robint
Contributor
Yesterday we packed up the truck and headed over to BH for the day. It is a 2 hour drive from our front door so we arrived at 8am ready to hit the water. We had not been over to BH since last Sept!
We were very surprised to see how far along the Dive Center is now. Last Sept it was still only steel beams and concrete floor. Now it is a real building!
There were actually even a couple of workers in there doing something all day Saturday! Rumor has it that the center opens July 4th weekend. Another rumor is that Stella is officially out of business in May when they are bringing in their own compressor and operator with tank fills at $10.
There weren't many people there on Saturday. Our old LDS from Colorado Springs was down with a group of HS students. UWC instructors Tom and Chris, two of our old buddies, were teaching OW, AOW, and Rescue. There was also another group down from CO and a few individuals but that was it. Very nice quiet weekend and no locals jumping, too.
The "permit guy" never showed up, I am guessing they showed up on Friday to collect $$ from UWC group and didn't bother on Saturday. Oh well. Stella wasn't there until noon and she didn't even open her shop since she knew that UWC has their own compressor. She asked us if we needed tanks or if she really had the day off... we told her to go home and relax. I don't know if she spoke to any others there.
One of the main reasons we went over to BH, other than just to dive was for me to try out a new drysuit. I got the drysuit over a year ago but since my hubby is an instructor, I haven't been able to dive with him at BH to really try it out and get used to it. Every time I have gone over with him lately he has had students who took all his time or BH was so crowded I didn't want to bother. So this was my first time with the new drysuit.
me with my new suit, Ron getting into his drysuit, and our friends from UWC.
I did 3 dives in the new drysuit. Since I haven't used a drysuit in over 5 years (I used to borrow an UWC instructors spare that fit me) it was like starting all over again. Ron got me weighted on the first dive then we were off to the bottom. I must say the first dive was scary to me. The suit is neoprene and a bit bouyant. Adding air to it was okay and swimming around horizontal on the bottom was fine. But as soon as I started moving around looking up, etc. I didn't like the feeling. The air rolling around inside it was freaky. I don't remember the other drysuit acting like that but then it has been 5+ yrs. Dive 2 and 3 went better and I wasn't as nervous. Being vertical in a drysuit is downright painful and I don't like it. Plus I did get cold so I needed more thermal protection. I probably would have been fine if it had been sunny, but of course it was overcast and a bit windy. Surface intervals were okay as I was dry but I really didn't get warmed back up properly. All in all it was a successful trip.... I don't know if I am ready to dive in that drysuit in Calif yet, which is the goal. Maybe more practice is needed before I attempt saltwater and current.
robin
We were very surprised to see how far along the Dive Center is now. Last Sept it was still only steel beams and concrete floor. Now it is a real building!
There were actually even a couple of workers in there doing something all day Saturday! Rumor has it that the center opens July 4th weekend. Another rumor is that Stella is officially out of business in May when they are bringing in their own compressor and operator with tank fills at $10.
There weren't many people there on Saturday. Our old LDS from Colorado Springs was down with a group of HS students. UWC instructors Tom and Chris, two of our old buddies, were teaching OW, AOW, and Rescue. There was also another group down from CO and a few individuals but that was it. Very nice quiet weekend and no locals jumping, too.
The "permit guy" never showed up, I am guessing they showed up on Friday to collect $$ from UWC group and didn't bother on Saturday. Oh well. Stella wasn't there until noon and she didn't even open her shop since she knew that UWC has their own compressor. She asked us if we needed tanks or if she really had the day off... we told her to go home and relax. I don't know if she spoke to any others there.
One of the main reasons we went over to BH, other than just to dive was for me to try out a new drysuit. I got the drysuit over a year ago but since my hubby is an instructor, I haven't been able to dive with him at BH to really try it out and get used to it. Every time I have gone over with him lately he has had students who took all his time or BH was so crowded I didn't want to bother. So this was my first time with the new drysuit.
me with my new suit, Ron getting into his drysuit, and our friends from UWC.
I did 3 dives in the new drysuit. Since I haven't used a drysuit in over 5 years (I used to borrow an UWC instructors spare that fit me) it was like starting all over again. Ron got me weighted on the first dive then we were off to the bottom. I must say the first dive was scary to me. The suit is neoprene and a bit bouyant. Adding air to it was okay and swimming around horizontal on the bottom was fine. But as soon as I started moving around looking up, etc. I didn't like the feeling. The air rolling around inside it was freaky. I don't remember the other drysuit acting like that but then it has been 5+ yrs. Dive 2 and 3 went better and I wasn't as nervous. Being vertical in a drysuit is downright painful and I don't like it. Plus I did get cold so I needed more thermal protection. I probably would have been fine if it had been sunny, but of course it was overcast and a bit windy. Surface intervals were okay as I was dry but I really didn't get warmed back up properly. All in all it was a successful trip.... I don't know if I am ready to dive in that drysuit in Calif yet, which is the goal. Maybe more practice is needed before I attempt saltwater and current.
robin
