Adventures

Two more vids....

2008-09-05T23:13:00.000-04:00

The wreck of the Rebel & the M/V Tracy from Tim Owens on Vimeo.

Reef dive in S. Florida; Sunkist w/ SHFHQ...... from Tim Owens on Vimeo.

Wreck of the Doc De Millie All Day 4th of July Trip

2008-07-22T08:42:00.001-04:00

The Doc de Mille from Tim Owens on Vimeo.

Bonaire 2008

2008-05-19T08:45:00.002-04:00

The long dry spell....

2008-05-09T16:36:00.004-04:00

Shortly before my last posting.., I had received positive confirmation of a PFO... Here's an article about them....

Let's rewind... I've been bent... Despite doing everything right, and having no failures, I have a history of DCS... Specifically type II decompression sickness, which indicates neurological imparement. Over the past 5 years I had three major episodes all manifesting with identical symptoms and diagnosis, cerebreal arterial gas embolism, or C-AGE. This manifested in me like a stroke, with initially predominately left side paralysis, and progressing in two instances full paralysis. In all occasions symptoms rapidly diminished once on Oxygen, and in two of the incidents I eventually took a ride in a decompression chamber with full recovery and return to diving.

So.., on Valentine's Day, 2008 (talk about irony), I had the PFO closed. I checked into the hospital early in the morning, by noon I was in a room recovering. Around 5pm I was up walking around and hungry as heck. The next morning I was discharged, and resting at a local motel in Lakeland. I drove back to Ft. Lauderdale the next day and was back to my normal cardio routine the next day.

Over the next 2.5 months, no diving for me, to allow the implant to embed itself into the heart walls and seal off the holes...

Visited the doc on 4/21 for a follow TTE w/ bubble study and I received the ok to return to diving.... that weekend, my normal dive buddy, Brian, and a few other folks from Scubaboard headed south to the Keys for a healthy dose of wrecks... We had a blast returning to the Bibb, Duane, Speigel Grove, and the Eagle...

Photos courtesy of Kelly and Scott McDuff from Reef Photo...

A brave new world.... one step at a time...

2008-01-29T10:36:00.000-05:00

You know, I'm from Cincinnati... and just like Mark Twain is thought to have said "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times."

When I did my initial OW training I thought rebreathers were immediately in my future, eyeing the Draeger Dolphin or Azimuth and seeing the possibilities of unlimited (well, within reason) dive times, once I found SCR's had a practical depth limitation they fell to the back of my mind. When I got into tech diving, one of my instructors instilled a bit of fear uncertainty and doubt relating to the electronic aspect of this new generation of CCR diving and I began thinking about some of the manual options from Jetsam. Technology drifted to the back burner and I was content with open circuit and it suited my diving well.

A little over a year ago two of my buddies made the move to rebreathers. In addition, over the past year or two, a number of the more respected and seasoned divers in our circles have also made the move. They selected what seems to be the unit of choice amongst the tech diving crowd the Megalodon from InnerSpace Systems Corp. The unit screams modularity and ruggedness and provides for a slew of mounting, tank and scrubber options. In keeping with my tech training mindset, the unit does not include integrated deco. (And APECS 3.0 is still in the works for the forseeable future).

So, for the last year, I've been diving with my rebreather buddies and the experience taught me alot about rebreathers, the meg, and helped to demistify some of that FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). I do ALOT of diving and due to some medical issues (PFO), my diving has been tilting more conservative in nature slinging deco gases on NDL profiles. Throughout this time, ISC also released a manual version of their unit, the COPIS, the gas addition mechanics like a KISS but the derlin and aluminum construction of the normal meg unit. I ran into a respected Meg instructor on a local tech dive on the Hydro Atlantic and chatted a bit. I had thought, like the KISS (or so their literature originally claimed), the COPIS might not be suitable for wreck/cave penetration, one of my increasingly favorite pastimes. Apparently I was mistaken..., with a small addition - the HUD for redundant display, the COPIS IS suitable for what I was looking at...

