Post by surflung on May 23, 2016 8:19:53 GMT -8
Wazee Diving May 20-21
- Quite an interesting and ultimately FUN dive trip. Friday there were 5 of us: Sea Hunt Jerry, Sheriffidiver, Jill M, Rich M. and me (SurfLung). Jerry and Sherrif already had a dive in by the time we arrived. Got to meet Sheriffdiver and talk vintage a bit. Very refreshing to see someone with such strong enthusiasm for vintage come to our dives. Sherrif was showing telling us his UDS triples and how he got them Hydro'd up at Brainerd and the unique system for filling and toggling the reserve. I had not seen that system up close nor explained so well before.
- Then he breaks out his Cousteau/JMJ wetsuit. This is where his dedication really showed. It must have taken hours and hours to get that yellow striping glued on. Sheriff says the JMJ wetsuit has the seems in the same places as the original Cousteau suits so the yellow stripes ended up being in the same places.
- With one dive under their belts, Jerry and Sherrif took off for "The Wall" access to do their 2nd dive. Jill was already in and out of the water due to the cold. So, Rich and I went in for Dive #1. I was diving my yellow Twin 38s with yellow hosed Royal Master double hosed reg. We went straight to the deep platform thru the trees and came out at the platform 60 feet down. Visibility was disappointing. We were going to go along the ridge to the left but turned around and came back to the 40 ft depth where vis was better. We navigated thru the trees and over that ridge to the sunken Chris Craft, then along the shore to the culverts, shallow platform and fishcribs... Came out after about 30 minutes.
- Then Jerry and Sheriff came back reporting bad vis over at the Wall. Jerry and Jill said their good-byes and then there were three of us.
- I wanted to try my Dacor Dial-A-Breath with the yellow 38s (because that's the reg the original owner used). Rich suited up with my Kracken and modern gear. And Sheriff dove is beautiful yellow Twin 72s. We stayed on the Shallow side and experience such poor visibility that most of the dive was spent trying to re-locate each other. BTW - The Dacor Dial-A-Breath was pretty horrible... I was laboring to breathe the whole time. We did another 30 minutes though.
- We went over to the Wall access for our 3rd dive (Sheriff's 4th) and planned to get some GoPro video of him with his UDS and Cousteau wetsuit and mask. It's really too bad for the bad visibility but he looked just like a Cousteau diver. We were diving the shallow side. I had extra air and went down the Wall after Sheriff had went ashore. That's where we found better visibility at 30-50 feet and might have gotten better (but dark) video. Sheriff had to go home so it was only Rich and I left to stay over and dive Saturday.
- But low and behold, 8:00 Saturday morning we showed up at the Sherwood dive access and found Eric P. our Fortune Pond buddy. He was waiting for a bunch of his Tech Diver buddies which included our other Fortune buddy SwimJim.
- So, we got treated to look at and visit over some pretty extreme equipment including three rebreathers. Thos guys went quite a bit deeper and discovered that the visibility was bad after 60 feet but cleared up again down at 80 feet... Though by that time quite dark.
- Rich and I went in for a second dive on the same tanks... 20-30 feet deep following compass headings and came out again after 30 minutes.
- We said our good byes to the Tech divers and went over to the Wall access for our last and best dive. I went along the base of the wall at about 50 feet deep and discovered several mementos left by other divers... Lots of overhangs and tree branch swim thrus to through. I dove my steel 50 with my Nemrod Snark III... The Snark breathes very nice... Very close if not equal to my DAAM based regs. We figured a half an hour and turned back after 15 minutes. That was a really fun dive with decent visibility to finish out this dive trip.
- So, 6 dives total. Water temps 41 degrees at 50-60 feet. 46 degrees at shallower depths. Visibility was disappointing but the weather was absolutely beautiful and the diving buddies were great, too.
- Next Trip is Fortune... June 17-18th. This will be our last dive trip until Sand Dog in August.
- Quite an interesting and ultimately FUN dive trip. Friday there were 5 of us: Sea Hunt Jerry, Sheriffidiver, Jill M, Rich M. and me (SurfLung). Jerry and Sherrif already had a dive in by the time we arrived. Got to meet Sheriffdiver and talk vintage a bit. Very refreshing to see someone with such strong enthusiasm for vintage come to our dives. Sherrif was showing telling us his UDS triples and how he got them Hydro'd up at Brainerd and the unique system for filling and toggling the reserve. I had not seen that system up close nor explained so well before.
- Then he breaks out his Cousteau/JMJ wetsuit. This is where his dedication really showed. It must have taken hours and hours to get that yellow striping glued on. Sheriff says the JMJ wetsuit has the seems in the same places as the original Cousteau suits so the yellow stripes ended up being in the same places.
- With one dive under their belts, Jerry and Sherrif took off for "The Wall" access to do their 2nd dive. Jill was already in and out of the water due to the cold. So, Rich and I went in for Dive #1. I was diving my yellow Twin 38s with yellow hosed Royal Master double hosed reg. We went straight to the deep platform thru the trees and came out at the platform 60 feet down. Visibility was disappointing. We were going to go along the ridge to the left but turned around and came back to the 40 ft depth where vis was better. We navigated thru the trees and over that ridge to the sunken Chris Craft, then along the shore to the culverts, shallow platform and fishcribs... Came out after about 30 minutes.
- Then Jerry and Sheriff came back reporting bad vis over at the Wall. Jerry and Jill said their good-byes and then there were three of us.
- I wanted to try my Dacor Dial-A-Breath with the yellow 38s (because that's the reg the original owner used). Rich suited up with my Kracken and modern gear. And Sheriff dove is beautiful yellow Twin 72s. We stayed on the Shallow side and experience such poor visibility that most of the dive was spent trying to re-locate each other. BTW - The Dacor Dial-A-Breath was pretty horrible... I was laboring to breathe the whole time. We did another 30 minutes though.
- We went over to the Wall access for our 3rd dive (Sheriff's 4th) and planned to get some GoPro video of him with his UDS and Cousteau wetsuit and mask. It's really too bad for the bad visibility but he looked just like a Cousteau diver. We were diving the shallow side. I had extra air and went down the Wall after Sheriff had went ashore. That's where we found better visibility at 30-50 feet and might have gotten better (but dark) video. Sheriff had to go home so it was only Rich and I left to stay over and dive Saturday.
- But low and behold, 8:00 Saturday morning we showed up at the Sherwood dive access and found Eric P. our Fortune Pond buddy. He was waiting for a bunch of his Tech Diver buddies which included our other Fortune buddy SwimJim.
- So, we got treated to look at and visit over some pretty extreme equipment including three rebreathers. Thos guys went quite a bit deeper and discovered that the visibility was bad after 60 feet but cleared up again down at 80 feet... Though by that time quite dark.
- Rich and I went in for a second dive on the same tanks... 20-30 feet deep following compass headings and came out again after 30 minutes.
- We said our good byes to the Tech divers and went over to the Wall access for our last and best dive. I went along the base of the wall at about 50 feet deep and discovered several mementos left by other divers... Lots of overhangs and tree branch swim thrus to through. I dove my steel 50 with my Nemrod Snark III... The Snark breathes very nice... Very close if not equal to my DAAM based regs. We figured a half an hour and turned back after 15 minutes. That was a really fun dive with decent visibility to finish out this dive trip.
- So, 6 dives total. Water temps 41 degrees at 50-60 feet. 46 degrees at shallower depths. Visibility was disappointing but the weather was absolutely beautiful and the diving buddies were great, too.
- Next Trip is Fortune... June 17-18th. This will be our last dive trip until Sand Dog in August.
