Chanb77's Weblog

Sunday, October 28th, 2012 ~ 

Since a few of us are otherwise occupied for the next few weeks, we wanted to do a really good dive, this week. We wanted to “make it count,” seeing as by the time we get back at it, we may be quarry-bound for the winter (Note: may be). 🙂

We met James, John, Cory, Raluca, and Eric at the River, and decided to go in from a different spot. We wanted to do a little looking around, in places that we hadn’t been yet. We brought our gear down to the water, avoided getting sucked into the mud, and discussed our plan. We had a few different options, and decided on an island to scooter around, drop into the channel, drift for a bit, then make our way back in. Steve, Eric, and I would be in front, with John, James, and CoRal in a line, behind us.

Muddy entry (it got pretty mucky, as we got in)…

Putting our fins on was a bit of a task, due to the animal that was the mud. We finally wrestled our fins on, and decided to surface swim out a bit, to do our gear checks. The weeds were plentiful and thriving, so we swam out past them. We got into about 10′ of water, and as we peeked under, we saw what appeared to be some pretty sweet visibility. Probably the best we have seen all year! W00 hoo!

Gear checks done, bubble checks, and upstream, we went! The visibility was absolutely amazing. We had a pretty easy go of it for a little while, and then hit some pretty strong current. We were still able to push through it, and had a few laughs along the way. Once we got to our target island, we turned, zig-zagged, and eventually made our way into the channel. We had a nice descent into the channel, where we hit some pretty rock ‘n’ roll currents. Blake, you weren’t kidding… Holy washing machine, Batman! :O There were some pretty crazy currents, upswells, downswells, and a few crazy depth changes. Whoa, Nelly! I can’t say that we all stayed shoulder to shoulder, but we did stick together, and were able to handle ourselves, while being tossed around, a little.

We then drifted for a little while, settled out, then came back up to about 70′, where we found some much easier current to drift with. We then came upon a little wreck that we had “found,” last year (it has been found before). With this amazing visibility, we were actually able to see it, this time. We then made our way back in, swam through the thick weeds, and back into the thick mud, to get out.

Bottom Time: 81 minutes
Max. Depth: 113′ (thanks to the downswell)
Water Temp.: 55F
Visibility: About 70′ (Crisp for about 15′, and a little milkier past that, to approx. 35′ – Best vis. all year)

A couple of group shots, with some smiley faces!

We did have just a few laughs, as we brought our gear up…

Yep… I think we made this one count! What a fun adventure!