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!

Happy New Year!

Since Bainbridge is now out of the question, we had to make the trek to (O Little Town of) Bethlehem to get our “New Year’s” dive in…although we were used to doing it New Year’s DAY (which helped to curb the alcohol intake, sort of like back when I played in a band at NYE parties way back) Might not be possible tonight…Rob’s got some Mad Elf’s cooling as I type this!    We met at Sheetz around nine this morning, and loaded everything into Rob’s truck.  John and I haven’t been able to get our cylinders topped off, so we had to use what we had.  John’s doubles were empty, so he was using a partially filled 100.  My 119’s still had about 1850psi left in them from the Fuller Lake dive, so I felt pretty confident that I would be able to do the “one” that Dutch let you do today.  Seeing how John seemingly “creates air” on some dives, we figured that he’d be ok (I also brought my pony along so John could use that as a contingency, I think we were set!)

The drive out was pretty slow, seeing that there were a lot of moron’s on the road, and a lot of cops with their radar pointed our way,  we had plenty of time since they weren’t opening the gates until 11:00am.  When we got there, there were three lanes of cars several cars deep waiting to get in, we were told where to go since we had our membership cards, and got into line.  Thankfully we were able to get in fairly quickly and get tables.  After a cold-ish set up, we were ready to go!

Seeing that we had limited amounts of breathing gas, we opted for a shallower tour, and stayed out of the deeper crevice.  So off the platform down to 20 to make sure bubbles weren’t coming from places we didn’t want to see, and we were off and swimming.  Out past the old boat, then over to the Trolley in no time flat.  Out of the Trolley, we headed towards the hill and the crane, just to stay out of the deep spots, and were swimming by what looked to be an aging crane.  (or people are beating on that since the helicopter is in pretty bad shape.)  After that, we followed along the bottom of the hill, and were soon staring at the line that led to a very algae covered Cessna.  At the top of the hill, we regrouped, and checked remaining gas supplies, and we were still good.  Rob took a heading and we swam towards the Helicopter.  Word on the street is that the new plane is replacing that, and it’s probably a good idea, the helo is in pretty bad shape, and looks like it could just disintegrate any day, now.  We still swam through it (kind of like the barn, we’re daring!)  After that we ran back along the hill, and found the line that lead to the Comet, and swam around that for a few.  Free divers were getting in the way, and people with rebreathers were messing up the visibility, I’m guessing that they were doing it on purpose, because people with rebreathers SHOULD know how to not mess up the viz…or maybe they were lottery winners, and just bought one because they could.  (not often I can complain about someone else tearing up the visibility)  So off to the platform, for a safety stop since the exit point seemed a bit congested.  Five minutes later we all agreed to finish, and headed to the exit, and we were done!

Duration: 42 minutes

Deepest Depth: 63 feet

Coldest Temp: 47º

Not bad to finish out the year,  nice to get to Dutch Springs in the winter, since it’s not often that we do it, and the fact that it’s on a holiday (eve) is even more special! (and it’s good to be with great friends)  I didn’t use as much air as I expected, and will just suck it up and drain those cylinders since they are past their time for inspection (and I think one need’s a hydro)  We’re already planning on a trip to York for fills since our local shop is dragging its heels getting their compressor serviced, and thinking that if we head back to Fuller Lake, we’ll just dive our singles.  I experimented a little today with using my wing for buoyancy rather than just my suit (since I’ve been having some problems), and I think I did ok for the most part, just had to remember that I had TWO options to dump air when we were ascending. I dipped a little before the Trolley, and you could tell after we exited it… I chalk it up to penetration anxiety…. On our way out of the water Jim Brown who we used to see at BSC was entering the water, so more of those guys are coming up to Dutch.

After packing we stopped at Wegmans for a quick cold one and some munchies. (in a sea of last minute shoppers) 

Ok that’s it for 2015, let’s hope that 2016 is a MUCH better year, and we get better news about diving, and places to get our equipment wet!  Good luck to you all!

Well….It’s Cold and Wet!

Ever since our second home closed, we’ve been sort of deprived of diving (unless you take a trip somewhere…not my current option) Dutch Springs is closed for the season, except for an occasional weekend when purportedly instructors can take people in (and we’ve heard that even if you DO have a membership, you have to pay…still researching that one)  And Rob hasn’t heard back from Willow Springs, so when this opportunity came up (after needing to go to Scuba Central PA to get his cylinders filled) we jumped on it!   Jeff (from SCP) told him about Fuller Lake in Pine Grove Furnace being an option. He said that it’s about 40 feet deep, has a few things to see, but most important;  “IT’S WET!”  He said that he was meeting some other people there on Sunday morning, so come on down and give it a shot.  He called me, and after I checked to make sure my wife didn’t have me scheduled to do anything, I said “let’s go!”

