Quick and Dirty...

Don't get too excited by the headline, I'm talking about the video summary of yesterday's Pumpkin Dive.. Check it out here.. Many thanks to everyone who came out and supported the event. And apologies for missing most of you underwater. Next event, I'll do my little tour of the dive site AFTER capturing the participants... Oh well - nobody's perfect..!

Thank you Matt for the excellent title pic above

Back in the swing..

Two dives today = and both in good company. The first, having turned down the chance to go dive the Kinghorn in Rockport, was at the Marine Museum. This was the Club's Sunday Shore Dive and we had 8 divers in the water, which is great by any standards. My strongest interest was to give Ben, who was only making his 6th dive, a good experience and sight of yet another local wreck. That worked out well, and he enjoyed a gentle, interesting dive. He also had fun bothering various fish.

The second dive - prompted by who else but Todd - was at KPH. We were joined on a beautiful calm evening by Jack, who is in town on duty from Manitoba for a couple of months and keen to dive (so keen that he joined the Club right away). Our first order of business was to have a look around the giant stride entry area for a missing scuba component lost about 10 days ago Eagle-eyed Jack spotted it within a couple of minutes and that released us down the pipe. We followed that, in about 10 feet of visibility (that may be an optimistic assessment) out to, and beyond, the thermocline at 38 feet. Then, the visibility really opened up to something like 40 feet or more. The greatest surprise, and absolute delight, was encountering a large shoal of Lake Shad on the return journey. They made several flashing, silver-scaled passes before disappearing off into the distance. These unpredictable and unexpected meetings with this species are rare. I reckon on about one a year.. For the record, the temperature below the thermocline remains at 46℉ (8℃). That put it just on the bottom beside the Marine Museum Barge - Brrr!

Deep Delights..

This evening saw the opportunity to complete Josée's Deep Adventure on the wonderful Munson wreck. Conditions couldn't have been better. The Lake was calm, there was barely any current perceptible on the wreck, and visibility was great. Josée had no difficulty coping with the dive or the tasks involved in assessing for nitrogen narcosis. All in all, it was a really good experience for the five divers who enjoyed the trip.

Jim found it the perfect opportunity to test the new Dive Rite LED canister light he has acquired, and it passed with flying colours. The other broad smile in evidence belonged to Gaétan, who can't stop himself getting excited about the transformation he has enjoyed in moving to drysuit diving with his Signature Series DUI suit.

Although several of us believed that we saw 50℉ (10℃) on the bottom, the computer doesn't lie, and mine actually recorded a minimum of 46℉ (8℃).

Club Members learn about Archaeology..

Several members of the Club were amongst 21 divers who gathered, under the auspices of Preserve Our Wrecks, to learn about Nautical Archaeology today. The two-day course will teach basic survey techniques and acquaint the students with legal issues relating to the discipline and other essential topics. Exercises today included detective work on artifacts to try and establish their origins and ancestry, and the circumstances of the vessel to which they related, and instruction in survey skills culminating in an underwater session in the pool.

It takes more than a broken arm...

As the attached composite picture (created by Gaetan) shows, it takes more than a minor injury to keep some of our members from a try-out night. Thanks to Adam and all who assisted him, the event on Saturday night was a great success. See more pics on our Flickr site (link to the right).

Try-Out evening re-scheduled...

The chance to try out new gear configurations, different equipment and the like, which was postponed last weekend due to a technical problem, has been re-scheduled for this Saturday evening, March 28th between 7 and 9 pm.

Drop Adam Rushton, the coordinator for this event, a line, if you intend to come along...

Scuba Olympic Video..

Thanks to Kevin LeBlanc, who dedicated most of his morning last Sunday to capturing video of the Scuba Olympics, here's a few minutes of highlights to enjoy...

Scuba Olympics - another great success...

Pictures - and even video - may flow through later, but here's a short report on the Club's annual Scuba Olympics event. A total of 10 divers participated - about average for the time of year. Five members of the training staff saw to it that everything ran smoothly, with the final event, underwater frisbee, finishing with just five minutes of the pool session remaining. Two more Club members undertook to record the activities for posterity, so the actual tally of members was 19.

