pdoege
Contributor
Hey guys -
I did 4 dives in West Palm over the weekend. Beautiful weather, the water was about 78 degrees or so with a big thermocline at around 50 feet. It was chilly under the thermocline. I was diving dry, so I didn't notice it all that much.
Really nice.
A bunch of us went out on Abernathy's Infatuation Saturday night. Really nice boat. The first dive went really well.
We released an injured turtle back into the wild on the way out. That was really neat. I had not been that close to one before. They are great creatures. It had been struck by a boat propeller and had been recovering in a tank for about a year. We put it on the rear platorm and it quickly swam away. Wonderful!
I was using a Canon S40 to take pictures. I was lighting using a Halcyon HID with a Goodman handle. This was my first time with this configuration and it took me a couple of dives to work out the kinks.
The first dive was conned by Anna. She is great and is a wonderful dive con. We dove the trench off of breakers. Lots of turtles sleeping under the reef. Anna was jumped by an octopus! Typical nifty fishes. A great dive.
The second dive was a difficult one for me. Jim was the dive con and Anna was driving the boat. I neglected to set the Nitrox % on my Archimedes and didn't realize it until I hit the water. I stayed on the surface and waited for Anna to pick me up. The Archimedes has a long timeout for gas changes. So I left the computer on the boat and Anna re-dropped me.
Of course, I left my watch and depth gauge on the boat too! Doh! Well, too late now. I stayed shallow and watched the others play. Saw turtles, a really cool squid that was out hunting. Jim tweaked it from behind while I lit it from above. That was one surprised squid! It shot some ink and zoomed off.
Jim was running his night camera setup. He has a big (Pro6 sized) NiMH pack that powers the camera lights for about 5 minutes. It lights up the ocean like daylight! Holy cow! Made my HID look like a toy. His primary died, so he would navigate using someone elses light, light up and run the camera and then shut down the camera lights.
He has amazing bouyancy control and can really swim that rig around. Really impressive.
Anyway, because of the lack of timer and gauge, I ascended with the first guy to come up and I safety stopped until the last diver surfaced.
I managed to screw up my bouyancy in the last 5 feet or so of my ascent. At that depth, the remaining air in my drysuit expands really quickly and I sort of pop up to the surface. I've been working on it for a while and still had not figured it out by this dive.
I ran the tables using the max dive time of the group and the max depth. No big deal.
We did two more dives in the morning off of the Deep Obsession.
The first dive was a wreck dive. Dive conned by Sandy, IIRC. The site was Governor's River Walk Reef. It is a whole bunch of old drug couriers that were sunk a while back to make artificial reefs.
I did a negative entry and managed to catch a glimpse of the resident goliath grouper. Huge fish! He moved off of the wreck like a blimp fading into the fog. Really cool.
The group encountered a turtle sleeping under the wreck. The turtle was sort of surrounded when she woke up and did a spectacular corkscrew has he left the area. Her path took her right by me! Really cool. I got some great photos and I'll put them in the photo section.
The dive con turned the dive at 25 minutes. I spent a lot of time ascending. Worked on my horiz. position and trim and tried to do a really good ascent. All worked well until I was within about 5 foot of the surface. Pop! Right on up. Phooey.
The second dive was a drift dive. I didn't catch the site name. Anyway, about 5 minutes into the dive a 6 foot nurse shark swam under the fins of the photographer in front of me. I was too far out to get a shot. The poor guy didn't even see it! That is always the way it is
I was hanging out in back of the pack just chillin and framing shots. I crested the reef and the entire group was clustered around a ledge.
There was a bit opening that no one was in. I snuck down into the hole to see what the fuss was about.
They had found a big (7-8ft) nurse shark sleeping! The shark apparently awoke about the time that I arrived. It was really agitated by all of the divers and its escape routes were all blocked.
I didn't know this. I just pointed the HID down that hole to see what was up and BAM! This huge, fast shark goes blowing by me! His tail was silting the water from all of the power! I made myself small as the shark came within about a foot of me! My heart was going BOOM-BOOM! What a blast!
The girl behind me, Marta, says that the shark nipped at my fins on the way out! So Cool!
I turned around and framed the shot. The shark was way out of there by the time I was set up. It doesn't look like much, but I'll put the picture in the picture section.
The dive conn turned us at about 27 minutes. I really nailed the ascent. Nice trim, good speed. I got to within about 5 foot of the surface and TA-DA! I anticipated the expansion perfectly and smoothly came up! Great! First time in all of my drysuit dives!
I was so pumped. I spent the ride back on the deck, soaking in the sun and relaxing. What a great weekend!
