Had a ton of fun today, despite a couple of hiccups.
So I get to Ginnie, and go through my gear setup, and I am almost done until it is time to get on my drysuit. I realize I left my Arctics at home. Normally I pull them from where I hang them to dry, and pack them into the bag I use, and put it with all the other packed bags near the door. Last week I washed all my undergarments. Once they were all dry I packed them into their bags and put them on a shelf. Well when I was getting my gear ready I figured, "Oh I will just pull it on the shelf." But I didn't.
I called up EE to see if they had my sizes in stock, but they didn't have the top in stock. But they offered me a rental Santi BZ200, and if that didn't work I could see if I could fit in the smaller size. I tried on the BZ200, it was a little long in the legs and arms, but it was workable. So I hurry back to Ginnie and get everything set back up. By chance while doing that I ran into Hubie, down for his first trip to the states since the pandemic started, he was getting his assistant ready for a full cave course with Bird. She did Intro in Mexico so it was an intro to flow before he went on to do full cave. If she passed by Monday, we might meet up for a dive on Tuesday. I'm probably going to head up to Canada in June to dive with his group in the St Lawrence River.
Anyways I hit the water, gear up, stretch my drysuit out and pull my undergarments into better position. Then I turn my computers on. My brand new Teric that Shearwater replaced a couple of weeks ago, wasn't reading my transmitters at all. I check my computers reading the AI as part of my regulator setup (along with setting the mixes). My older Teric was working just fine, so I continued to swim down the run, turning the Teric in and out of dive mode. Turning AI on and off. Finally I get to the stairs by the eye, and stop to give it one last attempt, but it wasn't cooperating. I guess I really earn the nickname that Dive-tronix gave me of Teric killer, this is the 10th Teric I've killed.
I briefly consider canceling the dive, but I did had working AI on my back up computer. It would be a little annoying as I normally check the other computer (as it is on my watch side), but I can make it work. So I head to the eye, when I get there I see a rather unusual sight, I see a dude with a Sidewinder head first into a small hole near the top of the eye. Not moving, no bubbles, I am thinking "Is he dead?" I shine my light o see if I can get any reaction, and I realize it is the dude who asked me to turn on his HUD, because he forgot to. I sure hope I didn't leave any fingerprints on the button. No one else seemed to care, so I figured I would get worried if he was still there in an hour.
After sneaking under a CCR diver that was waiting for his partner who was doing a deco stop in the chute. I dumped my deco bottle near the sign in the eye. That went much better, moving the D-ring up just a tad made it easier unhook, and later was easy to hook. Down the chute into the Gallery. I've gotten to the point that while it isn't 100% I mostly feel smooth, I am finding my handholds and working up it very easily. Night and day difference from the dive that started this quest.
I spent quite a bit of time working the gallery, this time my GoPro worked and I was able to get a bunch of test footage. I found the fossil,
@jlcnuke you will be kicking yourself that you didn't notice it before, it sticks out like a sore thumb after you see it once. Once on a trip back up to the lips, I see a light behind me and figure I am probably slowing the next team down. So I pull off to the side outside the flow, and wait for the team to pass. I realize that the team was below me, and the CCR diver was swimming in the thick of the flow. That didn't look like fun at all.
Finally I worked up the courage and decide to go through the Lips solo for the first time. I took the same approach through the Lips, worked slowly looking for good handholds. I was suprisingly easy. Yeah there were a few times that I had to accept a substandard hand hold or two. But for the most part if I looked around I could find something better. I swam around briefly in the area between the Lips and the Keyhole, but I saw my no deco time was running out, and I was already in the cave for 70 minutes. So I headed out.
Bottle pick up went fairly well, though I noticed that I was getting feet light, likely due to the bunched up material from my rental undergarments. I went up to the deco area to do a safety stop. I checked my surface gardient factor, it was over 70%. And after 5 minutes I had not knocked much off of it, and I didn't think I would have it below 50% by the time I get to the stairs. So I figured, I had oxygen might as well use it. After 5 minutes I knocked it down significantly, which meant it would easily be below 50% by the time I got to the stairs so I could get out of the water immediately.
After switching back gas and cleaning up my deco bottle, I decided to go through the hole in the floor of the deco area. Why? Because it is fun. Then out the eye I went, the diver I was worried about was gone, but I was in the background of a Fundies class doing some sort of line drill that was being recorded. Due to my floaty feet swimming back normally wasn't an option, so I had to surface swim back on my back.
Packing up was fairly normal, the usual chatting before seeing that my phone was blowing up over a work issue. Since I rented the undergarments from EE I got my fills from there too. EE has changed their fill procedures slightly, they now have an online waiver for you to sign, since no one signs the fill log. Apparently it is a once and done sort of thing, though I imagine the lawyers might make it a yearly thing. But apparently the software allows you to renew it, so I imagine that would just involve signing with your finger and clicking I agree once a year.
Overall I had a ton of fun. I enjoy these past dives, but this one I was extra happy about, I am getting a lot of the cave confidence I had back when I was diving wet.
Now if I could just stopping killing dive computers. I talked to Shearwater, the rep gave me some troubleshoot steps that I can do tomorrow. But since one computer worked and the other didn't it is likely an antenna issue. And if those failed, contact them and they would send me out another new replacement. I'm not too worried about it, infant mortality is common, probably solder or something came loose due to being jarred. I'll probably ask them to throw in another set of Perdix straps, mine are looking a little ratty.
