Last week was dive excursion week. Monday the weather wasn't good. It was cloudy and cool. Tuesday was cloudy and cool but cleared out around 6 PM. The sky was clear above the flat lake. The wind died and the water reflected its death with extreme clarity. The clouds to the west hid the sun and shades of red were apparent. Not the bold reds from warm sun but a cooler red from a sun just moving across the equator. It was almost a shame to ripple the mirror finish with dive bubbles - but who would know?
Sherwood Forest is flooded trees at the northeast corner of Wazee Lake. My right ear was not clearing so I descended slowly leveling off at thirteen feet. The water, while clear, was dark. White sand and lime rock along shore are bright. The trees below me are grey. To the southwest it is dark. Still trying to clear my right ear I nick a limb with my fin then chastise myself for damage to the underwater environment. I ease down clearing my ears occasionally glancing at the compass and correcting the heading. At seventy feet I hover for a minute near the ledge to stare at the darkness below. It's easy to clear now so I ease on down to one hundred feet along a wall. This is probably deep enough for today, I think, and start ascending.
At fourteen minutes into the dive I'm at sixty-four feet. The wall starts to level off and there is a varied angle from maybe eighty degrees vertical to level tapering gradually. The stone on the slope was vibrant with color. There was a bed of spotted light merle. On the top of the slope the brownish red trees began. I hovered in the absolute stillness of the water and watched the trees move to and fro. It was now twenty-six minutes into the dive and I'd moved between sixty and seventy feet enjoying the unusual scenery.
From the start of the tree line to the top of the trees is maybe fifty feet. I ascended slowly enjoying the unusual color coating the trees. At forty-three minutes I surfaced. It would be dark before I finished packing the car.
I used about 33 cubic feet of air. The water temperature ranged from 38 degrees at depth to 41 degrees. The ice has been off for a few days.
Dive Two:
This dive was at the same location. It was earlier in the day but still afternoon. The wind had picked up a bit but it was nice. I switched gear around to take advantage of the dual valve setup on the ninety-five cubic foot tank. Switched the primary second stage and bladder inflator hose to the other primary first stage and plugged the ports on the single first stage I'd used the day prior. This took a few minutes and then it was dive time.
I'd hoped for vivid color like the day before but that was not to be. My ears cleared easier but I still descended slowly. After 11 minutes I was at 120 feet along the same wall but in a different location. All the color was gone. The dive was the standard quarry dive with trees and hopes of finding something of value. I search in a stair step pattern. Ascend maybe ten feet or so then swim for a while to see what you find. After forty-four minutes I was back at fifteen feet.
There is an underwater ridge south from the shore that separates a shallower area from deeper water. This area has numerous fish cages. These are wood structures about as big as a kid's playhouse and built like a log cabin but with square lumber. I crossed over the shallow ridge and into the fish cage area. No fish. The water was warmer here, though, maybe by a degree or so. This will be an area where the water will warm during the summer.
At fifty-four minutes it was time to end the dive. The wind was gone and the lake flat when I walked up the boat ramp and toward the car. I used forty-eight cubic feet of gas. The temperature ranged between thirty-eight and forty-two degrees.
Dive Three:
A day later at about the same time I'm back at Wazee getting the gear ready. The only full tanks are my doubles so I take off the single tank adapter and tighten the wing nuts on the band bolts. I notice there is water in the dust covers of the first stages and this concerns me as I attribute moisture by the air inlet with regulator freezing. I dry the ends hurriedly and gear-up. I'm fully kitted and notice my dive reel is missing. Since the key to the car is in the pocket of my woolies I decide to dive no deeper that the length of the flag rope. This probably was a good decision.
I'm on the west end of the lake where I've been many times. It's easy to walk down the relatively steep slope of the boat ramp to the sand covered ledge and then out to the wall. I enter the water and ease out over the drop off to begin the dive.
Three days diving and three different equipment configurations. First day was single primary with a small, high-pressure, shorty. The second day was dual primaries on a low-pressure ninety-five. Today it's high-pressure doubles. I probably did not need any additional weight today but I have sixteen pounds with me. I used twenty-six pounds yesterday.
