At Least I didn’t Cramp!

After a few weeks off, (for Beneath the Sea and Easter) it was definitely time to get back into the water.  I talked to Rob earlier in the week, and we were bound and determined to go.  We just had to make sure that everything was good on the home front before we totally committed, and on Friday, the “go?” was a “GO!”   We put it up on the Scared Turtle page, and John was on board within minutes.  We all arrived at the quarry, only to see what appeared to be an Open Water class prepping.  I was thinking “wet suits…yikes!”  But they all had that determined look in their eyes. Not the water I want a wet suit, I was thinking, but you do what you gotta do!

Now in MY case, I have to use the old idiom; “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray”.  If there was ever a time that applied, today was the day!   If you remember a few weeks back, I had the slight glove leak that froze my right hand, so I was bound and determined to find a solution that would help if I ever got a tiny leak like that again.   I saw an ad come through that had some dry glove solutions that I thought would be helpful if I ever had a slight leak like that again… I picked up one part online, and figured that I’d get the other part when I got to Beneath the Sea at their booth.  One part was a half glove that went through your wrist seal, to help both the flow of air into your dry glove, and also stop any water leakage if it DID get wet.  (as well as help keep your hands warm) The second part was a thin neoprene glove that went on your hand over the wrist part, and under your dry glove that would work as a warm glove and as a normal neoprene glove would,  should any water get in. I thought that this was a nice combo to try, given my usual slight glove leaks. I got the parts together, and tried them on one of my hands in my garage, and it all seemed like a good combo.

Well…when you have all of this ready to go, it’s about time to have a major dry glove malfunction!  Of course when I was all suited up and ready to put my dry glove on over the new configuration, the ring that holds the glove to the receiver popped off, so I had to figure out in a pinch how to get it back on.  (it’s been at least since this time last year that I had to mess with it) It took a few of us a minute or two to finally figure it out, so we got it.  And then as I put the other glove on, same thing, so once again I had to quickly connect the glove back to the receiver.  I thanked my helper, and ran down to the water.  When I put my hands into the water, they seemed fine, so I put on my fins, then went to put my mask on…as I did, I saw a piece of neoprene floating on the water, I turned to Rob and said “Is my hood ripped”?  He said “yep, you’re missing a part over your eyes”  I was going to just leave it be, and give the dive a shot, figuring that my head will get wet anyway, and the amount of space that would have been covered would be insignificant, but as my hands were in the water, I could feel that they were getting cold, and a little wet, so I decided that I should run up, swap hoods, and get into my 7mm wet gloves.  I guess this only counted for two strike's since one problem was a glove, and one was a hood...so still a go!

Ok, all problems solved, so we were a go; we dropped in and met at the 20 ft. tree.  We all looked for any errant bubbles, and no one had any, so we all gave the “ok’s” and we were off.  We heard from Jim  that the visibility was decent ABOVE 50ft,  and not so great below, but we didn’t think it would be as bad as it was.  Passing along some of the attractions, we were soon at the CAT.  We all checked in and were ready to slide down the hill.  The scenery wasn’t as nice as it HAD been, and as we got closer to the Deep Boat, it got worse. I was wondering if it was someone that might have kicked it up, or if it was just from the odd weather we had over the past several days.  Passing the boat, it appeared that we were continuing along the ridge, and looking for the line that ran us out towards the Box Truck and the Tool Box. After a little swimming, the line was in sight, but I mostly just made sure that I kept Rob’s (thankfully yellow) fins in my light path.  We checked in occasionally, and all was good, (although I was still a little messy and felt slightly floaty here and there, every time I tried to get off of the bottom. I figured that at this rate, If I clogged up the viz more than it was, it MIGHT deter people from coming this way and not seeing anything anyway!)   We were soon at the Tool Box (which was all that I saw) and were then heading out with John in a different direction.  A little while later, we were staring at the Outhouse.  (well I was staring UP at it)  I totally stopped finning and moving, and didn’t drop or ascend, so I think I finally got myself to where I wanted to be, but 10-15 minutes into the dive…(and my hands were freezing)  We all checked in and continued on along the bottom of the slope. We were soon passing the Pump House, so I checked to see if the little lobster was there, he was, but would have to wait for a cleaning.  Up the hill, and we were soon passing the CAT again.  We followed along the slope, and along one of the cliffs, until John turned and pointed back.  I agreed, and followed.  As we approached the Pickup Truck, I saw John hold on to the side of the bed,  then I saw him stand and thought; “cramp?!”  Yep…I could see him standing on his fin, and stretching his leg…must have been a nasty one.  We continued on, and were soon at the safety stop.  I found my spot (at 24 feet) and did my five minutes, which I could barely see since it seemed that the second time I put my mask on, the defog I put on my magnifying lens, must have washed off, and the lens was foggy most of the dive. As soon as we were done, we exited.