Don't let anyone try and justify the purchase of a rebreather based on straight economics. Unless your diving deep wrecks and caves on a weekly basis and have helium payments to AIRGAS via Direct Deposit from every paycheck it likely won't be THE issue. So, I took inventory of my ever expanding dive locker and started running the finances. I had 4 sets of cave doubles, a set of AL80's, 4 single steels, 3 AL80's and 3 AL40's. For me, the decision was based on the following factors; options for introducing conservatism into the dive, weight, and logistics. I live in a 2nd floor apartment, and make multiple trips to my local dive shop (Easily the best fill station in North America; Fill Express) and it just wore me down hauling so much steel back and forth, up and down, just to prep for a weekend of diving.

I sold almost all the steels which got me near the half way mark on a stripped COPIS. I had regs, wings, backplate. The AL tanks would find new life as bailout bottles. My truck was paid off and over a few months I could see the nest egg necessary for this to come together. At this point, my buddy throws me a curveball... He picks up a VR3 on eBay and finds the seller is looking to part off his entire dive locker... haskels, compressors, and a heavily used meg. Over a week or so of discussions about the pros and cons, the opportunity to get into rebreathers at a savings swayed me from my COPIS mindset to full blown APECS.

I picked up the unit early december and lined up training w/ the same instructor who trained my buddies, Jill Heinerth. Living in Florida, there are a number of instructor options. At the level I am looking to progress, I wanted to draw upon a vast pool of experience relevant to my diving aspirations. Jill's reputation and experience in the overhead put her at the top of my list. I sent off a few emails, received rapid responses and lined up training dates at the annual NACD seminar, which had the added benefit of the first CCR summit and tons of rebreather discussions in and around High Springs. I also ran into a few others characters from previous trips and we caught up about their rebreather experiences. Having a vast network of buddies who also made the switch was reassuring.

I spent the month cleaning regulators, tweaking, tuning, rebuilding, fitting hose lenths to my liking... By the time class arrived, my private learning experience turned into a 4 student fiesta... Definately helped by exposing me to some other divers and their experiences, practices and learning from their failure scenerios!

Day one we started at Jill's for some quick paperwork and lecture overview. Jill kept the laptop, so we didn't get to experience 'Death By PowerPoint', and let the slides guide her lecture and discussion, taking quite a few tangents as questions came up. In the afternoon we took off to the garage/workshop for unit overview and 'head' discussions/dissection... It was at this point I found my #2 sensor offline (Installed 2/07). A quick check of the wiring and pulling the cell onto a meter, reading 1.5mV, we declared it dead-dead... Fortunately I had two spares on hand and swapped it in. Another students brand new head decided to cut out, Jill pulled out the meter and verified power was flowing and decided to call ISC, who rapidly preped a new head for overnight shipment and Jill loaned her rig to the student for the next days dives. We finished off the afternoon getting accustomed with the pre-dive checksheet, which we would soon learn to love....

Day two we completed the check sheet and performed calibration. We then went inside for a quick skills DVD as we discovered the intricies of how non-compliant mammals manipulate an artificial environment, and all sorts of other adjectives pulled from military manuals... :) Returned to the garage and headed over to Ginnie Springs for a day of fun in the spring run. This was our first water time with the unit as we swam back and forth between Little Devil's and the Eye. We tuned weight, did agressive swims, loop flush, DSV Recover, swim flying manual, simulated deco in the eye, boom drill, and then finished the day with the flood drill. Feeling good, we headed back to the garage and performed the daily post-dive teardown and disinfect under the guidance of the checksheet.

Day three started as normal, I had to replace a battery and we prepped the units. We headed to Blue Grotto for some real diving, and it all went to hell as a number of OW classes were in full swing. We got into buddy teams, Mike and Rob paired up, and Lesley are I dove together. The plan was simple. Head to the platform, get stable and make a circuit through the cavern following Jill. I tell you, my trim was horrible, I was vertical most of the time and swimming very heavy trying to manipulate the drysuit, wing and loop. To make matters even worse, my ADV was a little dodgy and felt like it wasn't firing 'on demand' and sometimes I had to manually trigger... whoops - more volume, up I go, bounce up and down. We're following Jill down into the darkness, turn circle at the bottom and head up. I'm in the rear and we get to a plateau, I catch up to the light beam in front of me and realize I've been following Mike... Where's my buddy? I glace left, right, up, back, forward, no sign of Lesley. I look off into the distance thinking a 21W HID has to be visible - nada. I signal Jill, indicating question - buddy... She glances around and signals to call the dive. A minute or so later Lesley swims in from the side and rejoins the group and we proceed to receive an OW 101 tounge lashing on buddy and team awareness. The game has changed and some of the items we used in OC are no longer applicable, like listening for bubbles. We run the same curcuit with different folks leading the path down and around, slowly and surely getting better with each iteration, Jill changes up the dives by having us perform different tasks, changing setpoints, switching to bailout, and performing a bailout ascent. We then went back down for some drills and proceeded with a bailout rodeo as Jill had us unclip our bailout and drop it on the platform, and cycling through everyone elses bottles in turn, finally reattaching our own. We wrapped up and had a solem drive back to the garage for post-dive as a few of us felt like selling our rigs....

