Sunday, September 27, 2009

Navigation Station...

PADI have a monthly specialty they promote. It looks this week as if we have been having a special on Underwater Navigation. Today, I spent my third session in the water this week with students engaged in addressing navigation challenges. Paul, who is commencing his Advanced Open Water course was first to go. He did a great job in quite demanding conditions at KPH. Visibility can't have been more than about 15 feet, but he unerringly tackled some fairly testing tasks - controlling his buoyancy and demonstrating calm mastery of the environment. Todd, who was also in the water to gain experience and up his dive total (which is growing impressively quickly) then took on his second dive for the Navigation specialty. This required some long transits and dive site location and return exercises. He too did really well. Between the two divers, who supported each other admirably, we spent about 62 minutes in the 63℉ (17℃) water. All of us at one stage or another had an encounter with a massive Bass, which made a point of swimming up to investigate us, rather than the other way around. Todd performed a small act of kindness for a youngster as he made his exit. A little girl and her parents had come down to the shore to release what had been a pet turtle all Summer, but which needed to be released back into the wild. It was interesting to see it make its confident way out into the Lake. But, we all watched tensely as it appeared the local seagulls were showing an interest in it. Happily it survived - for now at least.

Its a small current he says..... (or - Is that Prescott we just passed...?)

Sunday dives this season have been all about exploration and discovering new things for me. This week the 6 of us, including one of our newer members (Dave), decided to travel to Brockville. Funny thing about Brockville, when you enter the "historic part" the gas prices jump 5 cents a litre. Apart from that, this cool little town has some great dive sites and upon Jim's advice we took a chance on the Gaskin.
This was supposed to be a shore dive with a small surface swim, minimal current in a river and one of the best around for stuff to see. Now those of you who know folks from the Rock know that they like to understate things a wee bit. Lemme tell you it's not a small current when even the fish lose the fight against it!
Right off the bat, if you're a newbie diver just looking for a place to dive from shore this is not the place. On paper it's a 300m surface swim in calm water to a couple of marker buoys that line the bow and stern. The wreck sits in 70+ feet of water even with the water table that looks to be 2 feet lower right now. You can travel down the lines from the buoys that are anchored to huge cement blocks. The swim out took us around 15 min and right near the buoy the current started to really pick up. Folks who like to dive without a snorkel have to do it all on your back and its a slow boat to china despite the eddy current that can help for part of the way. It sounds pretty easy. It is not.
When we got to the site there was a charter boat doing a wreck penetration course from Brockville's Adventure Diving there. ( I recommend this as a boat charter really) As we swam towards the boat we grabbed on to their water lines and headed towards the buoys. Right at that point the current really started to take off. Holding on to the line was a challenge and going down the line meant really holding on! Normally, I don't do that, but today it was no choice, hold on or disappear down river. The greatest sin I committed though was I needed at times to touch the wreck (very carefully not to disturb the coral) to keep myself in line with the wreck or hold on or be spilled over. It is a challenging dive to say the least. We did however have a newer diver who handled the situation masterfully despite her 10 total dives previous.
Drift and or current dives are challenging and as long as you have had training or decent practice in simple areas it can be loads of fun. However, there is still a surprise how strong the water can be. We did know it was going to be a challenge, just from the surface swim alone. We kept close to the wreck and bottom to control the effect of the current, but swimming on the lower west side of the hull was near impossible. Jim and Kevin, both on double tanks swam underwater back to shore and mitigated most of the surface current swim back.
All that said this is a fantastic dive, and the boat is in great shape. Tons of Bass and Perch all over the hull both inside and out. I did get a chuckle watching them fight the current and seemingly go no where. The boat must have been cleaned free of mussels due to the current becuase it was full of sponge coral in advanced stages of growth. For a diver on a single 80 cft tank we managed to squeak out 33 min with saftey stop. the wreck sports a decent swim through though it's also rated for penetration as well for those qualified. There is a massive anchor in front of the bow, along with a sign up top for divers, and a sign on the buoy rock near the anchor down in the sand. Lots to see and one of the highlights is a decently intact stern.
A great dive but it's not a little bit of current....Oh ya...watch out for the tankers that like to drive past the marker buoys to the south. The sound of the props can be felt from shore, imagine it over your head. Thoom, Thoom, Thoom! Its safe but still un-nerving.
Pics:
the deck, Stacie, the gang at the shore in the background is both a boat at the mooring and a tanker about to motor past,
Inside the hull, near the bow, Kevin with the required float and flag for this dive,
Stacie at the anchor plaque, and kevin showing his new divers hands free cell phone just add water.

