Bainbridge - 10/1-10/3 - Report

[darylm74]

I attended the annual Haunted Quarry hosted by Bainbridge and Splash Water Sports (my LDS from Pittsburgh PA). I finished up my advanced with an 87ft dive down to the cabin cruiser. It was a balmy 43 degrees. Luckily I had finished my drysuit course a few months ago and have been diving in it and wasn't one of the unlucky fellows in a 7mm there. We had one guy who had a free flow once we came back up to the platform below barrel 12 at around 69 feet. He handled the out of air situation quite well though he did panic for a good 30 seconds and tried to go up before he realized that there were 4 instructors along with one of the other advanced students and I (both of us were the students wearing drysuits) with pony bottles and he had octos being shoved in his mouth as though he were being spoon fed. He went back up a few feet to calm down with a few of the instructors but all was well and he did fine, better than most people would have I presume. I had some concerns with some issues with my new regulator (in a relative term as only part of it was new but it was all new to me..Apeks DS4 with US Divers Octos). It turned out to be fine especially at depth and as cold as it was. I will see what happens in February when we do our ice-dive which I signed up for. Otherwise, though I only lacked the deep dive to finish my advanced, I went along on the peak-performance buyouncy dive with the other advanced students there and then did the haunted quarry (haunted house under water) with one of my shop's owners and did fine considering I somehow dumped 8lbs of weight. I am finding since I went to a BP/W, I am needing less and less weight with each dive (I lost one of my ankle weights right off shore, which was found luckily, while doing my deep dive).

On another note I met a group, none of which I got names, that looked like a DIR group, yet none were. They were all just tech divers and the woman in the group, with all due respects but you couldn't stop starring had a set of black-perl apeks on her twin tanks. Caught myself licking my lipas and wasn't sure if it was because of her or her taste in regulators. She definitely ran the show with respect to her little group and wished I had gotten names (her husband was nice too :icorolley )and they were all talkative to a little ole newbi-advanced guy like me. I also got a lot of attention on my Oxycheq wing.


Well that's about it except that I can say that I will never ever camp at Bainbridge again, at least not unless it is by myself. The trains came at 1, 3, 5 and 7 a.m. and blocked the tracks back across every morning till about 8 am,making my pregnant wife squirm most uncomfortably. They have a nice camping area but between the trains and the rain, it got to be pretty miserable. Can say I'm glad to be back in my own bed tonight.

Well to all you other wreckers....good evening and wet dreams...in a diving sort of sense...


Daryl

 

[Upwelling]

congratulations Daryl...does Bainbridge have the same sort of "wrecks" that Dutch has?

 

[darylm74]

Bainbridge has some cabin cruisers, a cement truck, airplane, bus, old buildings and a pick-up truck. They do have quite a few fish and they have fresh-water jellyfish which were cool. They are everywhere and are non-stinging this time of year. Actually saw a lot more fish at night though, including several albinos. They have pretty nice facilities, at least for diving. The camping facilities would be great if the trains didn't come through when they do. They have a nice little dive-shop there and they rent gear. The only thing really lacking is that they don't do Nitrox fills there. Considering the quarry drops down to 120', I think they would have a lot of requests for it.

 

[diveh3]

Hi Darylm74,
Sorry I didn't get to meet you yesterday, I did get to meet "idrathervediving" and had a nice chat about Deep Outdoors equipment.

Yesterday was kind of funny as my wife (who is a new diver) & I dropped down to a platform and were greeted by some funky looking spook with his toung hanging out.
My wife, not being aware of your event :11: freaked! Took a few seconds to calm her down.

Considering the quarry drops down to 120'

I think you could have got 130' out of the quarry yesterday. Did someone leave the hose on? or was that from all the rain you got while camping?

 

[darylm74]

I wished I had known some fellow wreckers were there. Would have been great to meet you. I did my deep dive for my class and then decided to get out of there though I believe I was probably still there when you were there. My wife was also a bit irritable yesterday after lack of sleep due to the trains as well as being pregnant. Can't say as I blamed her. I can imagine your wife had a bit of a scare but at least you got her calmed down. Guess they should have posted a sign of diver beware.

The water was up due to the rain they had over the past few weeks. The thunderstorm Saturday night blew through pretty quickly. It was just enough to soak everything and kill my campfire.

Oh and if ya need some extra weight, I dropped 8lbs down there. Actually dropped an ankle weight too on the way to my deep dive but that was found when I got back up to the pavillion; was surprised I didn't have any of the boot problems I normally have with my drysuit with the ankle weight missing.

 

[Lat. Adjustment]

I don't know why dive shops take students there because there are always regs freezing up and BOW's aren't ready for that on a check out dive plus the first dives should be pleasureable, not bone chilling. The real kicker was my son's LDS was 10 miles from the Atlantic ocean, the poor bus loaded down with scuba gear had trouble getting over those Pa. hills!

 

[Upwelling]

Do you mean its too cold because its October now?

I don't know why dive shops take students there because there are always regs freezing up and BOW's aren't ready for that on a check out dive plus the first dives should be pleasureable, not bone chilling.

 

[diveh3]

I can imagine your wife had a bit of a scare but at least you got her calmed down. Guess they should have posted a sign of diver beware. .

It wouldn't have helped, She was gettin freaked about every little thing after that. I think she sucked down double her sac rate in that 30 min dive.

Oh and if ya need some extra weight, I dropped 8lbs down there. Actually dropped an ankle weight too on the way to my deep dive but that was found when I got back up to the pavillion; was surprised I didn't have any of the boot problems I normally have with my drysuit with the ankle weight missing.

I don't need xtra but I'll look for them when Im back. Some of my dive buddys tease me because I'm always hovering about a foot off the bottom looking for things.

The more dives you get the better you manage the air your suit.
There came a point where I started intentionally adding air to my feet to maintain a good horizontal trim.

Congrats on your classes, hope to meet you sometime.

 

[Lat. Adjustment]

Do you mean its too cold because its October now?

September and into October are the warmest times but my son did his checkout dives in the spring.