Spectre
Contributor
So it was a busy weekend of diving! I originally planned on getting out friday evening for sea trials with my new BP/Wings, but two things happened. First was finding no convenient way to rig my pony [well, I could rig it right-side up, but I was seriously uncomfortable with not being able to reach my valves]... I spent the evening rigging my pony as a stage bottle. Second occurance was some friends from my dive club asking for assistance in a search and hopefully recovery dives this weekend.
I told them I couldn't dive sunday, I already had a spot on a charter, but I would be more than happy to help out on saturday, as long as we would be back in time for me to get fills for sunday morning.
So I was up early, got myself situated and all my gear packed up, and proceeded to dig around scubaboard to a point I ended up getting out of the house a little late. Thanks to the lack of police officers at that hour, I ended up the second to arrive. While everyone was busy wrapping/ tying/ weighting/ cutting/ looping/ spliceing, I was busy re-outfitting my BC from my BP harness [no sea trials today...]
Oh. The searching. They lost their sidescan sonar towfish about a month ago, and had absoutely no luck trying to find it. They came up with a more organized search method, and that's when they recruited us to get wet. Once everyone was there, we headed up to the parking lot for a dry run and practice... One diver on the line, holding one end of a 15 ft rope. One diver in middle holding the other end of that rope, a weight, and the other rope going to the 3rd diver. We used a post to practice putting down the one rope with the weight, unclipping the other rope, and running a reel back around the 'lobster line' to get by.
No sweat. So off we go. They start laying the transect [sp?] line, and all goes well. We then start running the perpendicular lines and that's when things got interesting... The weight of the line was a bit to much for the styrofoam flag buoys, and down they went...
There was enough floating line [I think it was polypropaline] to extend the lines enough to keep the flags on the surface, so we got out the rest of 'em. All in all, we had 5 or 6 flags out on the surface... which managed to disuade about 5% of the boaters [I think the harbormaster made a fortune in tickets on saturday!].
We started our first dive, two groups of three. We were only able to get one run done each, and didn't have any luck. As an aside however, I've _gotta_ get back there... the lobsters were just itching to be cooked! I think they knew I couldn't come up with bugs and no towfish, so they just came out and walked around... I grabbed one, probably about 4 lbs, just as I was swimming by, but I had to put him back [successful plan... leave the catch bag on the boat!].
While we 'surfaced intervaled' we pulled up the transects that we finished. One of the divers from my group decided to sit out for the second dive [due to acid reflux flairup]. So we went in with two. We decided to start from the shallower end, so we could ascend a line with a dive flag. The current was really starting to rip by now, and it was quite a fight against it along that transect. We got to the end and started heading back, but for some strange reason I was still going against the current. Turns out I was a little ahead of my buddy [with 15 ft lines and 13 ft vis, it's all just a guess
]. I relaxed some, and drifted up about 6 or 7 ft to get a better angle to search. I saw an old 'classic style' anchor, and thought briefly about marking it, but I realized what that would do to the people up top, and then I'd be in all sorts of trouble... so I continued. I knew we were getting to the end of the run, and it was none too soon enough as I was down to about 1200 psi by this time [damn currents!]. I looked off to my right [the line was to my left] and I could just make out something 'curious' about 15 ft away. I tugged my buddy to break off from the line and follow, and after a couple feet I tugged wildly [the signal for 'I've found it' or 'man you gotta see the size of this bug!]. Sure enough, there it was! I pulled out my reel, hooked it to the towfish... pulled out my bag and was about to send up the bag when my buddy got my attention to stop. She started wrapping up the towfish with the reel, and I was getting really confused as she was wrapping quite strangely, then next I knew it was back the way I had it. She signalled she'd let the reel out, and I let the bag go. Up the ascent line we created and into our hang. I knew she was a couple feet above me, and I checked periodically. I finished my safety stop and glanced up...she was gone!
Up to the surface I went, and she was fine, she had just gone up to make sure they knew it was a definate hit, and to get some 'recovery' divers down.
Turns out... I was planning on marking the towfish, when she decided to try and lift it. Then she realized my reel was cave line and went back to using it as an ascent line/marker buoy.
A successful day!
We got back to the dock about 1/4 past 5:00. I ran up and over to the dive shop for my sunday fills, but they unfortunately closed at 5:00. I had an option to get my gear, and bolt out of there to make the dive shop that closed at 7:00 when I was informed the happy towfish owner had a compressor and would fill my tanks! [Impressive BTW: A trailer in his side yard decked out with 8 air banks, 3 nitrox banks, 2 o2 tanks, 2 helium tanks, and 4 banks of 17/40 [I believe it was].
