Hangin’ At The Brule Road Quarry

1 06 2010

Saturday, May 29th, 2010 ~

Steve and Dan were on their second last day, teaching a fundies course, and Jen and I went for a tour of the quarry.

Fundies students discussing their dives…

I was planning on taking some shots of the course, which I did, but due to a little bit of crappy vis, we moved out further, and Jen played model for the day.

Some pics of the two teams…

Jen and I made our way back to the boats, where we messed around for a bit.

Jen even took a picture of me…

We went and checked out the car…

We even made a rest stop… *giggle*

Jen also pointed out small swimmy things, that I had not noticed before. This little guy had a white-ish casing, and you could see him squirming inside…

There were some pretty aggressive fish in the most odd places, and their eggs were all hatching. We could actually see all of the little fish hatching.

Jen had a stare-down with a sun fish, which was amusing to watch. I did get a few frames of it, but this is when the fishy finally gave up…

More pics of Jen…

Ohh.. and of course, my self portrait…

There was definite fun factor on the surface, as we basked in the sun and relaxed on the water.

This picture cracked me up…

Me, goofing around…

Max Depth ~ 25′
Bottom Time ~ 58 minutes
Water Temperature ~ 69 on surface; 64 below thermocline at 20′

We headed back to NTD, where they were having a BBQ for everyone. It was a nice touch to the end of the day. Thanks, NTD!!

Sunday, May 30th, 2010 ~

Sunday, and back to the quarry. Erin met Jen and I today, and we were heading out for more fun.

Jen, sporting her new DIR Ontario top!

Erin, gearing up…

We got in, did our pre-dive checks, and headed out for the tour again.

We got to the rest stop again, where Erin must have had a rough night…lol…

We also found an old mower… “Mow the lawn and slap it on…” 😉

I also did get a couple of shots of the fundies folks. Lookin’ good!

Frankie, who was filming…

New fundies rescue…

We ditched our tanks and played on the surface again.

Stick bug…

Quarry Shark…

We made our way to the edge, where Jen found a little painted turtle. We said hello to him for a while, then he went on his way. I actually held a turtle for the first time, after I took some pics of him with Jen.

Swimming back to his rock…

Bottom Time ~ 59 minutes
Max. Depth ~ 25′
Water Temp. ~ 69/64

When we finally got out, we saw friends who were sporting their new TLSs…

The course dives had finished, and all they had left to do was their exam.

Jen and I took our time gearing down and chatted with some people. Erin had left the building.

Apart from having to wait for a tow truck, we did have a most excellent day of relaxing Diving Goodness.

I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the back of the tow truck…

Thanks to Harold and Anne for putting up with us, too!

The gratuating class. Congratulations, guys!! w00t


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Brule Road Quarry

19 06 2009

Sunday, May 31st, 2009 ~

It had been last August since I had last been in the water with my friend, Andy, and he was game for a dive in Kingston! Andy made the trip up from the US side, to meet me at Dive Tech, where we harassed the local Candy Man for a while, then headed to Kingston, to meet up with the folks at Northern Tech Diver.

The charters weren’t going out that afternoon, as the weather had turned quite a bit, and the lake was too choppy for the boats. A bunch of us decided to head up to the Brule Road Quarry for some skills and thrills. Dan had a fundies course going on there as well, so we made sure to stay out of his way. Most of the gang taking the course were friends of mine, and it was nice to say hello.

Two “Dive Gear Transportation Units…”

Andy, geared up…

We headed over to the wonderful beach entrance, did our predive checks, and dropped down.

The quarry has a maximum depth of about 28′, and has a couple of small boats in it, a car, some shopping carts, and many beer bottles, from the campers.

When we descended, we made our way over the rocks, and as we made our way out, we steered clear of the lift bag, being used to mark the square pattern, being used by the Fundies course.

We did a nice, leisurely tour of the quarry, stopping to put beer bottles in the shopping cart (picking them up off of the ground, and adding them to the others), took a tour of the boats, and even checked out the car.

I decided this would be a good time to demonstrate the valve drill, so signaled Andy to watch. We had discussed this on the surface, so it was not a surprise. Andy also demonstrated that he could reach his valves and will be practicing the valve drill as well.

We did see a fish or two… We weren’t sure if it was the same fish or not, but if it was in a different place, perhaps we can count it as two?

We did the entire circuit of the quarry, then made our way back in, and discussed the dive on the surface, before getting out.

Bottom Time ~ 44 mins.
Max. Depth ~ 28′
Water Temp. ~ 63
Visibility ~ 25′

Gearing down, Andy noticed that I had GI Joes in the van, and that, of course, triggered some silliness..

We headed back to NTD, and loitered a bit, while the fundies class finished their exam. We got a shot of Mike, with his fancy dive bag…

…and a hood…

Boats from Kingston Dive Charters, with James’ little boat…

Vicky Marie…

The class finally finished, and I got a pic of them smiling…

I even snagged a picture of Marc, who was up visiting, giving Dan a hand…

Myself, Andy, Dan, and Marc went out for a bite to eat, shared some great conversation and a bunch of laughs, then all went our separate ways back home.

Andy, it was great going for a splash with you, and I look forward to corrupting you… I mean.. diving with you some more!


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