Where did you solo dive today?

[Dive Bug Bit Me]

Managed to board a boat to the Orotava Wreck here in Cape Town. It was me and a bunch of AOW students. I rolled off the boat first and didn't see a soul until I surfaced again.

The wreck is small enough to circumnavigate in 20 mins, leaving 10 mins to penetrate the bow section (it got tight and gnarly fast so I backed out) and to drop through the hatch into the foremost hold. It's small in there but worth a 5 minute look around. Plenty of frill nudibranch to round off the dive.

 

[drrich2]

Thursday 6-13-13, Pennyroyal Blue Springs Resort in Hopkinsville, KY. I posted some info. about it in a prior post on the thread; it's a very popular site, especially for training, in this region. My purpose was 3-fold:

1.) Fun.
2.) Test out some new gear (30 cf Worthington Pony Bottle & Henderson 3x Thermoprene full wet suit; I already had the Henderson AquaLoc hood and Henderson 5-mm gloves, plus a pair of SeaSoft Sunrays (boots for warm water).
3.) Test my temperature tolerance in this exposure garb.

What I learned:

1.) At 6'1", nearly 275 # & wearing around 46 pants, that 3x Thermoprene is snug but doesn't seem overly constricting. I've read if your wet suit fits you'll think it's the wrong size. Only issue is getting that back zipper pulled up; miserably difficult. WHY can they not put these things on the front?!?!?

Anybody else my size, if you're looking at these, you might find the extra elasticity of the Hyperstretch suit worth the extra money.

2.) Pony bottle did fine. Used an old analogue SPG. Dive shop guy showed me a neat tiny SPG with no hose, though, and it would be one less hose & a lot less 'clunky.' Might spring for that.

3.) Dropped down to around 90 feet for a few minutes; per backup computer (Oceanic VT3) temp. got down to 44 degrees. The Atomic Cobalt gave a low of 49 degrees. Cobalts reading higher temp.s has been noted on the forum before, & Ron suspected this was due to the housing delaying cooling. Sure enough, in Mac Dive, looking at a temp. chart against dive time & depth, the Cobalt's temp.s took awhile to come down, showing lower temp.s over time as I'd ascended to shallower depths.

4.) I've used the VT3 before, but this was my first dive using the wireless transmitter. I see the appeal of AI wrist units. I also believe struggling with an Oceanic manual could drive someone to drink, and the user interface made me love my Cobalt all the more.

5.) My hands got mildly painfully cold but not too bad. My feet got cold but not badly so. Exposed face got cold but numbed up. Overall, I was reasonably comfortable throughout the dive and never shivered or wished I had a thicker wet suit. I'm more cold-tolerant than most; I don't need any wet suit down to 75 degrees.

Overall, on a 130 cf HP steel tank with air, Sherwood Avid 2x BCD, Atomic B2 reg., Sherwood SR1 reg. on the pony bottle, start pressure 2,869, end 866 (noted small air leak at the Air2), SAC 0.64 cfm, 47 minute dive, 91' max., average depth 51'. Never pushed close to NDL on the Cobalt, which I believe is probably more conservative than the VT3 so I used it to avoid approaching deco.

The one point of vulnerability I suspect my setup has for this type of diving concerns that fact I haven't had either reg. environmentally sealed. While I don't know at just what temp. range 1'rst stage freeze-ups become risky, there is the potential for both reg.s to freeze up, requiring a controlled emergency ascent to the surface.

Richard.

 

[tstormdiver]

The one point of vulnerability I suspect my setup has for this type of diving concerns that fact I haven't had either reg. environmentally sealed. While I don't know at just what temp. range 1'rst stage freeze-ups become risky, there is the potential for both reg.s to freeze up, requiring a controlled emergency ascent to the surface.

Richard.

Richard, while any reg *can* potentially freeze up, a sealed diaphragm type tends to be less inclinded to do so. I think both regulators you mentioned are piston types. Yes, they may be a bit more predisposed, but I have made many cold water dives on the MK25, I have only had one free flow once ( a fluke,... was doing a drill & accidentally tapped the mouthpiece, starting the freeflow). With the bailout you should only need to energize it to test it out before the dive, to analyze the contents & check the pressure before the dive, then shut it back down,.. that way it does not unintentionally freeflow & cause a catastrophic loss of emergency gas. To open a vlave, when needed, only takes seconds, if you are familiar with your configuration.