Day four we made the hour drive south to Hal Watt's famous 40 Fathom Grotto. Jill had us each prep a dive plan for 120' for 30 minutes at a setpoint of 1.2 & an OC plan for our bailout. Given my previous DCS history, my plan ended up being the most conservative, v-planner +4, and I got the honor of leading the first dive. We headed down to the initial platforms, got stabilized and then decended into the abyss arriving at the bottom a few cars, boats and satellite dish came into view. We poked around for a few minutes, and then proceeded along the wall of the grotto. Almost on cue at 30 minutes, we arrived back where we started and begain our ascent. During the course of the dive, the buttons on my VR3 jammed up, and it was set to 1.0, fortunately since we planned on tables, I also had a simple bottom timer. As luck would have it, even at the lower setpoint of 1.0 the VR3 cleared just as we were ascending.

We did a fairly good job sticking together, our initial ascent to 50' was WAY slow and our run time drifted by 3 minutes, not bad in the grand scheme of things. However during most of the ascent and anytime under stress I found myself going head up our of trim. I'm likely still a tad bit heavy, and need to relocate some weight higher on the rig. Afterwards we broke for a bite to eat and went back for a skills dive. Jill pulled out the drill cards, and we were faced w/ "Eyes Blurry", "Set 0.7 fly 1.2 manual", "Solenoid stuck open", "Out of Dil - take any action necessary". Once Jill was satisfied with our responses we ascended for the debrief and long ride back to the garage....

Day five we headed back to 40 Fathom Grotto and did a repeat of the deco dive, this time Lesley led and we were maintaining setpoint manually the entire dive. The team did better sticking together, and I made a concerted effort to focus on my trim, keeping my head down and holding stops in a horizontal position - much improvement over the day at Blue Grotto. After decoing out we proceeded to the shallow platform and one by one Jill had us take off our masks and swim the line to the motorcycle, we all passed this final drill with flying colors and ascended. When then reviewed the exam, and finished up the final paperwork as newly minted Megalodon divers...

A hearty thanks to the team; Lesley, Mike and Rob and our instructor Jill.
A new world awaits...

New Years Bahamas Liveaboard

2008-01-07T15:52:00.000-05:00

NC Trip July 5-9

2007-07-10T08:15:00.000-04:00

Here's the rough cuts of the NC Videos....

The Fantastico

2007-05-22T08:45:00.000-04:00

Brian setup the trip WAY back at the end of January and I jumped at the chance to do some obscure wrecks, much less make my first foray out into the Gulf. We dove off the Nauti Gal which is operated by Headhunter Charters out of Ft. Meyers Beach; they are currently docked at Rick's Marina, the home port of the Ultimate Getaway. Along w/ Brian and myself, one of Brian's buddies Christos, E-Diver Terrence, James (Big Ass Money), Capt. Oliver and his GF Linda joined the trip.

Greg was the Captain for the day and treated us to an awesome day in the sun. The boat has a wide beam and gear is stowed at deck level on each side. A ice chest made for a decent gearing up station before giant-striding over the stern or for the more Cousteau inclined back roll off the side. We were looking at a full 12 hour day, 3 hours travel time ~53 miles offshore, 6 hours on site, and 3 hours back. The boat has two bunks in the main cabin and 4 v-berths up in the bow one of which I grabbed for most of the travel time.

A week prior to the trip, we started a weather watch as the winds were temperamental and the forecast was floating between 2-6', heading 50+ miles offshore, no one was pleasantly looking forward to a 3 hour elevator ride. The weather accommodated us and early Friday morning the call was made the trip was a officially a 'GO'. I drove out Friday night and grabbed a room at the La Quinta which was surprisingly affordable, Brian and Christos drove out early Sunday morning and kept us all waiting 30 minutes as he demanded a decent breakfast at the Waffle House and got lost in the process… Boat was quickly loaded and we headed out for the uneventful 3 hour run in 1-2' seas for most of the trip, which turned into 2-3' rollers as we approached the site. We planned for two 50 min BT dives with my runtime approaching 70mins, with a 2.5 hour SI between dives.

