Chanb77's Weblog

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 ~Well, it seems a dog’s age since I was in the water last… 3 weeks, and it was way too long!!! Steve and I headed up to Wakefield, Quebec today for a splash! When we got there, we expected it to be frozen solid ~ The air temperatures have been wayyyyyyyyyy sub zero over the last week or so, and everything else seems to be frozen. We pulled up, shovelled through to the entry point, and the usual spot was frozen over, up to the bridge, but past the bridge was all open water… w00t! We could just continue walking past the entry, to a second small beach to enter.

We met up with Carmen, Steve S., and Rob W. there as well.

As we made our way through the path to the entry point, and leave it to me to have my foot fall through a deep part of the snow, and fall down with my doubles on… pftt… I’m not proud… I lifted my arse up, and carried on… We got in, made our plan, hovered at about 5 feet for a bit, then started our skills. Steve and I did our valve drills, air shares, and headed out to the plane.

We hovered around, did a few more skills, then headed out to the tug.

We swam through a couple of times, took some pics, and just had some good ol’ fun!

Steve…

Me…

Steve S….

Carm…

We swam back to the plane, did some more skillssssss, then out we went.

Bottom Time ~ 54 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 43′
Water Temp. ~ 39
Vis. ~ 25′ ish

Me, walking back to the van…

After getting out, we doffed our gear and went back to play…

Burying Steve…

Steve floating…

Me floating… (after Steve pushed me in)…

Double self portrait… with cold water pudgy face syndrome…lol…

Me… trying to catch a pic of Steve throwing water at me… didn’t catch it obviously.. but I did get a nice chunk of water in the eyes…

…and… Steve practicing for some kind of obscure skating competition??

A great day, despite the rain! Thank goodness it was mild!

Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 ~

Well, it seems that we didn’t get enough of the cold on Saturday, so we ventured out to Rockport for a dive to the Kinghorn! The weather was pretty nasty in our little town, so we were late in meeting everyone at Jeff’s dock. Myself, Steve, Jeremy, and Jen geared up for the torture. Jean was sitting out this dive, as he had hurt his knee the day before.

Entry point ~ Jeff’s dock…

We got in, dropped down, did our modified valve drills etc., and headed out to the wreck. We met up with Walkin’ Willy on the way out, and saluted on our way by. JJ and Steve had their scooters out, and were zipping all over the place, while Jen and I did a rendition of the Macarena. We did a pass through the wreck, and I started to feel a bit chilled, so we made the journey back. We noticed that the water temperature was quite a bit colder in the shallows than on the wreck. On the drive down, we even wondered if the entry would be open or not, as the river was frozen in alot of places just east of Rockport.

We got out, and we instantly became DUI popsicles. I was able to disconnect my drysuit inflator before it completely froze over.

Steve as a popsicle…

Me… looking like a pygmy popsicle…

..and finally.. my icy gear!

Bottom Time ~ 49 mins.
Water Temp. ~ 41 & 39
Max. Depth ~ 88′
Vis. ~ 20′ – 30′

Upon gearing down, I noticed that I was almost completely soaked. A happy camper, I was not! I am going to put it down to user error for now, as since my suit is brand new, the zipper is pretty stiff. I’m hopin’ like ‘eck that it was because of that!!!

Once we finally thawed out and got changed, we all went for lunch at our little “place.”

Another fine weekend of laughter, fun, and good friends..er.. and chilly water!

Steve and I headed down to Brockville to meet our friends Jen and Jean for a swim out to the Gaskin. Mother Nature had decided to throw a curve ball at us, and dropped the air temperature to -26C, with the windchill. Ay carumba, I think we are certifiably nuts.

The journey down the 416…

We drove down for a 1pm meeting time, and geared up!

Jean…

Jen…

Jean’s Divemobile…

Steve…

..and Me… I was outside for a while, and my cheeks froze…

Well.. we finally made it into the water. We decided on our dive plan on the surface, as we were gearing up, so that we could just drop down once in the water. The air was cold enough that if we bobbed around on the surface too long, we would surely have a few freeflows.

We dropped down, got sorted, and I attempted a valve drill. Normally I don’t have a problem with my valve drills. Today… pftt… for some reason, I had a really tough time reaching them. When I geared up, I did feel unusual tightness across my shoulders, and pointed the blame at my undies bunching up underneath… I was wearing an extra layer of fleece over top of my Xerotherms, which I did do last week, but they weren’t bunched up last week…Pfftt.. Pfftt.. Ok.. sorted myself out, reached my valves and off to the Gaskin we went.

We took a slow, easy pace to the wreck, and when we got there, saw that the visibility wasn’t that spectacular. Normally at this time of year, the vis is great with the water temperature drops, but today… not so much. Not many of the pics turned out on the wreck, as it was too dark, but here are a few anyway!

Looking up through the wreck from the inside…

Steve…

Rail on the starboard side…

Jen…

Me…

OO… Me…

Steve took a couple of pics of me, then turned the camera on himself…

..and Me… just fooling around, pretending I can fly under water…

When we exited the water, we quickly froze, as did our gear and zippers.

Steve also took this fancy pic of my frozen hair do…

Our hoods were frozen, our neck seals were half frozen to our necks, and we had to leave our valves open, as they were pretty icicley too. Jean’s suit, once he finally got it off, could almost stand up on its own…

We did a clothing change as quickly as we could manage, and headed off to the pub for some grub and a Corona!

