Gaskin Line Clean Up

31 10 2010

Sunday, October 24th, 2010 ~

Well, the weather wasn’t all that great for a Sunday afternoon in October, but a group of us met at Centeen Park, to fix up the line to the Gaskin. Someone had vandalized the line that Steve, Leigh, and Francois had laid about 5 years ago, and we were on a mission to fix it. We had posted for anyone that wanted to help us was welcome.

Steve and I headed to the river, and met with Mike, Jen, Andy, Cory, Adam Kulczycki, Julie, and Stephane.

Steve, Mike, and I scootered out to the wreck, running a reel from the wreck, back to the stop sign, as a reference. Mike had the new line, and proceeded to run it out, following the reel. From there, Steve put the stakes in the ground, leaving Julie and Stephane to push them in.

Of course, Steve had to push a couple in, with his fancy stake hammer. ;o)

Cory, Adam, Jen, and Andy were collecting the myriad of lines that ran in many different directions. Some of it was really good line, that we can reuse. Good thing, as we did run out of new line to run to the Gaskin. We will probably run back out next weekend to finish it up.

Bottom Time ~ 1 hour, 41 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 65′
Water Temp. ~ 53
Visibility ~ 20′

There was quite a bit of line picked up!

It was cold and rainy, but we all kept smiling, and we had a fantastic time!

Thank you to everyone that helped, and to Marc G. too!

Here is a video of some of the dive!

We capped off the day with a meal at Santa Fe, which seems to be the new favourite spot to eat. Fajita Goodness, with homemade tortilla wraps, that you can watch being made. Absolutely delicious!

Thank you so much to all that helped. It was a grand day to play and dive!


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Jelly Roll Park!

29 08 2010

Saturday, August 28th, 2010 ~

Time for some more scootering adventures! Steve and I met Claudia, Oren, and Jen down at Centeen Park, and had planned to hit the little “Unknown Hull” that Steve discovered a few weeks back.

Jen, getting her gear together…

Our plan was going to be a bit different from our previous treks to the wreck, but we had hoped to still come upon it.

On the previous weekend in Kingston, Jennifer had told us of some Jelly Fish that she had seen in the water. I was completely mesmerized, and was a little bummed that I had not been on the boats, so that I could see these little guys.

We did our pre-dive checks, and started to make our way out. The park was busy, as there were a couple of Open Water courses going on, so we made sure that we were out of their way. As we ventured out, I was absolutely wide-eyed when I saw a little clear creature in the water column, with mini tentacles, and a round shape, moving rather “jellyish-like.”

I saw one!! Then another.. and another.. Holy smokes! These little guys were so neat looking! I can’t believe they are in the St. Lawrence! They were in about 20′ to 30′ of water, and we saw a bunch of them along the way.

We headed 30 minutes upstream, on the trigger, dropped into the channel, then drifted for 30 minutes amongst the periwinkle shells. Before ducking into the channel, I actually let go of the trigger a couple of times, to allow the jellies to pass through.

As we drifted, we came upon some more very old wreckage. It was in about 65′ to 70′ of water, and just had some ribbing left to it. It was all wood, with ladder-like rungs through the ribbing. There were big metal pieces strewn about one side of it, and it was hard to tell what they once were. It was still very interesting to check out.

We left this wreckage, and went in search of the “Unknown Hull.” It seems we had overshot it, as we didn’t find it this time. Oh well.

We made our way back to the Gaskin, where there were some charters moored to it. We motored around the wreck, where there were some folks a little mesmerized by motorized machines passing by. We swam around the wreck for a bit, then decided to head home. As we moved in the direction of the line, we were saddened to see that it had been cut. Someone on shore had mentioned that the line was gone, and that they had driven four hours to do that dive from shore, for the first time, and it was missing. They had been to the stop sign on Friday afternoon, and the line was still there. It was gone by Saturday morning.

Steve, Leigh, and Francois had laid that line about 5 years ago, and you could tell that the line had been cut. There were no anchor marks, and there were still bits here and there, that you could see a definite cut mark. Sad. There were even parts of it balled up, underneath a rock.

So, we still had a great dive, and it was good to get back out into the channel!

Bottom Time ~ 116 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 104′
Water Temp. ~ 71 (the river is starting to cool a bit)

Claudia and I…

Sunday, August 29th, 2010 ~

Eric came down to join in the fun today, and since we all had the burn time, we were going to follow the “usual” path to the “Unknown Hull.”

We would head upstream for 40 minutes, drop into the channel, drift for 40 mins, then head back up to 75′, where the wreck sits. As we headed out, there was a noise that made us all jump. It didn’t sound like any boat or sea doo that we’ve heard before. It was extremely loud, and actually felt like someone was firing missiles into the water. We looked around, but didn’t see anything. Of course, our first reaction was wondering if a scooter had blown up behind us…lol. What it was remains a mystery. We saw many more Jellies as well.