The Fantastico is a 200' Honduran freighter that was lost in the 'No Name Storm' of 1993. Out of a crew of 10, three were rescued, three bodies recovered, and four never found. The wreck sits in ~115' to the sand, and the top of the stern is about 85'. ADM has a nice three page spread in their archives, though everything fore of the main wheelhouse has flattened out with some structure at the bow still in place. The wreck is covered in arrow crabs and we were greeting by a few hundred amberjacks schooling amidships. The wheelhouse made for some twisting and turning penetration runs and a few small goliath groupers now called the wreck home. The shadows of a few larger goliaths were just beyond the limited visibility, which we estimated at 30'.

Easter Weekend

2007-04-10T08:44:00.000-04:00

Saturday Afternoon w/ Parrot Island aboard Fathoms O' Fun

The forecast was calling for 2-4' and we were treated w/ 2' or less for the day...

Wreck Dive: The Jim Atria, ~135 fsw
For some reason I mixed up the depth on this wreck w/ the Guy Harvey and thought I was in for 145'. I had FX mix me up a cocktail using equal parts of 21/35 trimix and 36 nitrox to end up with 28/22. It was all good, I had a crystal clear head for the entire dive. I buddied up w/ another e-diver Bob and we planned on 20-25 minutes on the wreck and I slung a bottle of 50% for a little marginal deco and general cleanup. We splashed down, got organzied and headed in. As the video shows, almost as soon as I went in the wreck I bumped my light and it went off. If made for a few good seconds of video with all the shadows and ambient light... A short minute or two later I restruck it and was good to go, poked my head around a few corners and went back to check on Bob. We then headed back in and Bob did a tour of the engine room.

Reef Dive: Sunkist, ~50-70 fsw
I buddied up again w/ Bob and Matt, another e-Diver for a leisurely reef dive. Lobster season is over, just pretty fishies. We did spot a turtle during the dive and a school of spadefish on ascent.

Post Dive Festivities, hung out w/ e-Divers Bob and Kim McKinney, Brian (Deepstops - who is out for 4 week due to teeth issues), Matt and his GF. Chowed down on wings and jello shots while Jerry's nameless band treated their massive family of friends to a dockside show. I was playing name that tune and the band kicked off riffs and cords between songs. I got antsy as I swore I heard the intro to Rush's Tom Sawyer more than once. But there was no-joy for this diehard fan.... I hear the party went on til 2am, but alas, I had a full day of diving ahead of me I departed around 10.

A few suggentions came up for possible band names: Hottie and the Blowmen & The Regulators

Sunday 3-Tanker w/ Lady Go Diver
An early start today, the yearly three tank dive trip to Tenneco capping off Wreck Week w/ Dixie-Divers... conditions topside were pristine for the long haul. LGD is moored up in Deerfield Beach. So, we headed south on the Intercoastal for 30 minutes, popped out of Hillsboro inlet and the cruised another hour plus south past Port Everglades. I noticed a familiar face, OneBrightGator, another regular on TheDecoStop and introduced myself.

Wreck Dive: Tenneco Towers, ~110 fsw
Huge oil drilling platform donated by the Tenneco Oil company. There are five in total. Three sections dropped in recreational depths, and another two sitting in technical depths. This was the deeper of the rec dives sitting in 100+ fsw. I used 32% w/ the leftover 50% from yesterday.

