Yep, we had a great time! Susan and I, Ken and Steve showed up at 8:30-9am. The weather was wonderful and we were able to get in the lake before anyone else had stirred it up any. ON the first dive we had 10-15 feet of visibility. I showed them where the lines (80 ft bucket and Woodpile) were located and we attempted to reacht he treeline but had to turn back because of no hoods or gloves.
We then had PR BBQ and had fun talking duing the SI.
On the second dive we used what was left of the gas in our tanks (my double 80s and their 100's) and tried again for the 80 foot bucket...we had to turn when we reached our turn pressure of around 500 psi. (OK, we missed the line and had to backtrack, but we found it!), Bryan joined us at the end of the second dive.
We did our SI and Bryan and Rachel finished off the BBQ. Then we did the third dive. Bryan had to bail at the 20 minute point but the rest of kept going to find the 80ft bucket until we had a silt out, one of the threesome got seperated and we ended up surfacing to find him, so of course we lost the line. We returned to 30 ft to do a transit back to the beach but the dive leader got confused and we went the wrong way...(do you know how hard is is to tell the small pointy end from the small flat end of a compass at 30 feet with 53 year old eyes? I've got to get some contacts!) anyway, we ended up on the surface again, nearer to the island than to the beach so we did the surface back peddle thing since one of us was at 700 psi (not me! I had 1500 psi left in my second set of doubles!). Hey, a good dive and aerobic exercise who could ask for more!
Anyway, three great dives and lots of navigation practice. Sorry so many missed it!
Dive 3: 41 minutes Bottom time, 52 degrees lowest temp at 64 feet.
Dive 2: 45 minutes Bottom time, 58 degrees lowest temp at 51 feet.
Dive 1: 34 minutes Bottom time, 63 degrees lowest temp at 44 feet
The first thermal was at about 22 feet. Visibility ranged from a high of around 15 feet to a low of 5 feet in the algea layer. (Except for zero feet in the silt out).
Of course, a question, if the one who gets lost doesn't have the flag, then why not have the flag bearer and those with him wait in one spot, the lost one surfaces after one minute, finds the flag and follows it down to the others? Rather than after one minute everyone surfaces? We actually met our lost sheep doing our 15 foot safety stop...
Mike