Divers geared up, checked their buoyancy and then competed in four events: A relay bucket race; no fins running event - on the pool bottom; blindfold treasure hunt and obstacle course, which severely challenged skills. Judging by the smiles and laughter - on the surface anyway, it was fun for everyone involved. The generosity of various supporters from the local dive community allowed us to send all the participants away with some sort of prize.

Next event for the Club - a try-out evening on Saturday the 21st of March from 7 - 9 pm. Come along and try out a variety of equipments like side-mount rig, backplate, full-face mask and so on...

Getting to know you... Pics on the 'KGH' wreck

Can't believe it...! It's a holiday weekend and the weather's beautiful. Five of us made our stately way out to the 'KGH' wreck this morning under a flat calm lake bathed in brilliant sunshine. It was a first trip for some - others of us were intent on documenting the wreck a little better with still and video coverage. There are some shots on Flickr that will allow you to judge whether or not we are succeeding. Some great video taken by Kevin LeBlanc can be reached on You Tube by clicking here.

If you haven't been out to take advantage of this new shore dive opportunity yet, what's holding you back ? Go get wet !

Final Basic Course Cancelled...

Recent announcements that the pool at the KMCSC will be closed for much of October have made it necessary to cancel the final basic course scheduled to be run by the Club this year. This is unfortunate, but we are very lucky to have the facilities at KMCSC and occasional upsets to our plans (and theirs) are just a fact of life.

Please encourage anyone you know, who is going to miss this course, to keep in touch with the Club over the 'closed' season and to enrol in next year's courses early.

Lining up the Wreck...

Today's work was largely devoted to making the detailed measurements, in three dimensions, that will allow a model of the wreck to be created on computer. This can then be used to output drawings and diagrams highlighting construction features or providing an overview of the vessel. To augment the datum points established yesterday, each of the upright frames (ribs to the layman) on the Starboard side of the wreck was identified and labelled. Port side remains will be similarly labelled tomorrow. The labeling of the frames considerably helped the teams working to record the various measurements. The line drawing shown was drawn up from a photo mosaic generated on day one.

Survey Work Advances Apace...

After a good start yesterday, work to place the datum points and prepare for measurements continued today. By early afternoon 8 points had been set and their inter-relationships recorded. Tonight, these points will be entered into survey software and validated. This will prepare the way for recording of the many wreck elements tomorrow, enabling a 3-D picture of the wreck to be captured.

Survey work commences in Navy Bay...

Members of the Club began work today in support of the marine archaeological survey of a wreck in Navy Bay that will be the subject of a Masters Thesis for Nadine Kopp. Nadine is completing a course at the University of East Carolina that she hopes will secure her a marine archaeology position closer to her Canadian home. Video and still photography was taken to provide an initial record and a reference for future activity. An overall examination was also completed with the aim of determining the most appropriate positions for datum points and to confirm the extent and condition of the site.
A second dive allowed some 'gardening' to be done to clear weed and loose algae and rough sketches to be drawn up. Nadine's intention is to dive daily for the next week, completing her researches by next Sunday, when it is hoped that an electronic positioning survey can be undertaken that will definitively fix the wreck's position and tie it in to existing data on the shoreline. Follow this blog to hear how each day's work goes. For the record, the water today was 54°F (12°C) and visibility was about 20 feet.

A dry Whites

With the nice weather today not many would think of diving in a dry suit. That being said about 20 club members took advantage of diving in new Whites dry suits. There were a few first time dry suit divers who enjoyed diving with out getting totally wet. Generally groups of four went out to the stop sign and back in about 35mins. The visibility was good considering all the divers in the water. I have to say that I was impressed with the fusion dry suit. It is a great suit that does not require a lot of extra thought. The water temperature was 46F/8C but I felt very warm in the dry suit. The max depth that we obtained was in the area of 50 ft. I must say it was great to see so many people from the club out and diving and a thanks needs to go to Adam for organizing the rep to come down and to the Whites rep for taking time out of his schedule to see us.

