Well, we’re midway through July, and still at it. The weather is cooperating, so life is
good! After last week’s sweat fest, it
was pleasant to have a nice cool evening to set up. Now that the weather is nicer, more people
seem to be coming out (and thankfully setting up down below) Ron graced us with his presence (I thought
our deal was the first and last Wednesday?
I need to review the contract) so there were four of us tonight. Rob was a little skeptical because of a
dentist appointment, but things worked in his favor, and he was able to come.
(although he didn’t get his cylinders filled because he was more skeptical than
we were about it, so he was running at a slight deficit…no biggie! We had a
plan!) John showed up, and we were all
ready to go.
Our plan was set, and everyone seemed ready to go, so the
order was given to hit the 20 ft. tree.
We all seemed to have the right bubbles coming from the right places, so
we kept going. As I descended a little,
I felt my mask leaking, then when I got to about 30-something feet, my mask was
not doing what it was supposed to be doing.
I started by pulling my hood, and re-seating my mask. Everything felt
ok, so I started, and the same thing. So I re-seated my mask, and tried to go
once again, and the same thing, I was just getting ready to bail when I deduced
that my hood was sort of askew, and preventing my mask from staying sealed, so
I moved my hood, and that seemed to help. Just as I fixed it, I saw some lights
coming back for me, (aww, I was missed) and I gave the “ok” signal, so we
pressed on…crisis averted! Well so we
thought. As we got to the edge of the
cliff to head past the CAT, John’s regulator started spewing more bubbles that
it was supposed to be spewing. We all THOUGHT that our 20 ft. stop was
effective, but we were wrong. Rob came
over and attempted to assist, while Ron and I hung back, and focused our lights
on where John was. We saw some knob twisting, and more bubbles, then less
bubbles, then all systems seemed to be a go. (as we found later, there was a point where John was trying to
turn off his valves, then realized that he had that regulator in his mouth,
then he changed, and Rob turned some valves due to the deep pressure, and at another
point John was staring at his regulator, and didn’t have anything in his mouth…it
was crazy! Maybe someone will weigh in
and put a better account of the whole ordeal)
At any rate, we were down towards the Deep Boat, and heading back to
where the Pump House is, so we kept going. Original plan scrapped, the route
was changed accordingly, and we were soon over the 110ft. Trench (and the cool
fog within it) and heading out to the Outhouse.
At the Outhouse we turned, and started back along the bottom of the
wall. Checking in with each other in the
cruddy-ish visibility we were soon back at (and slightly above) the Pump House,
and heading up the hill. At the Aqua Adventures truck, we continued on, and
followed under (and over in one case) the pipe, and started towards our safety
stop. (figuring that our deep time didn’t really warrant a deeper stop) At the safety stop, we were told that the
offending regulator was tried again, and still was in “fail mode” so that was scrapped, and the safety stop was
finished. As we all hit our five
minutes, we started towards the exit point, and finished our dive.
Duration: 39 minutes
Deepest Depth: 94ft.
Coldest Temp: 36º
As I said, we’ve had worse, and the fact that we were able
to get almost 40 minutes out of this one was a slight miracle! Training and confidence is the big factor,
and with as many dives that we all have between us, this one was just an
annoying one, and nothing was bad enough to really force us to bail on it. (that’s
why we do some of the things we do)
After we packed, we headed to PizzAtown, which was actually
open this week, for some much needed beers!
Not sure when I’ll be back out, I have a few things on my
plate, that will prevent me from this weekend, next Wednesday, and next
weekend, so I hope to see you all on the 29th!
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