Usually, I'm right on the ball with these, but I had a prior commitment, I needed to leave town for, so I had to just put some notes down, and get into the car... I tweaked it last night before I went to bed (and a few glasses of wine later so....)
I wasn’t expecting to be
able to go this weekend, but circumstances made it possible, and knowing that
there’s another 99.9% chance I won’t get out next weekend, I thought it would
be a nice opportunity. I talked to Rob,
and he was looking for a diversion to his week, so it worked out. I woke up nice and early, and expected to
see sunshine, but was wrong. It was
cloudy and dreary. In fact a few times on my way to Bainbridge, there was
drizzle on my windshield. When I got
there, no one was in the lot like last week, so it wasn’t a timing issue, and I
was able to be social in the office while checking in. Got back to Upper A and a few of the people
that seem to surface on Wednesday were doing what they usually do, clogging up
the parking situation, nice to know they’re consistent, and apparently
rehearsing for the coming season!
Rob was soon to arrive, and we got our stuff together.
The plan was pretty much
to just make it back, but see what we could find between the time we descended,
and finished our dive. (i.e. see where some of the people that we saw diving
didn’t kick up…not that I don’t do that myself, but I’d at least like to see
what I can see before I kick it up) Set
up was nice and easy, and the fact that it wasn’t TOO hot out made it a little
more pleasant to get ready. For once I
was first finished setting up, so I beat Rob down the hill by about a
second.
After our pre-dive
check, we descended to 20 ft. At 20 ft.
no unwanted bubbles appeared, so we were good to go. Through the trees and past
the Dolphin tower (where I got a nasty ice-cream headache) and the Pennsy to
the pipe. Over the pipe and to the hill
before the CAT. Rob checked in and pointed down and right, so I agreed. With the weather the way it has been,
sinuses and allergies were taking their toll, and it was a very slow descent.
The right ear was taking it’s good old sweet time clearing, but it did, and we
were able to continue deeper. At the
bottom of the hill we were soon by the Deep Boat. Rob checked in again, and
pointed further out. Seeing where his light was scanning, I knew he was looking
for the pipe with the line attached, so I tried to help. We looked for a while
but couldn’t find it, so Rob turned us, and we headed back to the wall, under
the Pump House. Passing the 110 ft. Trench, (I was tempted to dip into it
a little,but didn't want to get to far away from Rob, so I just looked at the
cool fog with my light) we went over the rocks, and through the small trees to
the Tripod Tree, which meant that the Outhouse was soon in view. We
passed the Outhouse, and went to the big boulder, and did a quick lap around
that. Rob stayed a little more to the right of the Outhouse when we went
back past it, and followed along the edge of the deep hole. We FINALLY found
the pipe, but it was too late to do what Rob wanted to do, so we just came back
towards the Deep Boat, and back along the edge of the deep hole to the
trees. We were soon passing the big gear and the bucket (and the “Deep
Christmas Tree” as I now christened it) and we're now following along the wall
heading to where the Aqua Adventures truck was. We ascended, and Rob
pointed along the line. We followed that to the CAT, as a deep stop, then back
in along to the wall, and did a nice swim down the wall. After a few Minutes,
Rob pointed back in, and we headed to where the Dolphin Tower and Pennsy were
again. About this time we were at 35 minutes, so we started over to
where the boats were. After we went past the boats. Rob gave me the UP
signal and I agreed, so we headed to our safety stop. Five minutes later, we
were done!
Duration: 48 minutes
Deepest Depth: 94 ft.
Coldest Temp: 36º
Not a bad dive! Water is still a little cold, so we sort of
kept it shorter than we wanted, but we got to see most of what we wanted to
see. (Barring Robs idea when we were
looking for the pipe with the line attached) I tried keeping a little more off
the bottom this week, and what I did worked out better, so that’s a good thing.
The water is getting a little warmer, but it's still cold down there.
Visibility was decent in some of the deeper places and kicked up where we
expected it to be, so no major surprises there.
After we packed we took
a nice trip to PizzAtown for lunch, and I had to get out of dodge early to make
a family event out of town. As I said there's a really good chance I won't be
out next weekend, so I'll hopefully see you the following weekend!
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