Since 100% Oxygen is a tough commodity to come by in
beautiful Hershey Pennsylvania, it trickles down into Nitrox production at
local dive shops, so if you want the “Voo Doo Gas” you have to make other
arrangements. (and my wife won’t let me
buy the full Nitrox/Trimix system that’s up for sale within five miles of my
house, so you need to do the next best thing, just find who has the gas) Rob heard that West Shore Scuba was starting
to pump Nitrox, so we were making plans to run over on the day that they were
opening early. Ever the cautious one, I
shot a note to Ron to see if he was ready to go, and thankfully I did, because
he wasn’t. But possibly that night, so I
said I’ll get back in touch. Well things
took a little longer than expected, and we weren’t able to go over until
Saturday morning. I think once he gets a
little time in with it, he’ll be better, but it seems like a good system, and
he just has a few growing pains to work out, so be patient with him! My name is
the first in his Nitrox log book, Rob’s is second, so we were the first
ones! (that’s kind of cool!) We got our
fills, but they weren’t the cave fills we’re used to, so we had to do some
things a little differently, and pay a little more attention to how much gas we
were breathing…. We’re old pros, so I’m sure we’d be able to get at least
something in.
Since when we got there last week it was a little packed, we
decided to attempt leaving earlier (which meant getting up earlier) but it paid
off! Although Wegman’s didn’t have their made to order sub shop open quite yet
(9:00am) we were able to get some nice premade ham and cheese sandwiches that
were actually pretty darn good! When we
got to the quarry, we were able to find two tables that were free, so we
quickly scarfed them up! And since the
aforementioned local shop was having an Advanced Open Water class, (thankfully
it wasn’t a Nitrox class) we decided to go over and talk to John (and give Ron
a hassle) We also saw a few familiar faces from the old Bainbridge Days
wandering about, so there were friendly people all over.
We set up and decided that we wanted to be back in with
1500psi in our cylinders, so Rob made a quick and easy dive plan, with escape routes
depending upon air consumption (Looking at my dive computer, my starting
pressure was 2730psi) So that was an ambitious task to come back at 1500, but
not impossible. So we dropped to 20ft.
and made sure everything looked good, and we were off. Rob took his heading,
and soon we were passing the old boat on our way to the Trolley. I noticed that
my left hand felt a little squishy, so I was playing with my glove a bit, with
no luck, so I just sucked it up and had a cold-ish wet hand. We got to the Trolley, and went through. Rob pointed downhill, and I agreed, so down
we went. We were soon looking at the car,
and heading towards the Deuce and a Half. We missed it and swam around at 85
feet for a few minutes, then found the hill and started up. We were soon
staring at the blast shack, so we missed it by a little. The visibility left a lot to be desired, so
it’s highly possible we swam right by it and didn’t see it. Rob took another heading and we were swimming
across some open terrain until we found the hill, and started around it, and were
soon swimming past what we thought was the crane (which was pretty much not
visible, you could also tell there were people by it recently) Rob asked me what my psi was, and I told him,
so as we passed by the Comet, we just headed up to the platforms, and decided
to head in to save some gas, a quick safety stop and we were done!
Deepest Depth: 86 feet
Duration: 39 minutes
Coldest Temp: 47º
Not a horrible dive, almost 40 minutes, and only about
1000psi used. When I pulled my dry suit
off, my whole left arm up past my elbow was soaked, so I figured I’d just dive
in my wet gloves the next dive, and hope that my under garments dried in the
sun. (they did)
We had our lunch, and went over to see the guys from the
shop again, I ran into another friend that was there with her students from
Liquid Therapy Diving, where she trains active military and veterans free of
charge, on donations. If you can, check her out and give what you can, Donna’s
doing a great thing!!
After we decided it was time to go back in, we decided to
keep it simple and just follow the ropes out to the tanker and back in; easy
enough. I decided to take along my pony bottle just in case. So we went back in, set up and met at 20
feet. Everything felt good (and it was
weird getting used to the wet gloves) so we kept going. As we descended, I was getting a little bit
of a squeeze in my left leg, so I was trying to get some air into it. I got a little, but when we got to the
platform area, I just grabbed on and tilted, and the squeeze was gone! I followed Rob off to the left, and we were
soon passing the Comet, and found the first line. Off to the boat, then to the next line up the
hill to the Cessna. Over the Cessna, we checked in, and were still a go, so we
kept going. The visibility at the line
left a lot to be desired, so Rob took another heading, and we dropped where the
viz was better, and were soon at the tanker where the viz was actually decent!
(not many students going out there) We
took a trip around it, and looked at some of the hardware on top of it, then followed
the line back in towards the hill.
Around the hill, and we did a quick gas check, since we still had a
decent amount, we just followed the bottom of the hill to the Crane (well we
think it was the Crane) Rob looked at me
and gave me a choice, head back in or head back towards the Comet (at first I
thought it was the direction…this way…then that way, but then made it look like
one or the other) So I said Comet. We swam back out, and found the Comet again. Rob went through, and as I turned to just go
along side, I got nailed in the leg by someone swimming by. I followed Rob’s bubbles, and he exited the
boat then pointed up the rope, and I agreed. (as he got knocked by the people
that just ran into me) When we got to
the platform, we just did a few trips around it to see if those guys would
finish way before us. I tried using my
breath only to go under the boards, and got one to work. After our second trip around, Rob pointed to
the rope, and I said OK! So we did a
safety stop, and finished. (678psi, and I didn’t use the pony)(although I
probably should have, it’s up for visual inspection…)
Deepest Depth: 64 feet
Duration: 49 minutes
Coldest Temp: 50º
Again, not a bad dive, very relaxing! Except for the leg
squeeze at the beginning, I felt pretty good throughout. (although Rob lost me
during the safety stop, I wasn’t far, though)
After tearing everything down, we met John over at Wegman’s
for some post-dive refreshments (lemonade and cookies!)(that’s my story and I’m
sticking to it!) And then we went our separate
ways. Well, we made it, the gas we were
breathing worked, and we lived to tell about it!
When I got home, I filled that dry glove with water (hey, it
was already wet) and found that it’s not leaking, so I have a few other things
to check out…if not dive two next time will be with wet gloves again! SPEAKING of next time, there is talk for next
weekend, so stay tuned!
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