dazedone
Contributor
I thought I would share this expericnce with all my SoCal buddies.
I travel to the east coast for work 2-3x/month and I go to Raleigh, North Carolina quite a bit. I heard there is great wreck diving out there, so I decided to extend out one of my NC trips over a weekend, go out to the beach and do some diving. I researched the NC Wreck Divers section on ScubaBoard, found a great dive op (Cape Fear Divers) and booked it. I went to my local dive shop and bought a 3mm fullsuit, since I figured I'd need one for this trip and anytime I go to the tropics.
I borrowed a buddy's Pelican case and fedexed all of my dive gear to my friend in NC since I would be hopping from Vegas to Chicago to Raleigh and did not want to lug my dive gear from city to city.
I arrive in Raleigh early Thursday morning, go to my meetings, etc. I got a call Thursday afternoon from the owner of the dive boat saying I am the only one signed up for the friday night dive and he is going to cancel, but Saturday nad sunday have plenty of people and we are good to go. I figure no problem, now I don't have to rush down to the beach on friday afternoon, so I had some very tasty Carolina BBQ with a friend of mine and drove 3 hours from Chapel Hill to Carolina beach.
I woke up around 5am yesterday morning (Saturday) ready to do some diving, went over to the Waffle House, had my scattered, smothered and covered hash browns and headed to the boat. I began to notice a few rain drops and it was a bit breezy. They were predicting possible scattered T-storms that afternoon, but I figured we'd be back at the dock before 2pm, so we would be fine. The boat captain shows up and said the marine forecast was iffy at best, but then he pointed out that all of the fishing boats were still at the dock and that is a bad sign. He chatted with a few of the other boat captains and based on those conversations, decided to cancel the trip. He said we could get out there, but may not be able to get back. The boat owner told me this is the first trip he's had to cancel this year due to weather. The forecast for Sunday looked worse, so they decided on the spot to cancel that too. So after all that planning and driving, there would be no diving for me. I called the airline and made the 3 hour drive back to the airport and got on the next flight home. On the drive back to the airport, I stopped by the beach and it did look bad, 5 foot swell, but extremely choppy and ugly.
The funny part was I was not even angry about it. I travel so much for work now and am gone 3-4 days a week (just to give you an idea, I have flown over 25,000 miles in the past month alone). I was actually glad to be going home early and spend some time with my wife. I even cancelled the Belize liveaboard trip I had booked for this summer, since I did not want to be away from home yet another week. So it looks like that 3mm suit I bought will not get wet this year. SoCal diving is the best anyway, so who cares? And I don't even have to get on a plane to do it!
I travel to the east coast for work 2-3x/month and I go to Raleigh, North Carolina quite a bit. I heard there is great wreck diving out there, so I decided to extend out one of my NC trips over a weekend, go out to the beach and do some diving. I researched the NC Wreck Divers section on ScubaBoard, found a great dive op (Cape Fear Divers) and booked it. I went to my local dive shop and bought a 3mm fullsuit, since I figured I'd need one for this trip and anytime I go to the tropics.
I borrowed a buddy's Pelican case and fedexed all of my dive gear to my friend in NC since I would be hopping from Vegas to Chicago to Raleigh and did not want to lug my dive gear from city to city.
I arrive in Raleigh early Thursday morning, go to my meetings, etc. I got a call Thursday afternoon from the owner of the dive boat saying I am the only one signed up for the friday night dive and he is going to cancel, but Saturday nad sunday have plenty of people and we are good to go. I figure no problem, now I don't have to rush down to the beach on friday afternoon, so I had some very tasty Carolina BBQ with a friend of mine and drove 3 hours from Chapel Hill to Carolina beach.
I woke up around 5am yesterday morning (Saturday) ready to do some diving, went over to the Waffle House, had my scattered, smothered and covered hash browns and headed to the boat. I began to notice a few rain drops and it was a bit breezy. They were predicting possible scattered T-storms that afternoon, but I figured we'd be back at the dock before 2pm, so we would be fine. The boat captain shows up and said the marine forecast was iffy at best, but then he pointed out that all of the fishing boats were still at the dock and that is a bad sign. He chatted with a few of the other boat captains and based on those conversations, decided to cancel the trip. He said we could get out there, but may not be able to get back. The boat owner told me this is the first trip he's had to cancel this year due to weather. The forecast for Sunday looked worse, so they decided on the spot to cancel that too. So after all that planning and driving, there would be no diving for me. I called the airline and made the 3 hour drive back to the airport and got on the next flight home. On the drive back to the airport, I stopped by the beach and it did look bad, 5 foot swell, but extremely choppy and ugly.
The funny part was I was not even angry about it. I travel so much for work now and am gone 3-4 days a week (just to give you an idea, I have flown over 25,000 miles in the past month alone). I was actually glad to be going home early and spend some time with my wife. I even cancelled the Belize liveaboard trip I had booked for this summer, since I did not want to be away from home yet another week. So it looks like that 3mm suit I bought will not get wet this year. SoCal diving is the best anyway, so who cares? And I don't even have to get on a plane to do it!
Dr. Bill was saying that even Catalina is getting only 5-10 ft. visibility, which has to be a record over there. 