I have to empty out my 119’s since they are up for visual inspection, so it was a good way to waste the gas.  We were meeting at 9:00am, so we had to make sure we were on the road early.  I just met Rob at his house, transferred my gear to his truck, and we made the approximately 45 minute drive through Carlisle, and Mt. Holly Springs until we got to the park.  Since it’s a State Park, we didn’t have to pay to use the facilities, but if a ranger is there, you need to make sure you can produce a C-card.  The park sits on the Appalachian Trail.  When we arrived, we took a quick walk around and witnessed some of the nice scenery of our beautiful state. There’s a comfy “heated” bathroom facility, and plenty of picnic tables.  When Jeff showed up, he gave us the quick and dirty of the lake layout, and we were soon getting our gear set up.  It’s been a while since I’ve been able to put this all together, but it all seemed to go together quickly, and we were waddling over the little bridge to the “beach” (complete with sand, sort of a pain on clean up) and into the cold water.   Rob looked at me and gave me the thumbs down,  I agreed, so down we went.

At about 20 feet, we looked at each other, and no errant bubbles were to be seen, so we started in the direction of the underwater structures. (not after first passing a small model of a boat that said “Coast Guard” on it… I’m guessing a landmark for where the beach/exit point is located)  It took a little while to get comfortable since it’s been a while, but I felt pretty good, but stayed fairly close to the bottom. We were soon approaching some kind of log structure, and swam under what appeared to be a back porch off sorts, we continued, and soon found another structure, but with the amount of people that were already there, opted to keep going, since we really didn’t know what else was there to see, and Jeff did tell us that it would only take about an hour to circumnavigate the whole lake. For the most part, it was like diving the shallower parts of Bainbridge with less things to see, we did see a few sunken boats (canoes) a pair of swim goggles, and some fishing gear, other than that, trees and rocks were the order of the day.  I actually found the deep spot at one point.  I looked at my depth, saw 48 feet, and a few more feet to spare, so I dropped down, and as I was told, you had to get a little muddy to get 50 ft…but I got it!   We continued along, and when I looked at my time, saw about 55 minutes when my safety stop appeared.  We were soon at the little model of the Coast Guard boat, and he was right, about 60 minutes to get around the whole lake!  Rob looked at me and gave me the thumbs up, and I agreed, so we finished the dive. Sixty minutes is about all I can handle at the temperature.

Duration: 63 Minutes

Deepest Depth: 50 Feet

Coldest Temp:  40º

Ok, a little warmer (slightly) than BSC this time of year, but still a rather cold dive. (Especially our hands, Rob opted for his lighter gloves, I had a slight leak in one)  my lips were numb as expected. Other than that, I think we’ll go back. With the options that are available this time of year, I think this is a great option (and it doesn’t cost anything except gas to get there, and a fill)   The visibility was pretty decent throughout, same drill as Bainbridge, if you turn to look back at someone or something, expect to kick something or kick something  up. The word we received was that during the summer it’s pretty nasty viz, so this is more of a Fall/Winter/Early Spring dive (until other places open)  So it’s an option for us!   The other thing of note is that you have to have a dive flag. We’re not sure if you NEED to tow it, since there is no boating on the lake, but one has to be displayed.  Jeff had one leaning against something on the beach, so we were covered.

All in all it was a good day, great to get out, and it’s hard to believe that today is December 13^th with how warm the weather has been.  Never expected a nice day like this, and wasn’t expecting to get a dive in since we have no second home for the moment.  At this point in time, I’m “hoping” to get out on New Year’s Eve up at Dutch, Rob and John are planning on it. I’m about 99% sure I’ll be there. See you then!

(thanks again for Jeff from Scuba Central PA for giving us this tip!)

Thanks CC!

I just checked and since the “Scared Turtles” have been doing this dive, this is now the 9^th “official” Columbus Day John Weaver Invitational Dive at Dutch Springs!  (Let the pigeon loose!) Whenever I think of this day, the old Lou Monte song; Please Mr. Columbus, (turn the ship around)! always sticks in my head. (Google it!)  My father used to play old Italian records on Sunday afternoons during the summer, and this one made the rotation a few times… check it out, it’s funny!   Anyway, another Columbus Day dive was here, and I was actually able to make it this season (Last year I was on my way home from Michigan after a Penn State football game)    John put the calling out on the Scared Turtle page, but the only ones that bit were Rob and me.  The one GOOD thing about being at Dutch today was that they opened up the 2016 membership season, and it was $215.00 and is valid until the end of March 2017!  (yeah I know they’re only open a few days in November and  on the 31^st of December  until the second week of April) But the fact that today, and the rest of the year is included!  (and all of 2016) So if I get there maybe one more time THIS season, and at least four NEXT season I should recoup my fees!  (And given the circumstances, I SHOULD get there a few times next season)  But anyway…..