As always - "dive with a knife!" sung to the tune of Star Trek fight music.

Another Diver earns certification...

Blown off the Lake by blustery (and cold) southerly winds, three of us headed for Kingston Oasis (also known as Brule Road Quarry) yesterday to complete Alex's certification requirements. It's always a shame when you can't provide a variety of dive site experiences at the conclusion of an Open Water class, but the Oasis worked out pretty well. You'll gather from the picture that Alex was in full control by the end of the day.


Conditions in the quarry were good - and this must have been appreciated by at least three other groups of divers who appeared, complaining about being denied access to the Lake. Visibility was somewhere close to 40 feet and the temperature very much the same as in the Lake's more exposed waters at 64℉ (18℃). There were a lot of fish to see, including what Todd identified as a large Koi Carp. The number of little power boat hulks in the water seems to be increasing with every visit. We counted at least 5 yesterday.

There's no longer a permanent presence at the Oasis taking in admission monies, but if you're planning on a visit it would be a courtesy to call the owner, Dan, to advise him. He has taken a lot of trouble to improve the site and to clean it up - and he has many more plans. He can be reached at 613 386 5289 / Cell 613 329 7790.

Friday, September 25, 2009

"BEEP-BEEP"


Now, I have been told in the past that I do swim a tad on the fast side... But how did I manage to lose our President... not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES on the same dive... Now you will probably say : "That's unpossible.." Others will say : "Unpossible is not a word..." .... and the rest will remain confused... =)

Let me tell you all how it happened.. Leo, Ken and I (at my suggestion) decided to undertake the task of finally repairing the line out to the Stacked hulls this afternoon. We met at the site this afternoon around 1500hrs, and noted that the water seemed quite clear from shore. We geared up, and took to the water. I swam out to the intersecting point between the parallel line from shore and the line out to the wrecks. I inflated my dive noodle, attached my reel, and installed in on the stake at this point, giving me a marker to take my compass bearing to repair the line all the way to shore. I met up with Ken and Leo at the shore, and we took a 130 degree bearing from there to meet up with the line in the deeper section of the water. I followed the bearing out to the shelf to find myself alone with the gobies.. 1 minute went by, I surfaced, and saw Ken in the water, waiting for Leo who went back to his truck for more weights.. Using the geothermal equation to calculate his weights used with a full wetsuit, divided by E=MC2.. Leo musta forgot to carry the 2, or something... While waiting, I ran the line through the missing section, aiming for my floating dive noodle.. Worked great.. Attached the line again, now serviceable...

Once all reunited at the surface like a bad sequel of "Beverly Hills 90210", I told Ken and Leo to make it out to the wreck. I would collect my noodle and reel, and catch up with them...

Well, I just hit the shelf, diving down to 30 feet.. when Ken pulls on one of my fins... He is behind me ??? Where's Waldo, uh, I mean Leo ??? Nowhere to be seen in the murky waters.. Ken surfaces, finds him, and brings him back down. I had to stay at the bottom to prevent from losing sight of the line.. Reunited, we trekked on.. We found another small section of line missing, so I stopped to fix it.. waiving them both to carry on to the wrecks.. I caught up with them on the wreck, just in time to turn around because of their dwindling air supply.. I motioned them to go ahead while I cleaned the line all the way to shore. I managed to lose them AGAIN... They just disappeared in the murky water... I did my 3 minute safety stop, and Ken popped up there. Apparently I swam right under him, about 8 inches below him, and never even noticed... Our beloved El-Presidente.. nowhere in sight..

Once the safety stop completed, Ken surfaced, used his snorkel, and followed me to shore. We finally met up with Leo at the entry point... At last, a happy ending... The line out to the Hulls is finally fixed for all to enjoy. Just make sure that you don't take the wrong direction in the shallows where the line seems to take a 90 degree bend to nowhere...

