Chanb77's Weblog

Friday, May 21st, 2010 ~

Long weekend! Oren decided to come up to see us, and picked up my suit along the way. Woo Hoo! I was really looking forward to getting back in the water. Four weeks seems like an eternity.

When he arrived, I was both exited and hesitant to put it on. You know, the whole.. “Will the measurements be right…” feeling? I was happy to see that DUI had installed the P Valve for me, even though I had said that they didn’t have to. It was ready for the next day’s dive. We did a little trimming of the seals, I put my undies on, and put it on.

I was very pleased that even with the new measurements, that the bottom fit so much nicer than my other DUI. The top had quite a bit of extra room, but I would prefer it on the top than on the bottom.

w00t! Ready for the water! Thanks so much, Faith!!! You’re da bomb!

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 ~

We decided to go to Cornwall, to make a run for the Power House. Neither Oren or I had been there, so Steve was going to lead the way.

It rained a bit on the way down…

As Steve was getting out his white board, we had a little visitor. My guess is that she wondered if we had anything to give her…

We discussed our plan of attack, and the contours of where we were going…

We geared up and put the scooters in.

There were only a couple of boats out today, which was good for us. It can be a bit hairy coming in and out of the docking area, as it is pretty shallow. The boaters and the divers do get along here, and we are always courteous of each other.

We got in, scootered on the surface, until we were out of the small bay, then dropped down. Our plan was to head south, then a bit east, then south again, once we found a wall.

Well, we did find a wall. We also found the Paper Factory Basement, which was farther north. We decided to take a bearing across, to where we thought the Power House would be. The visibility was pretty horrible, and the currents were pretty strong, so we stayed tight as a team.

We did see some rather large fish along the way, and a turn that we made, brought us back to the Paper Factory. So.. er.. I guess that today wasn’t going to be the day for the Power House. Too bad we didn’t bring a reel. The Basement would have been an awesome Plan B.

We decided to take another bearing, and when we didn’t reach our destination by the time we did our gas switch, we headed for home.

We still had a pretty fun dive, saw some interesting things, and played with some giant fish.

Bottom Time ~ 95 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 82′
Water Temp. ~ 42

Of course, I actually wasn’t completely dry during the dive. It was no fault of my wonderful new suit, but due to a couple of plumbing problems… User error…

We had a good laugh about it afterwards…

The sun started to set, so we headed back to our place. Here’s to a dry dive tomorrow!

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010 ~

We decided to head down to Centeen Park, for some more river exploration. Chris P. and Allan met us down there, and they were going to go for a swim out to the Gaskin.

As we were gearing up, some visitors pulled up in a boat.

Kelly and Dave came by for a visit!

Not long behind them were Chris Red, Jane, Mike, and Warren…

We shot the sheet for a little while, and since they had their shiny new Cudas with them, they were going to tie up the boat, and scooter out to the Gaskin.

Chris…

Steve, explaining some of the cool stuff around the channel…

I caught Allan in the background…

We got in, did our predive checks, and headed out. We showed Dave, Kelly, and Warren to the line, and they were off like Greyhounds! We did catch up at the wreck, played around a little, then made our way out into the channel. Exploring time!

We happened on to some wreckage that we had not seen before. There were remnants of a shipwreck, many bottles, and chunks of metal. This looked like it was pretty old stuff. We played around for a while, drifted, and looked at bottles. I think we all had pretty large grins on our faces. NEW STUFF!!

We drifted back a bit, looked around some more, then scootered up a bit more shallow, drifted some more… you get the idea… Another fantastic dive.

Bottom Time ~ 72 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 104′
Water Temp. ~ 53

I found it a bit odd that I was a bit chilled on this dive. When I got out, I noticed that I had not pulled my zipper all the way down. So.. I have christened my new suit in more ways than one…. Next week.. Dry.. 😀

Happy Birthday, Queen Victoria!