Well… I couldn’t have done any better…

…so no use complaining about it. <insert shrugging emoticon>

But I’m getting ahead of myself… A beautiful (early) day, we met at Sheetz around 7:00-ish and packed up Rob’s truck for the long trip to Dutch Springs. John was joining us for the dive today, not just the post dive snack time. Since we’ve found the weekends to be fairly packed up there, we decided to go early in order to find a table, however, when you DO go early, you have to take what you can get at Wegman’s since the made to order sub shop doesn’t open until 9:00am…(although last week we DID find some pretty good  “stock” ham and Swiss subs)  A thought last weekend was “Hmmm, maybe if we got in to Dutch, found our tables, THEN wandered over to Wegman’s at 9:00 we’d be good!”  So we tried it.  Got to Dutch about 8:30-ish. As we drove in, the “attendant” asked if we were with a dive shop, so we said no (we weren’t)  so he said “go set up at the tables by that big white canopy, no one has it rented this weekend”  SCORE!  Not a bad place to set up.  So we got our gear unloaded, and decided to take the run to Wegman’s.  At the gate on the way out, we were given a card to hang in our car with the number of people in it in order to return, and we ran and got our subs. 

Once we were back, we set up and decided that we were going to try to hit the deep hole out past the Trolley, then come back and decide when we got to the Island, which way to go depending upon psi remaining. Easy enough plan!  We DID hear from Jim that the visibility was pretty crappy, he was there putting the markers for the prizes out for Lancaster Scuba’s picnic.  But we figured that it wouldn’t be THAT bad. 

We dropped in and did a quick bubble check at 20, everything seemed fine, so John took his heading and we started out.  We passed the platforms, and the boat, and were soon at the Trolley.  Jim was right, the viz WAS pretty crappy.  So we went through the Trolley, and reconvened at the back. John gave the thumbs down, and down the hill we went, past the car, and then out towards the 100’ hole.  So we swam, and swam, and swam…Nada… No landmarks, nothing.  John checked his compass, Rob consulted, and we kept going. Nothing. Well, we were getting close to DECO, I actually got within about 12 minutes of needing DECO (Rob said he was about 10) and we started up a slope.  We ended up back at the Blast Shack that we found when we missed the Deuce and a Half last week, and started out to find the Island. So we kept swimming, and still saw nothing that was familiar. At about 36 minutes, I got the up signal, and thought “hmmm, that doesn’t look like a platform above us”  John gave the safety stop sign, and we took our safety stop.  After five minutes, we surfaced, and found that we were ON the island, staring at the ball for the boat, probably.  So we thought “Ok, surface swim”… so back in, and we were done!

Duration: 47 minutes

Deepest Depth: 91 feet

Coldest Temp: 44º

Not what we planned, but not a horrible dive….we surfaced, we weren’t stuck home watching old movies, and lounging, so it was good!   After looking at a few maps and trying to decide where we were, we gave up, and just figured it was one of those dives that people don’t normally do (and heck we DID find the 55 gallon drum with the Mateus bottle on it!)(it’s not every day you see that attraction, since it’s not listed on many of the maps affiliated with Dutch Springs!)(and we’re not telling you where it is, so there!)

We ate our lunch, and tried to decide what to do next. The general consensus was to just follow ropes, and try to get back without running out of air. (although a trip to the new plane wasn’t out of the question.)  We did what we had to do, then suited back up.  We dropped in from the entry on the other side of our parking lot (so we had a straight shot to the bus).  We hit 20 feet, and saw no bad bubbles, so we continued.  At the Bus, no one wanted to go through, so the heading was taken, and we started out to the plane.  When we got there, we saw the tie downs, and slowly ascended up to it. (I almost ran into a wing, but that’s not uncommon)  We took a quick trip through it, then decided to follow back towards the island.  At the island we went along, and were soon swimming over by the crane, I saw what looked like one of the prize markers for Lancaster Scuba, but decided to leave it.  John went under the crane, and Rob and I went over.  We soon decided that seeing anything was out of the question, so the “up” sign was given, and we were at our safety stop.  Five minutes later we were surfacing, and noticed that there wasn’t a platform, so we moved a little to our right (I was thinking; NO NOT ANOTHER SURFACE SWIM!)  But we were just around the bend from it and we were done!

Duration:  44 minutes

Deepest Depth: 63 feet

Coldest Temp: 51º

Well…it wasn’t one of those wonderful dives that you could see everything that you’ve grown accustomed to at Dutch Springs, but it was better than standing in a store holding her purse while she tried things on.  John apologized for getting us lost, but as I said at the beginning, no biggie I could NOT have done any better, I am not the navigator that he is. Even on a good day, he’d be a lot better than me! We got in, we made it out, and lived to tell about it! (and even had about 1000psi or more left in the cylinders!)

Afterwards, we wandered back to Wegman’s for a quick snack and something frothy. (I think John needs getting carded to help him continue to feel young)  Not sure when the next outing will be, but I’m sure you’ll hear about it!   Enjoy! Be safe if you go!

Guinea Pigs…

Since 100% Oxygen is a tough commodity to come by in beautiful Hershey Pennsylvania, it trickles down into Nitrox production at local dive shops, so if you want the “Voo Doo Gas” you have to make other arrangements.  (and my wife won’t let me buy the full Nitrox/Trimix system that’s up for sale within five miles of my house, so you need to do the next best thing, just find who has the gas)  Rob heard that West Shore Scuba was starting to pump Nitrox, so we were making plans to run over on the day that they were opening early. Ever the cautious one,  I shot a note to Ron to see if he was ready to go, and thankfully I did, because he wasn’t.  But possibly that night, so I said I’ll get back in touch.  Well things took a little longer than expected, and we weren’t able to go over until Saturday morning.  I think once he gets a little time in with it, he’ll be better, but it seems like a good system, and he just has a few growing pains to work out, so be patient with him! My name is the first in his Nitrox log book, Rob’s is second, so we were the first ones!  (that’s kind of cool!) We got our fills, but they weren’t the cave fills we’re used to, so we had to do some things a little differently, and pay a little more attention to how much gas we were breathing…. We’re old pros, so I’m sure we’d be able to get at least something in.

