Waves And BBQ

6 08 2012

Sunday, August 5th, 2012 ~

Since Jenni M has now become Scuba Jenni M, I was hoping to introduce her to the River! I figured that a nice swim out to the Rothesay would be a nice, easy, and fun dive. Yeah… I guess I should have known better. The winds were blowing like crazy – enough to push the van, while driving on the highway – and when we arrived, there was some wave action going on. It didn’t look too bad, so we geared up.

There were some other divers just finishing up, so we hopped in, and did our gear checks. Once we started out to the jug, the waves and winds were absolutely insane. We had been pushed quite a distance away from the jug, and since Jenni M had been working so hard, it was time to thumb it. We had been swimming for quite some time, and there were ocean-like waves tossing us about. We made our way back to the beach, and climbed out.

It’s a bummer that we didn’t make it out, but we had to be on the safe side. Another group of divers pulled up, and asked what the conditions were like. When we told them it was pretty rough, they went down to check… and quickly came up, and left. Oh well, another day!

Since we had worked up quite an appetite, it was time to mosey on over to Northern Tech Diver, in Kingston, for a BBQ! We stopped by Jen B. and Mike’s new place, to check it out, and grab more people to join in the fun!

Master Chef Mike was doing the cooking, and did a superb job! Thank you James, Mike, Tom, and NTD! It was just like old times!


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Friends In Town!

15 07 2012

Saturday, July 14th, 2012 ~

More visitors! Ken and Debbie came up for a splash! We were going to go for a nice, leisurely swim out to the Gaskin, to introduce Debbie to the Riva! Steve was tending to the fill station, so Mike P. came out to buddy up with me.

We had our dive breifing, gear checks, and off we went! It had been a while since I have done a swim out to the Gaskin!

There wasn’t a whole lot of current on the way out, until the last 20 kicks, where it usually picks up. The visibility was absolutely horrible, and we couldn’t even see the wreck, once we reached it!

The swim back was a cinch. We had a little help from the current, bringing us back to our entry!

Bottom Time: 62 mins.
Max Depth: 59′
Water Temp.: 73F

Ken…

Mike…

Me!

Then, time for some Boston Pizza!

Ken and Debbie, thank you for coming to visit! Tt was great to see you and dive with you! Please come back for some more Diving Goodness!


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Going Diving? Not this time…

9 07 2012

Sunday, July 8th, 2012 ~

Hong was coming up to meet us for some Diving Goodness, in Brockville! The plan was to go for a dive with Hong, then for a scooter dive, afterwards. Well… we suited up, and then I had that horrible feeling, when the latex seal on your drysuit just pulls apart, ending your hopes of a dive. Normally, I would have just used some duct tape, as a quick fix, but this was irreparable… from top to bottom, on an angle, and all the way down. *Le sigh* I guess I would be watching from the sidelines, today… and I would have a long wait.

Hong and Steve got into the water, did gear checks, then went for a swim. They went to the Gaskin, swam around for a while, then came back. I would give more details, but sadly, I wasn’t there… 😛

Hong and Steve, doing gear checks, and debriefing…

Hong, waving, as they descend!

Raluca went in for a splash, before her dive! It was pretty hot and humid out!

It appears that they did have a good time.

Uh ohh…. Now that Hong has touched a scooter, I fear it will not be long before he will “need” one in his gear collection!

Who is that, you ask?

…and Hong’s bad a$$ hat!

Eric strikes a pose!

Cory gets in the water…

…followed by Raluca…

Gear checks, and another dive briefing…

Hong was kind enough to wait around with me, while the others went for a bit of a scooter dive. We tried to stay a bit sheltered from the sun, by hanging out under a tree.

When everyone came back, it was time for dinner! Sadly, our favourite fajitas place was closed down… *Sniff*

While it did really suck to watch everyone else dive, it was still a nice, relaxing day by the water. 🙂

I guess that’s about it, for this week! *Off to get my neck seal repaired!*


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It’s True… We Finally Found It

4 07 2012

Monday, July 2nd, 2012 ~

It is hard to believe, but after 5 years of searching for that elusive old Chevy truck, we found the darn thing. Yes, other people have found it, and even with others’ directions (including GPS coordinates, that we hadn’t used), we were still not able to find the thing.. until today.

Scooters, taken by Eric Bourque…

The goal of the dive was not even to search for the truck! We scootered upstream, dropped into the channel, then drifted. We drifted for a while, then came back up to 65′, where we ended up at the Gaskin.

Since we had time and gas, we took a bearing off of the Gaskin, scootered south, then east, then drifted… It was myself, Steve, Eric, and James, and since the visibility was not that great, we spread out enough that we could still see each other and our lights, but also enough so that we could cover a good bit of ground. I was on the far left side, then Steve, then James, then Eric.

We were all keeping our eyes peeled, when up ahead, I saw a very slight darkness in the ground. This is normal though, as the riverbed does change in places, form periwinkle shells to dirt, and vice versa. Just to be sure, I hit the trigger… HOLY CRAP!!! IT’S A TRUCK!!!

I signaled like a mad lady, and everyone scootered over. It did occur to me that they might think I was pulling an “Out Of Gas,” but since we were on the lookout for something that we had been searching for for years, I was confident that they would realize that it was definitely fast signal worthy.

I think we did happy dances for about 10 minutes (Ok, it might have been 5, but it seemed longer). We swam and scootered around it, checking it out. From the size of it, it is definitely an easy target to miss, especially in visibility like this!

Of course, there was absolutely no photographic or videographic evidence of this dive… I guess we will just have to go back!

Bottom Time: 2 hours, 11 minutes

Max. Depth: 105′

Water Temp.: 68F

Most excellent!

James, Steve, me, Eric. Taken by Eric Bourque and his camera timer. 🙂


Also,  a shout-out to Laurynn! We found it on your Birthday! w00t! 🙂


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Rockin’ Dive

3 07 2012

Sunday, July 1st, 2012 ~

Eric came to join Steve and I for a dive (crazy, I know…). We found a little spot in the river that Steve and I had been to before, but it had been quite a while. We figured we would give it a go, since we couldn’t get near Centeen, today (Canada Day celebrations).

We dropped our scooters in the water, then geared up. There were a few islands around, and we figured it would be neat to scooter around them. The entry is quite shallow, which was fun to put fins on. We had to go out quite a bit, in order to get ourselves ready to go. There were many very sticky and soft parts of the riverbed, which made it a little tricky to walk out. It wasn’t so bad, when taking the scooters out, but with tanks on, we sank in a little more. We just took our time, and all was well.

We started out, and saw some absolutely amazing rock formations, under the water.  At first, we wondered if some of them might have been man-made, but if so, they would have been awfully hard to put there. Some were jagged, and others were perfectly smoothed down and square.

There was so much to look at, and we did not realize that the channel went this deep, here. Extremely cool dive, and one we will definitely need to do again!

Bottom Time: 57 minutes
Max. Depth: 104′
Water Temp.: 68F


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