Along the way, we found even more remnants of a really old wreck. There was a huge chain buried in the periwinkle shells, that was very long. There were also chunks of wood and metal, as well as a bunch of bottles in just about every direction. Another bit of goodness to explore on another dive.

We also made it to one of the horse carriages. There were so many weeds on it, and the horse harness is pretty mangled now. You can still see the metal wheels, with big spikes in the middle, and other parts that are difficult to distinguish.. for me, anyway.

We managed to get to the Unknown Hull again, and showed it to the rest of the gang. There’s not much left to it, but it’s old, new to us, and very cool. I decided to leave the camera at home, but should come back with it next time.

It was around here that Jen must have come into contact with some kind of clear petroleum. It was after her gas switch so she wondered if it was her gas.. which it ended up not being. We had turned the dive anyway, to be sure. Whatever kind of oil it was had completely encased her back up regulator, neck seal, and part of her wing. You couldn’t see it, but you could definitely smell it. I think Jen has now mastered the art of oil clean up.

On our way in, we met up with Chris P. and Allan in the shallows. Chris had his camera with him, and took some pics of us.

Me, taken by Chris Phinney…

Bottom Time ~ 118 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 100′
Water Temp. ~ 71

There were two OW courses going on, and I spoke with one fellow that was so pleased that he had finished his course, and had succeeded with the mask removal/replacement. He said he had tried it last year, but just couldn’t deal with the mask, until now. Practice, practice, practice… Congratulations!!  W00t!

It was great to partake in another weekend, filled with friends and Diving Goodness!


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In Between Invasions

20 08 2009

Monday, August 10th, 2009 ~

I stayed down on Sunday night, so Mer and I could go out for some scootering goodness! We went down to Centeen Park, and when we were driving down the main drag, I could hear Mer’s GPS through my radio. I thought it was pretty funny, seeing as it was trying to zig as I was trying to zag. “Turn left on Front Street. ” “Turn LEFT on Front Street!” “TURN LEFT ON… bah…” I could almost hear the frustration in the guy’s fancy GPS voice. Ha.. got you, Mr. GPS man, for I know another route!

We arrived at the Park, even though the GPS was sure we were going the wrong way, geared up, and in we went. We noticed that there was now a gate on the stairs of the entrance, to try and deter the geese from coming in.

We had planned to scooter along the wall, and head down into the channel, at the drop off point. I knew that it was 14 minutes on the trigger until we reached it. Sixteen minutes went by, and we hadn’t reached it. I knew we had taken two minutes at the beginning of the dive, to sort ourselves out and do checks, so we should be nearing it now. Nope, no drop off. Ok.. we’ll head South a bit, into the channel anyway, seeing as we know the compass directions.

We goofed around a bit, practiced barrel rolls, did fancy dances, and basically did things that most people would probably have us committed for. We had an absolute blast. We drifted along at 65′, hoping to run on to the Gaskin. Steve has serious Spidey Sense when it comes to getting there, and I was trying to emulate it. Yeah… not so much.

We didn’t want to go too far past it, so we went along into the shallows, and decided to surface, to see where we were. Yeah, not even close to the wreck. We hadn’t even gotten to it yet. Oh well… we were still in good shape.

We ducked back below, and were on the exact path that we had taken out, so we knew where we were. We got back to the basin, messed around some more, then headed back in.

Thanks for the belly laughs, Mer!!

Bottom Time ~ 84 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 70′
Water Temp. ~ 71
Visibility ~ Decent in the channel

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 ~

Oh.. what better to do on a Wednesday after work, than go diving? Steve and I packed up and went to meet Mer, Gerard, and Jay for more scootering goodness.

This time we got to the drop off point, which was actually farther out than we had gone on Monday. Oh well.. we’ll know for next time!

We dropped down, hit the channel, and the visibility was incredible! Sweet!!! Steve and Jay ducked and dived at bottles, while we all played in the channel. Mer and I did more barrel rolls, and we eventually hit the Gaskin on the way back. We played around the wreck, having a grand ol’ time, and then scootered and drifted off of it. When we made it back to the basin, we all had grins the size of Texas on our faces, from such a great dive. We all had alot of fun.

Bottom Time ~ 99 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 105′
Water Temp. ~ 72
Vis. ~ 25′ – 50′


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August Long Weekend!

19 08 2009

Saturday, August 1st, 2009 ~

Steve and I ventured down to meet Jen and Jay at Centeen Park. Today, we were going to scooter out past the wall, drop into the channel, and drift away. When we arrived there, it was so busy, that we had to park farther away than we knew there was parking for.

