Omigod ... if I thought yesterday was fun, it was just a warmup. Today the fat guy was singing. This sh!t's addicting. First dive was my initial dive in my new rig, and I wanted to keep it simple for a shakedown cruise. So we did about 1100 feet on the mainline and back out, with a few skills along the way. Had some minor issues with weighting, something about the way I had the right tank set up wasn't just exactly perfect ... and I forgot to change what I knew to be a weak battery in my backup BT and it went dead on me about halfway thru the dive. So on SI we got all that straightened out and dive 2 was just exactly perfect. Rob said we were going to try some smaller stuff ... well ... OK (I sez lookin' kinda dubious). He assured it it wasn't that bad ... "Bob, it's all back-mountable" ... yeah, sure, but not PNW-open-water-diver-sometimes-cave-tourist-who-happens-to-resemble-a-large-harbor-seal back mountable. I don't think we ever got more than 500 feet inside the cave ... but I do think we hit every jump within that 500 feet.
Got to the first restriction and I watched Rob glide thru with ease. OK ... here comes the fat guy ... :shocked2:
Bump ... wiggle ... bump ... wiggle ... thru.
Holy crap ... that was ... FUN! Show me some more ...
So we convoluted, got back to the gold line, jumped again ... and again ... got back to the gold line ... found another jump ... damn Rob, how many spools did you bring anyway? On the turnaround, we're coming up to the second jump back and just as I'm circling his spool he tosses an OOA at me. Hah ... this time I remembered which reg I was breathing and passed him the right one (well, at least it didn't snap back in my face like it did on on the first dive when I attempted to hand off my necklace ... I hate it when that happens). Got back to the cavern, picked up our O2 bottles, did some tank drills (this time I reached them much easier than the earlier dive) ... and exited at about 70 minutes.
What a fun dive. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.
What I REALLY can't wait for now is to go home and wear this rig on a scooter dive ... there's these pilings I want to play around on ... :
... Bob (Grateful Diver)