Wreck Dive: Jay Scutti and Tracy, ~70fsw
The original plan was to dive the Tracy. One of my favorite shallow wrecks due to its nive cavernous penetration opportunity. But alas, Oliver (Captain of the Avid Diver) was dropping folks there. So we opted for the Jay Scutti which lies about 400' south. The Scutti is a ocean tug which I didn't know much about. I strapped on my compass and followed the path of cinder bocks up to the Tracy. The current was quite heavy and going against us. I headed north and about 100' I was ready to give up. Next thing I know, this guy (we'll call him "Steve".... more below) who I was chatting w/ on the boat comes screaming by me is his set of doubles, doing the breaststroke underwater like an olympic swimmer. "Oh it's on".... there is no way I'm going to give up on this. I double my efforts, my normal frog kick isn't cutting it. I revert to a flutter and kick in full swing. I make it another 200' or so, and I can feel the CO2 accumulating, I drop down and grab a cinder block and catch my breath a bit and then kick in for the rest of the trip. Looks like I left the camera on for the entire time - I have great footage on the sand and seagrass. By the time I reach the Tracy, my batteries are dead. I do my dive, running around the wreck 3-4 times, and before I leave, I stick aft and look for signs of "Steve's" bubbles. Not seeing any, I drift off and let the current carry me south following the cinder blocks. I do another dive on the Scutti and surface. When I hit the top, Capt. Nick is standing watch asking "Is there anyone below you", "Nope". He heads up, and I think is chatting w/ Oliver making arrangments to pick up a diver. Mix was 33%

Here's the story I got from others on the boat.....
It appears in the haste of his swimming, "Steve" forgot about, or didn't notice the Cinder Blocks, so he drifted and missed the Scutti on the return trip. He surfaced a bit down current and popped a massive SMB. It seems this is when he got the urge to use the restroom... we're talking #2 here... Thinking he's going to be floating for a while, he peels out of his doubles, and pulls his shorty off a bit and well "drops the kids off at the pool".... Next thing you know - here comes a boat circling right after he's "takin the browns to the super-bowl"... and he's squirming to kick the "refuse" away and simulateously give a big "OK" signal to Oliver as what seems like the ENTIRE staff of Fill Express aboard the Avid Diver looking on trying to offer assistance to the floating diver.....

Wreck Dive: Peter B. McAllister, ~70 fsw
Didn't know much about this wreck, other that it's an Ocean going tugboat. Great, 14 divers on a tugboat, this is going to get crowded. Luckily, there is a VERY nice penetration run trough the engine room marked w/ heavy rope, easily 40' straight thru. There is also a nice curcuit around the engine block, this would be tight w/ doubles, but on a single tank I was able to shimmy around the pipes easily enough. I made 3-4 trips through here and I believe a few others did as well, it got a little grainy, nothing too bad. Ended up w/ 45 minutes in stiff current and headed to the surface. Mix was 36%.

Hit the dock around 4pm and had dinner w/ OBG and two of his friends at "The Whale's Rib" a little fish place and raw bar just next to the Flannigan's in the tourist district of Deerfield Beach.

Headed home and crashed..., Wiped out I hit the bed around 7pm and slept intil 8am.

Dry Tortugas - The Ultimate Getaway

2006-11-29T14:45:00.000-05:00

Spent thanksgiving w/ a group of folks from Scubaboad and ZenDiving on a live-aboard charter to the Dry Tortugas. The operation is first rate, and my no-carb diet lasted all of a day as they keep you well fed. The weather was less than optimal with high winds and the winter water temps coming in arond 75 degrees. The sun poked out a few times, but it was mostly overcast and very chilly. The cold air just sucks your strength. I'll definately go back, but aiming for sometime in August, when the sun is still shining and lobster season in full swing. I managed to bag 8 bugs on three dives, not awesome, but not shabby as I had the largest take of bugs for the trip.

Pics posted here

Somehow I managed to be right on time, but the last to arrive, and therefore, received the absolute worst bunk on the entire boat. The upper bunk at the tip of the v-berth. I had all of 18" to squirm in and out of the bunk. The seas didn't bother me much, and I bought my bose noise cacelling headphones, so I slept relitevely peacefull.

Cave Weekend 11/11

2006-11-14T06:32:00.000-05:00

Its been a bit of a diving drought...., last weekend was blown out by strong East winds gushing at 20-25 knots that kept the boats out of the water until Tuesday afternoon. The gang (Lesley, Raphael, Erin and Chris), met up for another leisurely weekend of cave diving.

I picked up my new (to me) suit after having the rings and a few inches of fabric cut off and replaced w/ wrist seals. The arm length fit was spectcular, first dry dive I've had in a long while.

Chris had finished eidting the video of the dive shot during our previous trip. Its looks awesome on a laptop (It was shot in HD), I took it down a notch before posting to Google..., It's a little green and hazy at the beginning due to backscatter and the basin. Once we get into the tunnel and Chris has a chance to adjust the lights, its crystal clear. Enjoy....