We brought our gear down, and noticed a new friend in the park…

Apparently, the town of Brockville put him there, to deter the geese from playing in the grass. There sure are alot of goose bombs everywhere.

We entered the water, discussed the plan, and away we went.

Once we made it to the drop off, we descended and made our way out on a different path. We saw so much wreckage that we had not seen before, and some that we had as well. There were bottles galore, and pieces of ship machinery scattered just about everywhere.

We didn’t drift onto the Gaskin this time, but carried on past it, looking at other cool things. We eventually made our way back into the basin at Centeen Park, where we played in the shallows for a while.

Bottom Time ~ 130 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 100′
Water Temp. ~ 71

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009 ~

Woo Hoo! Another trip to the Jodrey! A bunch of us went out with Jeff, and planned for another goodly dive on the massive wreck. Jen and I were teamed up, Oren and Sean were Team Grey, and Steve joined Jeremy. We also had Andy aboard as a Bubble Watcher!

We went through customs, and made our way to the mooring tree. Steve was anchor man, once again!

Getting ready for the dive…

The currents were a bit odd this time around. There seemed to be back eddys galore, and very strong currents. We were a bit slower than usual descending, and ended up on the port side of the wheelhouse…. where the current is rather nasty on a good day. We were happy to have our scooters with us, that’s for sure. We headed back over to the center, where you are sheltered from the current, and started our tour. We investigated some areas that we hadn’t been to before, and peeked in some more crevices. Alas, we had reached our bottom time, and made the trip back up. Our deco was relaxing, and I had to giggle at Jen’s goby feeding. We finished our deco, and scootered back around to the boat. We hung around on the surface for a while, ditched our tanks, then jumped back in to relax in the water.

Some pics on the ride back…

I swear… that crayfish was THIS BIG!

When we got back to the dock, we waited for customs to clear us, then headed over to the Family Restaurant.

We saw this treat in the parking lot…

Another excellent day!

Monday, August 3rd, 2009 ~

Four of us headed to Cornwall, where we were going to check out the Paper Factory Basement. The current is always stronger in this part of the river, and scooters are a wonderful tool in this environment.

We made our way out of the public dock area, and went for a line search. Once we located it, we headed towards the Basement. I was thankful for the warmer water, as I had a leaky neck seal, and was pretty soaked. We made it to the basement structure, and Steve was communicating to me, on how to find the entrance. I gave the “ok,” and we proceeded…. um… “Uh ohhh…” I took my hand off of the trigger, but my scooter was still going. I gave it a couple of love taps, to see if it was jammed, or if there was something stuck in it. Nope.. pft…

I signaled to Steve, and he came over. I pointed at the trigger, and while he looked, it took him a second to realize that I wasn’t holding it. “DOH!” There wasn’t much we could do, except for pull out the thumb.

Since the scooter was still moving, we opted to keep it going. We were headed back against the current, and any extra scooter power is appreciated. Jay had my little 18ah attached to his butt, so at least I had back up, should I need it.

We went for about 15 minutes, and Steve asked me if I wanted to switch scooters with him. I figured he’d probably handle it better, once we got to the shallows, so I was happy to oblige. Since the current was ripping, I was able to anchor the scooter, and pull it back, so Steve could unclip it. He clipped his 26ah to me, and took the 35ah. It was a pretty smooth transfer! He also tried knocking it a bit, to see if he could unjam it, to no avail. Then.. out came the palm. Ohhhh… this was gonna hurt… One tap… nothing… Two taps… there she goes… He clipped the scooter to his butt, and took my little 18ah from Jay’s butt, and in we went, dodging the weeds, near shore.

Bottom Time ~ 80 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 50′
Water Temp. ~ 72
Current ~ Rippin’!
Vis. ~ 20′

When we got out, we had a look inside. It seems that there was a loose terminal, that caused it to overheat, and fuse the wires together, sticking it on.

So with the smell of burnt wires in the back, we ventured to Kelsey’s for some grub and laughs. Although we had a kick in the butt end to the weekend, it was still fun to hang out with friends, and do some cool diving.

I guess the Basement will have to wait!


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St. Lawrence Adventures

24 07 2009

Saturday, July 11th, 2009 ~

Since my other half had to work, I headed down to the river to meet Claudia, for some River goodness! Our plan was to swim out to the Gaskin in the morning, then meet Steve and Andy later on, for more diving goodness.

Claudia and I met at Centeen Park, geared up, and in we went. We dropped down to 15′, did our bubble checks, then headed down the pipe. We reached the end of the pipe, and did not see the “STOP” sign, as the visibility was pretty crappy. We reached the big square rock pile, then turned back to the east a bit, in hopes of finding the line.

