Chanb77's Weblog

Sunday, July 17th, 2011 ~

Time to dive! We loaded up and headed down to Centeen for.. yes.. some Diving and Scootering Goodness! Shocking, I know. Mike and Michel met us there, and were coming out as well.

What a stinkin’ HOT and humid day. It made gearing up a little tough, but since it is not snow and ice, I do not want to complain too much. The park was very busy with swimmers today too, so we were careful to stay out of everyone’s way, as we brought our gear down to the water.

Getting our gear ready…

We got in the water, and debriefed. Our plan was to travel upstream for 60 minutes, then drop into the channel, and do some exploring in spots that we have not been to before. As we moved along, we could hear a freighter approaching, which is quite typical for this area. We were in 24′ as one passed over, and even though this is an event we are used to, this one sounded like the earth was about to implode. It was not even directly above us, as we were a bit shallow for freighter passing. That was some serious metal going by!

As we dropped into the channel, we came upon a cliff wall that was extremely cool. We had not seen this before, so we already knew that we were in new territory. There were so many very interesting formations, and pieces of wreckage. There were another two freighters that passed over, but not nearly as ground-shaking as the first one.  

Once we got into the channel, we got into some serious Rock ‘n’ Roll current, and the visibility improved. We stayed pretty close together though, and even played around in the current. I pointed my scooter against the current, and was still being pushed backwards. What a ride!

We stayed in the channel for about an hour, as planned, then made our way up. Of course, we did make it to the Gaskin on the way back, did a quck tour, then headed in.

On deco, I found a quarter (lucky me), which I lost somewhere on the way back to the van (not so lucky me)!

Bottom Time ~ 2 Hours, 57 Minutes
Max. Depth ~ 108′
Water Temp. ~ 71F
Vis. ~ Stinky in the shallows, but quite nice in the channel

Chart of our path (thanks to Steve)…

Steve’s and my gear, after the dive…

Mike, Michel, and Steve…

Me, sporting some fancy sunglasses that I found at about 95′ (Yes, the ones on top of my hat)…

Until next week’s adventure!