Club makes the Base Paper...

Your President recently gave an interview to a reporter from the Base Newspaper, the Tower. Given the opportunity to ride along on a charter to the Munson, the individual writing the article has produced a great piece on who we are and what we do. Click here to download the article and see how many names you spot of active Club members.

Munson Reputation Restored..

Today provided the opportunity to restore the reputation of the Munson as a benevolent, exciting dive site. With two good friends from Virginia, Celia and Gavin, Dianne and I made the trip with Gaétan and Jack. Despite blustery conditions topsides - and the dire reports of last week's dive, we had a great experience. The line took us straight past the tallest pylon onto the main deck. Visibility was good enough to see the whole wreck from any position and only the gentlest of currents crossed the deck. Behind the dredge, near the bucket, a large shoal of Lake Shad was criss-crossing the bottom. Bottom temp 48℉ (8℃). The thermocline lay at about 60', the same depth as we'd observed it to lie on the KGH wreck earlier in the day.

Another Club Friday Night Charter Rocks!!!!!

Tonight, some of the club's Executive members,Gaetan, Kevin, Matt and myself with Marc-Etienne took advantage of another Wednesday night cancellation /reschedule to a Friday night club dive. The pick for this week was the George A. Marsh. She is always a real treat to dive on. A 1800's built 3 masted schooner in very good shape. Tonight we had a chance to take a very close and detailed look of her, from bow to stern. With a bottom time of 47 minutes (Eanx 32) a bottom temp. of 48 f, and vis around 40 ft. This is a dive that must be given the opportunity to be logged in ever diver's log book. I am always in

awe when diving on this wreck, not just of her sheer size but of the history that comes with her. When diving on any of these great ships where lives were taken at the time of there fate. I always wonder just what kind of storm her crew were faced with, to sink something of such size. We couldn't begin to imagine battling waves 30 ft and greater or squall's that would appear as fast as they would diminish, which the great lake would put boats like the George A. Marsh to the challenge. Tonight fortunately the lake was good to us divers, we had little wind going out to the site, and the water was flat and calm. Another awesome dive, wow. The pictures again say it...

Night on the Mapleglen

Well, a big thanks is owed to our Events Coordinator, and to Kingston Dive Charters. This past Wednesday night charter was cancelled due to Good Ole Mother Nature. We were fortunately offered a reschedule for last night, Friday evening. WHAT A DIVE is what I have to say about that... The Mapleglen is a open water level dive, and even for me, it was a real treat. The Vis was close to 50 ft and water temperature at depth was a warm 52 F. The propeller on the Mapleglen is the big attraction for this site not to mention all the machine work including the large boilers. A dive that is a must to be included in the list of wreck's to dive on. I will be diving the Mapleglen again later on. Just Amazing, and the pictures say it...

1st Charter of the Season!

Charter season is open!

Not alot of time today to banter on about the perils and joys of diving yesterday, I am sneaking in during lunch to report last nights unusual dive. 8 brave divers drove out to collins bay to dive with Kingston Dive Charters. They relocated to the small dock right behind the Legion that is 100m east of NTD. 3 dove wet and 5 went dry, becuase of this mix it was decided that we would try out the Aloha and Effie may. The water temps have averaged 45+ past the first thermoclines at 30 feet so we figured it was safest for those crazy enough to go wet.

Conditions of the dive were not the best, and visibility was near 10 - 5 feet most of the time and required a light. Mind you, the fact we got in at dusk didnt help things either. There was quite alot of green stuff floating around, so this intrepid photograper didnt get much of value this time.

Details of the dive are as follows: 52 feet, 31 min, 65 on the surface, 48 at the bottom.

Upon return we enjoyed a spectacular display of lightining and some rain. Despite how unnerving (being on an alluminum boat with a pile of metal high pressure tanks) it looked it was still impressive to see nature at her some of her fiercest!

Couple lessons to take away from this dive:

1. Take a light on the charters, at this time of year its pretty dark when you crack the surface of the water.

2. Take in a shore dive or 2 before you grab a boat charter to check out your gear and get reaquainted with your gear. I will be running the Sunday club again this year however I will be changing the start time to 1pm at the club with 12-1230ish for rental pick up. You dont want to be caught out at the dive site on a boat you paid for to find out something is not working and you havent really tested it in a long time. Its why we run a shore program for folks to have a relaxing mostly free (minus the cost of air) check out dive or 2 before rushing off to the expesive boat charters.

3. Lastly please confirm with Kim your status about if you want to do the charter or not, No one wants to turn someone away becuase they didnt confirm thier booking and the boat is over full, or worse there are not enough folks who confirm and it gets cancelled. It greatly helps the chater operator in planning thier operations for us.

Not alot of pics today everything was pretty much green and fuzzy.

Yours in Fun Safe diving

Matt

The Knife Guy!

Hats Off to Kingston Dive Charters...

Check out this excellent promotional video featuring Anne and Harold's Kingston Dive Charters. It's great to see Kingston's amazing riches presented so positively and so well. What a shame the City can't get behind the dive community. Brochures advertising tourism opportunities produced by the City don't even mention diving.

Well done to the team in Collins Bay - thanks for serving the whole local dive community so well...

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)

A 3 hour tour....

...that turned into 6 hours.
Boat diving is not a precise art. Many factors need to be considered when taking a boat trip to a site. Weather is the big one. Even though it looks great out the window, a good wind will throw all of your timings out the door and can even force a cancellation or at the very least a change in venue for your dive. Today was one of those days.
Lemme tell you I may have had a shower before I went on the boat but after the ride out to the Marsh this morning I did not need it. The water got a wee bit rough with a strong wind from the south west. We had some 5 foot swells and the water crashed over the boat in huge sprays. Needless to say us brave folks who like to dive wet didnt mind. However I will admit there was some shrinkage....man I was completly soaked.


Pictured above and beside me are 1 of the 3 guests we had from Toronto Hammerheads dive club out of ASU TO. When ever possible we like to help out folks from other clubs to discover our little fresh water paradise. Though we never intended them to get sea sick in the process.

Easily one of my favorite dives in the region the Marsh is as Adam put it a "Fairy Tale Wreck". This 3 masted schooner went down in around 80 feet of water with a full load of coal in her hold. At the bow of the ship a pristine bowspirt complete with lines and the stern is slightly damaged but still worth a look. The masts are all down and set at odd angles however one is in the middle of the boat on top of a smashed lifeboat for the sharp of eye. Thermocline was at 70 feet today with the algea cloud down to 20. You could easlily see half the ship when on the wreck at any one point in time.

The Glendora was our other choice for the day and apparently that of a few other charters. This is a great swimthrough dive as the hold is wide open and you can fit 3 divers side by each as they say on the rock. I never knew there was a gigantic stove in the middle of the ship though. Thats what the picture is. This was also a great time for the couples to get all romantic like and spend some quality quiet time under the waves. I am sure the serenity was appreciated by all.
Kevin and Joase`e (sp?):
Shaun and Lisa:
The rest of us:

Big thanks to NTD and Kingston Dive Charters for helping us get this charter in the water.
I think we made Harolds day with the soakers he gave us folks at the back of the boat.
More to come tommorow as we take the these city folk out for a sample of our shore diving sunday.

As allways keep blowing bubbles

Check out this new website...

Kingston Dive Charters has been up and running for a little while, but Harold and Anne have recently revamped their website - to which a link exists from this blog. It now includes a slide show showing the boats and some of the local sites. Have a look and let them know what you think.