Pumpkin DIvers' pictures on Flickr..

Tom Rutledge has been good enough to post some of the great shots he took this morning at the Marine Museum's Pumpkin Dive on his Flickr site. Click here to see them.

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

Well done Paul ! Now an Advanced Diver..

Congratulations this Labour Day to Paul, who completed his Advanced Open Water syllabus with a Deep Adventure at Fairfield Park and a Digital Photography Adventure at the Kingston Oasis. He was totally at ease with both experiences, as he has been throughout the course. Now he's free to spend more time out diving with Rick - and other members..

In his element...

Some dives are just more gentle and relaxing than others. Today's dive, with Gaétan, was one of those special ones. We didn't see anything remarkable, though there was an encounter with a large Carp. We didn't do anything special, though we did repair the line out to the barge at the Marine Museum. But, we did enjoy a really slow, 'smell the roses' kind of experience that all of us relish from time to time. Two fairly capable divers, comfortable in each other's company, always aware of each other's position and totally chilled - for 65 minutes. Too cool!

The ambition had been to get some decent shots of the iron latticework under the pier at the entry point, but low viz pretty much put paid to that, so the dive passed quietly with a few hero shots, a tour of the barge and a look at the logs. The only complaint might be that it's too darn hot getting into your drysuit before the dive. If that's the only issue - I can live with it - roll on the Winter though. Can't wait to get our visibility back.

BTW - pay close attention to the picture above. This may be a rare sighting of a hoodless Gaétan...

Pipeline Patrol..?

Jack and I decided to take the easy way out today and simply follow the Western pipe from KPH out to its terminal point at 57'. This took just a leisurely 16 minutes, so we did some exploring off the pipe, practising navigation. All good. There was a slight thermocline at about 45' but bottom temperatures out at the maximum depth remained in the high 50s ℉. Unlike yesterday, there were no significant fish sightings.

Morton's Magic..

The beautiful picture above was contributed by Matt and illustrates really well what is so often special about Morton's Wharf. The location, allied to the construction, often gives rise to great shots in the sunlight. Jack is silhouetted really well here. The dive was a fun one, taking in first the wreck of the St Lawrence - another exercise in jungle busting through weeds, then along the contour back to the Wharf, where we played around for a while, ultimately leaving the water about 64 minutes later. Thanks for the pics Matt - cool!

Its like Safari diving out there!

It seems like the last few dives have been just like the old Mutual of Omaha wildlife shows of the 70s. The weeds are like forests and the bottom can be full of algae. The plus side of this is the life in the lake is never as good as it is now. One of our intrepid divers mentioned its like swiming in a fish bowl. The highlight for me was last night at the Museum where kristie and myself ran into a catfish attempting to dine on a poor lake shad. I managed to get a couple of shots of it and you can see where the bite marks were on it. It wasn't swiming too well and I figure he didnt make it far but than that's life in the wild! I wont deny the visibility is not the greatest but with a keen eye you can see walleye, sheepshead, and more if your carefull. Water temps have fluctuated between 75-65F down to 20 feet, however at 100 feet its 55F. Visibility in all areas has been grim but feasible with approximately 15 feet at the 20 foot depth and between 20 to 40 at 60 or more depth. Did I mention weeds? This afternoon Mike Jack and myself treated ourselves to a bit of old school bushwhacking navigation for a 78 minute dive to see but the Regent and the Charlotte in one swim on an alluminum 80 no less.
One last thing the Dolphins are now on Facebook, look for CFB Kingston Dolphin Scuba club and if you like, hit 'Like Us'! Less talk more pics I say:
1. Gaétan at the Wharf in the Haze, 2. The AAA guns of Mortons Wharf, 3. Marc-Etienne looking to snap a rather large bass.

4. Mike Bushwhacking at deadmans bay, 5 and 6. The shad that Escapes death by the hands of a catfish. You can see the bite marks on the shad.

Yours in Fun Safe diving
Matt C

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...

Two more divers complete Open Water work..

