Testing The Water

15 09 2014

Sunday, September 14th, 2014 ~

Well, I wasn’t sure if I should have gotten in the water today, but… well, I figured I would give it a try. I had had a small surgery, six days prior, and the doctor told me that I should probably stay dry for a couple of weeks. I did explain that we used drysuits, and if we could help it, stayed dry. She was a little “iffy,” but told me to play it by ear… so I did!

The surgery was just off of my shoulder, so I wasn’t sure how the harness would feel, as well as any drysuit squeeze. Steve was teaching a DPV class, so I came along… and brought my camera!

Luckily, I could just hover a bit, while everyone was doing their skill requirements.

We eventually hit the triggers, and headed over to the Gaskin.

We didn’t stay very long, though. I was hoping to take a Project Baseline shot, but there were skillz to be done! 😛

I didn’t feel any discomfort in my arm (it was the left one, so not my primary scooter arm), which was excellent!

Back to the shallows, for SMB deployments, OOG towing, and ascents. Great work, team!!

Small pieces of wreckage, along the skills path…

Great team work!

We have been noticing an extraordinary number of dead eels, this year. It is not normal, and we are starting to help monitor this situation…

Ahhhh… I was so happy, to be in the water! I did catch Steve, in the background, dumping the gas out of his suit, on our ascent!

Ascent selfie!

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 38 mins.
Max. Depth: 55′
Water Temp.: 68F
Vis.: Not fantastic (camera makes it look better than it is)

 

Way to go, guys ‘n’ gal!

 


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Courses, Of Course

19 07 2014

July, 2014 ~

The next couple of weeks brought GUE courses, to the front line. Steve was teaching a Primer, a DPV-1, as well as some Fundies Goodness, and hours of in-water time.

Congratulations, to all of the students!

 

A small glimpse of the new under water statues, at Centeen Park…

Between all of this goodness, Eric B and I went out for a skillz dive, in preparation for our upcoming Tech 2 course. We each brought three bottles, so that we could practice our rotations, at the quarry. At 20′, we dropped our bottles, to do valve drills, s-drills, finning techniques, blowing smbs, and all of the usual skills. Then, it was rotation time. I seemed to be having quite an issue, getting my last bottle’s butt clipped to my hip D-ring. I was getting quite frustrated, and my silly, slightly injured wrist was really bothering me. Ok. Deep breath… Let’s try this again… I took off the bottles, laid them on the bottom, and tried again. Yes, the clip that I was using, was a little bit tough, but nothing that should be giving me such an issue. Here I go, again…

Same thing… just couldn’t reach that darn D-Ring… wtf??? I put the bottles down, again, and decided to switch them around, just to test the theory. That’s when I noticed that the bottom clip had been left, wrapped around the hose of the stage bottle. Well, duhhhhh… no wonder I couldn’t reach the inside, with that clip.

I unwrapped it, then had at it, again. This time, success. *Phew* Eric’s went a fair bit smoother than mine did.

*Notes to self*
1) Check to see if bottoms of stage bottle clips are wrapped behind the tubing, before doing bottle rotations.
2) Bottle rotations with full bottles of 32% suck. Yes, I was already aware of this, but now, I am extra aware.

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 6 mins.
Max. Depth: 19′
Water Temp.: 66F
Frustration Level: Varying, but at least I was persistent 🙂

 


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Morrisburg – A Current Affair!

1 07 2014

Sunday, June 29th, 2014 ~

A large gaggle of us met down at the Morrisburg public dock, where we discussed our dive plan. We would enter down the road, then scooter/drift through the old channel, and through Lock 23. Since we had a bit of a distance to drift, we unloaded at our entry, then brought most of the vehicles down to the exit, and drove back to the entry, in our van. We would pick up our van, after the dive!

Some of the gear, unloaded…

It appears that sometimes gear DOES grow on trees!

We were going to scooter/drift in “this” direction (east)…

We entered the water, carefully. There were some slippery rocks, so we took our time. We scootered south, into the old channel, then started to drift. The visibility was not great, so staying together was a bit of a task. We did manage, though.

When we reached the lock wall, we tried to stay on the north side, but the current was absolutely ripping there, so we opted to go up and over, to the North side. I was loving how the XK1 handled the screaming current! Perhaps we can try to scooter upstream, another time… the dives where we always have to resort to “Plan B,” since the current gets to strong, to even scooter against.

Before we made it to the beach area, we found what may have been a dump area. There was some old garbage, and a large pile of bottles, in the silt. We blew an SMB, then swam over to the beach area. It was a beautiful day, so the beach was quite busy. We usually get asked by both kids and adults, “What do you see, down there?”

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 39 mins.
Max. Depth: 58′
Water Temp.: 62F
Vis.: 5′ to 10′ – Milky

Our exit point…

Chris took Steve to pick up our van, while I was the designated gear watcher. Raph had quite a drive ahead of him, so he left right away.

After gear loading…

At our post dive meal, I could not help but think of my friend, Jeff Schrieber, making fun of our mooses aboot the hooses…

Cheers, Jeff! 😛

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Daryaw Day

30 06 2014

Saturday, June 28th, 2014 ~

Well, it’s about time that we got on a boat, this year, so we made our way down to St. Lawrence Park, to do exactly that. We were using Under Where? Dive Charters (Tom Scott), and were getting on Pork Chop, with Ryan at the helm, and Alex as crew!

