Mooring Day ~ Part One

13 05 2009

Saturday, May 9th, 2009 ~ 

 

Steve and I packed up both of our vehicles, and headed for the mighty Ktown, to help out with Mooring Day! We arrived on Friday night, met some of the gang for dinner, then headed to our hotel. Jen was in the room beside us. 

 

Saturday morning, we headed to Northern Tech Diver, and it seemed that Steve and I took the long way… so we got there after Jen did. We loaded up the boat, then headed out to the City Of Sheboygan, to raise the mooring. It was pretty grey outside, and the weather was supposed to get a bit nasty in the afternoon, so we were on a mission! Myself, Steve, Jen B., James P., James F., Oren, and Kevin L. were all aboard, with Captain Annie at the helm.

Anne…


  

The City of Sheboygan is pretty far out, so we had to get to this one early, before the weather turned. There were rumours of some bad weather coming in the afternoon.  

Kevin L. and James F. letting us loose…

 

James Y. and Sean came out in the little boat…

 

Once we arrived at the City Of Sheboygan numbers, Captain Annie lined up, and Jen threw in the shot line. Since I tend to get a little seasick, I got in the water as soon as I could. We gathered around the shot line, descending a bit, and did our bubble checks before going into the blue yonder. When we got down… BINGO!! We were right alongside the wreck. Nice one, Anne!! Steve and Oren sent up the line, and we had an amazing tour around the wreck. What amazing visibility too! This one has always been one of my favourites, and due to my upset tummy, the lake needs to be pretty flat for me to get to it. The lake can turn pretty quickly too.

I did notice that the mooring block had created a bigger crater in its resting spot, since I saw it last year. The hole seems to be getting quite a bit wider.

We ascended, and hopped back on the boat. We were all smiles, except for Jen, who had had a bit of a glove leak… doh…

 

Although,  she still had a wicked dive, with her new 130s and 21w light.

Bottom Time ~ 35 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 96′
Water Temp. ~ 43
Visibility ~ 60′

Steve and Kevin L., hooking and bringing in the shot line…

 

The weather started to turn a bit. It started to really rain, as opposed to the light sprinkling we started out with. Hmm… do we carry on or head in? Doh… that was lightening… Holy crap… that one was close. Yep, we’re heading in. It would still take us about 30 minutes to get back. At one point, we all huddled in the Captain’s quarters, although I’m not sure how safe we were in a metal boat, with tanks for lightening rods. Perhaps it would hit the ladder first?

 

The weather let up a bit, and we had a visitor on our tail…

 

Captain Harold and Seadeucer with their new radar…

 

Harold stopped for a hello, then headed off again. The rain was on and off, as was the thunder and lightening.

We passed by one of the islands, and although the picture doesn’t show how cool it looked, here it is anyway…

 

Jen and I…

 

When we arrived back at the dock, we unloaded and went for some grub.

After lunch, Anne and Harold wanted to go for a splash too. The sun had come out a bit, so Steve, Jen, and I said we’d guard the boat. What better way to get over seasickness, than to just do it…. uh… right…

Anne took Sorobon over to the Munson, as it is pretty close, and sheltered by the bay.

 

James P. and Oren were also along for a splash. It would have been great to jump in, but I didn’t mind being boat guard. On the way out, there were a couple of Sea Doos playing in our wake…

 

James and Harold gearing up. I think they were doing a dance…

 

Anne, about to roll back…

 

While they were gone, we found ways to amuse ourselves…

Steve…

 

Me…

 

Jen, on the look out!

 

Here they come!

Anne…

 

Harold…

 

James…

 

Oren and Jen…

 

On the way back in, I did feel a bit crappy, but I was able to keep my tummy in check.

Rainbow shot…

 

When we got back in, the dock was a-rockin’, so Harold tied the dock and the boats down…

 

Monster from the deep!

 

Although we only got one wreck moored, we still had a ton of fun, and the other boat did get the Douglas and the Frontenac moored.

James Y. back at home base, playin’ a tune…

 

We gathered up and headed to the Rose and Crown, where we discussed the day’s adventures and planned for tomorrow’s.

Stay tuned for Part Two!


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Another Diving Weekend ~ Day 3

3 05 2009

April 24th – April 26th, 2009 ~

Day 3

Steve moved some gas around in the tanks, we loaded the van up again, and headed down to Rockport, to meet Greg for another dive. When we arrived, Greg was ready and waiting for us. We geared up, and Jeff was going to tag along with us, to throw up the mooring on the Kinghorn. He was going to bring his “Torpedo” scooter with him, and was going to be diving open circuit with us too! Greg was also bringing his camera along, for some pictures.

 

Jeff gave us a debriefing of his scooter, as it has stuck on in the past. He showed us where the second “shut off” was, in case we needed to use it. 😛 We got in the water, and dropped down to about 10 feet, where we gathered up and did our checks. Time to go!

Steve and Greg started off, and I waited for Jeff. Jeff hit the trigger, and away we went. Once we got to the wreck, Jeff went up with the line, and met his brother in law on the boat. The three of us then continued on, tied off the scooters, and Greg took some shots. We decided to check out the inside, where Greg got some more pictures, and we posed with the “this rocks!” signal. Once out, we headed back to the scooters, and made our way back to the dock.

We surfaced, and all had smiles on our faces.

Bottom Time ~ 57 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 92′
Water Temp. ~ 44
Vis. ~ 30′

It was great to get in the water with Greg again. He’s a great dive buddy, and alot of fun to hang out with. Thanks for playing with us, Greg! We are looking forward to you coming back to see us in August!

Greg’s camera…

 

Steve and Greg…

 

Greg and I…

 

Here is a link to Greg’s report on the day too! 

 

Here is another link to his pictures from our underwater adventures.