Bottom Time ~ 66 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 65′
Water Temp. ~ 42F
Vis. ~ 25′ – 30′
Air Temp. ~ -26 with wind chill… brrrrr….

Tomorrow… the Kinghorn!

Sunday, November 25th, 2007 ~There were a whole gang of us at Rockport today. Myself, Steve, Francois, Carmen, Steve S, Blake, Jeff, Oren, James Y, Derek, and Martin K went for a swim to the Kinghorn! There were video cameras everywhere, so I didn’t bring mine along. I was out to test my new suit again! We had a most excellent day, and alot of fun!

When we made the swim back, and were at 30′, I seemed to have a bit of trouble dumping the air from my suit. I was contorting my arm like some crazy ol’ disco dancer, but to no avail. I reached over and rechecked the dump valve, and it had closed a bit. Open sesame… burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp… there it goes! This valve seems much more sensitive to turning, so I’ll have to keep an extra ear to the ground, and make sure I check it often. Once the valve was open, it was clear sailin’! I did check it previously, but it seemed to make it’s own way, just a hair.

I cannot stress how satisfied I am with this suit. I’m really not trying to sound like a commercial, but … ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. really… it was worth it. I’m one happy camper. I’m a happy DUI Dog owner! RUFF!!

Bottom Time ~ 62 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 90′
Water Temp. ~ 42
Vis. ~ 70’+

We all went for lunch and laughs afterwards. Alot of fun, and good to see a few people that I haven’t seen in a while!

Until next week at the Gaskin!! Ahoy~~

Saturday, November 24th, 2007 ~Well.. the news was good.. my suit had finally arrived at the shop. I tried to contain my excitement, as I still had to face the hard part… making sure it fit. Myself, Steve, and Francois left Ottawa with bright sunshine, a ton of snow on the ground, and a one way ticket to Kingston! By the time we made it to Brockville, the sun had disappeared behind a very grey sky, and a freakin’ snow blizzard! We finally pulled up to NTD, where there wasn’t much snow on the ground at all, just grey skies.

We went inside, and there was this bright yellow halo surrounding a box on the floor. The name on it read, “DUI.” I immediately made my way to it, as if it were calling my name. I still tried to contain my excitement… it still had to fit.. it still had to fit…

One foot…oo… good fit on the turbos… two feet…oo.. nice! Pulled it up… legs perfect… We had to cut the wrist seals in order for me to get my hands through, and were grimmacing with every cut… one hand in… second hand in… Omg… this is going too well….

Ok.. have to trim neck seal a bit… sweat is pouring off of all of us.. Me, because I was wearing 4th Element Arctic undies with a drysuit on, Steve and Francois, because they were snipping my seals (and were under serious pressure to get it right), and Vinnie, because.. well.. because he is nice and he cares about us.
Ok, my head is through.. perfect trim! Now for the zipper… Holy smoke.. did they glue it down? We got it done up.. and OMFG…. perfect perfect perfect perfect… I was so freakin’ happy, I didn’t even know what to say…

Next step was to figure out if my fins would still fit me. My previous suit had giant, funky rubber boots, and I was now in some sexy, slim turbo soles. OO.. they were a bit big… We shortened the springs, and they seemed good to go!

Now we had to go diving.. I had to give this puppy a test drive! We hit the road for Rockport ~ the same dive that Carm and I had done last Sunday. It is a nice, easy shore dive, and we can get a little bit of depth, for me to test out my suit. I was really wanting to make sure that I could use the dump valve. My previous suit had a cuff dump, and my new one has a shoulder dump.

We entered the water as it was getting dark, I put on my fins.. which felt really loose around my feet. I could wiggle my feet around inside them! Ok.. it’s just a bit different, let’s see how it goes… I could reach my valves easily, stretch out.. omg.. this suit just feels amazing..

Out we go.. tons of fish, crayfish, mud puppies… life everywhere… Holy smoke… I am in freakin’ heaven. My suit just feels like the shizzle on the nizzle. We made our way out to some wreckage, that lays in about 60′, and I was getting a bit chilled, so we turned around. I think I had a grin on my face about a mile wide. Ok.. now to worry about the dump…I was wondering if I was doing it right, as I was not hearing the air come out of the valve. Apparently I was, as I wasn’t getting any air floating around inside. To compensate though, just in case, I dumped a little bit more air than usual from my wing, just to be on the safe side.

Bottom Time ~ 47 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 63′
Water Temp. ~ 45
Vis. ~ Well.. as far as our lights would shine ~ Very clear

My feet did get cold on this dive. The big rubber boots were “funky,” but did keep my feet warm. Diving all winter long last year, I never once had cold feet. I was wearing the same thing I always wear on my feet (small white socks with fleece MEC socks over top), and it’s not going to cut it with the turbos. Since there is quite alot of room in the tubo sole sock, I think I’m going to head out to Dive Tech in the morning, to pick up the 400g DUI booties. It will take care of the chilly toes as well as take up the space in the turbos.

Wow… I am in serious DUI heaven tonight, and can’t wait to get my butt in the water tomorrow!! Wooooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooo!!!