It was a beautiful Fall day, and Rob offered to drive, so after getting our breakfast at Sheetz, we made a bee-line to Wegman’s for our lunch!  Once we got to the lake, we set up, and tried to remember HOW to set things up since none of us have been diving since the end of August.  It almost felt like that first dive in March or April when that other place we used to go would thaw.  After getting things set, we decided that a semi easy kind of dive plan was in order to get the cobwebs out.  So we made our way to the water, and finished setting up.

We dropped in off of the platform, and went to 20 feet to see of things still worked correctly, then decided to just meet at the training platforms. Once there, we still felt ok, so the order was given to continue.  We followed along and were soon at the Trolley.  John and Rob took a little trip through it, I was trying to still get myself totally comfortable, so I stayed out and played with my buoyancy a little (it helped)  After that we decided to not really go crazy over the embankment, (we’ve seen the ‘Cuda, and the deep hole ain’t all that!) but we still made our way out to the “Deuce and a Half”. Everyone checked in and we were still good, so we went back over the embankment, and started on the backside of the hill.  As we got nearer to the plane, we surfaced a little bit, then went back down to find the line to the bus.  At the bus we all took a quick trip through it, and then followed the bottom of the hill out towards the Comet. As we followed the bottom of the hill in that direction a large Albino fish followed along with us, possibly looking for a hand out.  At the Comet we all went through, and I got a little hung up inside of it, but soon made it out.  The order to head towards the exit was given, so we followed the bottom of the hill until we got near the exit point.  John did a valve drill, and I was watching a few fish.  As I made my way closer to the hill, another fish was watching me DEFINITELY looking for a hand out, so I turned a few rocks over and didn’t see any cray fish, so I gave him a “sorry” signal… He looked a little annoyed, but hey, I tried!   Safety stop was done, and we all surfaced!

Duration: 50 minutes

Maximum Depth: 86 feet

Coldest Temp: 47º

Ok, not too shabby for that long of a summer lay off. We got out of most of our gear, then decided it was time for lunch. After a nice break on a nice day, we decided to start thinking about the next dive. We decided to enter on the other side of the lot, and do a few things differently.

We put our gear back on, and waddled over to the other side of the lot.  After we were set, we dropped to 20 feet, and did another bubble check. Everything looked fine, so we kept going. We followed John’s heading and were soon back at the bus. John and Rob decided to go back through it,  (after John decided to see if he could make the Philly’s Gnome stand on the front seat…forgot to mention that on the last dive)  I decided to swim outside, and check out the plaque dedicated to the Sandy Hook victims. At the back of the bus, we followed along and were soon at the Hell Diver.  After swimming by that we started back along the bottom of the wall.  We were back at the Comet soon enough, and John asked how much air we had left;  satisfied that we all had enough to keep going,  we started back in and headed over to the Crane.  I followed John UNDER the crane (and kicked up a lot of debris)  Rob decided to stay over top. At that point we headed to the platforms.  Rob did a valve drill, John did another one, I was feeling a little floaty, so I opted to not do one, so we headed to the exit point.  As we finished (technically) our second safety stop, I got really floaty and ended a minute before Rob and John, but we were all done!

Duration: 52 minutes

Deepest Depth: 64 feet

Coldest Temp: 51º

Again, not too shabby of a dive.  When my wife texted me after I let her know I was back on dry land, she asked if it was like riding a bike?  I said “a big WET bike…not too bad!”    I’m definitely out of practice, and as I sit here can feel that I’ll be a little sore tomorrow because those muscles haven’t had much practice over the past month and a half.  We put our gear away, then went to the office to get our 2016 memberships set up. After that we went back to Wegman’s for a quick snack and a nice cold beer!   Being a holiday, the traffic wasn’t quite as bad as it usually is at that time, and we made it back at a decent hour. Once we got to the lot, a lady asked John if any of us had jumper cables, her car wouldn’t start, so John was quick to oblige, and we got the nice lady on her way!

Not sure when we’ll all get out next, but I’m sure you’ll know about it!   Happy Columbus Day!