Thanks for reading,
Peter Doege
edit: Turtle pics are at http://www.scubaboard.com/t23891/s.html
I did 4 dives in West Palm over the weekend. Beautiful weather, the water was about 78 degrees or so with a big thermocline at around 50 feet. It was chilly under the thermocline. I was diving dry, so I didn't notice it all that much.
Really nice.
A bunch of us went out on Abernathy's Infatuation Saturday night. Really nice boat. The first dive went really well.
We released an injured turtle back into the wild on the way out. That was really neat. I had not been that close to one before. They are great creatures. It had been struck by a boat propeller and had been recovering in a tank for about a year. We put it on the rear platorm and it quickly swam away. Wonderful!
I was using a Canon S40 to take pictures. I was lighting using a Halcyon HID with a Goodman handle. This was my first time with this configuration and it took me a couple of dives to work out the kinks.
The first dive was conned by Anna. She is great and is a wonderful dive con. We dove the trench off of breakers. Lots of turtles sleeping under the reef. Anna was jumped by an octopus! Typical nifty fishes. A great dive.
The second dive was a difficult one for me. Jim was the dive con and Anna was driving the boat. I neglected to set the Nitrox % on my Archimedes and didn't realize it until I hit the water. I stayed on the surface and waited for Anna to pick me up. The Archimedes has a long timeout for gas changes. So I left the computer on the boat and Anna re-dropped me.
Of course, I left my watch and depth gauge on the boat too! Doh! Well, too late now. I stayed shallow and watched the others play. Saw turtles, a really cool squid that was out hunting. Jim tweaked it from behind while I lit it from above. That was one surprised squid! It shot some ink and zoomed off.
Jim was running his night camera setup. He has a big (Pro6 sized) NiMH pack that powers the camera lights for about 5 minutes. It lights up the ocean like daylight! Holy cow! Made my HID look like a toy. His primary died, so he would navigate using someone elses light, light up and run the camera and then shut down the camera lights.
He has amazing bouyancy control and can really swim that rig around. Really impressive.
Anyway, because of the lack of timer and gauge, I ascended with the first guy to come up and I safety stopped until the last diver surfaced.
I managed to screw up my bouyancy in the last 5 feet or so of my ascent. At that depth, the remaining air in my drysuit expands really quickly and I sort of pop up to the surface. I've been working on it for a while and still had not figured it out by this dive.
I ran the tables using the max dive time of the group and the max depth. No big deal.
We did two more dives in the morning off of the Deep Obsession.
The first dive was a wreck dive. Dive conned by Sandy, IIRC. The site was Governor's River Walk Reef. It is a whole bunch of old drug couriers that were sunk a while back to make artificial reefs.
I did a negative entry and managed to catch a glimpse of the resident goliath grouper. Huge fish! He moved off of the wreck like a blimp fading into the fog. Really cool.
The group encountered a turtle sleeping under the wreck. The turtle was sort of surrounded when she woke up and did a spectacular corkscrew has he left the area. Her path took her right by me! Really cool. I got some great photos and I'll put them in the photo section.
The dive con turned the dive at 25 minutes. I spent a lot of time ascending. Worked on my horiz. position and trim and tried to do a really good ascent. All worked well until I was within about 5 foot of the surface. Pop! Right on up. Phooey.
The second dive was a drift dive. I didn't catch the site name. Anyway, about 5 minutes into the dive a 6 foot nurse shark swam under the fins of the photographer in front of me. I was too far out to get a shot. The poor guy didn't even see it! That is always the way it is
I was hanging out in back of the pack just chillin and framing shots. I crested the reef and the entire group was clustered around a ledge.
There was a bit opening that no one was in. I snuck down into the hole to see what the fuss was about.
They had found a big (7-8ft) nurse shark sleeping! The shark apparently awoke about the time that I arrived. It was really agitated by all of the divers and its escape routes were all blocked.
I didn't know this. I just pointed the HID down that hole to see what was up and BAM! This huge, fast shark goes blowing by me! His tail was silting the water from all of the power! I made myself small as the shark came within about a foot of me! My heart was going BOOM-BOOM! What a blast!
The girl behind me, Marta, says that the shark nipped at my fins on the way out! So Cool!
I turned around and framed the shot. The shark was way out of there by the time I was set up. It doesn't look like much, but I'll put the picture in the picture section.
The dive conn turned us at about 27 minutes. I really nailed the ascent. Nice trim, good speed. I got to within about 5 foot of the surface and TA-DA! I anticipated the expansion perfectly and smoothly came up! Great! First time in all of my drysuit dives!
I was so pumped. I spent the ride back on the deck, soaking in the sun and relaxing. What a great weekend!
Thanks for reading,
Peter Doege
edit: Turtle pics are at http://www.scubaboard.com/t23891/s.html
