JK, From The UK, In Canada, Eh!

5 07 2013

June 21st, 2013 ~

We had been chatting with John Kendall about coming over to Canada, to do some diving with us. There happened to be a few folks that wanted to take Tech 1 with him, so we were happy to host at our place.

John’s flight was pretty much on time, and collecting him did not take long, at all. With the 5 hour time difference, and a couple of late working nights, John was a little tired. We arrived chez nous, got some gear together for the morning, and went to sleep!

June 22nd, 2013 ~

We had a charter booked for the afternoon, which was nice. We didn’t have to get up at the crack of ridiculous, and had a bit of time before heading down to St. Lawrence Park. Tom Scott had a charter going out, looking for some wreckage. Eric and Cory joined us, too!

Having some fun, before the dive.

I was a total dork, and had forgotten my can light, which did leave me a little light on our 10′ stop (*duhh*). Nothing a rock couldn’t help me with…

We had a fun swimming drift dive, and did manage to find a few clues (chamber basin and some charred wood), as to where some of the wreckage might be. It was great to be in the water, and we are happy that it was warming up, a bit. I did also find a fancy red flag, which I donated to Tom. 😛 We also got to the old truck, and were able to show it to John!

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 6 mins.
Max. Depth: 102′
Water Temp.: 60F

Wow… Cory really grew in this pic…

It was then off to dinner, and back home!

June 23rd, 2013 ~

John was starting the first of two GUE T1 courses, today. Steve and I showed him around the quarry, and were going to jump in the water, but… well… we forgot an essential piece of gear… which is just ridiculous. We have had a pretty good track record, up until now. I think we shall blame John. 😛 *Ducks*

I still took some surface shots.

Line Drills… Watch out for that wreck! 😛

Zero Vis Exit..

*The work week went by, for us*

Experience Dive Day! Steve and I made our way down to Caiger’s, and hopped onto Rick’s boat, with the class. Michel and Eric V. were doing their experience dive with John, and Carm and Steph joined us, too! Steve and I had planned on a longer bottom time, and brought scooters with us. We scootered across to the other side, for something new to look at. As we descended, we saw some kind of round, steel structure. We have absolutely no idea what it was, and had not seen it before. It almost looked like a hatch on a freighter (although, we are pretty sure that it wasn’t).

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 44 mins.
Max. Depth: 200′
Water Temp.: 63F
Visibility: Quite nice!

Group shot, taken by Rick Lymer!
Me, Eric V., Michel G., Carm B., John K., Steve B., Steph B.

Congratulations to Michel and Eric!! Well done, guys! GUE Tech 1 divers!

June 30th, 2013 ~

John started another course, and a few of us went down to Guindon Park (separate Bloggy Thing entry).

July 1st, 2013 ~

Steve, Oren, and I slept in (yes… we acquired an Oren, overnight), then made our way up to the quarry, to meet John et. al. I brought my camera, to take a few shots, while Steve and Oren had a bit of a surprise for John.

We first went over to the shark, to show Oren (he hadn’t seen it since it had been fixed up and floated).

Oren, donating to his buddy…

We then went down to the sub, and started up the wall, when we saw “the guys.” 😀

Steve got ready…

Oren got ready…

We snuck back down… I hovered over top, while Steve was on one side of John, and Oren was on the other side… with nice, big, fancy SNORKELS on!

Mission complete!

John must have thought we were completely nuts… (although, he may have figured that out, before that moment).

We made our way back to the plane, where we goofed around a little, then back into the shallows for some pics.

Me!

Dr. O…

Since our very good friend, Laurynn’s, birthday was coming up, we decided to take a few pics for her, too!

Bottom Time: 52 mins.
Max. Depth: 60′
Water Temp.: 46F (below thermocline, at sub)

Course #2, cleaning up, to get out…

John, stowing his deco reg…

Bad boyz…

Steve, John, James, Oren…

Congrats to James, for getting GUE Tech 1! w00t! It’s about time! 😛

We had a fun couple of weeks with John, and there are a few more happy GUE-Y folks, too!

Come on back, John!


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Even More Skillz

21 06 2013

Thursday, June 20th, 2013 ~

Christian and I met up for some more skillz!

Not much to say, really… We did valve drills, went down near the sub, did an ascent, back to the plane, and we called it a night!

Bottom Time: 51 mins.
Max. Depth: 52′
Water Temp.: 51F
Vis.: Great!


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Skillzzzz…

15 06 2013

Friday, June 14th, 2013 ~

Time for some skillz! Steve and I went to the quarry, where we were working on bottle rotations… hooray!

For the longest time, Steve has been pointing out how high my tanks sit on my back, even though the bands are as high as they can go, and we had already tried readjusting my harness… which we did again, tonight (at the end of the dive – a few times). I wasn’t quite balanced during the rotations, so we were trying to give me a bit more of a chance, and not have to work as much. By the end of the dive, my rotations were a bit smoother than when we started. *Phew* 🙂

Happy, “Going Diving” smile!Taken by Christian Laf…

Steve, giving a hand…
Taken by Christian Laf.

The harness adjustment did also seem to help. *Clap clap*

Another one, taken by Christian Laf…

I guess there really isn’t too much else to say, since we stayed in 14′ of water, playing with bottles.. back and forth, back and forth…

*Unclip, unclip, swing, unclip, clip, unclip, swing back, clip, clip, clip… Phew* It was good to do some practicing!

Bottom Time: 51 minutes
Max. Depth: 14′
Water Temp.: 53F

Christian, Fred, and Yiannis also came out to join in on the evening goodness!

