PvtStash
Contributor
I dont think I've Ever called a dive in the 3 yrs/292 dives I been diving.... , but I called one today....
We (Wolver an I) dove out of Port Sanilac off of Bruno's Great Lakes Diver this morning... left Toledo at 4am and when we arrived dockside it was 6:38am, and Windy...
You could see intermittent spray over the harbour walls and 2 of the very small crowd of adventurers decided to give it a pass... (the 2 that hadnt drove 2ana half hours to Get there)...
That left jus' Wolver an I with what amounted to a privately chartered boat as we were the only ones on it except for Capt. Tim and DM Kevin...
Where'd we wanna dive that day?... Northstar? New York? Col. Williams?...
We settled on the New York first as it was the deepest (120' back by the screws)...
Wind is really blowing we're getting some serious wave action (5-7')... get out to the GPS location but cant find the buoy, finally Wolver spots it... (thank God its Orange, Never woulda seen it if it were white with all that whitecap action going on out there)...
Wave action makes hooking the rope harder... multiple tries.... finally we get it and do out final gearing up... we're both diving wet, he's got a farmer john, an HP 130, and a 50cf pony; I have a &mm full with a 7mm shorty over it, an LP 121, and a 40cf pony...
looked like I was going to have a hard time clearing the ladder with my giant stride as the boat was heaving constantly and the ladder was all over the place, I did a giant-stride-fall to the left of the ladder and made final mask adjustments, mask back on face and now I gotta swim back to the boat as I've already drifted 10 yds or so... soon as I get back to the boat I drop, I see Kevin down about 25' or so waiting for us, we swim at about 25'-30' to the descent line... when I got to the descent line a Ton of the stress I'd been dealing with went away..., and I'd also burned about 500psi just getting to the line... down, down... down... 3 different computers, Wolver was using a 25 yr old dacor microbrain (one of the first computers that was wristmounted) and a digital watch as redundant bottom timer, I had a Nitek Duo and I'm not sure what Kevin had... Wolver's microbrain ran out of bottom time when mine said we still had 5 minutes... we turned the dive not quite a minute later... max depth 114' , 47 degrees, 22 min. bottom time. I was back on the boat with a lil' over 1100 psi, Wolver about 1000psi.
did a two minute deepstop at 60'
the 3min safety at 20' was done between 15'-25' due to the wave action, but getting my fins off and then back up that ladder in these waves was very difficult and was nauseous for a bit after getting back on the boat... (Wolver a lil' more so ) ...
So I said "I'm Done" and scrapped the 2nd dive , Wolver was feeling much the same way and although Kevin was quite willing and suggested we see if the waves were lighter closer to shore (2nd dive was to be the Col. Williams)... the waves Were a lil' lighter closer but there will still some Big ones... my butt caught some airtime (a full second) when we hit a wave that was close to 10'.
I dont feel badly about it, I was feeling like crap and I'd gained alot of experience in that first dive, I was good to go.
I hope to go back about a month from now... hopefully with much smaller waves...
We (Wolver an I) dove out of Port Sanilac off of Bruno's Great Lakes Diver this morning... left Toledo at 4am and when we arrived dockside it was 6:38am, and Windy...
You could see intermittent spray over the harbour walls and 2 of the very small crowd of adventurers decided to give it a pass... (the 2 that hadnt drove 2ana half hours to Get there)...
That left jus' Wolver an I with what amounted to a privately chartered boat as we were the only ones on it except for Capt. Tim and DM Kevin...
Where'd we wanna dive that day?... Northstar? New York? Col. Williams?...
We settled on the New York first as it was the deepest (120' back by the screws)...
Wind is really blowing we're getting some serious wave action (5-7')... get out to the GPS location but cant find the buoy, finally Wolver spots it... (thank God its Orange, Never woulda seen it if it were white with all that whitecap action going on out there)...
Wave action makes hooking the rope harder... multiple tries.... finally we get it and do out final gearing up... we're both diving wet, he's got a farmer john, an HP 130, and a 50cf pony; I have a &mm full with a 7mm shorty over it, an LP 121, and a 40cf pony...
looked like I was going to have a hard time clearing the ladder with my giant stride as the boat was heaving constantly and the ladder was all over the place, I did a giant-stride-fall to the left of the ladder and made final mask adjustments, mask back on face and now I gotta swim back to the boat as I've already drifted 10 yds or so... soon as I get back to the boat I drop, I see Kevin down about 25' or so waiting for us, we swim at about 25'-30' to the descent line... when I got to the descent line a Ton of the stress I'd been dealing with went away..., and I'd also burned about 500psi just getting to the line... down, down... down... 3 different computers, Wolver was using a 25 yr old dacor microbrain (one of the first computers that was wristmounted) and a digital watch as redundant bottom timer, I had a Nitek Duo and I'm not sure what Kevin had... Wolver's microbrain ran out of bottom time when mine said we still had 5 minutes... we turned the dive not quite a minute later... max depth 114' , 47 degrees, 22 min. bottom time. I was back on the boat with a lil' over 1100 psi, Wolver about 1000psi.
did a two minute deepstop at 60'
the 3min safety at 20' was done between 15'-25' due to the wave action, but getting my fins off and then back up that ladder in these waves was very difficult and was nauseous for a bit after getting back on the boat... (Wolver a lil' more so ) ...
So I said "I'm Done" and scrapped the 2nd dive , Wolver was feeling much the same way and although Kevin was quite willing and suggested we see if the waves were lighter closer to shore (2nd dive was to be the Col. Williams)... the waves Were a lil' lighter closer but there will still some Big ones... my butt caught some airtime (a full second) when we hit a wave that was close to 10'.
I dont feel badly about it, I was feeling like crap and I'd gained alot of experience in that first dive, I was good to go.
I hope to go back about a month from now... hopefully with much smaller waves...