Sorting Out

28 03 2010

Saturday, March 27th, 2010 ~

Today was a good day of fun at the quarry. Steve and Jay went for a scooter tour, Kevin and Jeremy were balancing their scooter fleets, and I went for a swimming tour with Cameron S., who was trying out his doubles for the second time.

I was sporting my fancy new hoody, from AM… Thank you!!!

Since I was going to stick with Cam for a while, Steve took my scooter with him, in case we did a switch later in the dive.

Cam and I swam out to the plane, where I showed him the infamous valve drill. We swam around the plane for a bit, then headed to the boat, where we swam in and out of it a couple of times.

We then went over to the “wood pile,” where we goofed around a little more. We tried to throw a couple of rocks back and forth, but that didn’t really work out very well. Rocks don’t really travel well through the water.

We decided to head down to the sub for a bit of a tour, then we ascended up the wall, and back to the beach, where we were the last back in.

Bottom Time ~ 52 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 57′
Water Temp. ~ 39
Vis. ~ Awesome

I caught a picture of George Jetson hanging around…

Since we got started later in the day, we were able to go to the famous Chinese Buffet restaurant, that is usually closed to get ready for dinner. I think we all had eyes bigger than our stomachs. Of course, this was the day that I didn’t bring extra pants or shoes with me, so it was drysuit undies and crocs for my buffet dining pleasure.

I can say that we are never bored. 🙂

Until tomorrow! Thanks for being my buddy, Cam!


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Ahoy To The Kinghorn

21 10 2009

Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 ~

Since my other half was working, Andy and I decided to take a run out to the Kinghorn, with his fancy new Mini G. He was hoping that the last challenge of weighting was exactly that… the last challenge.

We stopped at Caiger’s, to see if we could meet up with Yasuko, who was on a charter that day, but they had not come in yet, so back to Jeff’s we went. We took our sweet time getting ready, as it was a gorgeous day, and we decided to have a bit of a snack before diving.

Ok.. enough snacking.. time to dive. Another two buddy teams surfaced before we got in, and said the visibility was improving. Andy and I got in, did our predive checks, and noticed some funky black clouds over the river. We got through our checks, and headed out. As we followed the line out, I could feel water coming in through my neck seal. I knew I needed to replace it, but I was hoping to get a few more dives out of it. I guess this was it.

I knew it was going to be a short dive, and that it would be me that called it, but I figured we could at least get to the wreck. We came upon the bow of the Kinghorn, paid respects to Doug’s plaque, then made our way down to the stern. Ok… time to call it… I had already communicated to Andy, that my neck seal was pooched, so he was waiting for my call. As we swam over the deck, we came upon one of the holds. We looked at each other, smiled, and down we went. We had to swim that way anyway, we may as well go in. You know… since we’re there and all. 🙂 We swam inside, checked out the artifacts, then made our way back up and back to the line.

We saw some pretty big carp on the dive, as well as a couple of pike. Although it was a short dive, it was still alot of fun. I’m sure the bruise on my shin will heal quickly…lol.

Bottom Time ~ 37 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 91′
Water Temp. ~ 60/61
Visibility ~ 35′ – 30′

When we got out, I had received a text from Yasuko, so we ended up seeing her after all!


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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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Canadian Invasion ~ Brockville Edition

20 08 2009

Friday, August 7th, 2009 ~

I had packed the van the previous night, so that I was ready to roll in the morning. This was going to be the first weekend of the two Canadian Invasions, and we were meeting at the Bridge Island Resort, in Mallorytown.

When I arrived, there were already folks convening and getting gear ready!

Eric V. and Frankie…

Pickens…

Brent…

Bob P….

Randy…

Stephanie…

Piotr…

Andy…

Jamie and Rod…

Hmm.. it seems Chris was able to avoid the camera…

We organized the convoy, and went over to Rockport Dive Centre, to see Jeff. There were 13 of us to dive, which was a bit many for the Shaleka J, so 5 of us were going to scooter out to the wreck!

Chris M., getting ready to scooter (got him this time)…

Bob P., getting ready on the boat!

I had never navigated this dive from shore before, and was looking forward to the adventure! We dropped down, found the line, and headed out. Chris, Piotr, and I were in the lead, with Francois and Eric behind us. Frankie also brought his HD video camera. We got to the end of the line, and didn’t see anything. The visibility wasn’t that great, so we moved forward a little bit more, taking a bearing off of the line. That didn’t work. We went back to the line, and I looked to the right… Ohh.. look at that.. a big bow in the murk. I signaled to my team mates, and around the wreck we went. We saw the boat divers on the wreck as well, and I managed to give a couple of high fives to a bunch of people. We went inside for a bit, then came back out and headed back. What a fun dive!

Bottom Time ~ 54 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 92′
Water Temp. ~ 71
Vis. ~ Stinky

We broke for lunch, and went over to the Boathouse Restaurant. Notice Andy got in both pictures.. 😀

What would an Invasion be without stacking things??