Thanks to Christian, for the photos! I can’t believe that I didn’t even take one!

Me, taken by Christian Laf…


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Fun-Dies En Français!

13 06 2013

Sunday, June 9th, 2013 ~

Today was the final day of North America’s first GUE Fundamentals course, in French.. or… En Français!

I decided to join in on the last day, and take some photos. They had planned on two dives, which gave me plenty of time to play with the camera. Descent drill, fin kicks, s-drills, valve drills, blowing a bag, an ascent drill, followed by doing the rescue techniques. Then… “The Final Dive!”

Skillz…

After the ascent…

The first of the two dives went well, as did the Rescue portion of the dive. Steve was demonstrating, with Eric V.  as his “victim!”

Bottom Time: 38 mins.
Max. Depth: 30′
Water Temp.: 51FVis.: 30′

Then it was time for the FINAL DIVE! The guys worked really hard, and went through all of their skillz ‘n’ drillz for the final dive, before the exam.

Bottom Time: 34 mins.
Max. Depth: 28′
Water Temp.: 51FVis.: 30′

Group shot!

Félicitations, Christian et Stéphane!!!

Diving is serious business, you know. It’s not.. Mickey Mouse! 😛


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Diving With My Arizona Sista!

3 06 2013

Friday, May 31st, 2013 ~

After picking up one of my bestest buddies from the airport the previous night, I brought Karen to work with me, on Friday. It became, “Bring Your Dive Buddy To Work Day!” We were able to leave a little early, and we made our way up to the quarry, to mess around a little, and do some skills. Christian met us up there, too!

Our dive plan was to do a few skills around the plane, drop down to the sub for an ascent, then mess around at the plane again. I did have my camera with me, but put it down for skillz.

We then went down to the sub, where we very quickly noticed one of the thermoclines. *Shiver!* We stuck around there for a bit, then practiced an ascent from 50′. Coming back up through the warmer water was a very welcome thing!

I did take some pictures, too!

Karen… I guess she’s moderately squared away… 😀

Christian is OK!

On our way back in…

….of course, we had to goof around, just a little…

When we surfaced, the sun had begun its descent…

Bottom Time: 42 mins.
Max. Depth: 56′
Water Temp.: 46F (below first thermocline)
Visibility: A little bit crappy

Group shot!

Karen and I headed back, and readied our gear for the weekend!

Saturday, June 1st, 2013 ~

We had loaded the van on Friday night, so we were ready to roll, around 7am, to head down to Mallorytown Landing. We were hitching a ride with Rick Lymer, to the Daryaw!

Joining us, were Lisa, Karen 2, Donna, Hong, Ivor, and Shawn.

The Landing…

When we got to the Daryaw, there was a small boat passing. We waved…

Karen and I splashed in. The surface current wasn’t too bad, but we had drifted a bit, doing our gear checks. We had scooters with us, so we weren’t really concerned. As we descended, we were a slight bit downstream of the wreck, so we made our way over to it. We did a full turn of the wreck, then underneath, where we tied off our scooters and stages, then ran a line inside. We peeked into a few rooms, where there was absolutely no shortage of freshwater eels. A few of them were poking out of their holes. We turned around, made our way out, then checked out one of the holds. We wanted to do a little more looking around, but were getting close to the end of our planned dive time. Very much fun!

On our way out, we did our gas switch, then drifted off. We didn’t follow the line up, so I blew a bag, and we ascended. What a blast!

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 4 minutes
Max. Depth: 93′
Water Temp.: 53F
Visibility: 30′ (a bit milky)
Current: Not as strong as usual, for the Daryaw; low surface current

Karen C., checking out the River!

After we were all on board, we headed over to the Lillie. Some did a drift, some.. well… a few missed the current, but still had a good dive! Karen and I chilled on the boat, and helped the others with their gear.

Shawn and Ivor had a good drift!

Rock on, Hong!

Karen H. got photobombed!

Donna had fun, too!

Lisa “forced” me to taste that Vanilla Coke… For someone that doesn’t drink pop often, I was quite liking it!

Lisa, with Mike and Rick, up top!

The gang, minus me! There did seem to be quite a few “Karens,” on the boat. What a fun day! Boston Pizza was our dinner menu!

Sunday, June 2nd, 2013 ~

Today, to the Jodrey!

First, to customs – Leaving Boldt Castle…

There were only four of us, and we had the wreck to ourselves. The visibility was not the best, but at least we could see more than 5′ in front of us. As we descended onto the wreck, there was absolutely no ambient light, thanks to the clouds and to the thunderstorm that hit, earlier that morning. At least the storm had stopped, by the time we were loading gear.

Karen and I did a tour of the bow, peeked in the wheelhouse, and a bit of the crane. There was hardly any current at all, which was very surprising. We were even able to hover on the port side of the wheelhouse, which is usually a place where the current wants to push you up and over the wreck! Craziness! It was pretty cool to show it to Karen, though!

Myself and Karen, on deco. Taken by Kevin Abe.

Bottom Time: 55 mins.
Max. Depth: 175′
Water Temp.: 55F

Neil, chillin’. Is that a Sears catalog pose? 😛

“The Abe,” hangin’ on the bow…

Karen and I, after most awesome Diving Goodness!!!!!!!

Once we got back to Caiger’s, cleared customs, and unloaded, we went to the Family Restaurant, for a delicious meal! Lisa, Karen H., Donna, and Merv joined us too, since their charter was back around the same time as ours.

It was most awesome to have one of my AGGAST sistas visiting, and to meet some really fun and good people! *Cheers,* to next time! 🙂


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