Hopping my way to full cave...

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I had a fantastic four days in South Florida and got to spend time on 3 wrecks I've never seen before.
 
I had a fantastic four days in South Florida and got to spend time on 3 wrecks I've never seen before.

Very cool---I had 18 days of teaching three guys to cave dive..we are all waterlogged.

I am headed to Key Largo Thursday for a week of driving dive boats at Rainbow Reef.

Our lives do not suck @kensuf
 
I had a fantastic four days in South Florida and got to spend time on 3 wrecks I've never seen before.

One of these days I will go down there for a tech trip. I only make it down to South Florida once a year for Grouper aggregate.

What's the CA adventure?

Going to spend three weeks driving across the country, to dive Catalina Island, the SoCal Oil Rigs, and Lake Mead's B-29. Along with some time in Texas visiting Dallas, Houston, and Lockhart.
 
Well went to Peacock yesterday, did a dive about 1,000 feet down the Olsen line and back. I was a little gingerly on the ascents and descents down the various peaks and valleys, but I actually felt comfortable and in control throughout the entire dive. So I am starting to grok this drysuit thing.

One thing I apparently do have to work on is keeping my prosthetic leg up, apparently it was down the entire time. So that is something I am going to try to remember on all my future dives until it becomes habit.
 
Very cool....are you staying very warm? :cheers:
 
Well did the B-29 dive on Lake Mead, it was a cacophony of errors.

Gearing up, I realize that I forgot my wool sock that I use under my undergarments. Not a huge deal I can go without it. Also my long hose tank had a slow leak somewhere. Nothing major but I couldn't quite get it licked.

Dive 1: I get in the water, after struggling for way to long, I got my tanks on. And we descend, I noticed that I was a little wet, but felt that was probably sweat from the 100+ surface temps. I get to the mooring block and start to move along the traverse line to the tail and realize, it wasn't sweat. I had a leak, and not a minor one. I was getting cold as the bottom temp was in the low 60s. I signal the guide and tell him I am ascending. He ask why and I signal cold.

I start moving my way up the mooring chain, and I noticed that it was hard for me to dump air from my wing. Get back on the boat and hang up my top layer shirt to dry.

Between dive 1 and dive 2. I decided to take a closer look at my valve and reg to try to figure out what was wrong. Joel intially thinks it was the burst disc and asked what I filled them to. I told the truth over 4,200psi when I checked at my car this morning. He didn't like that at all. Said that I brought bombs on his boat. I listened politely. Eventually we got it narrowed down to the DIN o-ring, probably from the excess pressure. I didn't want to disassembly my reg on the boat, so I just figured I would deal with it.

They also told me that I forgot to connect my wing retainer, which explains why it was difficult to dump gas from my wing.

Dive 2: Joel said I should go with him and Michael Menduno (who I had no idea who he was before this TBH). This time they helped me ensure that my neck seal was perfect (the likely cause of the leak). Gearing up with a little less of a struggle but wasn't easy. This time I thought I had everything set right. I descend down the line puffing my drysuit and my wing to slow my descent. But for some reason the squeeze never really went away, I figured maybe I was descending too fast, but didn't think much of it until I got to the bottom. And the squeeze wouldn't go away and I was cold. I realized that I didn't hear the suit gas, and that my drysuit hose was disconnected. I was at 90 feet. I got it hooked up, and realized the squeeze. Took a second to regain my buoyancy and joined the tour.

The rest of the dive was ok, I got a little low, and silting this up, probably from dragging my prosthetic. The dive site itself was pretty cool, $450 cool? I don't know. I'm not sure I would do it again. The ascent was fairly normal with my major issues until I got to the boat, and while peeing I realized that my condom cath had popped off and I was peeing into my under garments. Hurrah!

No video because I didn't feel comfortable enough to bring the camera.
 
Oh and I will probably have a nasty bruise on my right shoulder. I already have some pretty major red marks there.

But I had a double double and a chocolate shake to sooth my wounded ego.
 
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