Three for One.....

2006-10-23T16:35:00.000-04:00

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.

Cave Weekend

2006-10-20T10:06:00.000-04:00

So, after the North Carolina trip, I drove 5 hours west to Winston-Salem as I began to re-realize the "seasons" we just don't experience down in South Florida. Fortunately I have a virtual office job, so I camped out at a client office with some friends for the week, burned up a few Marriott points, and enjoyed some southern hospitality. This sidestep also helped break up the tedious 13 hour drive back home, as I was meeting up w/ Lesley, Chris and Erin for some cave diving on the return trip.

We rented one of the mobile homes Cave Excursions has available, well hidden off the beaten path just north of Lauraville. Compared to previous trips - this was care-free no stress diving. I mean - we were downright lazy, we managed to squeeze in two dives a day...

Saturday we dove at Madison Blue. Since the summer is officially over, there were no swimmers, occasionally another dive team would show up, or a family doing some sight-seeing - nothing compared to labor day...!

Erin is cavern certified, so Lesley and Chris alternated buddying up for cavern dives

Lesley and I teamed up first and followed the main line out past the half-hitch restriction (864'), I don't recall exaclty how far we got, but I want to say 12-1300' and 40 minutes, definately before the Mount Offshoot @ 1347'. On the return trip through the cavern zone Lesley decided to slow down and take a scenic tour and check things out. Unfortuately for me, I had a few cups of coffe w/ breakfast and a liter of soda on the drive out, so nature had been calling since shortly after we turned - I've been lazy and don't have a p-valve in my drysuit, nor do I go the diaper route. I gave her the signal for 'I gotta pee!' and we high-tailed it out. With these larger tanks, we've been seeing 70-80' dive times easily - this was a scene repeated often during the weekend.

For the next dive, Chris and I headed down the main line and turned just past the half-hitch restriction, probably ~900'. I had two sets of doubles for the trip, however Chris was using the same set he did the cavern dive w/, so thats why it was somewhat shorter...

Lesley and I made the drive back to CE for fills while Erin and Chris went on an expedition to locate a birthday cake for Lesley. We had intentions to do a night dive, Cow or Telford, but after a big dinner at Two Sisters BBQ and cake, we settled in for watching "The Cave" on my laptop - I made it about 20 minutes then crashed.

We woke around 8am, and SLOWLY got moving. I think we made it to Peacock around 10am for our first dives. The brown muck from our previous trip was gone as Chris and I explored the mainline in an attempt to get to Olsen sink, we were a few hundred feet short as we called thirds.

Headed back to CE for fills, and this time we talked Chris into shooting HD video..., the plan was to head down the pothole line, make a jump off to the Nicholson tunnel, then jump onto the line heading to Cisteen sink. Chris had the camera, so I got to model and do all the work - nice huh? We managed to get back in there, and despite having plenty of gas - we got to that point in the back of your head where you start saying "man - we are WAY back in here"... I don't believe we got to the wishbone, so we were a few hundred feet from Cisteen before we turned.

Hopefully the video comes out nice... I'll post a link here when available...

North Carolina - October 2006

2006-10-20T08:50:00.000-04:00

Made the long drive from South Florida to North Carolina. I started the drive on the 5th. The plan was for three days of diving from October 6,7,8. Each day we faced the uncertainty of a rough ride, but it was relatively painless once we arrived on site.

Friday - Dive 1 - the Schurz
We tied up to the site, and the current was challenging. The sun was out and conditions above water were perfect. Below, the currents were pretty strong, the crew estimated 2 knots. The safety rigging under the boat was due for a good workout. The wreck is more debris field than shipwreck, the reel is a must-use for this dive.

Friday - Dive 2 - The U-352

Check out this page for its history... I'll let the video speak for the dives...

Saturday - Dive 1 - The Indra
Weather conditions called for 3-5' seas, and the crowd was expecting the worst from the weather. Unfortunately enough, the calls for "sunny and warm" fell on deaf ears for the first half of the day as overcast clouds and a cool breeze fell upon the area... The Indra is an artificial reef that has been down for a number of years, as represented by the amount of coral growth. The main deck is non-remarkable, as the gems of this wreck lie in the decks below. Large cut-outs have been prepared for divers to easily penetrate swim-throughs through most of the wreck.