Morale of the story : Doubles don't slow me down one bit, so you might as well do what Gaetan has been wanting to do all summer... Get yourself a bungee cord, clip yourself to my tanks and enjoy the ride.. At least this way, I will know where to find you... "Beep-Beep" (mimicked in a Road-Runner voice).

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Is it possible for the sequel to be better then the original?

The 9's part Deux!
Are sequels as good as the original? Well if it's the Empire strikes back, yes.. otherwise .. not so much. I didn't get to see Darth Vader on this dive however I bet I know a company that could make a dive hood like him though! ( http://www.scapascuba.co.uk/hoods.htm or http://www.terrapinwetsuits.com/accessor.htm ) (Thanks Anne at Kingston Dive charters for the pic of the dude with horns which caused me to go looking for how to buy one).
Last Wed night 4 of us braved the winds of Collins Bay for what was supposed to be a day dive at the Aloha and Effie May. No pie charts or graphs tonight. We came, we dove in the murk with not to much light left, and we saw tons, and I mean metric tons of fish that night. Jeffys 1 fresh water drum graph was repeated for our viewing pleasure. So again the amount of fun we had vs the Roman Coliseum, the great wall of China is no contest. We win!
As Kim cried "Krusty is coming, Krusty is coming..." (episode -- of the simpsons where bart is at krusty camp and turned into a sweat shop labourer) we all prayed for the rain and winds to die down for one more shot at boat dives in the last days of summer. did we even have a summer? I dunno. Fortune favoured us though and the weather actually co-operated with us, and we all made it out for a semi night dive.
Its nights like this that being in a club is great fun. Esspecially when you meet new people.. like Stacie.. did I say Stacie? did I spell it right Stacie? .....it took me the entire damn night and back to the dock to remember her name. Chalk it up to DCS I guess =P isnt that right Stacie? I can feel her lazer beam eyes burning a hole in the back of my head now....I better just say it one more time for good luck.. Stacie.
No pics tonight. My flash decided it didn't like water and the batteries died again....I swear I am going to drive a tank over it when I can afford to. I do however have a lot of great pictures of black cats and the odd zebra mussel in a room with no lights I think.
Instead I give you the fine art of Grondin industries:
pic one - the great Kazoo (name that tv show)

Pic two - the desperados who better start diving with a knife :

I used to say as always- keep blowing bubbles, as of today it's "allways dive with a knife" (sung to the tune of original star trek fight music - google it on your own)

Friday, September 18, 2009

Stop the Presses! Leo Actually Dives!

Pics or it never happened, I always say:
Hard Core, that's the only way to describe it.
Here we have living proof that our club president actually dives. Not just wet, but sleeveless and hoodless. Not too shabby, I must say. Puts tough into a whole new category. We rib Leo all the time about his "dive time" but with pre-deployment training and the duties of family, it's not that easy to sneak in a dive here and there like the rest of us commandos of Lake Ontario. He gets time when on vacation to venture into warm waters down south, but we all know that doesn't count. You dive here or no where!

Now, how did we get a dive Friday during the working day you ask? Well, blame Gaetan and our newest club member, Eric McPhee. They took some time to arrange a Discover Scuba for a few folks from his unit - 2EW. In the wee hours of the morning (6:30 am) the club gathered a couple of our regular prime instructors (Adam and Chico) and some spare labour (myself, Mike Musgrave, Gaetan, and Leo) to run 20 some folks through a cavalcade of scuba skills. Though it took some effort to remind Adam that he was on a clock and to keep within the timings, a great time was had by all. We hope they come out for the basic courses we plan on running throughout the winter. No, we won't torture them with check-out dives in the snow, though it's always tempting...we will wait till the New Year for those, when the ice melts and the water only looks warm. Muhahahahaha!
However, that's not the best part! After lunch, 6 of us Kevin, Gaetan, Jim, Eric, Leo and myself (it's almost a mini quorum, thank god I forgot paper to write on) snuck off to get a refresher dive in for Eric as its been a few years since he last dove. The target: KGH wreck off Murney tower. You can imagine the surprise when I see our own Club Pres Leo in attendance. A quick rehearsal of skills with Eric, a view of a foot-long bass, and we re-geared for the long swim out to the barge. Apparently, this was also Leo's first trip to this wreck. I will admit that I thought he was nuts (OK completely insane, really) to dive without a hood when you hit that 50 foot thermocline but he toughed it out. 59 feet for 37 minutes was the profile, and he did the whole thing. Viz wasn't much to comment on, the algae holds true till 40 feet now, but opens when the water's colder. Not much life to see this time around either. However, the barge has had a major cleaning of mussels and you can clearly see the wood in many spots. It has also taken some damage as one of the support beams has fallen down in the middle of the wreck. Sponge coral is visible all over as well. On the rear of the boat some of it has sprouted tentacles. Eric and I saw one Drum in the shallows on our 3 min safety stop, but it was fleeting at best.


