Visiting The Old Man

1 08 2020

Saturday, August 1st, 2020 ~

I was having some water withdrawal, so we packed up our gear, and went down to play in the Rivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Gear, loaded up!

We met at Mike’s, got Zeus (our pony dog) comfy in his digs, and headed out for some Scootery Diving Goodness! We took a bearing of Old Man Island, accounted for some current action, and made our plan. As we scootered in the shallows, we eventually turned south, toward the island. We came upon some really neat formations, and the water got quite shallow. We decided to surface, to see where we were.

Well, would you look at that??? We were right in front of the island (another 10 minutes of scooter time,’ish – 45 to 50 minutes on the trigger, to get there)! Back down we went, and we hit our mark. We scootered around it, then caught the current to come back in .

As we drifted, we found a giant piece of a prop, that looked like it broke off of something almost as large as the Jodrey (640′ steel freighter, for those that don’t know of this most awesome tech dive). We played frisbee with some discs, found some sort of pump, and of course, a few bottles. We drifted along the periwinkle shells, then came up to 60′, where we met up with the bow of the Gaskin.

Weird, that the line has been cut back. Not sure why someone would have done that. We scootered back to 30′, where Steve and Mike rotated their bottles (they were on RB80s), then up to 20′, where we did our deco.

I was convinced that my sac rate was going to be higher than normal, since being out of the water for a bit, but it appears not. I spent an hour and 6 minutes on my stage bottle, and surfaced with 1200 psi in my backgas (double 80s). Deco was on 02.

Bottom Time: 2 Hours, 30 minutes, on the nose.
Max. Depth: 107′
Avg. Depth: 78′
Water Temp.: 80F, near the surface, 77F on the dive.

Gear… loaded up, again!

When we surfaced, we packed up our gear, and went back to get Zeus, then went for some Boston Pizza! w00t w00t!

Zeus, the pony dog! ❤
Steve and I. Mike was loading his car!




Near The Sisters

2 08 2015

Sunday, August 2nd, 2015 ~ 

Since today was such an amazing, sunshiny, summer day, we decided to go diving. Imagine that – Shocking, I know.

Getting gear together…Getting ready for Diving Goodness!

 

Once we finally made it down to the park, there were only a couple of available spaces, to park. This is pretty usual, but since they were having a festival at another nearby park, there were cars absolutely everywhere. We did manage to find a spot, and although not the closest spot, we were parked. We then eyed someone about to leave, a few spots closer, and Steve got the van, while I stood guard. No one was going to run me over… right? 🙂

We brought our gear down to the entry point, geared up, and got our butts into the water. The water felt absolutely wonderful. It had warmed up so much, in the last two weeks!

Gear, going into the water.

 

Our plan was to go downstream, towards the Three Sister Islands, and have a look around. We were going to spend an hour at 100′, and make our way back, doing our deco, on the trigger.

 

That is exactly what we did. 🙂 We scootered down to just shy of 100′, where I saw a white sturgeon baby. I have never seen a white one before, and this is the second young sturgeon that we have seen recently (providing the other one was the same one, that we kept seeing, in the same spot). This one was quite a bit more shy than the regular one (Atlantic sturgeon, I’m guessing) that we see.

We drifted along the periwinkle shells, where we saw bits of wreckage – nothing significant, but neat to see, anyway. There was a path of coal, lining the way, and the visibility was actually better than it has been, over the last month. It wasn’t fantastic, but we were happy with it. We kept drifting, and I saw another baby sturgeon! This one was white, with a dark splotch on him. This is entirely good news, to see that they are around. We usually go quite a long time, without seeing these fish.

There were spots where the current was moving at a good pace, and then it seemed to get really slow. This is unusual, between the islands, as the currents are usually a little rock ‘n’ roll, in between them. We figured that we were in between the second and third islands, from the current’s behaviour. We kept along, and we happened upon a piling, in the middle of the channel.

We then started our “journey,” back in. When we got up to 20′, we switched to our 02, and hit the trigger, again. We seemed to have timed it absolutely perfectly, and had completed our deco, before even getting back to the entry point. *High Five,* team!

It was a really fun dive, and there were things to look at, at every single point of the dive. w00t w00t!

Bottom Time: 2 hours, 30 mins.
Max. Depth: 114′
Water Temp.: 72F (YEAHHHH!!!)
Visibility: 20′

Of course, it had been a year since we had been to the Fudgery, so…. the rest is self-explanatory. 😀

 

Diving Goodness was had! w00t!

 





Santi Demo Day – Morrison’s Quarry!

7 09 2013

Saturday, September 7th, 2013 ~

Today, we had Michael Gerhartz (Santi Canada) and Harvey Morash come to town, to show off some Santi Goodness!

The day was pretty grey, and there were bits of rain as the day went on, but we soldiered on!

Michael, in the tent, as we were setting up…

Steve, in his new Santi jacket!

Harvey and Steve…

Shawn and Michael…

Adam, modeling the BZ400x…

…and the E.Lite (Nice fit!)…

Going to go and try it out!

Adrian, trying on an E.Motion (all the while, I am plotting to own that red hoodie, in the background)…

Of course, I was keeping warm with a Santi vest!

Then, Adam tried the E.Motion…

Mat, sporting an E.Motion, too!

It will be Elwira’s turn for a drysuit, next year!

Lights out!

Harvey, gearing up…

Michael, gearing up…

Yes… The fellas all ditched me, and went for a splash. *Sniff* I even supplied the Maple Cookies and chocolate, and they still went diving without me!

I guess someone had to guard the fort. 😉

Steve, ready to go!

Amusing myself, while the guys went for a dive, and keeping warm in my BZ400 Santi Panties!

While the weather only half cooperated, we still did have a few people come and try on suits, and see what Santi was all about!

Thanks for coming, Michael and Harvey!

Below photo by Adam Kulczycki