So what did you do this week-end?

[NWGratefulDiver]

Dunno if this is the right forum, because this is scuba-related even though I never got in the water. I spent the week-end helping Muggsy at the ScubaBoard booth at the Tacoma (WA) Dive and Travel Expo. I met an incredible number of people who told me they are active on the board to one degree or another ... some whose screen names I recognize, and many who I didn't. With 200,000 plus members, it's hard to remember all the board names. Had a real ball talking about ScubaBoard to a lot of people who haven't joined us yet ... and hopefully helped to gain us a few new members.

Got a new drysuit ... a new design by Bare that I ordered a few weeks ago, and just happened to arrive in time for the show. I can't wait to get it wet.

And ... at the end of today ... I found out that one of the three pictures I submitted in the photo contest not only took first prize in its category, but won me a 7-day diving trip to one of the best cold-water diving spots on the planet ... Browning Pass, off the northern coast of Vancouver Island. I've been there twice before, and was already talking to another SB member about going back in September ... now for sure I'll be going.

Great week-end ... all about diving, even though I never managed to make it below the surface.

Oh ... the winning shot ... I called it "Surprised" ... yeah ... me too ... :D

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m257/NWGratefulDiver/Choce%20Pics/IMG_2296.jpg

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[gcarter]

Sounds like a great weekend!

Mine wasn't quite so spectacular, but still good. Picked up our VIPed tanks with their shiney new EAN stickers to go with our new EAN certs, so we can start diving Nitrox. Went to a spring sale at another LDS and picked up a few baubles. Today went to the St. Lawrence, but wasn't feeling the temp to do a dive wet so we settled for just doing some beach clean up and left the underwater cleanup to those with dry suits. I was kind of looking forward to trying out my new gloves though.

[TMHeimer]

Dived wet in Nova Scotia in April, which is marginally better than Nova Scotia in January, and nothing like Mississippi a month ago.

[Mustang29]

And ... at the end of today ... I found out that one of the three pictures I submitted in the photo contest not only took first prize in its category, but won me a 7-day diving trip to one of the best cold-water diving spots on the planet ... Browning Pass, off the northern coast of Vancouver Island. I've been there twice before, and was already talking to another SB member about going back in September ... now for sure I'll be going.





Great Job!

I spent my weekend diving in a pool. Doing my OW cert!

[DevonDiver]

For the last couple of days, I was involved in the PR of a new dive center in Subic - working alongside a pro-photographer to capture some great images of muck-critters on a new artificial reef project and also some more general shots of the wrecks/divers and technical diving.

Did one exploratory dive on a potential wreck 'mark' I had... 100m circular reel search, at 29m, from a shot dropped on GPS coordinates. Nothing but silt, small rock pinnacles and a few tube anemones. Maybe next time....

Worked with dive center manager to put together his application for PADI Dive Resort accreditation/membership. Also working out procedures for running courses at the center. Bookings, pricing, policies etc etc

Spent many evening hours developing some promo materials on Photoshop, using the new photo images taken on the dives. Designed a dive shop logo, created several other logos to showcase the variety of diving available here (muck photo, sidemount wreck etc).

Also initiated steps to begin a conservation effort of a large Seahorse colony found thriving on the artificial reef/muck site. Contacted London Zoo (Project Seahorse) and several other organizations/individuals who might help start the ball rolling with an ongoing study and protection measures.

Combined these dives with trial and adjustment of my DIY sidemount rig... got some nice 'action' photos taken during wreck penetrations (see my new profile pic and avatar).

Made 3 posts onto my blog. Added an album to my Facebook page. Contributed several interest stories to the Facebook Wreck and Tech Wreck groups. Posted a few times on Scubaboard and did some moderation here. Sent over 80 emails.

Finally got home to my Condo, after 6 days away, at 1am last night...

[gcarter]

Busy much? :D

---------- Post added April 23rd, 2012 at 12:33 AM ----------


Dived wet in Nova Scotia in April, which is marginally better than Nova Scotia in January, and nothing like Mississippi a month ago.

We dove wet last weekend @ 3.3C - SI was a balmy 17C.

Today was reported by the Ogdensburg station ~ 6C, but the SI was around 4C with a nice crisp breeze blowing off the river. Just wasn't feeling it. :(

[jhupka]

funny guess I met you at the dive show and never even knew it. I was the guy walking around with rope and the ezzycut lol

[TSandM]

Oh, Eezycut is such a great product! Sorry I didn't meet you!

The Expo was fun. Last year, I came and enjoyed talking to all the travel folks, but there were no products I really wanted. This year, the show was dangerous! From the new Santi suits, and the new Light Monkey divided canister, to the clever Halcyon light/reel mating combinations, there were a lot of things I wouldn't mind owning. But I kept it to the purchase of a set of hand-painted dry gloves, with seahorses all over them. They're stunning!

I so enjoyed seeing so many PNW divers who I rarely see or get to talk to . . . and I got to talk up our Project Baseline to a bunch of people I think might be able to help us.