Deepest Depth: 95 ft.

Duration: 44 Minutes

Coldest Temp: 35º

Not my best dive ever; but definitely not my worst. And I actually SAID that once I spit my regularot out when we surfaced!   I HATE to say "what else could go wrong" before a dive, because it messes with my head, but that would have just "made my day"!  Honestly,  I love dives when I know there’s room for improvement the next time, because I know that I CAN do better from a technique stand point, but when it’s equipment related, I get a bit annoyed because I have a little work to do, and it’s not guaranteed.  So besides needing to get a fill Monday night, I need to check out new hoods. (I hate my back up hood) and I also need to play with my dry gloves again this week, (got the Si-Tech book back out) And... I might even swap out wrist seals, because I think I MIGHT have a slight leak in the right one (which wasn’t the ‘glove’ that leaked THIS week, so I know that when I pulled my new inner system, it wasn’t wet on that side..the other side worked, so who knows?) I’m not sure if the glove issue had to do with my new inner glove configuration (as I said, it worked in my garage last week) or if I was just trying to make sure they closed,  and closed it too tightly…but I will have to check… I expect major dry glove system work this week, just something else to do.

After we packed, we headed to MooDuck brewery in Elizabethtown for some micro brewed beer, and a nice lunch.   A decent beer if you ask me, if you get down that way, give it a shot!  (The chili was pretty good as well)  That’s it for this week, we’ll see what happens in the coming weeks, it’s only about eight weeks until Wednesday night diving !

No Winter Diving for You!

OK, the last time I was able to get out and into the water was December 20 which was the last day of Fall. Today was technically the first FULL day of Spring?  So the Winter Dive Nazi’s decided to not allow me any winter dives!   (ok, I can’t TOTALLY blame the Winter Dive Nazi because right around the holidaze, my mother in law got that nasty flu, and my wife and I were pretty busy running between Hummelstown and the Wilkes-Barre area to see her in the hospital, and take care of other family affairs for her…then when she got out, we “re-celebrated” the Christmas Holiday with her, which happened to be the weekend that Rob and John went out, the next weekend was when the quarry froze over, and apparently there was still a nice chunk of ice on top of the bowl as of Thursday, so we were holding our breath (which is a no-no for divers) to see if the ice melted…it DID and we were able to dive this weekend!

Since this was my first dive of the year, I had to get my membership fees taken care of for 2015, so since I had a little business in the Middletown area on Saturday, I figured I’d take a quick run down and drop off my money. I also wanted to see what the construction was that a few friends of mine were talking about down near where the Giant Market is located, so I killed a few birds with one stone on that trip.  On my way down to the quarry, I noticed a sign that I THOUGHT might have said “Conoy Township is NOT a Gun Free Zone”  But I wasn’t sure, and since I would be driving back there today, I made sure to look…IT DID, and has apparently been on even the NATIONAL news… (I’m oblivious to most things, so I missed it) 

I was able to get up pretty early with the excitement of getting back out diving after a three month (and two day) lay off. I was meeting a friend for dinner last night, and as I was leaving, I put my doubles in the back of my car, only to stop myself with the rest of the gear thinking “you’re parking it in a public place, and it’s probably not a great idea to leave X-amount worth of dive gear in the parking lot of a bar/restaurant where people would be drinking a lot because it IS College Basketball Playoff time!   So I waited until I got back home to load the rest of it and did it fairly quickly…then worried most of the way down because I didn’t make sure everything was in the car this morning…thankfully it was, and it wasn’t long before I was worrying if I’d remember how to assemble it, and that everything worked after such a long layoff. 