3 notes for this dive

1. Apparently I am IT, thanks Steve C....watch out divers as the game is afoot. Though I was slow on the watch. Steve marked the it sign Aug 22 and I have dove this site 3 times since and never noticed the it sign had names on it. Thanks to Kevin I get it... great =P if you see a IT sign take a good look at it and see if you see your name. No touch backs though. Good hunting folks, as this can appear on any commonly dove shore dive.

2. Lets hear it for sneakers on the dive. When you can't find your rock boots, you can always dive in your shoes, just ask Jim. Nuff Said!

3. No Pie Charts or Bar graphs here folks. There is no way I can top that - save shots of Leo, the Water Tiger. This very rare water creature is even more elusive then the wet-suited Mikeosaurus Rex! Like Marc-Etienne says, "it's not a dive unless you have your camera", and today my camera and I are back in good standing; for this week at least....

I leave you with more proof that Leo actually dives....I still can't believe it.
As always - keep blowing bubbles!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Friday night party!

What do dolphin's members do on a Friday night?! They dive what else!

I suggested Mike to go for a little night dive to repeat that photography session with did couple weeks ago in Deadman's bay. I also invited Todd to come along. By the way Todd now completed on that dive his night dive specialty (I was his guinea pig, it was pretty good!) Last night dive really turned out to be a real diver party. Matt, Kevin, Jim and Diane also came, the little parking lot was getting pretty full.

It was a first for me and possibly Jim (he was not sure if he ever dove that spot before or not, "maybe in a other life" like he said) to dive on Morton street's wharf. I got to admit, outside the vision of Matt manly hood, that was an impressive site. I'll be honest, I barely saw the wharf once. However, I saw tons of fishes. The most spectacular of them all was a big sneaky eel.

I'll let you enjoy my shots


A dive without a camera is a wasted dive!
See you next dive!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

The nines

I feel bad for you. You see, last night, Kim, Scott, Mario and I logged a wicked dive on the Aloha and Effie Mae. And you missed it. This was a foolish decision, as I intend to demonstrate to you.

When you drop the 55 ft line to the 1888 wooden schooner, you feel like it says "hello" to you. And when you leave, it says "goodbye". That's because "Aloha" has come to mean both "hello" and "goodbye" in the Hawaiian language. [It also means affection, peace, love, compassion, mercy, or salad-spinner. Don't believe me? Check it out.] When you think of Hawaii, you probably think of how warm it is? Well, these waters were warm, too. You had better sit down before I tell you this, but Mario went with no hood, and no gloves! The water was twenty-one degrees! That means that if you were playing blackjack against the water, you wouldn't even have to look at your cards. You would have been served a brutal smackdown in temperateness.

I want to put this in terms you understand. Here is a graph of how much fun we both had last night.


Now if I had seen only the Aloha last night, little cherubs could whisk me off to a blissful afterlife, as I would be satisfied. But this dive was not over, oh no! It also featured a trip to Kingston's first live aboard dive charter, a steel trawler built in 1967 and scuttled in 1993. You say "Effie Mae"? I say "F'-ing eh!" It's a piece of Kingston diving history! I can't believe you missed it.