 


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Another Diving Weekend ~ Day 2

1 05 2009

April 24th – April 26th, 2009 ~

 Day 2

Today was an unofficial DIR Ontario day! Steve, Francois, and I went down to Centeen Park, where we met up with Greg, Jay, Oren, Kevin, and Jeremy for our favourite scooter dive. The water is warming up a bit, but it still wouldn’t be as long of a dive as we normally do in the summer.  

We brought our gear down to the entrance and geared up.

 

As we geared up, we saw another couple of friends, going for a swim…

Scott W.  and Eric B….

 

Frankie also distributed a few scooter end caps…

 

Greg, analyzing gas…

 

Jay, Oren, and Steve…

 

Greg…

 

Frankie…

 

Kevin and Jeremy…

 

Once we got in the water, we did our checks, and formed our teams. There were eight of us, so we’d have to pay a bit extra attention to detail on remaining together. We dropped down to 15′, gathered ourselves, did bubble checks, and headed out.

Our plan was to scooter out into the channel, see what we could find, then drift back onto the Gaskin. This is one of my favourite dives, and could do it just about every weekend. We don’t seem to see many of the same things twice, and we always end up back on the Gaskin.

We headed out, stopping a couple of times, to keep together, and dropped down to the channel. Ok! Time to drift!

Umm… wait a second… Where’s the current? We hovered there for a couple of minutes, but the current forgot to show up. Huh… odd. The current does vary out here, but there is usually enough in the channel for a nice drift back to the Gaskin. Apparently, not today! We decided to hit the triggers again, and zig zagged around, having a bit of fun.

Of course, we did end up back at the Gaskin, and had some more fun, with all of us zipping around the wreck. It was time to turn the dive, and we headed back in.

Bottom Time ~ 68 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 80′
Water Temp. ~ 43
Vis. ~ 30 – 50′

We pulled the gear out, then headed for a bite to eat, to share our adventure and debrief!

 

From left to right:
Jay Roy, Francois Tremblay, Jeremy Jones, Oren Levstein, Kevin Ripley, Steve Blanchard, Chantelle Blanchard, Greg Mossfeldt…

 

Gotta love the new stickers… (plug for Mark Em at Dive Signs)!! 😛

Stay tuned for Day 3!


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Another Diving Weekend ~ Day 1

1 05 2009

April 24th – 26th, 2009 ~

 

Francois came down from Quebec, on Thursday night. We were going to head out to the river for some diving goodness! There were other friends that were to join us throughout the weekend. 

 

Day 1

 

Francois, Steve, and I went down to the river, and scouted out new entry points for the river. We headed down near Lock 21, to see about finding the entry for Lock 22. We ended up scouting out a few other spots, and even checked out the Upper Canada Village.

It looked promising, until we saw the steep rocks we’d have to climb down, with our doubles and scooters. The picture doesn’t show how steep it is, but it’s pretty rocky too…

We then saw something pretty promising…

…until we came upon more rocks, blocking entrance to the water. It would be a bit of a task to climb over them in tanks, and lift scooters over. It was too shallow to just push over. 

 

It was getting a bit late in the day, and we were itching to get in the water. We decided to head down to Morrisburg, and go for a dive at Lock 23. When we arrived at one of the three entry points, we saw that the water was pretty high, and the dock had collapsed a bit over the winter. I guess that’s what happens when it sits on tires.

It was still stable, so we put the scooters in and went for a ride.

Our mission was to head west from the dock, then drift onto the Lock system. Our scooters were on full pitch, and we were not making any ground at all. The current was absolutely screaming, and there was no way we could follow the original plan. This is not uncommon for this site, and we always have a back up plan, should this happen. In one spot, there was so much “gunge” flying through the water, it almost looked like an under water snow storm. My guess is that it was a result of the rain that we’ve had, as well as the algae lifting.

We drifted over to the Lock, and did a few passes up and around.. up and around. Francois and Steve both had the video cameras going, so we did get footage of this insane current today. When we drifted with it, it actually looked like we were using the scooters… quite funny.

We had originally planned on exiting back at the dock, but the current was that strong, that it proved to be more difficult than we thought, to get back to it, so we decided to drift down to the beach area.

We got there, surfaced with big grins, and debriefed about our adventure.

Bottom Time ~ 40 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 45′
Temp. ~ 43
Vis. ~ 20′ – 30′

Steve had his camera housing lid modified. Amazing results with the new lens…

 

I also got a camera mount for my scooter, but it will have to be modified, in order to accommodate the 8″ port.

 

Another great day in the river!

Francois and I…


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The Kinghorn!

30 04 2009

Sunday, April 19th, 2009 ~ 

 

Steve and I headed down to Rockport, to meet Kevin, James, and Jeremy for  a trip out to the Kinghorn. We planned on taking the short bodies, and take a short jaunt out to the wreck. We knew the water was hovering around 40, so we didn’t plan on a long dive. Kevin brought an extra Gavin for James.

 

When we got to the wreck, we did a few passes, checked out the inside, then reconvened to head back. Steve, James, and I were on the starboard side, when Steve had a bit of a freeflow. James decided to head off with the other two, while Steve took care of it, and I stood by.

When we got back to 40′, we hovered for a while, and we discovered that James had a bit of an issue with his scooter… it wanted to keep going..lol.. Kevin helped him to deal with it, and we made our way back in. There were a ton of crayfish milling about on this dive as well. They were big suckers too!

We got out and debriefed, with a few laughs and tales, and Kevin checked out his scooter.

 

I even found a little ring on the way in…

 

Bottom Time ~ 33 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 86′
Water Temp. ~ 40
Vis. ~ 30′

 

We packed up, got changed, then headed over to the BoatHouse for some grub!

It’s great to be back in the river!!!


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