It’s not often anymore that I get to do two in one day, but
with the pending closure of the local hole, it seems that days like these will
be the norm…(well without the grilling and prizes and stuff). Our local dive shop had its annual customer
appreciation day, and since the two gentlemen I usually dive with are employed,
and I patronize the shop, I felt that I was eligible to get the $2.00 off
coupon, and partake in some burgers and brats on the grill! So we loaded up Rob’s truck at 7:45 at the
Hershey Sheetz, and made our way to “O’ Little Town of Bethlehem” with a swiftness.
(Rob was driving) None of us purchased memberships this season (heck I never
have, Rob and John have previous years, but have seemed to JUST make it, or not
make it a worthwhile investment) So the
three of us were standing in line a little while after they opened paying our
way in, and getting the little 2015 sticker on our cards.
After going in, we ran back to the pavilion, and unloaded,
attempted to get some tables secured down below, but were unable, so we just
set up where we were (thoughts of schlepping up and down the hill with those
loaded 130’s on my back were un nerving) Thankfully, once more people showed up,
tables were found, and we were in
business. Since John and Rob are
affiliated with the shop, they were asked to do some leading and mentoring,
which wasn’t a huge problem for them.
The set up for the first dive was John leading (with me as his partner)
and Rob mentoring a new-ish diver named Tim. (I think I overheard that he was
on his sixth total dive, correct me if I’m wrong) He is also taking his
Advanced Open Water next weekend, so where we had planned wasn’t going to be
TOO much of a task load for him at this point in the game, seeing that part of
that course is a “below 60ft.” plan, and the trolley is about at 70 ft. The
plan was to head out toward the Trolley, let him swim through it if he desired,
then assess his gas, and go from there.
John and I continue, with or without them (if necessary, they go back,
if not…crane, etc.) Simple plan with
contingencies for all involved!
We dropped in, and slid over the platforms. I stayed with John, and kept an eye on him
watching Rob. It seemed that they were having some early issues, so (as I found
out later) Rob decided it was better for he and Tim to go do their own thing,
so John and I continued on, past the boat, and along the bottom towards the
Trolley. John went in, so I followed. We
came out, and John asked if I wanted to go down the hill (since that wasn’t in
the original plan) I agreed, as we swam around the Trolley we noticed a rather
large lift bag attached to a rather large cement block. Wondering if that’s something being placed
for the new plane being sunk at some point? (or related to it…we never
discussed that afterwards) Over the hill
and down to the ‘Cuda (which is looking pretty bad) John took a left and we
decided to not take the DEEP hole route, and headed towards the “Duece and a Half” (looked a little weird to me, but ok…maybe I wasn’t
as narced as I usually am)(or more narced…tough to tell) We then came up over
that slope a little and started along the bottom of another slope towards the
Crane. We both went under the Crane, and followed a line to the Silver Comet.
We spent no time there since what appeared to be a class was forming on that,
so we followed the line up to the platform, and took a bit of a safety stop
over the platforms, once we got to the exit point (wrong one, but close enough
for Rock and Roll) I lost control and slid up to about five feet, then came
back down to 20. John looked at me and just gave me a thumbs up and we were
done.
Duration: 43 minutes
Deepest Depth: 89 feet
Coldest Temp: 45º
As usual for Dutch not my best dive, but better than most of
what I’ve done there. I have been
messing with my weighting, and at the end of the dive, just couldn’t seem to
get to a point where I could stop and blew through my 20ft. Thankfully It wasn’t
something I really needed.
Surface interval started off fun, some people decided to
drop all of their junk on our lower table, so we just put our wet cylinders and
other wet stuff there, serves them right for moving things. Burgers and Brats were consumed, as well as
some great pretzel salad that Tim made (that stuff with the pretzel base, some
whipped cream, and strawberries in strawberry Jell-o!) Texted my wife to let her know I survived
dive one, got a few reminders to hydrate, as I checked out the scenery
wandering around Dutch this afternoon, and thought (you never see stuff like
this at Bainbridge...what you do see is…well never mind)
After a while the decision was made to dive again, so we put
all of that hot gear back on, and went back down the hill. This dive John was
tasked with assessing watching Ron lead a dive (that included the student, Tim)(although
I wasn’t sure that was the entire premise of the module) this dive also included
Ron using a compass to find certain underwater attractions. (Ron’s a Divemaster
candidate) So Ron would lead, Rob and
Tim would be in the middle, and John and I would bring up the rear. We decided that it would be a good idea for
us to drop on a platform, but the platform we wanted was in use, so we had to
surface swim a little further, to where we wanted to be. We dropped to the
platform, and got ready. Everyone gave OK’s so we moved off of the platform.
Tim seemed to drop a bit, so we followed him.
Rob went down, and got him back on track, we went a little more, and he
kept falling, meanwhile, I felt like my hand was getting wet, so I kept messing
with my glove. I got a “OK?” signal from
John and I went to write on my slate, but my big bulky gloves are too bulky to
grab my pencil…so I had to work at that for a few seconds, (either I need to use the
pencil I can grab, that won’t stay attached, or the one that WILL stay attached
that I can’t grab…no win situation) so I
wrote “LEAK” John thought I wrote L ‘ear’ No problem…I was sort of fine, it wasn’t BSC
during January where I was freezing, and it didn’t FEEL like any sort of
catastrophic leak, so I kept going, at any rate, Poor Tim was struggling, at
one point he just dropped to the bottom, I was lower than everyone so I just
dropped down with him (And I’m sure four guys with similar black gear all
carrying doubles was confusing to him) he turned around, so I looked him in the eye and gave him an ‘OK?’
signal, he signaled back “OK”… Rob turned and came back, and John came down.
He’s new, we all had those same little
things at first. We made it to the
bottom of the hill where the Cessna is located, and started up. At the top of the hill everyone checked in,
Rob decided that it was time to take Tim back in, so they peeled off, and John
and I continued to follow Ron. A few fin
kicks later we were in front of the Helicopter (which is looking REALLY bad) We
swam through it then reconnected outside. I took a big gaze at it, and wondered
if it would be here this time next year, or if they’d just get rid of it
somewhere. Ron took his next heading,
and we started for the School Bus. A few more fin kicks, and there we were… Not bad! (other people were wandering through it….a
little too small for my liking, so I just swam outside while Ron and John went
through, and I met them outside. From
there we swam along the wall, and just took a nice leisurely swim along the bottom
of the wall until we found (again, the wrong) exit point. John wanted to do a valve drill, so I kept an
eye on him, then Ron wanted to do one. After
a few minutes, we were done!
Duration: 41 minutes
Deepest Depth: 61 feet
Coldest Temp: 53º
A
better dive than the last one, but with the leak, a little uncomfortable. Rob tends to think I didn’t seat my neck seal
properly, which is probably right since it was a bit of a mess getting set up the
second dive…Weekends up there are usually a bit of a pain, since there are a
LOT of people milling about. I think my
weighting at the end of the dive was better due to the water in my suit…maybe I’m
on to something!
After
everyone was done, more food was put out, and things were finished up. Some items were given away as door prizes, (I
won a SeaCure Mouthpiece!) and everything was packed up. The long drive home was a reminder of what we
have to look forward to unless something drastically changes….ok, try not to
dwell on it.
Next
time out is Wednesday for the “Last Wednesday Night Dive At Bainbridge EVER”
Party, hope you can make it! It should
be a hoot
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