This isn't about diving, but is about what goes wrong on the way to diving.

I bought a boat his spring, I spent most of the summer getting used to how the boat handles, learning the ins & outs so to speak, lauching , recovering the boat, smashing up a propeller, typical new boat owner need to knows. Most of the time I trailered my boat to the local boat launch, within 5 miles and at speeds under 30 mph. So what was about to transpire came as a big surprise.  

About a month ago, the day came when it was finally time to take my boat diving. 3 other diversjoined me , and we packed our gear, secured the boat (or so I thought) &  headed for Kingston, Ontario. It's about and hour away on a 4 lane hwy, with speed limit about 70 mph.  My boat is a deck boat, shaped a lot like a pontoon boat (see the picture in my gallery). Behind the pilot's chair is a sun deck, which covers the engine compartment, fuel tank & storage. The sundeck is upholstered, padded, 4 inches thick foam on plywood. The back half is secured to the rail by about 14 #12 x2" wood screws. The front half is divided into two, padded covers, hinged to the back half, one is about 30 inches wide and the second about 60 inches wide . Each one has a  small gas cylinder to keep it up when opened.

Well about 15 minutes after we pull on the highway I notice, something is not right in the rear view mirror. I pulled over and discover the only piece of the sun deck still attached to the boat was the smaller cover hanging from the gas cylinder.  The wind/air flow over the boat had flipped the covers open, catching the wind, they tore almost completely from the boat.

The rear part and large cover are no where in sight. We unhooked the boat/trailer from the blazer, and headed back the way we came. About 3-4 miles back was the rest of the sundeck.  We gathered it up headed back to the boat to limp back home.

As Homer Simpson would say;"DOPE!"  In my haste to take the boat diving I had forgotten to secure the sundeck covers. Luckily the damage was minimal, there was very little traffic &  no one was hurt. I was able to make repairs in a week. I added two ratcheted tie downs to a two inch ring securely bolted to the floor, just behind the captains chair.  The following weekend we tried again and this time things went smoothly.

Live & Learn.

Mike D

5 comments View Entry

Well this weekend was great for weather. Temperature about 70°F, sunny, and low winds. A perfect weekend for diving. But not for me. I spent the weekend moving a flower/shrub bed.

Why?,  well as it turns out my wife (bless her heart), got the measurements for the frontage of our building lot, from the developer's web sight. It shows the front of our building lot to be 150.4 ft. ( a note here, there is also a disclaimer stating all dimensions are approximate) The corner marker in question could not be found so we measured 150.4 feet from the opposite corner. We then layout out our landscaping taking power telephone & gas lines into account. This left us about 10 feet from the propert line.

Well along comes the power company, who informs us we're over the property line about about 3 feet. He shows the survey to my wife, so she now diggs out our copy of the survey and sure enough our frontage is only 137 feet.

A few measurments confirmed we were indeed over the property line. Good news , the lot adjacernt to us is unoccupied, so no-one raised a fuss. How ever having just completed the landscaping this summer I did not look forward to more of it.

We had to recut the sodd on the inboard side of the flower bed, and move topsoil from the outside to the reshaped area, then replace the sodd along the proppert line, where we crossed over.  A 5 ft tall blue spruce tree, and 7 shrubs had to be moved about 4 feet inwards to our sdie of the property line.  This took the better part of all day saturday from sun up to sundown, for the two of us to complete. GREAT, I thought, we can still get out for a dive Sunday!

No such luck, I hurt in places I didn't even know I had places. I've still got stiff muscles, tendons and anything else that hurts when you abuse it.

At least it's over. My wife promised "no more landscaping this year." 

Then we were out walking the dogs last night, my wife looked at the flower bed and sees the shape. It's now a wide V shape with round corners, instead of the original triangle, with round corners. OMG, she says it's a heart!  "We've can't leave it like that".......... !

Mike D

4 comments View Entry

The weekend started out 'NOT SO GOOD!". Saturday the winds were high which made the waves & white caps bad on the north shores of Lake Ontario. The saturday dive was scrubbed.

Sunday on the other hand was excellent. I considered taking my own boat, but there were already 2 rib boats (an 18 ft & 21 ft hard bottom zodiacs) for 4 divers, so I didn't bother.  The launch sight was Port Hope, just a 50 minute drive from my home, near Belleville, Ont. I pulled off the 410 at the Port Hope exit, just to see one of the zodiacs pass by. Perfect timing I thought to myself. I followed the boat & trailer down to the launch to find the second zodiac already in the water. After brief hello's, how are ya doing etc we loaded up and headed out onto Lake Ontario. It was brief ride, just 3 km (2 miles) out from the dock. The mooring line has apparently been torn off the wreck, likely by the rough waters the previous day. We anchored about 50 meters due east (down wind) of the GPS coordinates, so as to not risk damaging the wreck with the anchor.  We dropped in and descended to the bottom, took a compass heading of 270°, and swam right to the bow of the wreck. My computer showed 78 ft depth and temperature 58°F. This is relativley warm, the wreck is usually about 42°F. We  wore twin 98 LP steel tanks, with ean32.  It was a great dive, we had plenty of time to explore and look it over. In my dry suit I was comfy warm, visiblity was so so, only about 30 ft. Our dive lasted 38 minutes, when my buddy signaled time to ascend.   All in all it was a great leasure dive. We had a treat as we headed to the bow for our ascent. The biggest school of smelts I have ever seen in fresh water swam by. It was 15 -20 feet tal, and 60-70feet long, all shiney & silver flashing every so often. I thoroughly enjoy cruising over a wreck and looking into every nook and cranny possible.  As we made our ascent to the surface, I spotted the anchor hanging mid water. I was getting ready to float my lift bag, but our captain had anticipated our ascent, motored over to our bubbles and hung the anchor at 25 feet to make our safety stop easier. We did our 3 minute safety stop to finish the dive. 

PB Locke,

A wooden schooner barge, sunk in 1912 in bad weather.

Here's a link to some historical back ground:

It was full of quarry stone when she sunk, and there's still piles of stone in/on her.

GPS  coordinates:

N43°54.957'

w78°17.940'

I'll post some pics when I get some time.

regards

Mike D

4 comments View Entry

I just answered the poll on Long Hose/bungeed back-up, and it prompted me to write soem comments on the topic. 

About 7-8 years ago I switched to a 7 ft hose, with back up necklaced around my neck. After 25 years of diving, I felt confident enough with my skill set to make this change. I was also progressing to wreck penetratuion diving where this equipment is manditory.

As an instructor I did not recommend this for beginners however. My thoughts on this remain the same today.  Beginner divers in a stress/rescue situation should keep his regulator in his mouth, and offer the back-up/octopus to assist another diver. My reasoning for this is simple, it reduces the risk/stress level of  the assisting diver in an out -of-air situation.

As divers become more experienced, and comfortable the transition to the long hose can be made without undo stress.

My thoughts on the subject.

Comments & opinions are welcome

Mike Dolson

3 comments View Entry