Since when we got there last week it was a little packed, we decided to attempt leaving earlier (which meant getting up earlier) but it paid off! Although Wegman’s didn’t have their made to order sub shop open quite yet (9:00am) we were able to get some nice premade ham and cheese sandwiches that were actually pretty darn good!  When we got to the quarry, we were able to find two tables that were free, so we quickly scarfed them up!  And since the aforementioned local shop was having an Advanced Open Water class, (thankfully it wasn’t a Nitrox class) we decided to go over and talk to John (and give Ron a hassle) We also saw a few familiar faces from the old Bainbridge Days wandering about, so there were friendly people all over.

We set up and decided that we wanted to be back in with 1500psi in our cylinders, so Rob made a quick and easy dive plan, with escape routes depending upon air consumption (Looking at my dive computer, my starting pressure was 2730psi) So that was an ambitious task to come back at 1500, but not impossible.  So we dropped to 20ft. and made sure everything looked good, and we were off. Rob took his heading, and soon we were passing the old boat on our way to the Trolley. I noticed that my left hand felt a little squishy, so I was playing with my glove a bit, with no luck, so I just sucked it up and had a cold-ish wet hand.  We got to the Trolley, and went through.  Rob pointed downhill, and I agreed, so down we went.  We were soon looking at the car, and heading towards the Deuce and a Half. We missed it and swam around at 85 feet for a few minutes, then found the hill and started up. We were soon staring at the blast shack, so we missed it by a little.  The visibility left a lot to be desired, so it’s highly possible we swam right by it and didn’t see it.  Rob took another heading and we were swimming across some open terrain until we found the hill, and started around it, and were soon swimming past what we thought was the crane (which was pretty much not visible, you could also tell there were people by it recently)  Rob asked me what my psi was, and I told him, so as we passed by the Comet, we just headed up to the platforms, and decided to head in to save some gas, a quick safety stop and we were done! 

Deepest Depth: 86 feet

Duration: 39 minutes

Coldest Temp: 47º

Not a horrible dive, almost 40 minutes, and only about 1000psi used.  When I pulled my dry suit off, my whole left arm up past my elbow was soaked, so I figured I’d just dive in my wet gloves the next dive, and hope that my under garments dried in the sun. (they did) 

We had our lunch, and went over to see the guys from the shop again, I ran into another friend that was there with her students from Liquid Therapy Diving, where she trains active military and veterans free of charge, on donations. If you can, check her out and give what you can, Donna’s doing a great thing!! 

http://www.liquidtherapydiving.org/

After we decided it was time to go back in, we decided to keep it simple and just follow the ropes out to the tanker and back in; easy enough. I decided to take along my pony bottle just in case.  So we went back in, set up and met at 20 feet.  Everything felt good (and it was weird getting used to the wet gloves) so we kept going.  As we descended, I was getting a little bit of a squeeze in my left leg, so I was trying to get some air into it.  I got a little, but when we got to the platform area, I just grabbed on and tilted, and the squeeze was gone!   I followed Rob off to the left, and we were soon passing the Comet, and found the first line.  Off to the boat, then to the next line up the hill to the Cessna. Over the Cessna, we checked in, and were still a go, so we kept going.  The visibility at the line left a lot to be desired, so Rob took another heading, and we dropped where the viz was better, and were soon at the tanker where the viz was actually decent! (not many students going out there)  We took a trip around it, and looked at some of the hardware on top of it, then followed the line back in towards the hill.  Around the hill, and we did a quick gas check, since we still had a decent amount, we just followed the bottom of the hill to the Crane (well we think it was the Crane)  Rob looked at me and gave me a choice, head back in or head back towards the Comet (at first I thought it was the direction…this way…then that way, but then made it look like one or the other)  So I said Comet.  We swam back out, and found the Comet again.  Rob went through, and as I turned to just go along side, I got nailed in the leg by someone swimming by.  I followed Rob’s bubbles, and he exited the boat then pointed up the rope, and I agreed. (as he got knocked by the people that just ran into me)  When we got to the platform, we just did a few trips around it to see if those guys would finish way before us.  I tried using my breath only to go under the boards, and got one to work.  After our second trip around, Rob pointed to the rope, and I said OK!  So we did a safety stop, and finished. (678psi, and I didn’t use the pony)(although I probably should have, it’s up for visual inspection…)

Deepest Depth: 64 feet

Duration: 49 minutes

Coldest Temp: 50º

Again, not a bad dive, very relaxing! Except for the leg squeeze at the beginning, I felt pretty good throughout. (although Rob lost me during the safety stop, I wasn’t far, though) 

After tearing everything down, we met John over at Wegman’s for some post-dive refreshments (lemonade and cookies!)(that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!)  And then we went our separate ways.  Well, we made it, the gas we were breathing worked, and we lived to tell about it!  

When I got home, I filled that dry glove with water (hey, it was already wet) and found that it’s not leaking, so I have a few other things to check out…if not dive two next time will be with wet gloves again!  SPEAKING of next time, there is talk for next weekend, so stay tuned!