In a couple minutes I was on the ledge at forty feet. It's easy to see that I'm grossly over-weighted. With such momentum there was little point in stopping, so I headed on down at some points pulling the dive flag under with me. You can always tell the new divers by the position of their dive flags - underwater much of the time. So here I am, newbie deluxe, sinking like a stone thinking about the article in the dive magazine where the new diver plans the deep dive and adds extra weight to get there quicker. His body was never recovered. I make the executive decision to put some air in my wing and slow my descent. There is no benefit to becoming paranoid; after all, I've carried too much weight on other dives.
I remember one dive when I found an aluminum ladder and several other dives when finding anchors. You just hang on to the weight and fill everything you have with air. Of course, when you go up a couple feet you rocket for the surface, but that's why you have the dump valve. You dump air and smack into the bottom holding your treasure. I should try to remember to bring the lift bag with me.
There is a marker buoy at about one hundred feet. My dive flag line is around one hundred and ten feet. I'm hovering at the base of the buoy admiring the Scooby Do doll and Friends placed for divers viewing pleasure. It's time to swim the wall and see what I can see. I'm sorry that I forgot the reel because with this much air in the tanks it would be a good day for deep diving.
I'm swimming along at a hundred plus feet when I notice my regulator is beginning to freeze. Probably affected by narcosis to some degree, I pause to decide if I need to switch to the backup secondary or wait for the problem to go away. A couple breaths later the answer is apparent and I'm thinking I don't want to breathe off the same post as I've used for inflating the drysuit. Of course, there is no other option. I'm also thinking I don't want to loosen the harness and roll off a post, should that become necessary. Lifting my arms over my head and pulling the tanks might cause my neck seal to leak and, God forbid, I might get wet. Another executive decision: I switch regulators. The primary secondary isn't leaking except when I inhale so I wait and fiddle with it then reinsert it in my mouth and take another breath. With no effort my lungs are full and the regulator keeps going. It's back to the backup.
I'm very glad I do not have my dive reel or I would be another fifty feet deeper. It's time to head up a bit though, just in case things get worse. I start up the wall and in the first five feet realize that surfacing may be much faster than I desired. It's thirteen minutes into the dive and I've crossed the hundred-foot mark going up. Exactly one minute later I'm at eighty feet. I'm clenching the wing dump button in my left hand exhausting air as fast as possible and at the same time the shoulder dump of the drysuit is blowing air like a whale spout. There are bubbles up the wazoo. My right hand is holding the dive flag reel and I see the line as it falls below me. It's not my goal to rocket to the surface from a hundred feet wrapped in the dive flag rope.
At seventy-nine feet air is expelled and the bubbles I just raced by are again passing fast but I'm heading in the other direction. I'm again sinking like a stone. At eighty-six feet I've added enough air to stop the descent but am worried about regulator freeze. No problem. I stare at the wall and get back to business. After a casual four-minute ascent I was back to the ledge at around fifty feet. I'd emptied the wing in favor of using the drysuit for buoyancy. Hands were holding the reel and line so the dive flag line is again controlled.
I swam along the ledge for ten minutes then ascended thru the trees to the training platform and along the sand bottom until ending the dive in a bit over an hour at the point of the beginning. Somewhere in the trees I returned to the primary secondary and it was problem free the remainder of the dive. No posts were shut down. It was pretty ordinary except for a few exciting minutes toward the beginning of the dive, at depth. The computer registered an ascent warning from ninety to eighty feet.
Stats: fifty-six cubic feet of air on this dive. Consumption per minute was higher by 25% over the first dive and even more over the second dive. There was still water in the primary regulator when I detached it from the post. Water temperatures ranged from thirty-eight to forty-four degrees. The water is warming.
Pretty much an excellent dive excursion. Wazee charges admission after Memorial Day so it was less costly too.
"Padeen" <junk_box707@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:82w8e.85300$cg1.24916@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...> Thanks for the TR, Ben. Was this all solo diving?> Padeen
