So last night marked the first two of our five Adventure dives, needless to say I was a wee bit excited. The shop had given me new gear to try, this time using a neoprene dry suit. So after calculating the additional weight required to account for the new buoyancy of the suit, I was all good to go. So with Virpi as our guide we geared up and descended into the depths. Our first of two adventure dives on the night was our Wreck dive, after a surface swim (I hate surface swims.. lol) to the Grant Hall marker, we grouped, signaled and descended to set foot, for the first time, on the deck of a boat that has been serving as a natural reef for years. Once grouped at the bottom we made a slow search around the wreck both down where it was buried in the silt and along it's upper surfaces. With our lights on and a careful scan of the underbelly of the ship we were able to discover an octopus den, not sure if our friend was at home or not, but you could tell he had been eating well, by all the crab shells outside of his house. A beautiful kite fish caught our attention as it skirted along the bottom of the ship but staying just long enough for us all to have a good look. Along the upper surfaces of the Grant Hall we were able to meet up with a Decorator Crab, no, not Martha Stewart, this is an actual crustacean who uses bits of seaweed, sponges and debris and sticks it to itself as a disguise, I didn't see him until Virpi pointed him out and disturbed the water nearby so that he moved a bit. Then out of the corner of my eye I caught what surely have been a shark or a barracuda or some other man-eating creature of the deep. It ducked down inside a crevice between a holding tank and the bulkhead, (ok, obviously not a shark...) so me being inquisitive (and a little dumb) I moved in on the crevice to take a closer look and with the help of my dive light, found myself face to face with one of the largest Ling Cod I have ever seen. He must have been about 12 feet long and at least a thousand pounds... ok, maybe 4 feet long, but the menacing look he gave me was really scary.. lol. After a quick once more over the surface of the boat we found ourselves back at the chain and ready for our ascent to the surface... and another surface swim in and back out for our next dive, our last dive of the night, our Night Dive!
So after a quick break, a Nutrigrain bar and a tank change, no that's not code for bathroom break, although it would work, this was an actually tank change, we headed back down the stairs of Porteau. After some trouble with my fins, which should have been a sign that this was not going to be my night, we made our surface swim out the the marker buoy, fortunately not as far this time as the Grant Hall, and prepared for our decent. I'll stop here so you can get a idea of what this looks like, it's after 8:00pm (closer to 9:00), it's dark, darker than dark. Here in the city, night is spoiled by light pollution, street lights, neighbors, headlights, etc. up at Porteau we have a couple parking lot lights and the lights in the distance on the opposite shore... it's DARK! Add to that the fact that we are now going to drop down 30+ feet below the surface loosing color, light and visibility more and more the deeper we go... it's REALLY REALLY DARK!
Here is where life gets interesting or mildly more dramatic, unfortunately I was already having issues with my buoyancy by this point, neoprene is more buoyant so it takes more weight and a slightly different approach to obtain and maintain neutral buoyancy. Little did I know I was already coming down with a cold and my lungs were already working harder than they should, add the fact that my jaw (a long standing medical issue I've been dealing with for years) decided to act up after nearly 9 months of no issues. So lets condense, we have me 30+ feet under water, pitch black except for my (and my groups) dive lights, body already tired and sore, lungs already working over-time, and a dry suit that wants to make an ascent to the surface with or without me...lol. So we are going to practice our Navigation swim, again not a skill I am fond of but one that is essential. My job is to swim in the direction Virpi points, keep my needle in the marks, and my partner counts kick cycles, hit 15 cycles, turn around and swim back keeping the needle in the reverse position and after 15 kick cycles we should be back where we started. Sounds simple, and I am sure for those with a decent sense of direction or even me under normal circumstances it would have been ok. Now remember, I'm already having issues, so here is roughly what happened, my partner and I started to swim, I can't see bottom, all I can see is my compass and all I can feel is my partners hand on my arm. I am struggling for some reason to keep the needle in the marks and my partner is pulling at my arm, not knowing what he was trying to tell me I turn to see him giving me the thumbs up, which in diving means ascend, so I turn to ascend and grab my low pressure inflator for my BCD to prepare for my ascent, look at my partner and break the surface... completely disoriented, I thought we were still right along the bottom, apparently the pulling at my arm was my partner realizing I was ascending the whole time and he was trying to signal that I was going up. After getting my bearings and swimming back to the marker buoy with my partner we started our re-decent and that is when the "fun" started. The hood i was wearing was too big for me so when I looked down on my decent and exhaled, the air caught in my hood, sliding my hood back and pulled my regulator out of my mouth. Unfortunately I was inhaling at the time and took water down my throat. It's funny though, looking back, how fast your training, if you are trained by good instructors, kicks in automatically. Upon hitting the surface and knowing buoyancy was my first and only concern, I reached for my BCD low pressure inflator, unfortunately my gauges were still over my shoulder from the navigation swim so I couldn't find the inflator, so I did the next best thing, I inflated my drysuit, giving me enough buoyancy to take a breathe or two, take my gauges back off my shoulder grab the low pressure inflator for my BCD and add air to my BCD. Now that I was floating safely, it was time to kick back to the marker so that I was centralized for when my group surfaced, engage my lights in the possibility that in the dark my group may see the light above and realize I was still on the surface. Sure enough, after only a minute (seems longer when you're waiting) my group surfaced, checked on me, we got regrouped and descended for a tour of the dark bottom and a surface swim back to the vehicles and on our way back to the shop to switch out tanks then home to rest. After-all, we'll be back in the water today.
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