Well, the first dive of the new season is upon us! With no Bainbridge to hope for melting ice,
we have to take what we have….so Fuller Lake was the option. We talked about it early in the week, and
decided that we should run up there this weekend, figuring that any ice that
would have been on the surface should be melted by now. Little did WE know that Jim Weakland called a
few times over the past few weeks, and kept inquiring about it…a little more on
that later! But apparently it JUST was cleared for diving! So we were lucky. We all were able to get fills (John squeezed
some Nitrox out of what’s left at DDS, Rob and I went to West Shore Scuba
for air… Rob had SOME Nitrox in his, I
had some air) We decided to meet at
Rob’s and made the trip through Carlisle. John suggested our lunch place…more
on THAT later also! John also mentioned
hoping to run into The Real Hiking Viking (one-half viking, one-half
thrill-seeker, and two-thirds beard) whom his daughter Rhea has been following.
This guy is apparently walking the entire Appalachian Trail , and was in PA
this week, so that’s a cool thing.
We arrived and before we started setting up our gear, we
noticed that Jim and Frank, two guys we’ve done dives with over the years at
BSC were set up and ready to go. Jim said that he was calling the rangers all
week and finally got the OK to go. We
were just lucky. So once we got in, Rob
wanted to walk John over to the water and give John the “nickel” tour. As we
were walking towards the water, John spied the Hiking Viking, and went over to
talk to him. (got a few selfies, and sent them to Rhea!) So that was a neat thing… When he moved on, we went back over and
finished the remaining four cents of the nickel tour, and then started getting
our gear set up. This seemed to be a
weekend of computer issues, Rob’s T-3 was having difficulties, and he
discovered that the problem was a leak, John accidently adjusted the dimmer
switch on his, and was having problems getting that re-set. Rob was walking him
through the screens with his, and he was able to find it. Mine…more on that later….
After we set up, we discussed our plan, and went to the
water. Rob’s regs started free flowing, my inflator hose popped off, and John
was all good. We decided to drop in, and
meet at the usual 20 ft. All good, so we
kept moving… Rob lead, and John and I were right behind. It took a few minutes for me to get my act
off of the bottom, but once I did I felt fine throughout, although the water
was cold! We came up on the first
structure, and did a quick look, then kept going. (keeping moving was the order
of the day) We passed the next one, and
I saw a fish underneath one of the beams (looking as cold as we were) We kept
running through the trees, and found a few canoes. The visibility wasn’t quite as good as it was
the last time, it almost looked like a late spring/early summer Bainbridge kind
of viz (with mid-winter temps) but there were a few spots with some good
visibility. We saw a few areas that we
either missed, or just swam by the last time, a few more boulders, and some
trees. John reached down and found a
kids mask. We went over a small ridge,
then around some more trees. The next
canoe came up, and we went back down around some boulders. I found a Mares mask (which I have soaking so
I can see if it will clean up when I have more time to mess with it)(like
tomorrow) we swam through more trees, and I found some sort of marker light, so
I kept that. (John’s guessing the battery may be dead) Rob gave us the “cold”
sign, and we kept going. A little while
later, I got a cramp in my calf, as I tried to clear it, which was surprisingly
easy) it went to the upper back part of my leg, (I’m guessing biceps femoris)
And pretty much flipped me over. As I
did I felt the air in my suit all rush to the top, and…well thankfully I was
only in about 15-20 feet of water, and had already done about three safety stops
throughout this dive. So I surfaced, and
tried to get John’s attention. John
tried to get Rob’s. I heard Jim yelling
from the shore (they were about to do dive number two) and he asked if I was
ok, I told him I had a cramp, and had to surface, but was ok. He pointed to Rob and John who just surfaced,
so I waved to them and started swimming towards shore. As I did, a Ranger said that I needed to exit
the water because I didn’t check in at the Ranger station. I told him I was exiting, but also waiting
for my dive buddies, and that I had to surface because of a bad cramp. He asked me if I was the one that was calling
all week, and I told him that the person that was calling just started his
second dive, and pointed to their bubbles.
Then he started asking about the viz, and what we saw down there. When Rob and John got to shore he started on
the “needing to leave the water because we didn’t check in” stuff, and was
informed that we were told that they were closed on the weekends this time of
year and didn’t know how we COULD check in. So we finally got him off of our
back, and then were able to start walking to the tables to get those heavy
tanks off of ours…
Deepest Depth: 50 ft.
Duration: 50 minutes (for me, 53 for Rob and John)
Coldest Temp: 37º
Ok…except for the nasty cramp and unexpected exit, it was a
pretty good dive (although it was pretty much freezing the whole way
through) Rob had a slight leak, and was
really cold. John and I didn’t have any leaks, but were still really cold.
(Purple hands and extremely pink faces were the order of the day) When Jim and Frank came out of the water, we
informed him that Mr. Ranger was a little “peeved” because he didn’t check us
in. He said it’s kind of tough when no one’s at the ranger station!
We put our gear away, packed and headed towards home. As we
got nearer to Enola, John told us where lunch was. Al’s of Hampden! Something like 80-90 draft beers, and good
food! So we stood there and had to
memorize the number of the beer we wanted, and ordered our food. Good food and some cool beers! One of those places that if you ran a tab,
you’d need a cab! (Dangerous enough
that I live near Tröegs) After that we went
back to Rob’s and unpacked, and went our separate ways.
When I got home I unpacked my gear, and went to download my
dive. For some reason, the program is
not recognizing my dive, and will not download it. It’s on the dive computer, but not coming up
on the program. Rob thinks that maybe I just need to reload the software, but
for some weird reason, Aeris’ software page is down, and I haven’t been able to
find my most recent copy. So I don’t get
to put that up yet. What a pain.
Anyway… that’s it for today. The first dive of 2016 is in
the books, not pretty, but it worked!
Hopefully this starts a good year…We’ll be in touch!
