Oh what a night..!

It's not very often that the Lake is glassy calm, but it certainly was last night, when Todd and I jumped in at KPH. We'd expected good visibility and were rewarded with exactly that. The range was limited only by the reach of our lights. Was there much to see though, you ask..? Well, yes, some Bass, Perch and Mud Puppies - and the occasional Catfish (we were in the water quite early). The water temperature was the same 52℉ (11℃) we've been seeing for a few days now. The good news is that the weeds are definitely dying back. We spent about 45 minutes in the water, checking out a rumour passed by one of the local estate managers that a car might lie off the eastern end of the wharf, amongst other things. There was no car, but it was interesting to note how badly undermined that eastern wall of the dock is. The cavities extend more than a dozen feet in some places. The key message - don't park on the eastern side of the wharf - the pothole may be deeper than you think!

Earlier in the day, I had the pleasure of introducing a member of our sister Club, the Flying Frogmen in Trenton, to Morton's Wharf and the St Lawrence site. That too was a good dive, with moderate visibility. This is a great time of year to be in the water. It's not too desperately chilly yet, and the algae and particulates are settling out nicely.

Pumpkin dive

There is not much more to say. This was a perfect day even for the "real" divers going wet, the way out was pretty comfortable compared to last year.

For those that had something better to do, no but seriously, what better thing could you have to do than dive! Here is my little taste of today in pictures and videos.

Hey Matt, Do you know who is awesome??

You're awesome!!

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

Pumpkin Dive a Perfect Pastime...

Thanks to Kim and Scott, with a little help from their friends, today's Pumpkin Dive was a great success. Although only three buddy pairs participated in the actual competition, there were more than a dozen divers actually in the water, many busy with recording the event photographically. It was particularly pleasing to see Eric and Anton in the water; Anton only gained his Open Water certification earlier this month. Suzanne and Ken, who were guests at the event, but intend to bring their AOW skills to the Club as full members next year, were also very welcome. Well done to all the Pumpkin mutilators.. and many, many thanks to Kim for a fabulous spread and a knockout Chili..

All the photos on our Flickr site... - see link to the right...

Congratulations to Todd, who now does it deeper...

Todd is pictured before he completed the final dive for his PADI Deep Specialty. This puts him just one specialty away from achieving 'the Black Belt of Scuba Diving' - his Master Scuba Diver Certification.

Jesse joins the Rescuers...

Congratulations to Jesse! He completed the Rescue Course this evening in good conditions - and the approaching darkness. It's quite upsetting how quickly we get into night-time these days - and the worst is yet to come when the clocks go back an hour in November.

Jesse was assisted by Todd and both divers enjoyed water temps of about 54℉ (12℃). The good news was great visibility.

New Rescuers Boost the Club's Ranks...

Many congratulations are due to the four Club members who became Rescue Divers this evening. They have met the challenge of mastering many new skills and then exercising them in real-World conditions. Kim, Scott, Todd and Kevin all encountered and applied new techniques and appeared to enjoy the experience. Jesse, who was committed to Recspo at RMC, will very quickly catch up to complete the course.

Achieving the Rescue Diver certification marks a major change in any diver's circumstances. No longer is their diving largely introspective, it becomes much more outward-looking and they contribute actively to anticipating and addressing problems that others might be experiencing. All five of the divers who have been on the Rescue Course will be even more valuable members of our dive community in future. Gaining this certification is also, frequently, the last major step before tackling divemaster and taking on the task of 'Going Pro'. I think that all the divers who have worked so hard over the last week or so are well prepared and able to advance...

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.

"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).