 

[drrich2]

Thanks, good to know. Yes, they're piston reg.s. The Atomic is not to be submersed unless pressurized, the cost of the longer service interval, from what I understand. The Sherwood SR1 manual warned me not to depress the purge button while submerged as water could enter the system.

I'm glad I turned the pony valve on while on land; the 2'nd stage knob was too far out, & the reg. immediately free-flowed. Had that unpleasant surprise added to the drama of a real OOA emergency at depth, it would have been unpleasant. Not a good reason to die or anything, but to quote the old Tropicana Twister commercial - "...more excitement than decent people need."

I'm thinking maybe the thing to do would be turn the valve on on land to pressurize the system, then turn it back off, so there's some pressure to prevent water intake during the dive.

Overall, I'm pleased with the new pony bottle. Diving slinging an old steel 85 was doable, but bulky.

Richard.

 

[tstormdiver]

Turning on the unit on land before the dive & then turning it off, is what I do. Prevents unintentional loss of your bailout gas. As for water going up the 2nd stage to the 1st stage when de- energized,.... that's highly unlikely, unless the purge is pressed & held. The seal of the knife edge orifice & the poppet should be sufficient to hold that,.. if it were not, then you would have a freeflow. I can sort of see how if submerged, that there may be a remote possibility ofr water getting into the 1st stage via the cylinder/ regulator interface, but if there is a decent O=ring to prevent air from escaping, then there should be enough seal to prevent water from going in. Simply put, if air can not escape, water can not enter.

 

[AfterDark]

Dive #2006 6-23-13 Kings Beach Newport, RI. Start 0855 end 1000 bottom time 54 min. total 1hour 5 min. max depth 42FSW avg depth 20FSW. Surface temp 60F bottom temp 56F visibility a hazy 10ft. Weight 20lbs, LP72 Id's.
My hope/plan was to take advantage of the early morning high tide and reported light winds to find some good vis for taking pictures. I planned a solo dive so it would be just me the camera and the dive. I’m a real hack at pictures and need a lot of practice. Early Sunday AM found one fisherman and one yaker, no divers as planned / hoped. The wind was more like the 15mph gusts reported not the 7mph sustained reported. Waves were 1-2 foot chop with whitecaps and an Easterly running current just before the slack. I used the scooter on the surface running south for about 300 yards; then clipped the scooter off to the dive flag float, took a bearing and submerged. There was no current on the 20’ bottom. I swam south with the waves tugging at my float and me. I didn’t find much going on, a few small fish, Char-keys we call them here; a small school of small very shy tautogs kept passing by but too fast for a picture. I turned around at the planned psi and headed north a strong westerly current moving me sideways. Hitting shallow water I surfaced and was not surprised to be west of the egress. The scooter got me the rest of the way to end the dive.

 

[shoredivr]

Most unusual wildlife encounter to date: I did a shallow dive in the Wingfield Basin, Cabot Head, Ontario, to see the wreck of the Gargantua, which is mostly sticking out of the water in about 10 ft of depth. A 15 minute walk in the heatwave we are having here, in full gear plus an aluminum 30 was kind of sweaty. Then into the murk for a look around. The water temp in the Wingfield Basin was a ridiculous 79F, quite a contrast to the 41F earlier in the day below the thermocline on the wreck of the Arabia.

Why I'm mentioning this at all is that for the first time ever, I dived with two Beavers. The giant swimming rodent kind. The ones on the Canadian 5 cent coin kind. I was poking around in 8 feet of murky viz and lots of weeds around the Gargantua, and was buzzed by a Beaver. They use their tails as a kind of rudder, and most propulsion comes from their legs. I know that Beavers can be aggressive, however I'm not sure who was the most surprised, them or me. I surfaced to find them squeaking at me, and circling around. They followed me back halfway across the basin.

Here's a link to the Wingfield Basin, and the wreck, which mentions the Beavers living on the wreck itself. Who knew?
Wingfield Basin Nature Reserve
History of Cabot Head Lighthouse - The Shipwrecks

On the drive out, a black bear loped, or maybe I could say pranced, across the deserted road. All yesterday needed was for me to see a moose at 75 ft depth to make this a carnival of Canadian stereotypes.

 

[Stoo]

Good thing you don't have a wooden leg!

 

[TMHeimer]

Popes Harbour, Nova Scotia. 16 Deep Sea Scallops & one 17" flounder (flatfish, whatever). Nice meal coming up.

 

[shoredivr]

Yum!!!