The Early Diver gets the Viz

It's said that there are seasoned divers in Kingston who dive exclusively in the early and late periods of each dive season. Their logic is that those are the times that you can place reasonable reliance on seeing our wrecks at their best. This morning's charter lent credence to the notion. A gentle trip to the Comet put us in place to enjoy visibility in the order of 70 feet or so. In water temperatures of 43°F (6°C), conditions were really rather pleasant. Even our one wetsuited diver didn't freeze...! Jim Dunfield - down visiting from Ottawa - was a very welcome addition to the team. It would be nice to think that the Sunday Club could make a charter trip every week, but this may have been a one-off bonus dive for most.

Rounding off the RMC Year...

Taking advantage of the small, slack period at the end of the RMC year, some of our most active divers, Marc-Etienne, Donovan and Olivier got in a couple of dives this week just before they departed for phase training over the Summer. As well as a shore dive, they were able to use a boat belonging to the Rod and Gun Club at RMC to get out to the Wolfe Islander. The accompanying photograph, taken by Marc-Etienne, was taken there. All credit to these guys, who have been diving consistently when the opportunity arose - and always in wetsuits.

Sunday Club back in Session...

The arrival of the Spring sunshine this weekend placed the Club on notice that it's time to re-convene the Sunday Club. Accordingly, four of us suited up and sprang into the Lake at RMC's St Lawrence Pier this morning. It was a delight to enjoy a dive in such fine weather. If there was any doubt that the season has truly changed, the passage overhead of a mixed skein of Canada and Snow Geese dispelled it. In the water there was less evidence of change. There were no significant sightings, despite visibility in the order of 30 feet or so. The water temperature remains stubbornly low at about 36F (2C). In response to a request from Chris Haslip, who was unable to dive today, his pet smurf was taken for an outing. Expect to see a lot of this little diver this season.

Ice Course Initial Session Completed..

The four divers taking this year's ice diving course completed their first session last night. A thorough review of the various procedures involved and an examination of equipment was followed up with time in the pool rehearsing the various skills that are unique to the discipline. Several volunteers were on hand to assist with the administration and to keep things ticking along. By the end of the session, everyone had a pretty clear idea of what the coming weekend's activities will entail. The divers had also, importantly, identified many of the challenges that ice diving will present. Minor gear revisions and thoughts about how to address skill issues will be the focus of attention before we hit the quarry on Saturday morning.

If anyone is thinking of visiting the site over the weekend, the best times to do so would probably be early afternoon on Saturday or shortly before lunchtime on Sunday.

Ice Course Preparations...

Adam and I spent a couple of hours this morning examining options for the location to host this year's ice diving course. Members will by now have seen his e-mail on the subject. The likelihood is that the course will be held at Brule Road, where the picture shown above was taken today. Conditions seemed excellent and the quarry offers several interesting objects for inspection, including the cabin cruiser which could be clearly seen through an exploratory ice hole this morning.

Spin Cycle Selected...

Since options to dive in the Lake became a little restricted, the opportunity was taken today to go and revive acquaintance with Upper Brewer's Mills. As the accompanying video illustrates, conditions were less than ideal. For whatever reason (and it's hard to see where the flow is coming from) there was a healthy current flowing down the channel. This led to the adoption of the tried and tested 'spin cycle' dive experience. Entry was made in the usual place and an immediate descent to the bottom of the bowl allowed a few minutes to have a look around before allowing the current to take us, counter-clockwise, around the shallow margins and back to the entry point. Rinse and repeat three times for a total of just over 30 minutes in water at 34F (2C). The air temperature was -4C (24F) and only one, rather frozen-looking Perch was spotted throughout the dive. Novices are advised to avoid this dive site when a noticeable current is running. It is possible to be carried out of the circular current flow and swept downstream.