As I assembled everything, I double checked that it went where it was supposed to go.  I also had to analyze my breathing gas, so I put my regulators on my tanks, then turned them on and calibrated my analyzer. As I was analyzing, my primary regulator started to trickle a little, so I asked Rob (who does annual service on them) to give them a quick look.  He made an adjustment, and we tried it again. Same thing so after the third adjustment, he said “use your back ups and bring this over to the shop tomorrow when you come to get your fill”  So I used my Zeagle primary after swapping the transmitter between first stages. 

Since it was our first dive of the year together, and we figured that the visibility would be decent, but we pretty much kept our options open for where to go. However, with the amount of people out today, we had a feeling that the “pristine visibility” (well pristine for this quarry) that we THOUGHT would be there would be a little kicked up, so Rob had his plan, back up, and contingency in his mind.  I was just worried about things not working right, or forgetting how to do this after a three month (and two day) lay off!  We dropped in from the steep access, and met at the 20 ft. tree to check for bubbles, we continued on and swam through the trees past the Dolphin Tower, and over to the pipe.  We followed that until we saw the CAT, but saw someone coming up the hill in front of the CAT just kicking the living crap out of the viz, so Rob opted to go a little more towards the right, and down the steeper part of the hill to the Deep Boat.  At the Deep Boat, he continued a little more to the right, and we soon found the line that goes to the debris pile that was a building, and followed that (well not until Rob gave me Hell for kicking up my own little spot as I reached the bottom of the hill, he was just mad the other guy screwed up his original plan)  We followed the line, and we were soon staring at the debris pile, and the tool box.  We checked in, and followed between the tool box and Step Van, and swam along the ridge back to the pipe, then started up the slope.  We were both starting to get a little cold (my right hand was freezing, at this point I figured that I had a slight leak, since I couldn’t warm it up)  so we followed the ridge out to where the Aqua Adventures Truck is located, then around the back and through the trees, past the crane arm, and the boats, and took our safety stop amongst the algae.  Both of us got leg cramps at this point (In the same upper part of the leg) so we did our own job of kicking things up at that point.  We both settled into our spots, and finished our stop.  When we were done, we exchanged OK’s and made our way to the exit, and finished our dive.

Duration: 39 minutes

Deepest Depth: 93 feet

Coldest Temp: 35º

Not too bad for the first time out in a while, a few minor adjustments needed, and I have to make sure that my glove doesn’t have a hole in it (it doesn’t I filled it with water and it didn’t leak…I have a few other options…besides just not screwing the glove on correctly)  When we got out of the water, John and Ron were about to dive, but Ron had a catastrophic hose failure, so Rob loaned him his set of primary regulars, so he would be able to dive. They were still in the water by the time we finished packing and headed to lunch, so we guess they had a decent dive…(other reports would be nice...hint hint)

After we packed we went to PizzAtown for a sandwich and a beer.  I won’t be in the water next weekend since I’ll be in Secaucus for Beneath the Sea, but there’s always that possibility we’ll be out the following weekend (well on Saturday, since Sunday is Easter)  I’ll keep ya posted.

Ok, 2015 is off to a great (and late) start, just a few short months until Wednesday night diving, can’t wait! 

Just the Two of Us…..

I put the call out to see if anyone wanted to join us today, and no takers…One is just getting back from somewhere warm, another is still somewhere warm, so no one in our little group wanted to join us… In fact NO ONE wanted to join Rob and me, we were the only ones that were at the quarry today!  I was the first on the sign in sheet, Rob was second, and no one was there when we were finished… I guess everyone is out finishing up their Christmas shopping!  (heck, I haven’t even started!) 

Today is the last day of Fall, so why not celebrate it by doing a dive! After last week’s adventure, I mentioned to Rob that this weekend was probably free, so we decided to keep it open.  A few personal things happened, but the logistics worked out that I was able to get back into town, and get one in.  Rob suggested putting a notice up that we were going, but no one bit, so it was just us. Since the visibility was pretty decent in spots last week, Rob decided to bring along his GoPro and do some filming.  We had no plan in order so it was just a follow the leader sort of thing, and since I navigate as well as I ballet dance, Rob did the leading.