Do you know how small a fish's brain is? So small you cannot detect it under a microscope with the lights out. And still, hordes of smallmouth and rock bass seemed to find their way to these wrecks. Those gobies are so stupid, I don't think they could swim out of a paper bag with an extra two holes cut in the bottom. Plenty of them made it. What is your excuse?

Perhaps you stayed home to watch the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance? Obviously I did not waste my time on such trivialities, but I can let you know how it turns out: A bunch of people dance poorly, and then they get voted off and then some people who dance less poorly get voted off later! You missed diving the greatest dive of all time for this? You poor little shmoe.

I can imagine that in your shame you might try and think up some possible advantage to be gained from missing this night's awesomeness: "I can go on an airplane flight now", you might report, "and you divers are grounded for another twelve hours". First, let me make clear that this dive achieved such legendary status that if none of us could ever fly again, it would be worth it. Second, imagine you were to fly around the world to such wonders as the Pyramid of Cheops at Giza, the Roman Colosseum, or China's Great Wall. How many freshwater drum do you think you would see? I have prepared the answer in another chart for you.


Now it may be overwhelming to you to learn how badly you messed up by not coming diving last night, but I suspect you may need to hit "rock bottom" before you can truly begin to recover. So I hate to do this to you, but you need to know:

Kim brought donuts. Not Tim Horton's or even Krispy Kreme, but home made donuts.

As we returned to Northern Tech Diver, the sun set over the Kingston skyline. With the dive complete, there was no need for it to stay in the sky.

After missing an awesome dive of such magnitude, I can understand if you would be tempted to never show your face again. But if, even knowing that you have missed the best dive that there ever has been and ever could possibly be, you should decide to return to the water, Anne-with-an-E assures me that there are still available spaces with Kingston Dive Charters.

I'm sorry the truth had to hurt you so much.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Triple Treasure...


At the invitation of a good friend, I was able to make three dives downriver today. The first was the always excellent Keystorm, on which the pictures were taken. The second the America and the third a type of wall / drift dive on a site called Devil's Oven near Alexandria Bay. The conditions on the wrecks were perfect with 70℉ (21℃) water and decent visibility in as low a current as I can recall for the St Lawrence. We were also lucky enough to avoid the hordes of divers that often descend (literally) on these popular sites. It was a special treat to see many large Pickerel busy on the hull of the America.

Labour Day classics

As I sit here watching the Argos lose yet another game this year on a glorious Labour Day classic with the Hamilton Tabby Cats I ponder: What is with the weather this year? I think a few meteoroligists are scratching thier heads with the whacky clouds we have seen this year, and perhaps a few are looking for new work! However the ominous start with rain on Saturday broke into sunny skies for the rest of the weekend and those of us who love the live aquatic were living the dream.

Sunday the folks from Explorer diver ran a charity dive in support of "Soldier On" down at the Pittsburg Quarry. They raised over $120 with just under a couple dozen divers from as far away as Ottawa and Trenton clubs. The warm water (70F at depth) meant that the vis had gotten a wee bit soupy (ok at one point I couldnt see my own feet) however those of us who like to practice navigation allways love a challange. Despite the algea we did find a full beer! Fancy that.
Mmmmm Beer:
Rick C trying to figure out how do I blow this up from here?
Geatan and Todd scoping out the entry stride in:

Good time had by all. The folks at Explorer diver set up a great BBQ after the dive as well. The Baloon exploding and bike race kinda never really went anywhere but Steve C is undaunted and promises to try again next year!

Labour day Monday offered up another day of good weather, and 4 of us got a quick dip over at the Murney Tower wreck near the Kingston General Hospital. Water was a bit murky till 30 feet but opened up to give 30 feet of vis. Once at the wreck you could easily see half the wreck once there. This 60ft deep dive is a long swim (at least 10-12 minutes one way) but worth the wait. Interestingly the mass of zebra mussels are almost half gone so far this year and you can see quite abit of the wood grain. I think the Sheepshead must have alot to do with this, and we saw one in the shallows right at the end of the dive.
Seen here is a shot of the back deck. Last year most of this was covered in mussels this year lots of exposed wood and the light green dots are the sponges:
As allways keep blowing bubbles!