bvmjethead
Contributor
Finished all my dives for the Open Water certification this weekend @ Lake Rawlings.
It happened to be DUI weekend up there as well so it was packed. We got in the water early to avoid the crowds. The water was 72 degrees on the surface and 63 degrees under the thermocline which started @ about 35-40 ffw.
My insructor said I did very well. I felt very comfortable in the water for the most part. There was a bit of anticipation anxiety before the first few drills on the first dive on the 25' platform, but as soon as we got into doing the drill, the fear was gone. I did get my finstrap tangled on a down line on the way down to one of the boats on the bottom. That was weird for a second, then my training took over....stop, think, breathe and act. I was able to just reach back and get myself untangled and continue the dive. There was another time when I blew through a 15' safety stop a bit to fast. My Cobra did not show I completely missed the stop but gave me the alert symbol. We were doing an air sharing ascent on a rope and while going up I failed to release enough air from my BC to properly stop the ascent rate for the full 3 minute SS. I'd love to have that one back again...really embarassing as I knew what I was doing wrong but was for some reason unable to release air. DUH! Tasking overload....
My last dive of the last day we ended up spending a considerable portion of just cruising along a wall in the quarry just looking around. That reminded me of why I love diving. Lake Rawlings is really a pretty cool place. I'm sure there are those who have dove it a hundred times and are bored with it, but not me. Lot's of stuff still for me to see up there.
Not at all a bad drive from the Hampton Rhodes area. It took me 1:45 to get home yesterday, I was breaking the sound barrier though.
We live in a beautiful country.
One thing I have to share. We saw a Bluegill up there about 8" long from nose to tail. The fish had a gash in it's back so bad I can hardly believe it was still alive. The gash went from just in front of his pectoral fin all the way down at about an 80 degree angle to his spine...I could see the vertibra! The gash was as wide as my thumb and was all the way through his body from one side to the other. It looked as though he had been hit by a prop, but as far as I know there is no boating allowed in Rawlings. He was just swimming around as if nothing was wrong with him and he was darn near cut in half! Has anyone else seen this fish?
Looking forward to going back to Rawlings once or twice before the year is out for some more "open water" experience before I hit the Atlantic for the first time. Maybe do the towers or a shallow wreck after that.
Thanks to Scuba Board members for all the advice and putting up with my questions!
It happened to be DUI weekend up there as well so it was packed. We got in the water early to avoid the crowds. The water was 72 degrees on the surface and 63 degrees under the thermocline which started @ about 35-40 ffw.
My insructor said I did very well. I felt very comfortable in the water for the most part. There was a bit of anticipation anxiety before the first few drills on the first dive on the 25' platform, but as soon as we got into doing the drill, the fear was gone. I did get my finstrap tangled on a down line on the way down to one of the boats on the bottom. That was weird for a second, then my training took over....stop, think, breathe and act. I was able to just reach back and get myself untangled and continue the dive. There was another time when I blew through a 15' safety stop a bit to fast. My Cobra did not show I completely missed the stop but gave me the alert symbol. We were doing an air sharing ascent on a rope and while going up I failed to release enough air from my BC to properly stop the ascent rate for the full 3 minute SS. I'd love to have that one back again...really embarassing as I knew what I was doing wrong but was for some reason unable to release air. DUH! Tasking overload....
My last dive of the last day we ended up spending a considerable portion of just cruising along a wall in the quarry just looking around. That reminded me of why I love diving. Lake Rawlings is really a pretty cool place. I'm sure there are those who have dove it a hundred times and are bored with it, but not me. Lot's of stuff still for me to see up there.
Not at all a bad drive from the Hampton Rhodes area. It took me 1:45 to get home yesterday, I was breaking the sound barrier though.
We live in a beautiful country.One thing I have to share. We saw a Bluegill up there about 8" long from nose to tail. The fish had a gash in it's back so bad I can hardly believe it was still alive. The gash went from just in front of his pectoral fin all the way down at about an 80 degree angle to his spine...I could see the vertibra! The gash was as wide as my thumb and was all the way through his body from one side to the other. It looked as though he had been hit by a prop, but as far as I know there is no boating allowed in Rawlings. He was just swimming around as if nothing was wrong with him and he was darn near cut in half! Has anyone else seen this fish?
Looking forward to going back to Rawlings once or twice before the year is out for some more "open water" experience before I hit the Atlantic for the first time. Maybe do the towers or a shallow wreck after that.
Thanks to Scuba Board members for all the advice and putting up with my questions!
