Sand Hollow this Sat, Oct 18th

[rollerboi]

The dive shop I'm taking some specialties through is having a dive-along down at Sand Hollow this weekend (near St. George).

It's my fall break, and I'm really looking forward to going. Unfortunately, my wife's health is still not so great (that, and she has no interest in diving cold, dark water). I'm having a hard time finding a buddy (and the Buddy Finder here doesn't seem to work so well, it says there's only 5 people in a 150-mile radius).

So, I ask.. would anyone here like to join me? I would love to meet some more local folks, and especially people from SB that won't recoil in horror if I mention backplates and wings. The LDS (Water World, in Provo) will rent me extra tanks for $7.50 each.

If you're interested, please - PM me as soon as possible, thanks!

 

[rollerboi]

Didn't realize there was any interest in a followup report, so here goes..

First dive, they paired me up with another buddy team and the three of us went out, which I didn't like so much. I let them lead, being more experienced than I, and we surface swam out then dropped to about 50 ft while looking for the airplane. We swam around a bunch, not finding it. Towards the end of the dive, there was some miscommunication that resulted in them thinking I was dead, when in fact I was back at the shore after having hit 500 psi.

I owe them the equivalent of a beer and a heartfelt apology, they were cool about it (I misunderstood a sign meaning stay in the area and left).

Second dive was great, though, went out with a group of freshly certified OW students, lead by the manager of the shop, and hit the plane out there. We descended following a line towards the buoyancy course, which was a lot of fun to follow. Went through, over, and around various things, swam through some valleys, and eventually made our way to the Cessna whereupon we all had our picture taken at the nose.

Water was about 63 degrees, very comfortable for me in my gloves and hood. The visibility was quite good even with the number of divers and newly certified folks we had out there. If I had to guess, I'd say at least 15 foot visibility as far as seeing your dive buddy. It wasn't clear but it wasn't hard to make out each other. It was a good time, and I almost went back the following weekend with my wife, but her health took another turn for the worse.