Raphael had driven up from NYC, and Frankie had driven from Quebec City, so the four of us packed the night before, and made tracks, early’ish…

At St. Lawrence Park, we met Chris Phinney, Neil MacMillan, Kevin Abe, Eric Vermette, James Young, and Hong Phan, and loaded up the boat. It was a very busy day at the park, since they had a “Breakfast On The Island” event, going on. There were line-ups of folks, waiting to get on the shuttle boats, to take them for breakfast, on one of the 1000 Islands (Refugee Island). There was even a camera crew, that was catching all of the action, and even caught me carrying my scooter to the boat. My 15 seconds of fame, perhaps? 😛

Once we finally got all of our gear loaded, and parked all of our cars across the street from the park, we were off! To the DARYAW!

Scootery Goodness, alongside Captain Ryan!

I was buddying up with Raphael; Steve was with Frankie and Eric; Chris, Hong, and James teamed up; and Kneel and Kevin Aaaaaaaaaaaabe were buddies.

As we tied up to the mooring, we put our stages and scooters in the water. We noticed that the surface current was absolutely ripping, and it was probably the strongest that I have ever seen it there, in the times that I have dived the Daryaw.

Kev, Raph, James, and Eric V., just before gearing up.

Buddy teams took turns getting in, clipping on bottles and scooters, and dropping down. Raph and I were the last team to descend. It was Raph’s first time on the Daryaw, so we took it easy on the descent. We did have to hit the triggers, in order to get back to the wreck, which was not bad, at all.

Looking out, from underneath the shelter of the overturned wreck…

We made our way underneath, and Steve was taking pictures of everyone, as we swam around. The wreck is upside down, so we are able to swim “up,” into the holds. There is one hold that you can surface in, thanks to the giant air pocket. Steve, Raph, and I surfaced in it, giggled for a little bit, then back down.

Frankie, peeking under the wreck…

Kev and Kneel…

Eric V….

Hong and Raph…

Chris, peeking out of the wreck, with Raph, below. Not sure who the other diver is (there was another boat that pulled up, as we descended)…

One of hundreds of eels, on this wreck…

The plan was to drift off of the wreck, and one of each buddy team was to blow an SMB, as we came up, and the boat would pick us up. We stayed on the north wall, to be safe (and not drift into the shipping channel). Raph and I started our drift a little bit earlier than we had originally planned, but still had a nice, easy drift along the wall.

The stern of the wreck, as Steve was drifting away…

Frankie, Eric V., Steve…

Raph and I surfaced, and Ryan and Alex saw us, pretty quickly. They zoomed over, picked us up, and we waited for the others to pop up, which they did, only minutes after us.

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 1 minute
Max. Depth: 96′
Water Temp.: 62F

Raph and I…

Hong, Chris, Raph, James…

Steve, Eric V., Frankie Boy (the one and only)…

Kev and Kneel…

We made our way back to St. Lawrence Park, and unloaded. Even though there isn’t as much gas in the tanks, as we get back, it still seems like the gear gets heavier, after the dive! 😛

Thank you, Ryan and Alex! You guys were awesome, and we couldn’t have asked for a better day!


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XK-Won

25 05 2014

Saturday, May 24th, 2014 ~

A long day, but a great day of Diving Goodness, in and around the St. Lawrence River.

Our morning didn’t quite go as we had planned, so we ended up being a little later than we had hoped, at the river. We met Christian, and since the water was warming up, a little, we wanted to do a little bit longer of a scooter run. Of course, as soon as we arrived, the rain started to come down like baseballs. It lightened up enough, for us to bring our gear down to the water, then started again, as we tried to gear up. We had the big white van, so Steve and I each had an end of the van, and got dressed. As soon as we were ready, the rain stopped. Of course, right?

We had an extra scooter with us, that we were testing out, after a repair, as well as the camera. I opted to take the extra scooter, while Steve took the camera. It’s been a little while since I towed another scooter (Mexico cavezzz),  and I welcomed the practice. We did our gear checks, stretched out (still, winter undies), and were off. The visibility was not that great, and the water was a bit greenish, for this time of year. We scootered upstream for a while, then dropped into the channel. W00 H00! We saw quite a few dead gobies, along the way (more than usual), which were mostly wrapped in white fuzz. We drifted along, keeping a look out for anything neat. There were spots with many bottles, a lot of rock, periwinkle shells, and even the odd bass and sheepshead carp.

We made our way to the Unknown Hull, where Steve took a few pictures.

The visibility wasn’t that great, but he did get a few shots.

It was then time to go… We made our way up to 65′, where we eventually got up to the Gaskin. Poor thing, looks pretty rough, this year. It is sad, watching the bow fall apart.

I was starting to get pretty chilly, so I signalled to Steve, to turn the dive. We started to make our way back to the shallows, where we hung out for a bit, then made our way in. Ahhhhh…. Back  in the RIVA!!!

Bottom Time: 2 hours, 6 minutes
Max. Depth: 108′
Water Temp.: 51F
Vis.: Not great, for this time of year, but clearer in the channel.

 

Normally, when we get out, someone will stay with the scooters, until someone goes and drops their tanks, then comes back to bring them out. Alas, those days are over, for us… Even with my doubles on, I was able to pick up the XK1, with no issues, and bring it out of the water, with my stage bottle. Ahhhh…. Suex, I appreciate you (…and Steve)!!! 😀

When we got out, it was beautiful out, again!

After our dive, Steve and I headed over the border, to see Chris, Bob, Stacey, Lisa, Mario, Nate, Jen, Julie, and Hong! I didn’t get to taste Hong’s egg rolls, but I really look forward to it, another time!!! 😀

 

It was pretty late, when we got home, so we left the unloading for the next morning.

Diving Goodness, hanging by the fire, with friends = The Best!

Until next week!

 


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