Vikings, and Rangers, and Beer! (oh my!)

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!