That's what the marine weather forecast said on the VHF radio for Resurrection Bay. Cool! My little inflatable can handle that. I hope 
Being as it was my b-day, I wanted to treat myself to a couple dives. So I get off work and head on down the highway for the 2+ hour drive to Seward. Get there to find conditions quite manageable inside the bay. So I wanted to do a site called Shark's Tooth - named for a couple of pinnacles that look like teeth at low tide. Poked the bow out into the Gulf of Alaska and decide maybe that's not such a great idea. 2 footseas mean when I'm sitting on the gunwhale, I can't see over the crest! So I head back in to good ol' Boulder City. Much more protected
I was pleasantly surprised to find a boat bumper being used as a buoy. Cool, I'm thinkin', the local dive charter set a mooring line. I tied off to it, gear up and dive in. I wanted to make sure the mooring line was secure, so rather than swim to the wall and drop down, I descended the line. It was attached to the all-too-familiar anchor from said dive boat. The chain was well-wrapped among several boulders. My boat's not going anywhere.
Since I'm already 96' deep, I decide to do the swim-through from the backside rather than ascend to 40' where I usually drop in. I'm habitually checking my depth and SPG every 5 minutes. At the 10 min mark I notice my gas consumption seems pretty high. 15 min and it's confirmed. Viz is good at 30', water's a bit cold at 45F, but I'm not really chilled. I'm relaxed and don't FEEL like I'm breathing more than usual. So I start my ascent as I pay closer attention to everything. Huh - in the little pause after exhale and before the next inhale, the bubbles don't stop. The reg's not free-flowing, but it won't stop flowing. So I adjust the venturi and the breathing resistance knob. No change. Continue my ascent and have plenty of gas to spend plenty of time shallow to make up for 15 minutes of bottom time and a slow ascent. Total dive time 50 min. On the surface, I can hear the 2nd stage emitting a slight hiss. So I shut off the valve and swim to the boat.
DANGIT!! This means I don't get to do a 2nd dive 'cause I don't have enough tools with me to fix the reg. Ah well - at least I had one good dive. I also didn't bother to retrieve the Tide Dancer's anchor. I did check out some cool potential future camp sites, though. And I got some practice time learning to operate a small inflatible boat on the big, big ocean.
Today I adjusted my reg (thank you to the friend who taught me how to rebuild, diagnose and service common problems) and hopefully next week will be problem free...
Being as it was my b-day, I wanted to treat myself to a couple dives. So I get off work and head on down the highway for the 2+ hour drive to Seward. Get there to find conditions quite manageable inside the bay. So I wanted to do a site called Shark's Tooth - named for a couple of pinnacles that look like teeth at low tide. Poked the bow out into the Gulf of Alaska and decide maybe that's not such a great idea. 2 footseas mean when I'm sitting on the gunwhale, I can't see over the crest! So I head back in to good ol' Boulder City. Much more protected
I was pleasantly surprised to find a boat bumper being used as a buoy. Cool, I'm thinkin', the local dive charter set a mooring line. I tied off to it, gear up and dive in. I wanted to make sure the mooring line was secure, so rather than swim to the wall and drop down, I descended the line. It was attached to the all-too-familiar anchor from said dive boat. The chain was well-wrapped among several boulders. My boat's not going anywhere.Since I'm already 96' deep, I decide to do the swim-through from the backside rather than ascend to 40' where I usually drop in. I'm habitually checking my depth and SPG every 5 minutes. At the 10 min mark I notice my gas consumption seems pretty high. 15 min and it's confirmed. Viz is good at 30', water's a bit cold at 45F, but I'm not really chilled. I'm relaxed and don't FEEL like I'm breathing more than usual. So I start my ascent as I pay closer attention to everything. Huh - in the little pause after exhale and before the next inhale, the bubbles don't stop. The reg's not free-flowing, but it won't stop flowing. So I adjust the venturi and the breathing resistance knob. No change. Continue my ascent and have plenty of gas to spend plenty of time shallow to make up for 15 minutes of bottom time and a slow ascent. Total dive time 50 min. On the surface, I can hear the 2nd stage emitting a slight hiss. So I shut off the valve and swim to the boat.
DANGIT!! This means I don't get to do a 2nd dive 'cause I don't have enough tools with me to fix the reg. Ah well - at least I had one good dive. I also didn't bother to retrieve the Tide Dancer's anchor. I did check out some cool potential future camp sites, though. And I got some practice time learning to operate a small inflatible boat on the big, big ocean.
Today I adjusted my reg (thank you to the friend who taught me how to rebuild, diagnose and service common problems
) and hopefully next week will be problem free...