Saturday - Dive 2 - The W.E. Hutton (possibly the Ario?) The weather gods must have heard the calling as the sun decided to peak out and make its presence known. The wind was still blowing, but the 3-5' seas never materialized in-shore as anticipated as we experienced calm 1-2' conditions for the day...

We loaded up the boat Sunday morning and made our way to the fill station at Olympus to pick up tanks. The captain then made the call that it was going to be too rough to run that day. When we got to the dock, the rain was coming down - hard, and the tide was still coming in. The gangplank was easily nearing a 50 degree angle... It was a challenge unloading people and gear, I decided to leave my doubles on the boat until after it settled down some and we headed back to the Fisherman's Inn for a few hours sleep and a VERY lazy day.

This was my first group trip with the folks from SingleDivers.com, a wayward home for single and married but buddyless divers. The boat was the "Good Ship Mutiny (aka the Diver Down II).

Key Largo 9/9 & 9/10

2006-09-11T15:34:00.000-04:00

Drove down to Key Largo friday night and setup the tent at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park for a weekend of diving w/ the friendly folks at Conch Republic Divers.

The mosquitos ate me alive and it was hot & humid - I'm going to have to rethink some amenities since all the campsites have power... Last time I camped here - Marco brought a window mounted A/C unit - sure it looked funny - but it kept the tent ice cold!

Saturday Morning:
US Coast Guard Cutter Bibb

US Coast Guard Cutter Duane

While hanging out on deco, a massive jellyfish came by...

Saturday Afternoon:
The Eagle

The second dive was on "Little Conch Reef". I packed my lobster gear and spend the hour trying to find dinner... I ran across three lobsters, 1 short allowed himself to be caught. The other two wanted nothing to do with me, they were backed into their holes and wern't budging.

Sunday Morning:
The Spiegel Grove
Fortunately we were moored onto the superstructure amidship, I dropped down and then instantaneously forgot where I was going. Took me a few minutes to get oriented and find the machine shop, one of my favorite rooms a little off the beaten path... I then made my way forward and down a level where I found a nice stainless steel knife laying in the stairwell. I thought I was down below the main deck - when I came across a huge cutout and then noticed one of the thick lines running down the hallway... so much for penetration. I followed it around and then out onto the bow where I toured the chain locker - my second favorite place on the wreck.

I made my way back to the superstructure, the video really eats up the memory card, so I switched it off to save a few minutes for later. Ended up taking a wrong turn at one point and had to doubleback as I ran into a dead-end. Finally got my bearings again and lined up to get a good shot of Snoopy...

Cave Diving - Trip Report

2006-09-05T11:20:00.000-04:00

Ok, so we finished the NAUI Cave 1 program at the end of July. I got a PM over on the DecoStop from Dave Berman (whom I took DIR-F with), that he, Bob and Penny would be heading down to The Dive Outpost for a week around Labor Day. Seeing an opportunity to tack on a few vacation days and make use of the holiday, I set plans in motion to join. A quick email off to Raphael and it was set.

To help extend the dive times, I had put together a new set of Worthington 108's. No more dissimilar tank calculations due to me diving HP100's...! And I also had a chance to really break-in the new Salvo lighthead on my Sandho can. Some folks I dive with have a serious case of light envy going on now.

Half way up the Turnpike - I realized I had forgotten the TTL cable for my strobe & my wide angle lens - oh well - no pictures for this trip.

Cathy really went overboard and prepared a feast for everyone Sunday... You never leave the Outpost hungry.

8/31 15:10 60min Peacock 1 - Pothole - ~1000'
8/31 19:39 66min Telford - ~1200' - Posturepedic Passage
9/1 10:07 35min Peacock 1 - Pothole - Olsen - ~1464'
9/1 11:00 37min Peacock 1 - Olsen - Pothole - ~1464' return trip.
9/1 16:20 42min Little River - Main Line ~410' - Big Arrow
9/2 10:00 52min Madison Blue - Main Line - ~844' - half-hitch restriction
9/2 12:11 49min Madison Blue - Main Line - ~844' - half-hitch restriction
9/2 15:55 63min Peacock 1 - Nicholson Tunnel - ~1325' - End of line.
9/3 8:58 56min Madison Blue - Main Line - ~700' - Past Godzilla Room
9/3 11:52 63min Peacock 1 - Peanut Tunnel - 1500'
9/3 15:31 78min Orange Grove - ~1600', ~200' from Challenge Sink.
9/4 9:34 77min Peacock 1 - Pothole - Cisteen - ~1600' - near the Wishbone.

