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Hi, Everyone!
I made an awesome dive on Saturday while searching for a wreck in the lake.
We towed the proton magnetometer around our search area for three hours
without a single reading until we noticed the 12 volt battery was missing.
At this point we determined that the grapple hook would be more effective.
We were dragging the grapple hook in the search area and it snagged on
something while making a turnaround. We dropped a tethered video camera in
the water to try to see what we were caught on but the camera stopped
working because it wasn't made for underwater use. This meant I had to make
a dive to unhook the grapple and see what we were snagged on. The water
temperature was 43 degrees and I was diving with a new drysuit recently
purchased from Mac at West shore scuba. It took me a
while to get used to it because it didn't have any seals to keep the water
out. Mac said that this design would eliminate unnecessary buoyancy and I
wouldn't have to use as much weight and he was right. With forty pounds on
my weightbelt and 5 more pounds on each ankle I had no problem getting down.
The ripping current had no effect on me as I dropped to 120 feet in about
six seconds, my planed depth was 119.5 feet so I know I was taking a huge
risk doing this dive since I really didn't have the correct gas for this
depth ( I had a 21.25% Nitrox mix that I got from my buddies Sears air
compressor ). I like to conserve gas by not wasting time on the descent.
Visibility was excellent! I had no problem seeing my gauge with my primary
pen light at two feet away. I am sure there must have been at least three
feet of total vis! As I walked around backwards on the bottom (I had fins on
and I heard about scooters that can handle this depth{Mr. Tiny Cobb's} so I
didn't bring mine) I quickly found the grapple. It was tangled in a huge
mess of monofiliment line and netting which I quickly jumped into with the
hopes of finding at least one fishing lure. After twenty minutes I finally
untangled myself (next time I'll bring a knife) and decided to check my
gauge and computer. I was relieved to see that I still had 100 pounds of air
in my single steel 72 and only six minutes of deco (and yes for all you DIR
know it alls I had redundant air, I am the proud owner of the double tank
Spar-Air system). This meant I still had at least twenty more minutes left
to look for lures since I still hadn't found any. When my air ran out, I
switched to my pony bottle which I always keep full of 94% O2. After a few
more minutes I began to get a headache from the cold and decided it was time
to surface. I ascended rapidly to eight feet where I completed my two minute
deco stop while shivering uncontrollably. Then I went to my next deco stop
at six inches and switched to my snorkel ( I am currently working on my PADI
TECH diver- the six inch deco stop on 21% nitrox is required on all
dives)after 7mins and 45 seconds I surfaced ( I did an extra 15 seconds).
The captain of the boat tried to talk me into making a second dive but I began
getting pain in my joints and decided against it ( it was from the
carpaltunnel that I got from all the educational email that I send from my
computer NOT DCS, only the wimps from Virginia get that stuff- Right Mr. JT!
I bet you wouldn't of gotten skin bent if you would of done another 3 mins
on O2 from your BIG dive the other weekend. ). Plus my computer had switched
into gauge only mode for some reason. The Captain kept mumbling something
about losing $300 of rope and grapple because I forgot to unhook it. After
an hour of trying to work the grapple loose we cut the line and tied a buoy
on the end. So now we have an excellent dive site marked with a buoy if
anyone is interested in diving with us there next time. Aside from the low
visibility,ripping currents and high entanglement factors, you will enjoy a
great dive.
If I can only remember where it is.....
Michael J. Black MD
--
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