Well Shane and I decided to go find the Great White Shark that was supposedly spotted near Tacoma, WA.
We loaded the pickup with our doubles~n~deco bottles and headed south on I-5. Now I thought it would be a good idea to take the twins along for the ride but for some reason Shane didn't want to so I let him have his way. I shouldn't have done that but I was feeling generous.
The plan was to look for the GWS along *Dead Man's Wall* since it sounded like a place a GWS would find attractive.
After gearing up we made our way down to the water over some seriously jagged rock and started the swim out to... hmmm... well the wall is supposed to be out from this certain building about so far... and well... we took a guess at where it might be and swam to that spot against a fair surface chop.
I reminded Shane that we should take it easy since Dr. Deco wouldn't want us to nucleate ourselves. Shane gave me the old "uh huh hmmmm...." which means he didn't have the foggiest idea what I was talking about but since he'd gotten his way with not bringing the scooters I should probably get my way with not nucleating.
With much less than 10' viz and a slight current I didn't want to swim out too far and miss the fabled *Dead Man's Wall*. When we arrived at the spot where we figured we should descend we did our checks and headed on down.
We had been here once before but remembered it quite differently... Shane thought it went straight down to 300' and I thought it was a little clay bank that went from 100' to 120' and then a mud slope on down to who knows.
Viz was so bad we were within 3' before we finally saw the bottom ... unfortunately we were only 30' deep.
Shoot! Well we took a compass bearing for where the wall should be and headed that way... as we got deeper I noticed that the *wall* looked a lot like a steep slope of mud... and I was thinking about poor little Gavin and Gavin sitting back home in the garage missing out on all the fun.
We spent 20 minutes swimming around at 160'~165' looking for the GWS and Dead Man's Wall... seeing nothing but mud we began the ascent at 20fpm.
At 120' we came to the bottom of *Dead Man's Wall*... a barren little clay bank... and then I realized that it probably was supposed to be called *Man, Wall's Dead*
Up the bank we ascended until we reached our first one minute stop at 100'... right at the top of *Man, Wall's Dead*
Still no Great White Shark. But at least we were getting a little current drift... nice since we didn't have the scooters (that last statement should be read as sarcasm.)
After decoing out and surfacing we found that we had drifted about 400 yards from our point of entry. Again I reminded Shane that Dr. Deco advises not to nucleate and I didn't bring up the scooters sitting at home in the garage... but I thought about it!
We loaded the pickup with our doubles~n~deco bottles and headed south on I-5. Now I thought it would be a good idea to take the twins along for the ride but for some reason Shane didn't want to so I let him have his way. I shouldn't have done that but I was feeling generous.
The plan was to look for the GWS along *Dead Man's Wall* since it sounded like a place a GWS would find attractive.
After gearing up we made our way down to the water over some seriously jagged rock and started the swim out to... hmmm... well the wall is supposed to be out from this certain building about so far... and well... we took a guess at where it might be and swam to that spot against a fair surface chop.
I reminded Shane that we should take it easy since Dr. Deco wouldn't want us to nucleate ourselves. Shane gave me the old "uh huh hmmmm...." which means he didn't have the foggiest idea what I was talking about but since he'd gotten his way with not bringing the scooters I should probably get my way with not nucleating.
With much less than 10' viz and a slight current I didn't want to swim out too far and miss the fabled *Dead Man's Wall*. When we arrived at the spot where we figured we should descend we did our checks and headed on down.
We had been here once before but remembered it quite differently... Shane thought it went straight down to 300' and I thought it was a little clay bank that went from 100' to 120' and then a mud slope on down to who knows.
Viz was so bad we were within 3' before we finally saw the bottom ... unfortunately we were only 30' deep.
Shoot! Well we took a compass bearing for where the wall should be and headed that way... as we got deeper I noticed that the *wall* looked a lot like a steep slope of mud... and I was thinking about poor little Gavin and Gavin sitting back home in the garage missing out on all the fun.
We spent 20 minutes swimming around at 160'~165' looking for the GWS and Dead Man's Wall... seeing nothing but mud we began the ascent at 20fpm.
At 120' we came to the bottom of *Dead Man's Wall*... a barren little clay bank... and then I realized that it probably was supposed to be called *Man, Wall's Dead*
Up the bank we ascended until we reached our first one minute stop at 100'... right at the top of *Man, Wall's Dead*
Still no Great White Shark. But at least we were getting a little current drift... nice since we didn't have the scooters (that last statement should be read as sarcasm.)
After decoing out and surfacing we found that we had drifted about 400 yards from our point of entry. Again I reminded Shane that Dr. Deco advises not to nucleate and I didn't bring up the scooters sitting at home in the garage... but I thought about it!