We dropped in from the steep access, which is getting shallower by the minute, and met at the 20ft. tree to see if anything weird was leaking.  All bubbles were intentional, so we kept going. First past the boat where the Fuzzy Caterpillar used to hang out (didn’t see where he ended up) and through the trees past the Pennsy and the Dolphin Tower over to the pipeline.  We took a slight left at the pipeline, and headed towards the CAT.  Since the visibility is pretty darn decent, I was able to see that just to the right of the CAT there’s a deep drop off, and it’s not just a foggy area. I don’t recall if I knew that, I’ll have to root through some old reports from this time of the year, but it looked pretty cool from my vantage point.  We looked at eash other at the CAT, and kept going towards the Deep Boat.  At the Deep Boat, Rob pointed towards the back wall, and I agreed, so we swam towards that past some of the usual landmarks (The board, a few trees). At the wall we started left, and followed that over the 110ft. trench,  past the Pump House and over the rocks.  The visibility was pretty foggy, so we think we missed the Tripod Tree and the Outhouse, so Rob pointed back in.  Back over the rocks, and along the bottom of the wall, we must have swam below the Pump House, so Rob started up the hill next to the telephone pole.  It’s ironic that I saw the deep part to the right of the CAT earlier because that’s where we ended up at the top of our ascent, right next to the CAT. Rob turned left again, and we were soon at the Aqua Adventures Truck.  Rob decided to swim through it (to film, I’m guessing) I opted to meet him at the back end.  When he got through, he looked at me and gave me the signal to go over the wall, (I knew he wanted to film over there) so I agreed, and we headed over to the wall to do a quick safety stop.  After the safety stop, we swam over the road, which is a lot shallower due to the decreased depth of the entire quarry, and popped into the Lagoon (where an ice cream headache was re-established)  We swam over the building debris, and past a boat over to where the pipeline is located.  Rob swam through first, and I followed, noticing the pile of shells on the bottom of it.  Out of the pipe and around past the boat, we headed to the wall.  At the road again, we popped back over into the bowl. Just as I was attempting to descend, and started descending, I got a cramp in my leg and had to dump air from my suit since I just put a little bit in and surfaced.  Cramp gone, and back to 15ft. we swam along the road to our exit point, and we were done! 

Duration: 44 minutes

Deepest Depth: 91ft.

Coldest Temp: 37º (still warmer than the air!)

A nice dive to end Fall!  Barring the cramp at the end, and my foot giving me a little cramping issue early in the dive, I think it was a pretty darn good dive to (possibly) end the year!  (27^th & 28^th are still in play for 2014)  This week’s air temperatures were a little colder than last weekend, but there was no wind this week, so it felt better. (I also brought a hand warmer, and activated it before we got in the water, so it was working when we got out…THAT helped a lot!)  It was still hard to believe that no one else showed up while we were in the water, I can’t honestly remember a time when we were the only two people there for the whole duration.

We packed our gear and headed to PizzAtown for a quick lunch.  Probably getting a fill Monday night, and discussing if we’re going to try to sneak one in after the Christmas Holiday, and then work on the New Years Day adventure!   Tough to believe that it’s that part of the year again, it didn’t seem like a long time ago when we were doing the New Years Day dive in 2014! 

Hope to see you all again, soon!  Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas!   I hope you and your families have a great holiday!     See you next time!

Baby it’s Cold Outside!

December is a strange month. Remembering back to my childhood, December ALWAYS had lots of snow, and was cold, and you just didn’t go swimming.  Now that I’m older, and the bones are creakier, getting into the water in the North is just an everyday thing, and nothing to think twice about doing. However, due to circumstances beyond my control (The Penn State Football schedule, and my wife) I haven’t been able to get out diving as much as I’d like to be. Looking at my dive log, the last three dives I logged were November 2nd, September 24^th, and today.  With that sort of record in mind, you can imagine that things were rusty.   We tried last Saturday, but Rob was having some sinus/cold issues, so it just didn’t happen, so when this weekend broke free, the opportunity was a good one!

