Chanb77's Weblog

Sunday, July 17th, 2016 ~

Today’s dive is brought to you by a whole bunch of fun! Our meeting time was for 1pm, at Centeen Park. We didn’t have much of a plan, until we got there (yes, we did discuss our dive plan). There were seven of us, and since we figured that the visibility was going to be “pants,” in the shallows, we were a team of two, a team of three, and another team of two (Gareth L. – That term was for you). We would still stay together, but we opted to make smaller buddy teams, in case we got separated in the muck. Good plan…

Steve and I were together, followed by Andy and Chris, then Mike, Jen, and Fred. We did our gear and bubble checks, then away we went.

We traveled upstream in the shallows, which had about 5′ of milky visibility. Steve and I were in the lead, so we stopped a couple of times, to see if we were all still together. We managed to stick together for the first bit, but the vis proved to be tougher, today. Jen, Mike, and Fred had changed depth a bit, to see if the vis would improve. Chris and Andy were right behind us. There were a couple of giant sheepshead carp, that didn’t expect to see us, in their spot.

We carried on for a bit, then dropped into the channel, where we could actually see where we were going. As we scootered across, I started singing a made-up song, in my reg. It was absolutely ridiculous, and all it took was one giggle to myself, to realize how silly it was, which made me break out in hysterics. Steve looked over at me, like… wtf??? There was no way I could explain myself, while on the trigger, so I just kept on laughing. I had tears coming down my face, and water was sneaking into the bottom of my mask, but I just couldn’t stop. That is, until we reached the channel. It was DRIFTING TIME! w00t w00t! We went a bit further south, this time, to see if we could find anything different.

We found a broken, green teapot, some neat bottles, and then… as soon as I started my gas switch, we happened upon a giant freakin’ anchor. Of course, there was mad current there, so I tried to kick against it, while doing my switch, so that everyone could see the anchor. Mission accomplished.

Shortly after the anchor, Chris and Andy had reached their drifting dive plan limit, and headed back toward the entry.

Steve and I carried on for another while, where we saw some neat rock piles, more bottles, periwinkle shells, rocks, bottles, periwinkle shells – you get the picture. Ohh.. We did also find the outer rim of what could have been a basin of some sort, a trail of coal, and a whole bunch of golf balls.

After an hour of drifting, we started our ascent to 64′, where we arrived at the Gaskin. We did a quick tour, then made our way back. As we followed the line back, there were some people (I think – we couldn’t see anything) creating huge billows of silt, to the point where it wasn’t safe for us to scooter, anymore. Luckily, we didn’t need the line to get back, otherwise we’d be in absolute blindness. We found the pipe, different line on the pipe, then to 20′, where we did our deco… and met up with Jen, Mike, and Fred. They had also just arrived, and witnessed the billowing.

There were a lot of laughs, and it was really nice to have such fun, with friends!

Bottom Time: 2 Hours, 25 mins.
Max. Depth: 108′
Water Temp.: 71F
Visibility: 0′ to 40′ (depending on where we were)

We packed up, and there was a bit of chit-chat, too…

Cheese, Jen and Mike!

I managed to get a sneak photo, of Steve!

Of course, there was an after-dive meal – still, no shortage of shenaniganry!