I'm planning on going, wondering if anyone else is. Will be interesting to see what has been done construction-wise.
Anyone planning on Blue Hole on the 22?
- Thread starter Jasonmh
- Start date
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RonFrank
Contributor
OP
Hey Ron... have fun in Florida :god:
What part of FL are you headed to?
What part of FL are you headed to?
RonFrank
Contributor
We are staying in Lauderdale for 10 days, than in the Keys for a few days.... .and then.... we are not sure, but maybe just back to Lauderdale. We are doing low key, with a lot less driving than normal.... We may end up on the West Coast for a few days, and may even stay in the Everglades a night or two... who knows.. but we will enjoy it!
Hope you hook up this weekend with some buddies.. I know Kevin is ending his vacation, not exactly sure when he get's back, but Sunday is a good guess.
OP
Sometimes I really look forward to going to BH, other times it is kind of “ehh”, I could take it or leave it. Yesterday, when I was on my 2 hour drive there, I was thinking I was really feeling like it was one of those take it or leave it days. But it turned out to be a pretty good day and worth going. It wasn’t too crowded and the viz was much better than I had seen on a weekend in quite a while.
Most of the people I usually dive with couldn’t make it, so I ended up diving with a new group of folks.
Usually I try to bring some extra stuff with me, in case someone has a problem or needs an extra reg, etc. I don’t have room to bring all my crap with me, so before I go I play the game of “what do I think someone might need today”? I brought 2 extra inflators, which was perfect since I loaned out both of them, but I forgot my liftbag.
Russ was there with a new OW class, and one if his students lost their weightbelt, so we spent the first dive bringing that up. It has been a while, and I had forgotten what a chore it is to bring up a 20 pound weightbelt, and I was really wishing I hadn’t left the liftbag at home. But the viz was so good that I could see the weightbelt on the bottom from the 20-25’ platform.
The second dive was really cool actually, and I got to do something I had always wanted to do, which is help an adaptive (disabled) diver. The LDS here is an adaptive diver training center, and they are always looking for adaptive buddies. Sean is in a wheelchair, and I don’t know the full extent of his disability (he was injured as a marine overseas from what I understand), but he has no use of his legs and partial use of his arms and hands. His wife (Alicia SP?) was out there as well, and she is a dive con and Sean’s adaptive buddy. If I had more time I would love to volunteer to be an adaptive buddy, maybe someday… but back to the dive… We got Sean’s wetsuit on, then we wheel him over to the giant stride platform (which is, what, between 4-5 feet above the water?) and push him in. I have to admit, it was pretty funny to see some of the reactions on people’s faces when you push a paraplegic off a ledge into the water. I am sure that many of the divers knew what was going on, but it seemed pretty interesting to the spectators. Anyway, we have 3 divers in the water waiting for Sean, and a group on the ledge to push him in. Sean is in his wetsuit, but the rest of his gear is in the water. They give him a push out of his chair and he falls face first in to the water. When he comes up he is face down and has to wait for someone to roll him over so that he can breathe. Then we got his equipment on him and descended. At our planned depth we moved him into a horizontal position and Russ was behind/above him holding onto his tank and providing propulsion, his wife was on his left providing buoyancy control, and I was on the other side, watching him and his air and passing signals to Russ if needed. The dive went great, and was very relaxing. Sean has about 50ish dives iirc, and was extremely calm underwater. I was getting worried that is SPG was broken, because it hardly moved. He ended up using only about 300-400 PSI on a 30 minute dive! Of course someone else was doing the kicking, but I was still amazed, he was obviously very calm underwater to use so little air. It was a very cool dive, and IMO anyone who has an injury like his and still jumps into 90’ of water for a dive has some serious guts.
On the third dive it started to rain right as we were getting in. We talked for a bit about whether we wanted to dive or get out, not knowing how bad it would be when we got out. Turns out we had perfect timing… There was torrential rain for 20 mins while we were underwater; when we surfaced the sun was already coming back out (although everything was soaked)
All in all it turned out to be a pretty good day, and it was good diving with everyone: Russ, Alicia, Sean, Jason (JT), Jason #3, Adrian, and George.
Most of the people I usually dive with couldn’t make it, so I ended up diving with a new group of folks.
Usually I try to bring some extra stuff with me, in case someone has a problem or needs an extra reg, etc. I don’t have room to bring all my crap with me, so before I go I play the game of “what do I think someone might need today”? I brought 2 extra inflators, which was perfect since I loaned out both of them, but I forgot my liftbag.
Russ was there with a new OW class, and one if his students lost their weightbelt, so we spent the first dive bringing that up. It has been a while, and I had forgotten what a chore it is to bring up a 20 pound weightbelt, and I was really wishing I hadn’t left the liftbag at home. But the viz was so good that I could see the weightbelt on the bottom from the 20-25’ platform.
The second dive was really cool actually, and I got to do something I had always wanted to do, which is help an adaptive (disabled) diver. The LDS here is an adaptive diver training center, and they are always looking for adaptive buddies. Sean is in a wheelchair, and I don’t know the full extent of his disability (he was injured as a marine overseas from what I understand), but he has no use of his legs and partial use of his arms and hands. His wife (Alicia SP?) was out there as well, and she is a dive con and Sean’s adaptive buddy. If I had more time I would love to volunteer to be an adaptive buddy, maybe someday… but back to the dive… We got Sean’s wetsuit on, then we wheel him over to the giant stride platform (which is, what, between 4-5 feet above the water?) and push him in. I have to admit, it was pretty funny to see some of the reactions on people’s faces when you push a paraplegic off a ledge into the water. I am sure that many of the divers knew what was going on, but it seemed pretty interesting to the spectators. Anyway, we have 3 divers in the water waiting for Sean, and a group on the ledge to push him in. Sean is in his wetsuit, but the rest of his gear is in the water. They give him a push out of his chair and he falls face first in to the water. When he comes up he is face down and has to wait for someone to roll him over so that he can breathe. Then we got his equipment on him and descended. At our planned depth we moved him into a horizontal position and Russ was behind/above him holding onto his tank and providing propulsion, his wife was on his left providing buoyancy control, and I was on the other side, watching him and his air and passing signals to Russ if needed. The dive went great, and was very relaxing. Sean has about 50ish dives iirc, and was extremely calm underwater. I was getting worried that is SPG was broken, because it hardly moved. He ended up using only about 300-400 PSI on a 30 minute dive! Of course someone else was doing the kicking, but I was still amazed, he was obviously very calm underwater to use so little air. It was a very cool dive, and IMO anyone who has an injury like his and still jumps into 90’ of water for a dive has some serious guts.
On the third dive it started to rain right as we were getting in. We talked for a bit about whether we wanted to dive or get out, not knowing how bad it would be when we got out. Turns out we had perfect timing… There was torrential rain for 20 mins while we were underwater; when we surfaced the sun was already coming back out (although everything was soaked)
All in all it turned out to be a pretty good day, and it was good diving with everyone: Russ, Alicia, Sean, Jason (JT), Jason #3, Adrian, and George.
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RonFrank
Contributor
See you don't need us!
Sounds like you had some enjoyable dives, and some luck with the weather as well!
How many Jason's do we have?
Sounds like you had some enjoyable dives, and some luck with the weather as well!
How many Jason's do we have?
OP
Glad to hear everything went fine!!
Sean is pretty incredible considering he's a quadriplegic diver!! It is fun to see peoples faces as you're dumping a guy in a wheelchair in the water isn't?
See ya!
Sean is pretty incredible considering he's a quadriplegic diver!! It is fun to see peoples faces as you're dumping a guy in a wheelchair in the water isn't?
See ya!
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