Well, this got way longer than I had planned... so I'm gonna end it and I'lll follow up with sundays dives in a bit...
I told them I couldn't dive sunday, I already had a spot on a charter, but I would be more than happy to help out on saturday, as long as we would be back in time for me to get fills for sunday morning.
So I was up early, got myself situated and all my gear packed up, and proceeded to dig around scubaboard to a point I ended up getting out of the house a little late. Thanks to the lack of police officers at that hour, I ended up the second to arrive. While everyone was busy wrapping/ tying/ weighting/ cutting/ looping/ spliceing, I was busy re-outfitting my BC from my BP harness [no sea trials today...]
Oh. The searching. They lost their sidescan sonar towfish about a month ago, and had absoutely no luck trying to find it. They came up with a more organized search method, and that's when they recruited us to get wet. Once everyone was there, we headed up to the parking lot for a dry run and practice... One diver on the line, holding one end of a 15 ft rope. One diver in middle holding the other end of that rope, a weight, and the other rope going to the 3rd diver. We used a post to practice putting down the one rope with the weight, unclipping the other rope, and running a reel back around the 'lobster line' to get by.
No sweat. So off we go. They start laying the transect [sp?] line, and all goes well. We then start running the perpendicular lines and that's when things got interesting... The weight of the line was a bit to much for the styrofoam flag buoys, and down they went...
There was enough floating line [I think it was polypropaline] to extend the lines enough to keep the flags on the surface, so we got out the rest of 'em. All in all, we had 5 or 6 flags out on the surface... which managed to disuade about 5% of the boaters [I think the harbormaster made a fortune in tickets on saturday!].
We started our first dive, two groups of three. We were only able to get one run done each, and didn't have any luck. As an aside however, I've _gotta_ get back there... the lobsters were just itching to be cooked! I think they knew I couldn't come up with bugs and no towfish, so they just came out and walked around... I grabbed one, probably about 4 lbs, just as I was swimming by, but I had to put him back [successful plan... leave the catch bag on the boat!].
While we 'surfaced intervaled' we pulled up the transects that we finished. One of the divers from my group decided to sit out for the second dive [due to acid reflux flairup]. So we went in with two. We decided to start from the shallower end, so we could ascend a line with a dive flag. The current was really starting to rip by now, and it was quite a fight against it along that transect. We got to the end and started heading back, but for some strange reason I was still going against the current. Turns out I was a little ahead of my buddy [with 15 ft lines and 13 ft vis, it's all just a guess
]. I relaxed some, and drifted up about 6 or 7 ft to get a better angle to search. I saw an old 'classic style' anchor, and thought briefly about marking it, but I realized what that would do to the people up top, and then I'd be in all sorts of trouble... so I continued. I knew we were getting to the end of the run, and it was none too soon enough as I was down to about 1200 psi by this time [damn currents!]. I looked off to my right [the line was to my left] and I could just make out something 'curious' about 15 ft away. I tugged my buddy to break off from the line and follow, and after a couple feet I tugged wildly [the signal for 'I've found it' or 'man you gotta see the size of this bug!]. Sure enough, there it was! I pulled out my reel, hooked it to the towfish... pulled out my bag and was about to send up the bag when my buddy got my attention to stop. She started wrapping up the towfish with the reel, and I was getting really confused as she was wrapping quite strangely, then next I knew it was back the way I had it. She signalled she'd let the reel out, and I let the bag go. Up the ascent line we created and into our hang. I knew she was a couple feet above me, and I checked periodically. I finished my safety stop and glanced up...she was gone!Up to the surface I went, and she was fine, she had just gone up to make sure they knew it was a definate hit, and to get some 'recovery' divers down.
Turns out... I was planning on marking the towfish, when she decided to try and lift it. Then she realized my reel was cave line and went back to using it as an ascent line/marker buoy.
A successful day!
We got back to the dock about 1/4 past 5:00. I ran up and over to the dive shop for my sunday fills, but they unfortunately closed at 5:00. I had an option to get my gear, and bolt out of there to make the dive shop that closed at 7:00 when I was informed the happy towfish owner had a compressor and would fill my tanks! [Impressive BTW: A trailer in his side yard decked out with 8 air banks, 3 nitrox banks, 2 o2 tanks, 2 helium tanks, and 4 banks of 17/40 [I believe it was].
Well, this got way longer than I had planned... so I'm gonna end it and I'lll follow up with sundays dives in a bit...