After lunch, we headed back over to Jeff’s for a second run out to the Kinghorn. Chris was sitting this one out, so I took his scooter. Piotr and I teamed up, and Frankie and Eric were a team, once again.

We followed the line out again, but were able to get to the wreck in one this time…lol. We had a leisurely swim around the wreck, greeted some of the other divers, and went back in.

Bottom Time ~ 50 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 94′
Water Temp. ~ 71
Vis. ~ Still Stinky

We headed back to the Bridge Island to meet up with more arriving folk, then went over to the Boathouse again, for a party!

Everyone had arrived, once we got to the Boathouse, and there were so many of us, that we had to line up tables in two rows. We laughed and had a great time, even though Mr. Karaoke Man didn’t get there. Oh well… I can sing without music.

Saturday, August 8th, 2009 ~

We had four boats for the entire group: Two boats of Wayne’s and 1000 Islands Pleasure Diving, leaving out of Caiger’s, and two boats of Jeff’s, leaving from Rockport Dive Centre. We were all heading to the Keystorm, as the Poker Run was going on again, and we were limited to which wrecks we could do. It’s better to stay out of the channel with speeding boats nearby. Apparently, every dive boat in the water, was also headed for the Keystorm. It was going to be one busy day on that wreck.

Steve and I, playing around…

Cap’n. Jeff!

Steve and I were buddied up, and Chris, Piotr, and Jen were joining us as a group. Steve had the video camera, and he and I pointed the scooters down on the hull side, and down we went. We stopped at about the 85′ mark, and went underneath the wreck, to wait for the second gang. Steve filmed them coming down. It was kind of fun to have the scooters on this wreck, as we have always just swam this one. We did a tour down by the props, waved to our other friends, then played around in the cargo holds. We then followed the wall around for a bit, but didn’t see much of anything but wet rock. Coming back, we were right on the anchor. Alot of fun!

Bottom Time ~ 44 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 111′
Water Temp. ~ 71
Vis. ~ 20′ ish

In between dives, Steve and Mer went over to investigate the other group’s boats!

There are always the Kool Aid shots…

Steve, playing in the water…

The Poker Run was going on again, and since there were fewer boats than last year, it really wasn’t so bad. I caught a picture of one little boat in the air.

Oh.. what’s that? A police boat! I need a picture of them…

Um.. no, I didn’t mean for you to come over…

They were pretty friendly, and just checking up on us, to make sure that the speedy boats were cooperating.

Once we were all back on board, we headed back to shore, picked up a few goodies, and convened for some BBQ goodness! We had giant steaks and chicken (thanks to Jen for bringing the meat), potato salad, chips galore, a draw for some prizes (thanks to Rockport Dive Centre and Dive Tech for the donations), and plenty more laughs. Thanks to Pickens for his master cookery on the BBQ too!

Sunday, August 9th, 2009 ~

Today, we were on different runs. Wayne’s boats headed out to the Vickery, then to do a drift dive, and Jeff’s boats were headed off to the Jodrey.

Junior was overseeing the plans…

We tied up to the mooring tree, and prepared for our dive. Chris was a bit under the weather, so Piotr was going to join Jen and I.

We did our predive checks, then drifted to our descent spot. Once we got to the edge of the wall, down we went. It seemed that the current was an extra bit strong today, so on the way down, it felt like we were being carried over a bit. When we got down to 140′, we didn’t see the wreck. We descended a little more, then realized that we were definitely in the wrong spot. I could have sworn that the current had taken us farther past, so I figured we should go a bit west. We scootered along the wall, until we hit even stronger, screaming current, and I realized that we were on the wrong side of the wreck. The current gets even stronger, heading out near the channel, so we turned around, and got a bit more shallow. We scootered for a couple of minutes, then voila!! We were on the wreck! Judging by the distance that we travelled back and forth, we had to have been right at the hull, when we descended. Since it’s quite dark, and you don’t have any ambient light at the hull, neither of us knew that we actually were right beside the wreck. So… we didn’t actually get to spend much time on the wreck, and I have to take alot of that responsibility. I could actually blame it on Chris, on the boat, as just before the dive, he said to Piotr, “Just follow Chan. She knows where she’s going.”

Right.. famous last words! Lol.. well.. it was still an interesting experience, and we still did have alot of fun! Scootering in mid water at depth was actually a really cool experience. I guess the next case of Kool Aid is on me! Oh wait.. I did bring the Kool Aid… good call.

When we returned to shore, we packed up and headed back over to the Family Restaurant, to meet a bunch of the gang from Wayne’s boats, before everyone departed. Becki had the best napkins…rofl.

We shared our stories from the weekend’s dives, shared even more laughter, and enjoyed each other’s company.

It was really amazing to see alot of friends from last year, and we also made some new ones. Last year’s group was 18 people, and this year, we grew to 28, and two different weekends, in two different towns/cities. What an awesome group of people. I can’t wait until next year!


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Categories : Diving In 2009!, Invasions

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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