Climate Change

The mild temperatures lately have been just heavenly!   Wonderful for sitting outside at night having dinner and a glass of wine, awesome for sleeping, heck even my cat has been in a pleasant mood!  But my allergies?  Wow, talk about horrible!  Monday I was thinking “crap, I’m getting a cold!”  But by the end of the day, I was breathing, and overnight, I felt fine. Tuesday, same deal!  When I woke up this morning, I felt great, but as the day wore on,  my breathing got weird again, but I thought it was passable to attempt a dive.  When Rob got to the quarry, he told me that he felt the same way, so it seemed like we’d be playing this one by ear!  (and ummm…maybe nose?)

Since everyone is out of town, it was only Rob and me from our crew, and some of the other usual Wednesday night groups.  Tables were everywhere!   So setting up wasn’t as bad as the last Sunday we were here!

We waddled to the water, and thought aloud “ok, so how far do we make it with these heads”  I thought, the first boat before turning it! (but after all of the prep, I hoped to at LEAST make it to the Pennsy and back before needing to call it)  So we “thumbs downed” it and went to the tree.  Only 20ft. and it took a few good blow’s to clear the ears so far. We kept on through the haze, looking for the pipe, alternating with clearing my ears, and clearing my mask since I let a little water in each time. We found one pipe, but that wasn’t it, so we pressed on. Finally there was the pipe we were looking for, pointing to the CAT. (visibility in that area was pretty bad)  We followed down and headed to the CAT. My ears stopped responding about this time, and I was ready to give Rob the “nope” signal when they miraculously just cleared.  As I did, he turned to me and gave me the “not so good sign” but pointed down…he was at least willing to see how far he could take it. So I returned with an “OK”.  It took us about four minutes to get to depth according to my computer profile, and another minute to find the Deep Boat, the visibility was that bad.  We approached it from below and the right side instead of the left as we usually do.  At the boat Rob turned to me and pointed up the hill after pointing to his ear.  I agreed, mine weren’t THAT bad, but I was into the rhythm of things now, and not feeling too bad. It took us another few minutes to get back to the CAT, I had a feeling it was going to be a slow go…well better stretch it out and at least try to make it to about 20 minutes. I figure if I can dive at least twice as long as it takes to get kitted up, it’s worth the effort!  At the CAT we kept going and I saw Rob point to the line that goes to the Aqua Adventures truck. We followed that and were soon looking into the back of the truck.  He then pointed back into the bowl, so I followed, figuring that we’d just tool around up here for a little bit.  I was diving my 119’s tonight thinking I’d save the 130’s for Dutch on Friday (well if we go, no use suffering again if the heads don’t cooperate…it’s a longer drive to Bethlehem than it is to Bainbridge!)  Anyway, with the 119’s I felt a little off kilter since they are situated a little differently than the 130’s, so I thought I’d try to work on my trim with those cylinders. I think I did ok, but I like how the 130’s feel. They don’t seem to require as much effort to get things right. We wove in and out of the trees, and around the bowl.  We passed by the Pennsy, and came back along the wall towards our exit point. Did our five minute safety stop, I played with a crayfish, and soon enough we were ready to get out. I tried to follow Rob to the exit, but lost him in the viz, and ended up a little bit over towards where Steve has the boat parked when I surfaced.  So I did a little surface swim to where Rob was standing, and was done!

Deepest Depth: 90ft.

Duration: 40 minutes

Coldest temp: 37º

Given the circumstances, not a BAD dive, but it wasn’t in the top 10 of all time!  Seeing that I’m still stuffy today (and that I just got a text from Rob as I was typing this that Dutch on Friday is up in the air)  I’m glad we made it back ok.  It was a little tough clearing here and there, but I don’t think it was a dangerous situation. But as I just texted back to him…no use schlepping all this gear out to Bethlehem to just bag it after one dive.  So we’ll keep you posted on that one kids!  (It’s Todd, jinxing us, I just know it!)

Anyway, afterwards, since there was only the two of us, we were out of there in record time and at PizzAtown for the post dive festivities!  Still hoping for a better turnout in the coming weeks, it’s August on Friday, we’re halfway through the Wednesday night season (and we’ve had two taken from us…maybe we can lobby with Steve to let us go two Wednesday’s into October…although if all goes as planned I won’t be here for those two weeks anyway…hmmm…I’ll have to get back to you on that one!

So I am OUT of here!   I’ll keep you posted on the Dutch trip Friday, if not you’ll be hearing from me!

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!  (safe diving!)