I was at my usual table at Upper A, setting my gear up (well trying to remember how to set my gear up) and John pulled, up, followed shortly by Rob.  As I put my regulators on my cylinders, and turned on my air, I heard a leak, and thought “not again” but this time it seemed to be a hose issue as opposed to a first stage issue. It was soon remedied by swapping hoses with another set of regulators I had along. Good to have back-ups!  Getting everything ready was a testament to our love of this activity, we were COLD!   No doubt about it, and the thought that we were jumping into water, just made it that much more appealing.  Standing in the same spot in July, in intense heat and humidity is another testament to our love for this activity, and trying to decide which scenario is the better of the two is a tough choice….ask me in July!

Once we were all put together, gas tested, and dry suits zipped, we made our way to the water.  No serious dive plan was planned, but a quick route of,  Cat, Deep Boat, Step Van, Outhouse, etc. was agreed upon, and thumbs down was the next move.  Knowing that I was a little rusty, I was overly cautious with my descent, and seemed to make it to 25 ft. as opposed to 20. John checked in with me, and I was OK, Rob looked over and gave me the OK sign, and we were ready to go.  Past the one boat, and through the trees, we were soon passing the pipe with the yellow cage on it and staring at the back of the CAT. At the CAT we all looked at each other, and everything seemed fine, so we kept going.  Soon we were at the bottom of the hill and at the Deep Boat.  John eyed up the line, and we were following that.  As usual I was a bottom dweller, and was able to keep the line well in view.  When we got to the Step Van, I saw John “convulsing” and thought “cramp!”, so I just held on to the tool box, and waited him out. Rob was fiddling with his compass, and between the two of them appeared to be formulating our next move. (little did I know that Rob wasn’t able to really see his compass due to a lens in his mask moving, and the small numbers on his compass)  We were soon following the bottom, (I was ON the bottom, and even taking some of it with me) and arriving at the tripod tree, then making a slight maneuver to the Outhouse.  At the Outhouse, we all checked in, and turned and followed back along the bottom of the wall.  I was SOOOO tempted to slide into the fog of the 110’ Trench, but decided that it wouldn’t be a great idea, and stayed close to John and Rob.  We were at the Pump House, and I could see that the Lobster was about ready to put up his Christmas tree, since the Christmas tree stand was sitting on the edge of the little building.  At this point we started up the slope, and to the Aqua Adventures Truck. John penetrated, and Rob and I went around back.  After John made it though, we started along the line out to the CAT, and did a deep stop of sorts.  At the CAT, we started over towards the wall, and followed that for a few minutes.  Next thing you know Rob was looking at me and signaling “20” for a safety stop. So I slid up to 20 ft. so my computer started the countdown.  The next five minutes, I was playing a game of yo-yo, and glad I wasn’t breathing oxygen since I was sitting at 28 ft. at one point. John looked at me and asked how long I had, and I still had two minutes. Rob looked like he had one.  After another minute or so, we started over the wall and into the clear Lagoon. (although I experienced my first “Ice cream headache” of the day, it was COLD in there!) Along the bottom, and over one of the collapsed buildings to the boats, and what was probably the clearest I ever saw of the pipe.  We swam through the pipe, then around the boat, and back along the wall, where we popped back over the road.  Along the wall again on that side, and we were at the exit point and finished.

Duration: 49 minutes

Deepest Depth:  95ft.

Coldest Temp: 37º

After a long layoff, not a horrible dive, but much room for improvement.  I stayed too close to the bottom for most of the dive, and hit once or twice, and I couldn’t hold a safety stop to save my sorry butt! But otherwise, I felt pretty good, almost like riding a bike!   Tearing things apart on the surface was pure Hell since it was really cold.  At this point I will admit that the heat and humidity of July are a better option, I can always get cooler, but not warmer. (note to self, bring the chemical hand warmers for post-dive if we get out next weekend)  After a clumsy (due to gloves) tear down, we quickly retired to PizzAtown for a much needed lunch. (and those two cold Mad Elf’s went down like nothing!)

Ok, as usual things to continue to work on, but otherwise a pretty good dive after such a long layoff.  As I said, hopefully next weekend cooperates and we can do this again!  Not a lot of time left in this year!  Quarry fees didn’t change for 2015, so that’s a good thing!  See you soon!