Thursday, September 23, 2010
John Marvin, Gloria, & Patrice McAlister
Today we went to the John Marvin, Gloria & Patrice McAllister and had 0 visibility at all 3 wrecks. The water is back to that pea soup color and you can not see a thing. I have been diving long enough to know that when the vis is that bad its not worth the risk and you are better off just going back to the boat. Very frustrating day..not much to say other than I thought diving is supposed to be fun. Today it was hard work with no reward. I didn't even get to use my new camera. I'm slowly losing faith...I am diving the Varanger on Saturday and then an epic secret wreck on Tuesday (this was blown out last week and has been rescheduled). This is usually the best time of the year to dive, I'm just not having much good luck these days :)
Monday, September 13, 2010
Varanger Finally!! wait, no Southern Lilian 9-12-10
After being blown out of 2 Varanger trips and an Arundo trip in the past few weeks, I finally got out today and we were planning on diving the Varanger. However, due to a weather system coming towards us and vis reports from the prior day, we took a vote and opted for the Southern Lilian which is also an awesome wreck. First off, I had a real busy Saturday and didn't get much sleep so as soon as I loaded the boat, I plugged into my ipod and went to sleep for 2 hour trip to the Southern Lilian. When I awoke I felt much better and was happy to see the sea conditions were calm and it wasn't raining yet.
We had a great bunch of divers today, Geoff Graham, John Priestly, Dave Oldman, Rich Venuti, Bill & I, Capt. Brian and Shaner the mate. Once we hooked the wreck, Geoff went in to tie in the anchor. I was being optimistic and I was planning on taking my camera because this wreck always has great vis due to the solid sandy bottom. Once I jumped in my Diverite regulator would not stop free flowing..this reg has given me more trouble...anyways I was doing everything I could think of to get it to stop and Geoff was hanging on the anchor line and and was probably laughing at me fight with my reg... Finally my reg slowed to a trickle of bubbles and I headed down. When I got closer to Geoff he signaled me that the vis sucked down below. I was so bummed on the rest of my decent. At about 70' the vis shut down and I did the usual for this summer, I hit the wreck. Dark and 0-5' vis. This season has been the worst for visibility conditions offshore. I know this wreck pretty well but, I could not figure out where I was. I saw large sheets of metal laying flat on the wreck and I remembered seeing this on other dives but I simply could not see enough to figure out where I was. Therefore, my dive was real short. As I ascended I saw Rich Venuti doing his hang and looking up at him in the great surface vis with the boat shadow behind him, I went to take a picture of him. Before I even turned my camera on I noticed it was flooded. I was looking at the camera and saw no cracks in it but it was definitely filled with water. Now I am thinking what a dive...70' vis on the surface to 5' vis in a matter of feet and now a flooded camera. This is definitely not a good day. One thing that was cool on my ascent was when you crossed from the brown muddy water into the blue water if was like a literal line and it looked so strange and awesome at the same time.
Once up on the surface, I could see no reason that my camera flooded. However, the buttons have been hard to press lately so Dave O. said maybe it flooded through one of the buttons. I guess I'll be on the phone to Sea Life this morning. During the surface interval there was lots of rebreather talk and we are getting closer and closer to taking class and making a major purchase. Capt. Brian is hoping to make the switch soon too. We debated whether or not we were going to move to the Boiler Wreck or stay put and we decided to stay where we were since the Atlantus was on the Flour Wreck and Pauline Marie yesterday and they too had 5' of vis.
On my second dive we were deploying the wreck reel and taking a tour for lobsters. It wasn't long before I saw Bill passing me a lobster or so I thought that was what he was doing. He was basically handing it to me but, he didn't want to give it to me he wanted me to bag it. Anyways in our mis-communication the lobster got away. I took a lot of abuse for this on the surface and as Geoff and Dave said.."It was my fault, its always my fault" "Husbands are never do any wrong". They were of course kidding around. Bill did eventually get another lobster and found another one with eggs. This dive didn't last long for me because my trustworthy drysuit flooded and I had to head for the surface. All in all my dives were terrible but I'd rather be out diving a terrible dive than sitting at home. On the drive home we listened to great stories of diving the St. Lawrence River and Lake Erie. Looks like Geoff is going to set up a trip for all of us to go on to the St. Lawrence next fall. I'm definitely up for it!
