Dive report at WPP today with Jess

[In10se]

Had a great time today with Jess. Anyone who needs a dive buddy ... Jess is your man. Very fun to hang out with and a very safe/knowledgeable diver.

Our first dive went down to 121' for about 5 minutes, then we worked our way up to 80 for 10, then 40 for 10 and finally 20/10/5 and out. We were down a little over 30 minutes for that dive.

Our second dive was only down to about 70' with a gradual descent then back up to 40 for about 10 minutes than 20ish and finally 5.

We hit some of the outcroppings and as our exhaust gas rose it became trapped under one of the outcroppings creating a large bubble. Being a noob that was interesting to me, so I just kinda created a larger air pocket there intending to just swim on on away afterwards. As I started to move away Jess motioned for me to look at the top side of the rock formation. What was cool was that the air in our newly formed pocket then rose up through the sedentary rock formations and bubbled on up to the surface. It was neat to see several bubble trails rise up like that. We went on and had a leisurely dive afterwards.

At 5 feet I still had about 700 psi left and wanted do do a Mythbuster style check on the uncontrolled ascent theory of dbl al80's with my 3ml farmer john at equal to or less than 500psi at 15ffw. I used my secondary to purge my dbl's down to 500psi and was still neg & hovered just fine. Purged some more down to 300 psi ... again same result. Now, I'm only using a 6lb ss bp with no weight belt so I was surprised that at 0psi I was still not going pos like so many told me I would. I could still hover or descend if I wanted so myth busted ... no runaway ascent in freshwater with dbl al80's in a full 3ml farmer-john wet-suit at 500psi or even 0psi. At 0psi in 5ffw I could still hover.

Fortunately Jess had me surface so that I didn't get my tanks so far empty that they'd take on water. Thanks for that one Jess.

I enjoyed this day very much

 

[k-valve]

What was the vis and temp at 121'?

 

[JessH]

That's not at all how I remember it. I thought we went a gazillion feet deep, saw sharks, and pirates that we stole treasure from only to lose it to the mermaids.... and.... and.... Maybe I need to take a trimix class.......

k-valve - give me a minute and I will go dig out my sensus and see what the temp was. The thermocline was at about 60ft but I have to say that the cold water felt really nice and after coming up the surface water felt hot.

Vis was over 10ft at 120ft. Of course very dark down there.

~Jess

 

[JessH]

doh- just remember I forgot to take it with me on the first dive. I looked at the temp after we hit the thermocline but just remember seeing that my gauge hadn't caught up yet. I would guess 70ish though. Not sure if thats anywhere near right, but it sounds like a good number. Above 60ft was 83.

Vis was actually over 10ft at 60ft on the second dive. And was even better at 120ft on the first but over 10ft is over 10ft for me Will try to pay more attention to it next time.

I definitely had fun diving today, it is nice to dive with someone who is excited about it, and you don't need to flatter me, I already plan on diving with you again. I haven't been diving nearly enough lately, but would like to start getting a couple dives in atleast one day a week. Feel free to remind me of that if im not doing it

~Jess

 

[In10se]

Vis was easily 15' and temp ... :blush: ... dunno. Didn't check. I was more interested in would I start feeling narc'd at that depth or not. My mind was working something like "105 okay, at 110 okay, 115 okay, 120 ... hmmm I'm feeling a little funny here time to ascend a bit" and so on. John I'm sure you remember back in the day when you hit past 100' for the first time. That was kind of an exciting number for me.

Vis is great at that depth. It was an eerie scene down there with a bunch of dead trees standing in the dark like a greenless forest on a moonless night. Very surrealistic. Almost like something out of a Clive Barker movie. I cannot wait 'til i get my nitrox done so I can get deeper.

I need to start looking at a dry suit. John do we ever get to a point where we have enough gear? Or will this just always be like a drug habit where we're just always needing more gear?

 

[ianr33]

. I cannot wait 'til i get my nitrox done so I can get deeper.

Did you really mean to say that?

Sounds like conditions are getting better !

 

[In10se]

doh- just remember I forgot to take it with me on the first dive. I looked at the temp after we hit the thermocline but just remember seeing that my gauge hadn't caught up yet. I would guess 70ish though. Not sure if thats anywhere near right, but it sounds like a good number. Above 60ft was 83.

Vis was actually over 10ft at 60ft on the second dive. And was even better at 120ft on the first but over 10ft is over 10ft for me Will try to pay more attention to it next time.

I definitely had fun diving today, it is nice to dive with someone who is excited about it, and you don't need to flatter me, I already plan on diving with you again. I haven't been diving nearly enough lately, but would like to start getting a couple dives in atleast one day a week. Feel free to remind me of that if im not doing it

~Jess

Lol ... Jess I didn't post my comments about you because I was shopping for a dive buddy, though I do look forward to diving with you as often as you like. I said what I said because you are a great guy to dive with and I think a dive report should include these kinds of particulars. Too many times I read/hear stories about the new dive buddy that just wandered off and dove his/her own dive plan for an hour or so with no regard for the other half of the dive team. Had you been a butthead of this sort I'd have posted that too

My first post cert dive (dive number eight) was with Nadmat and I was that buttheaded dive buddy. I didn't do it intentionally, but yeah I did wander off and leave him behind to wonder what happened to the SPORE he just dove in the lake with. I lost him in the great viz we all enjoy and I kept thinking Mat was somewhere just in front of me so I just needed to swim a little faster to catch up with him, only he had already surfaced and was standing at the shore line frantically looking in the water. I freaked him out a bit. It was unintentional and I felt like crap about it, but that was in his dive report here at sb later that evening and I learned from the experience.

Fortunately for me Mat had the experience to know it was best to take the new guy to a cove with a max depth of 15ffw so I was less likely to get myself into trouble.

He also managed to get this great shot out of that muck ... very impressive.