Weather or Not?

Over the past few years, it seemed that the weather on Wednesday nights has been horrible during June.  For once that doesn’t seem to be the case, but the puzzling part of it is that no one is coming out compared to other years.  I was the first person to sign in, then there was a person right behind me, then John.  Another person joined the guy that arrived right after me, then about 5:30-ish one of the regulars showed up. John told him he was welcome to join us, but he said he only had about 1,200psi in his cylinder, and would do a “solo road dive” to empty it.  I guess most people think that June isn’t a great month to do Wednesday night dives, so they make other plans…hey “snooze you lose”.  I know why a few of our regulars weren’t able to attend, and those were legitimate reasons.

Anyway, the weather last night was just gorgeous!  You didn’t mind setting up, and it was just a pleasant evening. John and I were the only people at Upper A, so we weren’t trying to dodge some of the regulars that seem to work at their own pace.  My goal for the evening was trying to get further off the bottom that I had been (well and making it back safely) so John was going to be cognizant of my plan.  John had a dive plan formulated, and with his “let’s try going this way, this time” attitude, I was all for it.

Once we were set up (and not sweating like fools) and down in the water, we did our quick pre-dive checks, and gave the thumbs down.  At 20 ft. everything seemed right, so we continued on.  I was having a little leaky mask issue, and John was trying to get me to keep up with him.  The bowl area was very thick visibility wise tonight, it almost seemed like there was an open water class that just ran (literally) through it, but knowing that there was no one there prior to our trip was puzzling. I guess it was just left over from the heavy rain the night before.  Through the trees, and over the pipe, we were soon in the area where he wanted to descend, close to the Aqua Adventures truck.  He gave me the thumbs down signal and I agreed.  Down past the Pump house and steadily towards the deep hole until we saw the line that runs to the Step Van.  Following the line I was shining my light down into the deep hole, the visibility looked a little better in that area, which was promising, knowing that we would be down there in a little while.  We were soon passing the debris pile formerly known as a building, and passing the Step Van (which is looking in pretty bad shape these days) John pointed down the hill, and I agreed.  While descending, I was wondering if there was a slight thermocline, or if it was just the visibility clearing up, but as I descended, the view was a bit fuzzy, and as I hit the line it cleared up.  I’m not going to say that the viz was “Caribbean” quality, but it was a lot better than the bowl.  We followed the line and I almost spit my regulator out when I saw the Christmas ornament at the end of it. (John thinks Jeff may have been the culprit in placing that there)  I remembered that it was there, but we always seem to come from the other direction, and are usually checking out the Deep Deep Boat and not really paying attention to ornaments.  It was just funny to see!  The boat looked pretty grungy, (hopefully someone wipes it off) not its usual cleaned off self.  John gave me the thumbs up signal to go up the steps, and I agreed.  We were soon swimming over by the Deep Boat, and headed towards the Pump House. (I think I got the keep up sign again here…sorry, I was sight-seeing)  As we got to the Pump House, we noticed that the little lobster was off of his usual perch, and semi-buried in the muck. So I pulled him out and knocked the goop off of him, and put him back in his usual spot. John gave the thumbs up sign again, and I agreed.  Up to just below the Aqua Adventures truck, and to the line that runs to the CAT for a deep stop.  Someone tied a branch to the line which was weird.  When I first looked at it, I thought someone tied the line to a tree, but as I got closer (and the viz wasn’t an issue)  I saw that someone tied the big branch to the line.  At the CAT, we turned and headed back into the Bowl, and past the Pennsy.  We were soon at our safety stop. John wanted to do a valve drill, and did one.  After five minutes, we were done, and found our exit point.

Duration: 45 minutes

Deepest Depth: 115 ft.

Coldest Temp: 36º

All in all a pretty good dive from my perspective!   I felt like I stayed a little more off of the bottom than I had been, although it felt a little weird from a “comfort” level; I guess I’m just used to being low, but I’ll just have to get used to it.  With the way the weather has been, my sinuses were a little weird descending, but seemed to clear up at the proper times. I think we also realized that the Outhouse is a little further over than we thought. John was thinking that maybe we’d pass it on our way to the Step Van, but we didn’t see it, and it wasn’t a visibility thing.  That’s just not on the map, and we’ve been estimating where it might be. (Isn’t there a dive master class that can have someone map that bugger for sure?)

After the packing up, we decided that a PizzAtown run was in order!  Hot subs and cold beer made a pleasant end to a nice day!

It looks like none of us will be able to get out this weekend, so hopefully we get to see you all NEXT Wednesday which is July 1^st already!   June is in the books!