themagni
Contributor
I didn't know where to post this, so here we go.
Yesterday I went for a drop-in dive at my friendly local dive shop. I hadn't been since mid-April, and we had a brief gap in the schedule so I had time to dive. When I got to the shop, I realized the last dive was #48 and I had two tanks with me.
The shop chose a local breakwater - it's teeming with life, and the inlet's thermocline hasn't set up this early in the year. The first dive was in 10' vis. My buddy and I split up from the rest of the drop-in group (as planned) since they were going to stick to 15' to let a few warm-water diver try out the joys of Fresh North Pacific ocean diving. We saw thousands of fish and lost my buddy. Just as I was about to head for the surface and team up, I saw a surprise wolf eel. I thought, "you've got to be kidding me. Okay, 30 seconds with the eel then surface."
My buddy had the same thought - he saw the eel from another angle, so we played with the eel for a few minutes then finished the dive. It came out of its den and swam with us for a few moments before going home and waiting for the next divers. I have pretty good luck finding an eel at this site, so this was quite amusing for a few reasons.
As I was ascending, I looked up and got a nice suitful of water. (I've removed about 20 pounds of bioprene from my setup, and even though I've tightened the neck correctly, I'm not used to the way it handles yet.) Yes, a drysuit in late May. The water temp was 8C. My buddy and I exchanged phone numbers and he left for the day.
During the surface interval, I stripped down to let the sun dry me off (it was about 25C on the surface) and called my wife to let her know I wanted to do a second dive, since it would be dive number 50 and I'd be later than I'd originally told her. (I leave her with a rough plan, a return time, and a "coast guard" time.)
I went for the second dive with a different buddy and saw thousands more fish. Vis improved to 20' - 30' on this dive. I wasn't completely dry so I was really quite cold. It turns out that I got a sunburn during the SI which didn't help.
When I got home, I was welcomed by this cake:
Yes, that's a chocolate cake with "50" written in chocolate chips. It was delicious, and there's still half of it in the fridge.
My wife doesn't dive.
Yesterday I went for a drop-in dive at my friendly local dive shop. I hadn't been since mid-April, and we had a brief gap in the schedule so I had time to dive. When I got to the shop, I realized the last dive was #48 and I had two tanks with me.
The shop chose a local breakwater - it's teeming with life, and the inlet's thermocline hasn't set up this early in the year. The first dive was in 10' vis. My buddy and I split up from the rest of the drop-in group (as planned) since they were going to stick to 15' to let a few warm-water diver try out the joys of Fresh North Pacific ocean diving. We saw thousands of fish and lost my buddy. Just as I was about to head for the surface and team up, I saw a surprise wolf eel. I thought, "you've got to be kidding me. Okay, 30 seconds with the eel then surface."
My buddy had the same thought - he saw the eel from another angle, so we played with the eel for a few minutes then finished the dive. It came out of its den and swam with us for a few moments before going home and waiting for the next divers. I have pretty good luck finding an eel at this site, so this was quite amusing for a few reasons.
As I was ascending, I looked up and got a nice suitful of water. (I've removed about 20 pounds of bioprene from my setup, and even though I've tightened the neck correctly, I'm not used to the way it handles yet.) Yes, a drysuit in late May. The water temp was 8C. My buddy and I exchanged phone numbers and he left for the day.
During the surface interval, I stripped down to let the sun dry me off (it was about 25C on the surface) and called my wife to let her know I wanted to do a second dive, since it would be dive number 50 and I'd be later than I'd originally told her. (I leave her with a rough plan, a return time, and a "coast guard" time.)
I went for the second dive with a different buddy and saw thousands more fish. Vis improved to 20' - 30' on this dive. I wasn't completely dry so I was really quite cold. It turns out that I got a sunburn during the SI which didn't help.
When I got home, I was welcomed by this cake:
Yes, that's a chocolate cake with "50" written in chocolate chips. It was delicious, and there's still half of it in the fridge.
My wife doesn't dive.