This was my 5th attempt to dive the Varanger this season and maybe the vis would have been better there but maybe not, I guess I'll never know. I had a fun day with some nice people! I am actually going to dive the Varanger again in two weeks with Steph McAllister and his friends if weather permits. I also have one more trip to the Arundo in October and I hope that one goes. I have a few more exciting dives coming up on the Independence and also will be trying to get out once a week on my own boat now that the kids are in school. Sooo...if the weather cooperates, there is still plenty of diving for me this Fall. All we need now is for this mucky vis to go away. I almost forgot, the bottom water temp was 54 degrees and the surface was 70 degrees, at least we were warm!! Safe diving!
We had a great bunch of divers today, Geoff Graham, John Priestly, Dave Oldman, Rich Venuti, Bill & I, Capt. Brian and Shaner the mate. Once we hooked the wreck, Geoff went in to tie in the anchor. I was being optimistic and I was planning on taking my camera because this wreck always has great vis due to the solid sandy bottom. Once I jumped in my Diverite regulator would not stop free flowing..this reg has given me more trouble...anyways I was doing everything I could think of to get it to stop and Geoff was hanging on the anchor line and and was probably laughing at me fight with my reg... Finally my reg slowed to a trickle of bubbles and I headed down. When I got closer to Geoff he signaled me that the vis sucked down below. I was so bummed on the rest of my decent. At about 70' the vis shut down and I did the usual for this summer, I hit the wreck. Dark and 0-5' vis. This season has been the worst for visibility conditions offshore. I know this wreck pretty well but, I could not figure out where I was. I saw large sheets of metal laying flat on the wreck and I remembered seeing this on other dives but I simply could not see enough to figure out where I was. Therefore, my dive was real short. As I ascended I saw Rich Venuti doing his hang and looking up at him in the great surface vis with the boat shadow behind him, I went to take a picture of him. Before I even turned my camera on I noticed it was flooded. I was looking at the camera and saw no cracks in it but it was definitely filled with water. Now I am thinking what a dive...70' vis on the surface to 5' vis in a matter of feet and now a flooded camera. This is definitely not a good day. One thing that was cool on my ascent was when you crossed from the brown muddy water into the blue water if was like a literal line and it looked so strange and awesome at the same time.
Once up on the surface, I could see no reason that my camera flooded. However, the buttons have been hard to press lately so Dave O. said maybe it flooded through one of the buttons. I guess I'll be on the phone to Sea Life this morning. During the surface interval there was lots of rebreather talk and we are getting closer and closer to taking class and making a major purchase. Capt. Brian is hoping to make the switch soon too. We debated whether or not we were going to move to the Boiler Wreck or stay put and we decided to stay where we were since the Atlantus was on the Flour Wreck and Pauline Marie yesterday and they too had 5' of vis.
On my second dive we were deploying the wreck reel and taking a tour for lobsters. It wasn't long before I saw Bill passing me a lobster or so I thought that was what he was doing. He was basically handing it to me but, he didn't want to give it to me he wanted me to bag it. Anyways in our mis-communication the lobster got away. I took a lot of abuse for this on the surface and as Geoff and Dave said.."It was my fault, its always my fault" "Husbands are never do any wrong". They were of course kidding around. Bill did eventually get another lobster and found another one with eggs. This dive didn't last long for me because my trustworthy drysuit flooded and I had to head for the surface. All in all my dives were terrible but I'd rather be out diving a terrible dive than sitting at home. On the drive home we listened to great stories of diving the St. Lawrence River and Lake Erie. Looks like Geoff is going to set up a trip for all of us to go on to the St. Lawrence next fall. I'm definitely up for it!
This was my 5th attempt to dive the Varanger this season and maybe the vis would have been better there but maybe not, I guess I'll never know. I had a fun day with some nice people! I am actually going to dive the Varanger again in two weeks with Steph McAllister and his friends if weather permits. I also have one more trip to the Arundo in October and I hope that one goes. I have a few more exciting dives coming up on the Independence and also will be trying to get out once a week on my own boat now that the kids are in school. Sooo...if the weather cooperates, there is still plenty of diving for me this Fall. All we need now is for this mucky vis to go away. I almost forgot, the bottom water temp was 54 degrees and the surface was 70 degrees, at least we were warm!! Safe diving!
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