Three for One.....

No audio visuals for this update....

Wednesday I headed down to South Beach for some night diving w/ RJ Diving
Dives were on the Proteus and The Patricia.

Saturday the gang got together for a tech dive on The Clinton. Brian and Matt splashed first, followed by Scott and Eric (who ended up doing a sand dive), and Vince and I were team #3. There was a nice current (Brian estimates 1 knot - did you know a knot is 1.6'/sec? I did knot.. ;)

Captain Oliver on the Avid Diver dropped a hook and float ball on the wreck and had us dive bomb the wreck. I'm not terriably negative in my AL80's so swimming down 160' of water takes a little time. We hit the far side of the wreck, if we were a minute later, I imagine we would have beenout of sight of the wreck (60 seconds * 1.6 = 100' away!) Viz wasn't spectacular.... The wreck is nice, with lots of interesting machinery on the deck, some massive cranes, and monofiliment strewned about. A few passageways scattered about the ship made for some limited penetration opportunities. This was my first dive carrying two stages, so I didn't want to push my luck getting into any tight spaces... One goliath grouper inhabited the wreck and quickly hid out of view when approached. Vince and I planned on 30 minutes on the wreck and a runtime of ~67 minutes using 50% and O2 for deco.

We left the wreck on time and I shot the bag to let Captain Oliver track us from the surface as we drifted. I felt the bag hit the surface and we settled in for a nice slow ascent to our first deco stop. Then wham! Next thing I realize we've been pulled up 20-30' in the span of a few seconds as my computer is flashing a big hand indicating "slow yer ass down", thinking my bouyancy is out I start dumping air to re-stabalize. We're off the wreck and in a sea of blue - nothing but our guages to tell us if we're going up or down. I feel my reel taught and loosen up the screw and the reel continues spinning letting off line - I'm wondering WTF....! Realizing we're going to be out of line soon - I reach for my knife and cut the line.

I look over to Vince and give him the signal to blow his bag.... He shoots it to the surface and we settle in for deco on contingency tables as if we were on the wreck for 40 minutes. My VR3's deco schedule came within a minute of his schedule, and we surfaced after a total runtime of 90 minutes in the water.

We get on the boat and find Eric and Scott out of their drysuits and Brian tells us how he and Matt were deco'ing out and they run across a line at a low angle cutting through the water wodnering if there is a diver attached to the other end... Captain Oliver had picked up my bag which was floating at the surface with ~300' of line spooled out.

Sunday I spent the day on the Lady Go Diver with the typical Pompano rereational fare. The morning treated us to a leisurely dive on the Sea Emporer followed by a kick butt tag team lobster hunt w/ Heather, another regular on the boat; together we managed to snare 8 bugs.

In the afternoon we hit the Rodeo 25 and another reef. For all our good fortune in the morning - we came up blank in the afternoon. Oh well, we each left with enough for two meals each.