Welcome to May!

Well, we’re getting closer to summer, and the Wednesday night diving season is just a few short weeks away!!  We woke up this morning to news of a new Princess in England!  I woke up to my own princess at the top of the steps trying to wake me up, so I had to drag my butt out of bed and give the cat some water.  My wife, knowing that I was getting up early was smart to decide to sleep in our upstairs guest room, and power sleep she did!

Last week I left you with the dilemma that the neck seal on my dry suit ripped, and needed to be replaced. As usual, I stressed over the need to make a change to fix something, and that it would be a tough thing since I’ve never done it before.  Rob sent me a link to the video that was online to fix it, and I studied the pamphlet that came with it.  Rob said it looked pretty easy compared to what he had to do with his DUI suit a few years back, but as my wife says “I could screw up a one car funeral”  so I was worried that I’d have a catastrophic leak, and sink to the depths of the quarry, never to see the light of day again, leaving my wife and my cat all of my worldly possessions, and the stress of what to call May second from here on out at either my “Memorial” dive, or golf tournament.  But alas, I must have done it right because I am here to tell you about it!   (ok, enough drama for one day)

Anyway,  I arrived at the quarry only to find Rob’s truck already there. I looked at my clock and it was about quarter of, so I wasn’t late.  He got a quick start today!  So we ran back to Upper A because there were the makings of a rather large looking dive class in the shop, and we thought tables might be at a premium in a few minutes. It wasn’t quite THAT bad, but there were a lot of people there.  The instructors apologized in advance for the ruckus they would be creating, but we didn’t mind, and are actually used to it at this point in time.  We set up, and got everything in order, and waddled down to the water.

After making sure that my neck seal didn’t leak at two feet, I was satisfied that unless something just gave up during the dive, I was good to go. We dropped to 20ft. and did a quick bubble check. All bubbles were acceptable, so we continued on.  We swam through the trees, past the Dolphin Tower, and Pennsy, then over to the pipe, Rob kept going at the pipe, which was probably a good idea since there was some kicked up viz headed towards to where the CAT was. He followed the edge of the wall over to just before the Aqua Adventures truck and pointed down. We started down the hill at the Pump House, and were soon at 85 feet.  We headed out to the right and towards the Outhouse, passing the 110ft. Trench which I noticed had a rather nice haze, as I made a slightly lower pass above it.  I caught back up to Rob as we were nearing the Tripod Tree, and soon passing the Outhouse.  We passed the outhouse and checked out the large boulder. Rob gave me a turn signal, and I agreed.  He headed out a little more to the right and followed along the edge of the deep hole. We were soon at the big scoop, and passing the pipes which meant we were close to the Deep Boat.  (which was off to our left)  We continued along the edge, and Rob made a signal to go down to the Deep Deep Boat at the steps, so I agreed.  I started following him down, and got my foot tangled in one of the steps trying to get a little further out from them.  I soon was following back down the steps, and meeting Rob at the boat.  He gave me the turn signal once again, and I agreed, so we went back up the steps, and stayed a little more to the right of the CAT.  At the CAT we found the line that went to the Aqua Adventures truck and followed that for our deep stop.  At the truck, we came back in, and followed over the pipe and through the trees until we got to the Pennsy. We went back through the trees, and around to where the big spool is located, then past the Dolphin Tower.  Rob gave me a “what’s next?” kind of look since we  pretty much saw everything we wanted to see, so we started over towards the wall, then up to our safety stop. Five minutes later we started back up and finished our dive.

Duration: 43 minutes

Deepest Depth: 108 ft. (Rob had 113, he went a little deeper at the Deep Deep Boat)

Coldest Temp: 36º (getting warmer?)

Great dive!  As I said earlier, my new neck seal held up, and I didn’t have any leaks. I used my new inner glove system, and those worked again as well; my hands were pretty warm.  I guess that means I may try to tackle my wrist seals this week! (One thing at a time)    Rob was trying his replacement computer, which seemed to work fine, so all of the changes were good!  We got back up to the top of the hill just as the class was getting ready to go into the water. One of the guys at the table next to us broke his mask strap, and Rob had one that fit. (stupid snorkel tore it)

We packed up and made our way out to PizzAtown for a quick lunch! Rob’s going to do some yard work, and I’ll do whatever’s on my Honey Do List!     There’s a possibility we may get out next week, nothing totally definite, but we’ll keep you posted!  Have a great week!