Being our first real trip outside of class - our goal was to see how far we could push on the main lines, get a good sense of gas consumption, learn and get more familiar with the caves. Two dives we turned on thirds, most were turned because we had gotten to the end of a line and were close to thirds, hadn't previously discussed jumps & T's, or honestly expected to get that far... I'd say one dive - Teford was turned on comfort. We think we entered Posturpedic Passage - a massive bedding plane, probably 30-40' wide, and all of 1.5-2' tall, and what felt like a few hundred feet long... it just kept going, and going, and going, and getting smaller, and smaller... I decided I had enough and called it. We'll go back and tackle it again when it gets a little cooler. We're armed with maps of all the systems now and we'll set goals for each trip.

4 nights @ Dive Outpost..... $100.00
933 cuft Nitrox 32%......... $74.62
Book: Taming of the Slough.. $28.00
Not having to multiply 100s of PSI x 5.6 = Priceless

The Hydro

2006-08-27T18:53:00.000-04:00

8/27 - Pompano Beach; Avid Diver, The Hydro Atlantic
I've been in Florida for a year now. Did my initial tech training back up North - but didn't approach any 'real' tech dives for some time - minor backgas deco obligations on the Guy Harvey, Spiegel Grove or Duane. Having recently completed Helitrox with Lesley - I was ready to get back into the swing of things with a clear head. Managed to pull together a solid group of buds and we filled Oliver's boat for a morning dive on Pompano's crown jewel; The Hydro Atlantic.

Brian and Matt splashed first, Raphael and me splashed second, Scott and Marc brought up the rear as team #3.

These are my photos...

These are Matt's photos...

Earlier in the week - the forecast was calling for 2-4' seas. The morning of - it was at 2'. Out on the water- the day was perfect with waves less than 1' and once we got to the wreck - absolutely no current to speak of. The Captain decided to line us up - and have us dive bomb the wreck - no line or ball for descent.

Raphael and I planned on 10 minutes in the engine room @ 170' & 15 minutes on the deck @ 150' using 21/35 & 50% for deco. After 25 minutes on the bottom, we'd proceed to shoot bags from the wreck to let the Captain track our ascent.

I lost track of Raphael on the way down, as the blurred vision of the wreck came into view around 70'. As I approached - the massive city came into focus as I dropped admiship near the skylights. One quick spin and the glow of 3 HID's danced across the wreck. Raphael was right behind me... I quickly got my bearings, got my bouyancy situated and got my camera squared away for the dive. A quick up and over and we descended through the skylights into the engine room....

We ran tables for contingency - I had decided to run deco on my VR3, a slow ascent from depth added a few minutes to the dive, and then the VR3 decided to give me 24 minutes @ 20' versus the 17 minutes V-Planner called for got me a little tight on deco gas. I think I'm going to have to dedicate one of my AL40s to Oxygen and add an AL80 for 50%. Right as deco cleared - I had 100-200psi remaining. Switched over to backgas and proceeded on a nice leisurely 5 min ascent to the surface.

Playing catch up...

2006-08-27T17:21:00.000-04:00

We'll see how this goes... not promising anything....

8/19 & 20 - Dry Tortugas National Park
The trip was originally planned to visit Cay Sal Banks in the Bahamas - but weather turned for the worse, and we opted for a trip to the Dry Tortugas & Fort Jefferson instead of 4 hous of pain crossing the channel... The trip was organized by Dean Marshall for a few like minded DIR divers - purely recreational fare.

The Windjammer

Lobsters!

Reef Dive....

8/25 - Boynton Beach, FL; Splashdown Divers, The Captain Tony
Spent friday afternoon w/ the wonderful folks at Splashdown, nicer reefs in Boynton compared to Pompano - alot more to distract you when lobstering! First dive was on the Captain Tony, I managed to shoot some decent video with the new camera setup. Unfortunately once the Goliath Groupers hear divers coming - they run to their hiding spot. The good news - we know where it is - and they don't fear divers who get a little close, so I got some good video. Met up w/ Darren & Mika who volunteered to spot lobster on the reef dive. Walked away with one 5oz. and 9oz. tails - dinner was served.