…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!
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