We were in luck! We came upon the line, and managed to make out the back of the stop sign. We headed out toward the wreck. The current was pretty light here, so following the line out was not difficult at all. Once we got to the little boat ahead of the Gaskin, the current really picked up, and we had to give a little extra “umph” to our kicks. Wow… the visibility really went to the birds here… or, shall I say to the fish.

We reached the end of the line, and still could not see the wreck, that sat right in front of us. Claudia looked at me, and wondered why the line ended, so I motioned for her to keep going forward. The visibility was that bad, that we couldn’t see the big bow, right in front of us.

We were on top of the giant anchor, that lay against the wreck, and still couldn’t see it. There appeared to be a bunch of people on the wreck, from a charter above, and I motioned for Claudia to come towards me, as there was one of them about to land on her. We hovered there for a moment, to see if the silt would settle, but it only seemed to get worse. We watched the diver land in the silt, and just stand there. Yes… he stood there. We wondered if the vis would be any better inside the wreck, so we ascended to the large hole in the side, and I went in first. Claudia followed right behind me, and I could see her light. I was “blessed” with a wall of absolutely zero visibility, so I turned around and showed Claudia my thumb. This was ridiculous. We turned around, and as Claudia made her way out, there was a gang of single tank divers that were attempting to follow us. The moved out of the way, let us pass, and we headed out of dodge. We had a relaxing swim back, as we had help from the current, and we both giggled as Claudia signalled to me that she wanted lunch. Me too! This swimming stuff is hard work! Lol…

We made it back to the break wall, and I saw something bright and pink, that I just had to pick up. It was a pink head band, and I thought it must have looked quite nice, perched on top of my hood. We kept swimming in the basin of the park, and we saw yet another head band. This one was bright yellow, and fit nicely over top of Claudia’s hood. We were quite a team now. We giggled, and ascended back to the entry point. Although the visibility was horrible, we still had a fun time, and got to play around in the water.

Bottom Time ~ 65 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 60′
Water Temp. ~ 66
Visibility ~ Um.. yeah.. right

A couple of pictures, showing off our fancy head bands…

Oh, and the Kool Aid shot…

Since we were going for a second dive, and were running a bit behind, we packed up and headed over to meet Steve and Andy, while still wearing our drysuits.

We met them, and headed on over to Rockport. Along the way, we stopped at the side of the road, to show Claudia and Andy Island 99/Teapot Island. We took a few pictures, and headed over to see our friend, Jeff.

Jeff showed us a compass that he had purchased from an antique show, that was pretty awesome…

We decided to head out to the Kinghorn.

The visibility was much better than at the Gaskin, so we were happy about that! We did a few turns of the wreck, checked out the holds, and headed back. We had a wonderful dive!

Bottom Time ~ 51 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 92′
Water Temp. ~ 66
Visibility ~ 35′

Once we got back in, we headed over to the Family Restaurant, where we had some grub, and I just had to indulge in the cherry pie, which was fresh out of the oven. This place has the best cherry pie anywhere!

Sunday, July 12th, 2009 ~

Claudia, Steve, and I had planned on a scooter run out of Centeen Park, while Andy was going to set up some of his new stuff on his gear. Zi was also coming to meet us for our second dive of the day, and was there a bit early.

The three of us headed out past the wall, then dropped down into the channel, where Steve led us straight to a little wreck that he had previously found, and over to the horse carriage. We drifted in the channel for a bit, then back over to the Gaskin. We went through it once, then came back in. At least Claudia got to see some of it this time!

We brought the scooters back in, had a snack and some water, then got back in with Andy and Zi. Claudia had a bit of a drive ahead of her, so she made her way out.

I decided to take my camera out on this dive, and see what I could come out with.

We decided to head east from the entrance, and do a nice, relaxing swimming dive. Again, the visibility wasn’t all that great, but I managed to get a few alright shots. The camera made it look better than it actually was.

Self Portrait…

We saw alot of things that we hadn’t seen before as well.

Andy, and the “Maple Leaf” wheelchair…

Steve, lighting up a tube filled with fish…

Andy, Steve, and Zi…

Zi…

Andy… doing fantastic, my friend!

Yet another self portrait…

On the way back in, the current seemed to get quite a bit stronger, and we made our way in, against it. We also met up with some of the local residents…

On the surface…

Andy got a picture of me, too!

Bottom Time ~ 58 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 35′
Water Temp. ~ 67
Visibility ~ 10′ – 15′

Andy brought along some cold Cherry Coke, which I had not tried before. Holy moses, was it good. Mind you, I also gave him some Ketchup chips, that he had not had before, and got him a little hooked too.

Thanks to all of our friends that made such far drives to come and dive with us. It really is alot of fun to dive with everyone, and build new adventures.


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