The picture by Todd shows Mike leading students, Dale, Glenn and Ben out along the pipeline at Portsmouth that leads to the famous anchors. Glenn and Dale went on today to complete the last of their Open Water dives for certification. Their final dive was on the KGH Wreck. This is a tribute to their skills and confidence in the water. Each completed this relatively challenging dive for inexperienced new divers with a broad smile and a strong sense of personal satisfaction. Water temps, by the way, 55℉ (13℃) above the 32' thermocline - 46℉ (8℃). Visibility in the deeper waters was very good, but decidedly limited around shallow .sites like Morton's Wharf.

A dive on the Ole KGH Wreck

Now that the pool is open, some of us are taking quite the advantage of it. Photography was the aim of to day, except for one of us, who wanted to make this a, "test to see if my reg's are good (Matt) dive". Well after a brief return to shore to see Matt wave us off. Gaetan, Jim and myself set out to the KGH. The line out is in good shape, after a 12 min swim at a decent pace the wreck comes into view with the vis to be around 45 ft. Today she had a school of Bass visiting her besides us divers. After pictures were taken and a swim around the wreck we made our wayback to shore.

It was a great dive, with the fish coming back into the wrecks and structure the water is warming up another degree. 37 F was the temp today, and after 53 min, it was time to come out of the water and go for our traditional coffee.

Christmas Day in the workhouse...

Air Temp: -1℃ (30℉) / Water Temp: 37℉ (3℃) / Visibility: 40'
Depth: 36' / Time: 40 mins

So, it may be Christmas Day for most people; a time to sit back and let the turkey dinner suffer the digestive process, but some of us have business to transact. Chris and I (sad, lonely people, you might say) made a small expedition to Morton's Wharf, where we discovered that the viz was excellent, the weeds have almost completely gone and the Bass were circling the fallen logs. We cruised the wharf slowly and took a side trip southwards, but otherwise just meandered around and enjoyed the much-improved views. Note to self - this is the time to start taking wide-angle, tripod-assisted pictures of the local underwater landmarks.

P.S. Thank you to Gaetan for coming out to capture topsides pics - and to Dianne for hot chocolate (well, after all, it's the one day of the year that Timmy's isn't available for the après dive experience..!)

Deadman's Turtle Tales - Part 2

Todd 'sneaking up' on a turtle..


Painted Turtle..


Bow section of the Princess Charlotte..


Stern section of the Princess Charlotte..

Today's near-ideal conditions prompted Todd and I to make another expedition out to the Princess Charlotte. Todd navigated today and put us, near as dammit, right on the wreck. I was experimenting with photography using a tripod and the results were pleasing. It gives you the opportunity to obtain maximum depth of field and a sharp result. We both took some time to 'bother' the resident turtles. Please understand that this does NOT involve actually touching or otherwise disturbing these animals; something which no diver should do. For those who care about the cooling of the Lake, note that the lowest temperature observed during this dive was 36℉ (2℃).

By the way, Todd left the dive site to go and collect a spiffy new DUI drysuit. Look out for news and pictures of this very shortly.

Night Time Photo Foray...

This evening Todd and Matt let me join them on a night dive from Morton's Wharf. They were both keen to experiment with new, or fairly new camera gear, especially external strobes for their setups. The results will likely appear in due course on their Facebook pages or elsewhere. In the meantime, the pic above was taken the old-fashioned way, with in-camera flash.

For record keepers, the conditions were quite good. Water temp - as expected - 45℉ (7℃). The air temperature a little cooler at just 2℃. Viz, thanks to a stiff SW wind, which was driving some good waves up on to the entry point - about 20'.

Night + Shallow = Fun!

I will say something that will maybe offend the intense tech. divers that believe that you need to go deep to get a good dive. Last night proved that wrong. A max depth of 12 feet with an average depth of 6 feet, that's a good dive! Ask Suzanne, she was cheering and screaming after her first night experience.

Mike, Todd, Suzanne and I (and DIanne, but a "congestion" forced her to stay on the shore) met at the base marina by deadman's bay for a night dive. My primary goal in that dive was to get a warm sheltered environment to get as many fish as possible to go on a picture hunting night. Mike brought his camera also and we paired up wandering the marina's bottom on our quest to blind fishes with strobe light! During that time, Suzanne discovered the pleasure of night diving with Todd. Believe me, some fishes, must hate me now, my second strobe light finally works, so I got twice the light power to blind them! Poor little fishes

Here are few of my best shots. Enjoy!


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