Today, I didn't make it to the show. I spent the morning cleaning the house and yard for guests, and the early afternoon riding two horses. It was 77 degrees in Woodinville today, the warmest day of the year so far, and it was utterly wonderful to be outside. And as strange as it sounds to say it, I'm glad I didn't dive, because it was wonderful to spend an entire day outside without ever getting cold.
T

[Tigerman]

Sounds like a lot better weekend than mine.. Ive been working nights all last week, including the weekend :p

[Simon-]

Nice relaxing dhow (arabic traditional boat) into the Mussandam area of Oman.

Air temperature was around 29c and the water temperature 25c pretty constantly from 5m to 30m.

6 planned dives, 1 extra on the way back, but a totally unplanned additional night dive (after the planned one) to find my wife's mask and snorkel she dropped as she got into the speedboat. Luckily there was very little current, and we managed to find it about 25m from the dhow in 23m. Luckily the vis was good and the torches bright ;-)

[turnerjd]

Didn't manage to dive, but went online to order a new 15L cylinder.

I spent most of Saturday in the car driving between the local LDS (in Luxembourg) and the nearest in France, about an hour away. The Luxembourg LDS will fill (and can VIP / Hydro) a French cylinder, but the French won't fill (nor inspect) a Luxembourg cylinder. Neither will the Luxembourg LDS sell a French cylinder. All because the French insist that cylinders meet the EN specification AND the NF specification.

Anyway, I didn't find the cylinder I wanted so I ended up going online to get a great deal. It should be delivered later this week and I hope to try it out in the next week or two.

Jon

Actually, the French have the test date and expiry (and this can be a sticker on the tank) whilst Luxembourg follows the German system with the test expiry date stamped on the cylinder (and the German tanks have to be stamped DIN EN XXX rather than NF EN XXX).

[Stoo]

Congrats Bob... You must be a very Grateful Diver! And nice shot!

I spent part of the weekend getting my boat put back together to kick things off next weekend. But, just watching the morning news, we are supposed to get 7"-10" of snow today!

PS: PM sent

[ajtoady]

This weekend was spent pulling concrete forms off of some slabs I poured Friday. Between a couple of North Carolina service calls, a wedding for my stepdaughter, and getting ready for the upcoming cottage season, I have NOT been under in four weeks plus!! My temperament and normal good nature are being strained by lack of breathing compressed gases. I think I'll go out and stick a reg in my mouth in the shop for a few so I don't shoot the cat due to my foul mood. God I hate the spring and all of it's chores!!:banghead:

p.s. Great shot Bob!!!

[rhwestfall]

well, aside from spending too much reading time on SB......

I spent a little time with some of my equipment, preparing it for the season (did you notice the word snow in the forecast here - possibly up to 9" $%@&!!!!!). Rebuilt/converted a SP109 Adjustable to a 156 Balanced Adjustable, switched my MK-2 to a DIN for my pony set-up, and began to obsess over how to properly rig a back-plate as I take delivery of one some time today (Monday).......

[Jim Lapenta]

Worked half a day saturday. Sent out some quotes in the afternoon. Sunday introduced 14 girl scouts ages 8-11 to snorkeling and skin diving, how the skills can be used for conservation, preservation, relaxation, and as a doorway to a career for a woman in different dive related fields. Also promoted to them the "We are water" program that Jill Heinerth is raising awareness for.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

[Wookie]

Hung out in Puerto Rico between dive trips and drank a bunch of rum. Life is good.

[ajtoady]

Hung out in Puerto Rico between dive trips and drank a bunch of rum. Life is good.

Just HAD to rub it in!!!! Lucky Bugger!!:D

[JamesK]

Well, let's see. Friday I spent a couple hours in a pool helping someone who is in OW class to work on his mask clearing drills.

Saturday I took a new night diver, along with 3 other friends, out on a phenomenal night dive on the coast of Cuba. 75 minutes of pure joy. Took my new Intova Sport Pro and got some video and pics of some beautiful life, including a gorgeous octopus.

Sunday went to an island and spent a few hours doing a clean up of it collecting over 30 bags of trash. After that went out to accompany the OW student on his last checkout dive. Water was horrible and it started pouring.

[Slamfire]

I got to meet Muggsy and NWGratefuldiver.

- Hi, *look around and in low voice* I'm Slamfire.

Slamfire is a handle I made for shotgun forums back in the day when I was a very active shotgunner. Doesn't really go that well with scuba and I didn't want to attract too many strange looks from the bystanders. But Bob, instantly recognized me after I disclosed my handle. I got a water bottle. My kid got some stickers. And I did too.

I did get wet this weekend. Participated on the show's treasure hunt dive. It was an extremely loooong dive lasting slightly more than a minute. Because I knew it was going to be soo long, I came well prepared with an Aluminum 50 with 3200 psi on my back. I came out with slightly more than 3000 psi. The mission was to find a logoed golf ball to enter into sweepstakes. Mission was accomplished in that time. I found a ball for me and one for my buddy, and then I gave him the ascent signal.

