Chanb77's Weblog

Thursday, August 13th, 2015 ~

Woo Hoo! The time had finally arrived, for the 8th Annual Brockville Canadian Invasion! Steve and I had arrived at Caiger’s Resort, late Wednesday night. It was nice, not having to rush, to be there for the Thursday shore dives!

We loaded up the coolers of sandwiches, drinks, and various treats, and made our way to Centeen Park.

Various dives were done, between buddy teams; some went to the Gaskin, some to see the water park statues, and some did scooter dives!

Our team was made up of myself, Steve, Mattias, and Frankie. The plan was to scooter upstream, for an hour, drop into the channel, and drift for about an hour (depending on the current). That is exactly what we did!

Bottom Time: 3 hours, 3 mins.
Max. Depth: 114′
Water Temp.: 71F
Vis.: Better in the channel, than in the shallows.

When we got back to Caiger’s, we had time to set up the next day’s gear and charge scooters, before dinner. Sleep came pretty easy.
Friday, August 14th, 2015 ~

Breakfast was around 7:00am. This is the first year that we didn’t have a buffet, so a few of us missed the serving. We were still treated to a nice, big breakfast!

There was a Rec charter (going to the Muskie and Lillie), a Tech charter (going to the Jodrey), and more shore diving, at Centeen.

Mattias – all the way from Sweden, hopping on a charter, to the Jodrey…

Rec charter, heading to the Muskie/Lillie…

Piotr and Ania…

Mark and Steve, getting ready for their dive…

 

Today, I was diving with Eric B. and Eric V. The Erics. 🙂

Our plan was to scooter 40 minutes upstream, drop into the channel, and drift. We would then come back up to the Gaskin, and take a shot, for Project Baseline. As we dropped into the channel, we saw a bunch of different fish, which was really nice to see. We saw sheepshead carp, sturgeon, pike, bass, and walleye. Very nice to see them, after not seeing very many, in the last year. We have seen more sturgeon, than pike, and they were baby sturgeon, to boot!

As we drifted along, in the channel, we came to a structure, that we had never seen before. It was approximately 12′ high, by about 8′ wide, on four sides. Half was rounded, half was square, and it was hollow. There was a fish having a wee snooze, that didn’t seem phased by my camera. I did take a photo, but the ambient light was pretty low, at 100′.

We came back up, after our planned drift time. There were spots where the current was absolutely ripping, and we couldn’t swim against it, if we tried. There were also places where we had to swim and scooter a bit, because the current was non-existent.

At the Gaskin, I took a pic of the bow, we played around for a bit, then made our way back to the shallows.

The bow of the Gaskin. It was tough to get a decent shot, thanks to the visibility.

As part of our plan, we tied off our scooters, did our required deco, then Eric V. practiced his bottle rotations, for his upcoming T2 course. Of course… We had to load him with all of the bottles… and I just happened to bring my camera!

Scooters, tied off, and doing deco…

Yes, we just had to load Eric V. up, with bottles…

Bottom Time: 2 hours, 37 mins.
Max. depth: 115′
Water Temp.: 71F
Vis.: Same as yesterday

More happy divers…

We headed back to Caiger’s, prepped gear for the next day, and… Dinner!

Again, sleep was not difficult. 🙂
Saturday, August 15th, 2015 ~

Happy Birthday, Oren! Good to have you back at the Invasion! What better way to celebrate, than go for a nice Jodrey dive? w00t!

Boat departures were at 8am. Yes… 8am. That required us to actually be at breakfast for 7am, load the boats, and get out of dodge. Life is hard. 😛

The boats met at customs, which wasn’t too surprising, since they opened a bit early, for us.

I don’t recall going to the back side, before.

Two Tech boats (to the Jodrey), and a Rec boat (to the Keystorm and America)! I’m sure everyone can hear me saying, “Don’t forget your passports!” How ironic would it have been, if I had forgotten mine? Good thing that I didn’t. *Phew*

Eric and I had a plan for 30 minutes, with a max depth of 200′, and our deco was based on a 200′ average, even though we planned on a 170′ average. We were extra conservative.

We had a nice, easy descent, and putzed around the bow, for a bit. We went to the spot that Steve and Frankie had gone inside, had a look, and continued on. After switching to back gas, we swam and scootered a bit, and were in a different spot than we normally would start our ascent. We were a little ahead of schedule, but since we had to come up a bit anyway, we started our ascent. We did see a pretty cool beach area, at 140′! As we came up, we found a pretty neat spot to do our deco, since we hit a back eddy, and were able to do a nice, easy drift back. At 20′, we came to another relaxing spot, where we were hardly moving, and being sheltered by a large piece of wall. Excellence. Just before we had finished our 20′ stop, we scootered back around to the bowl, under the boat, hung about, and did our 6-up. A very fun adventure!

Total Dive Time: 1 hour, 22 mins. (a bit shorter than originally planned, but not far off)
Max. Depth: 185′
Vis.: Not as good as we were told that it had been the day before!

 

We boarded the boat, waited for those RB80 fellas to get back, and we headed back to Canada!

Mattias and Dan, after their dive…

Eric and I… It appears that I have something in my teeth. D’oh!

A nice little boat passed us, as we were still tied up to the mooring tree. You can’t help but wish it to sink… without any catastrophic loss of life, of course. 🙂

We made it back to Canada (thank goodness), and as usual, we had “Picture Time!” We always have a nice photo, followed by absolute silliness.

Here we are, appearing to be functioning members of various societies…

…and then… the truth comes out. Apparently, Pierli can fly…

We had a delicious supper, followed by a whole bunch of prizes! Thanks to Dive Right In Scuba, 1000 Islands Pleasure Diving, Caiger’s, Exploration Diving Services, Exploration Promotions, Undirworld Diving, DUI, GUE Ontario, Ursuit (and Mattias)

Christian was happy with his pink t-shirt!

Mattias got a schematic of the Jodrey, to bring home – Look where I went diving!

Thanks for everything, Wayne and the 1000 Islands Pleasure Diving crew!!

Pierli was the lucky winner of the grand prize! A new Ursuit undergarment, donated by Mattias and Ursuit!

We didn’t have as many grand prizes this year, due to the fact that everyone received an Invasion 50L dry bag!

We then got ready for Daniel’s presentation on the Mars! Notice Chris’ display of head dress!

The littlest Invasion-goers!

Sunday, August 16th, 2015 ~

Last day of Invasion Goodness!

The Rec boat was headed to the Vickery and Kinghorn, and the Tech boats were headed to the Jodrey. Imagine that!

 

Photobomb!

We had another fabulous, yet less-than-stellar-visibility dive. As Eric and I went over the ledge, and descended, we ended up right beside the wreck. We waved at some of out other diving friends, as we passed them, on the bow. Our plan was for 30 minutes at 200′, and we ended up having a 180′ average, by the end of our 30 minutes. w00t!

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 26 mins.
Max. Depth: 194′
Water Temp.: 71F
Visibility: Less than stellar

Loading up gear, after our dives…

I swear, it wasn’t me…

Raph of Khan, and Darth Nash…

They do match nicely, don’t they? 😛

I must thank Jen and Mike, at Undirworld, for the millions of cubic feet of gas, that they must have used, and for the delivery guys! 😛

Thanks to Steve, for filling all of my cubic footage, and for hauling it (yes, I did help to load – I think I loaded about 14 sets of doubles).

I did unload all of these sets of 130s, the day after!

It was an absolutely fantabulous 4-day weekend of friends, fun, laughter, and a ton of Diving Goodness!! I can’t even begin to share how amazing this group of friends are, and I look forward to seeing everyone, August 2016! w00t w00t!