sloping rock wall, and the water was pretty green. We did not get the visibility that we had expected, but it was still a lot of fun.

Steve found a little rock pile to hide behind. Shall we play “Where’s Blanchard?”

We did quite a tour, found a bottle debris field, a few large crayfish, then made our way back, where we played around in the shallows, taking pictures. We were only in two feet of water, so we had to be extra careful to leave the algae on the bottom.

Steve and Jay…

Steve…

I took the camera off of the scooter mount, and handed the camera to Steve.

Me…

Jay and I…

Jay…

Me…

Bottom Time ~ 63 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 89′
Water Temp. ~ 42
Vis. ~ 25′ and milky (Yes, the camera makes it look nicer)

The top of the hill, with the island on the far right…

Another fantastic day of scooter diving goodness. Go team!


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Categories : It's 2010!

Back To The Rivaa ~ Centeen Park

12 04 2010

Sunday,  April 11th, 2010 ~

Today, we were going to attempt to do our channel run. Scootering out to the corner, hitting the bench, then dropping into the channel, amongst the periwinkle shells, and drift back up to the Gaskin. Eric B. joined Steve, Jay, and I, as his new Gavin is on order, and we thought we’d give him a taste!

Scooters ‘n’ bottles…
Scooters N Bottles

Today, I was bringing the camera again, but using the scooter mount. Clipping it off yesterday, was handy, but I cringed every time the dome port hit my stage bottle or back of my tanks.

We changed the plan, once we headed off, and descended into the channel before the bench. We also practiced towing along the way.

Once we got into the channel, there seemed to be enough ambient light to take pictures, but when I went to take them, everything seemed to come out black. So… oh well…. I took a few anyway, to see if I could add light to them later. They actually weren’t as bad as I thought, once I got them onto the screen.

Eric…

Steve and Jay…

We played about in the channel, then gradually made our way back up. We ended up passing the Gaskin, and went further east, instead. We had a freighter pass by, overtop of us, which always sounds like the earth is shaking.

I found that having the camera mounted on top of the standard body is a pain in the butt. The weight of it pushes the nose down a bit, and while riding it, I have to pull up a bit, to keep it straight in the water column. It isn’t as bad on the 18ah, apart from making it a little bit heavy, as it is more centered. I also had to make a point of ascending a little bit, to make a gas switch, to keep the scooter and camera from hitting the bottom. It was still a very good learning day. Apart from the dome port hitting my stage bottle, I think I like the clip off method better, while using a longer bodied scooter.

When we came back in, we were surprised to see some kids playing in the water. It was sunny out, but yikes… it wasn’t that warm!

Bottom Time ~ 63 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 101′
Water Temp. ~ 41/42

Taking the gear out…

A passing freighter…

Ohh.. here comes another one. Will there be a new dive site?

It was close, but.. game on…

Oh, but here comes another one in its path, and it is being pushed by a tug boat…

They are close!

Crisis averted. Game on, once again…

We picked up our gear, and chatted about the goodness that was our dive.

Jay, Steve, and Eric…

Me!


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Categories : It's 2010!

Back To The Rivaa ~ Rockport

12 04 2010

Saturday, April 10th, 2010 ~

Steve, Jay, and I got a taste of scootering the river last weekend, and decided to go back for more. We met in Rockport, at Jeff’s dock, and it was good to see Jeff back from school. Only two more months until he’s back from commercial scuba school. Jay brought Lloyd down, for some fun in the sun too.

Jeff had his small boat in the water, and some folks had already taken a charter out to the Jodrey. There were some other charters that probably weren’t going out that day…

I decided to bring the camera along, as I have only had it in the river a couple of times, and need practice. We had our scooters with us as well, but I wanted to try clipping it off, instead of using the scooter mount.

We geared up, and in we went. The water was pretty green, so quality shots were tough to get.

We scootered out past the Kinghorn, then travelled a bit south east, where we found what looked like a couple of car frames.

Jay, with the car frames…

The ground was quite silty, and would stir up very easily, when a fish scurried off, or a crayfish jumped back into his house. We found some pretty interesting things along the way. There was a giant structure that we found, that looked like it was some kind of mega-fire pit. I was getting ready to take a picture of it, when I kicked up some algae, and ruined the shot. Doh!

Steve took a picture of me…

Jay and Steve…

We scootered about for a while, checking out things we hadn’t seen before, and there were an incredible amount of crayfish.

When we came back into the shallows, it was much better picture taking. We dumped our gear, and had some fun.

Jay, before dumping gear…

Steve…

Jay, with dinner…

Steve, eating some… (no, not really)…

This little fellow stole his buddy’s house. His buddy was not very happy, and stuck a pincer in after him, with his bum curled under him…

We surfaced with grins, which is not unusual after diving goodness in the river!

Bottom Time ~ 68 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 110′
Water Temp. ~ 42


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Categories : It's 2010!

Easter Weekend Goodness

10 04 2010

Friday, April 2nd, 2010 ~

Good Friday! Yes, it is!

Erin was visiting from the mighty T-Dot, so we went on up to the quarry. Cam S. and Mark T were also going up, so we met them as well, with Connor.

As we were gearing up, we met with Todd and Isabelle, who were going to join us for Diving Goodness.

We entered at the beach, did our pre-dive checks, and sorted ourselves out at about 10′.

Erin, getting sorted out…
Erin, getting ready to head to the plane

Mark had his camera too…

Todd and Isabelle, lookin’ good!

Erin, also lookin’ good!
Supastaaa

We played about the plane for a bit…
Hanging about the plane

Cam, striking a pose…
In Vogue

Then went over to the boat. We took turns going through it, taking pictures, and a few of us even did a bit of a dance.

From there, we went down to check out the sub. Notice the hood ornament…

One of the gang had a bit of a regulator issue, so we made our way back up the wall, and came back in.

We had alot of fun, and it was great to go out diving with new friends!

Bottom Time ~ 46 mins
Max. Depth ~ 59′
Water Temp. ~ 42
Vis. ~ Stellar

Group Shot!

Sunday, April 4th, 2010 ~

Steve, Jay, and I headed down towards Morrisburg, to try and find another entrance to the river. Steve had seen some paths that looked promising, so we decided to check them out. We had the scooters with us, and wanted to do some exploring.

We found one of the entrances that Steve had seen, and took the path. It looked like it might be promising…

Road Less Traveled

Once we got halfway down the path, it turned to muck, and we knew that the van probably wouldn’t fare well in it. We got out for a look, and it wasn’t looking pretty. This is just the start of the muck…

Muck

We decided to just go over to Farran Park, as it was getting a bit late in the afternoon, and we wanted to dive.

It would be my first river dive of the year.. w00 h00! Steve and Jay had been down here on Friday.

We discussed our plan, and in we went. The vis wasn’t nearly as good as it had been for the guys, just two days prior. I guess the wind was moving in the wrong direction. Lol…

We headed south, to a wall, around it, then south some more. We had to stay pretty tight together, as the visibility was pretty crappy. We did see quite a few large fish ~ Carp, Catfish, and even a Pike. We came upon a big, dead carp, that Steve and Jay had seen on Friday. Most of the fish were still pretty sleepy, with the water temperature, but it was neat to see so many big ones.

We scootered around some different structures, then made our way back in. I was pretty chilled at this point, as I still seemed to have a leak in my suit.

Bottom Time ~ 64 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 85′
Visibility ~ 10′ and milky

It felt really good to be back in the river, and back to exploring in the river! This was the first time for me using the “red” scooter, since I blew it up last year, too. Man, it goes like stink, now that it is fixed!

Some pics of our grins, after the dive…

Big Scooter Grins


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