I would have stayed down longer, but my regs were tuned too aggressively and and they were just a hair away from free flowing. I hadn't dove a single tank in a really long time and I decided that rather than take apart my tried and true and properly tuned regs for doubles and stages, I would just put something together from the first and 2nd stages that I have lying around without use. The problem was that I decided to do that the night before driving to Tacoma and apparently rushed thru the tunning because it was late and I was getting sleepy. Nonetheless, the mission was accomplished and I got back without losing my newbie insta buddy.

From that treasure hunt I ended up winning a night dive with mantas in Kona... So now I have to go to Kona...

I also got to meet lots of cool people at the show. Spent some time with cerich at the Edge/Hog booth. He had a really nice new balanced piston first stage, the BP2. The only problem is that he won't sell you anything directly...

- Can I buy this?
- No
- Can I buy that?
- No

The man has dealers and he respects that relationship. He did give me a couple of free slap straps for my masks though.

I also got a scula canisterless can light from Titan Dive Gear and pestered Randy Klein Gross with my endless questions about the light. I got to try the light in the one minute treasure hunt dive.

Good weekend overall.

[boulderjohn]

I conducted an OW class in Utah, diving in an extinct geyser at 94°.

[mathauck0814]

Dove the wreck of the Olympic out of the port of Los Angeles with ~30 feet of viz and more fish life than I've ever seen there. Continued on to two scallop harvesting dives on the Eureka Oil Rig. Came home and fried em up with garlic butter. Pretty good little Sunday morning.

[freewillie]

Since this a nondiving topic this fits right in. I've unfortunately been dry since February. Once my 7 year old starts little league baseball it dominates the family schedules and activities on the weekends. Then the two daughters and wife get in the act complaining they don't get enough of my time. At least I'm wanted at home.

Saturday morning would have been a good time to squeeze in a morning dive but my dive club scheduled a trip to Catalina and nobody was diving Laguna Beach. Afternoon with little league (my son's team played their best game of the year BTW and won easily) and the whole team went to the Angels game afterwards which was a lot of fun.

Sunday was shopping at Costco and my oldest daughter's dance competition. I took her but brought the little boy along as well and we practiced baseball while waiting for his sister to dance.

Overall fun weekend but no diving in sight for now. Might have an opportunity next month as baseball winds down and I did promise my daughter a dive trip for her birthday!

[Fajabird]

Taught a SCUBA Tune Up class to four divers. They had all gotten their OW Cert 1 to 4 years ago and hadn't dived at all since. Bummer! I was very happy about one of the ladies in the class. She said that her OW water class was so stressful that she burst into tears after her final dive. Yikes! She did well in my class and afterwards was all smiles and very excited to continue diving. This is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching.

Bought an HP100 tank. I've been relying on the shop tanks and thinking about it for a long time. What tipped the scales? I'm going on the M/V Spree with my daughter and wife, who both have better SAC than me. The Spree folks said I could bring my own tank. So I splurged :)

[Scott]

I spent the weekend technical wreck diving in SoCal on the Sand Dollar.

[RTee]

Saturday was devoted to domestic chores and Sunday, teamed up with some divers to pick up underwater garbage during a 55 min drift dive in the St Lawrence River. Water temp was a balmy 45F

[asha]

Awesome weekend! Kayaked in La Jolla with my best girlfriend; dove the Olympic and the oil rigs with mathauck0814. Left my camera on the boat after my fiber optic cable broke, and learned how to harvest scallops! :)

Rethreaded my backplate with HOT PINK webbing!

Now, getting ready to start my DM course this week with one of the guys from Scott's Catalina tech boat!

[turnerjd]

Left my camera on the boat after my fiber optic cable broke, and learned how to harvest scallops! :)



Nothing better than a dinner of Scallops that you collected yourself, I have done this many times just off Oban in the north west of Scotland!

Jon

[divingsiren]

Pompano Beach, FL dive trip got blown out :(

Curse you Mother Nature!

Going out into the Gulf next weekend though :)

[Hawkwood]

The local lakes are still frozen, so no diving yet. Taught an EFR class - that was pretty satisfying in it's own right.

Bill

Oh yeah, packaged up my miflex hose to send back and mailed it.

[fjpatrum]

Picked up two of my three tanks and started sorting the gear I'll be taking on my trip that starts soon. Yay for some time off to go diving with my brother. Still need to get an adapter for his HP port though. Today I'm planning to go buy a "new to me" dry suit, if it fits.

[diveprof]

Friday: Dove in the Savannah River near Augusta, GA (best river dive if looking for vis in GA and SC). Lots of Bluegill, bass, freshwater eel, and speckled madtoms (small catfish that remind me of the splendid toadfish of Coz). Saturday was two dives in our lake: Great vis and fish life 92' max depth for 62 min and 91' for 56 min. Bass, bluegill, bass babies, gar and other stuff. Sunday was another dive at the lake. 87' max with dive time of 62 min. Large bass with wounds from mating associated events spent several minutes with us, coming within inches of my mask. It was a good weekend.

[koozemani]

Road trip down to San Carlos with my Lds and got my first 5 dives of the year in. Got some new gear wet for the first time and had a blast. A friend of ours got certified on that trip, so now I have a new buddy.