Damn. I've mentioned my Great Lakes shipwreck passion here many times. I'm doing Advanced with a friend or two, but they have neither my overwhelming passion for nor the desire to spend the extra $$ to do wreck and deep on wrecks (I'm single, they're not) on the lake. So we're doing nav and night together at the quarry. They'll do wreck and deep at the quarry. They're going on the Alpena trip with me.

Deep would be done on a wreck or two on the lake, but just swim around, no wreck specific stuff.

This winter has turned out to be better than I thought it would be. Mermet trip this coming weekend. Feb 4th I'll have another pool session, this one with a fellow Arfcommer  who is also a newer diver. Local quarry opens April 1. Trying to put together diving day at either Mermet or Gilboa towards the end of February with a couple of dive buddies (the ones I'll be diving with his weekend).

Both dive buddies have cancelled on me this weekend due to work obligations. I'm still diving. I'll just dive with the Mermet dive master Friday and Saturday.

I know, right?! It looks more like a heart monitor than a dive profile LOL

That it does!

It was a fun dive. Me and my buddy got our tanks filled and the guy at the dive shop (Jerry at Cave Country) filled out tanks to 4200 PSI. We swam to the Peanut restriction (2000 feet) and back with nary a hiccup. When we surface we each had 2600 psi in our tanks which reminds me of the old cave diving saying: When does a cave diver end their dive? When their tanks are full.

All packed for Mermet tomorrow. The gear pile

I got a little nervous when I had my LP80's filled and put a gauge on it and they had 3900psi on a cold fill... Was nice to have that much gas but I'm sure my first stage was crying lol

It's like a free hydro with every fill.

Water at Mermet was 49F today. Mask flooding and fogging issues. I was underweighted. Plus I was nervous. Didn't think my new Fourth Element Arctic undies would make me that much more buoyant. I had 18lbs on top of BP and 5 lb STA insert. Will add 4 more tomorrow at DM's recommendation. I was like a bobbing cork! Had to grab hold of DM's hand to keep down when we were swimming around. Viz was maybe 15 ft.

DM flamed my mask for me and I'm going to hit it with the toothpaste a couple more times tonight.

Issues identified and will dive again tomorrow.

Cold didn't really bother me once I'd been in the water a bit. I had thick fleece gloves under my dry gloves, so hands were warm. Rest of me under drysuit was fine, too.

Someone over on SB said that when your tanks are full enough that you can see through the sides, it still doesn't count as a visual.

2nd cold water dive yesterday. Water was 48F.

I had only the thicker undies on, leaving off the base layer since I felt my range of movement was too restricted with base layer AND thicker top layer. Sock liners also made my suit socks a bit difficult to get on, bit too snug. I had 22 lbs on top of my BP and 5 lb STA insert. I did get cold and called the dive after 25 minutes The main issue is that I had no gas left in my tank to kick partway through the dive. Not sure if it was from the cold, not sleeping well enough the night before (too soft hotel mattress), or the 380 mile drive the day before. Still had fun and saw some neat stuff in the quarry. Not nervous at all yesterday. Went under without hesitation. I got the "ice cream headache" upon first going underwater. The cold water itself doesn't bother.

My gas consumption was a big eye opener - 3200 psi to 1600 psi in 25 minutes. I know you use more in cold water, but that was a surprise.

I considered these two dives to be "shakedown" dives. Know I have to do further tweaks. The DM yesterday suggested I might look at getting some more flexible fins given my current leg strength. I have Apeks Rocket RK3 for my drysuit. I'm doing a pool session with instructors in the next month or so and they're going to put together a range of different fins for me to try. My left knee has been wonky, so perhaps a different fin wouldn't be bad to try.

What was average depth?
Broken record here, but more dives = better gas consumption rate.  

Here is a cheat sheet to figure out your consumption rate, amongst other calculators.

Water was 71f here today .  Wetsuit was still damp and cold from yesterday's dive.  Outside temp 50f. Got real cold midway through.

I just got back from the boat down here in Cozumel.  Water is 81 degrees with 60+ ft of vis.  Getting back on the boat the waves were about 6 ft or so though.  They closed the port again so we didn't get to use the second tank.  Well get more in though.  ??

We were about 15-20 ft. I wanted easy "shake down" dives for my first cold water dives.

And yes, I know it will get better with more dives.

Even with the issues, it was fun!

Glad you had a blast, Marie! I tried out sidemount yesterday for the second time ever (but this time under the guide of my cave instructor, who's been diving SM for a little over ten years). He got me set up with a loaner harness and Genesis HP100's and I had a great time - everything was set up perfectly the first go. Thankfully I had all the hoses and swivel fittings necessary to set up my MK25 first stages for doing "widemount" in the garage - told my girlfriend a long time ago keeping every random scuba part I'd ever bought or come across would help me one day!

There are some small changes I need to make (decided I don't necessarily care for the position of my SPG's, but I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to read them easily if they are in line with the tank instead of lollipopping out like they do - may need new hoses too (I pulled both of these 6" hoses off of my stage/buddy bottle regs I bought a long time ago and one of them was tied back to the reg itself by the previous owner and developed a slight set in... 90 degree bends are a slight set, right?

Also took a short swim just inside Devil's Eye - didn't go past the sign as I did limited emergency drills with this set-up yesterday in six feet of water, but I still wanted to check out the differences in the resistance you feel entering the cave with sidemount vs. backmount (I honestly kinda hate Ginnie because it's more work than low-flow caves like Peacock Springs, and it seems to always be full of egotistical asshats).

Looking good!

Nice.

I thought that was you. We did an unplanned deco stop there and you were playing around with your GoPro. I was in sidemount, he was in back mount and we ended up doing about 10 minutes of deco there in the eye off our back gas. Next time I guess.


I was going to come over and say hello, but my dive buddy keeps asking a whole slew of questions and there was a guy (not your instructor) who was taking to you guys a lot. So I decided that I'd wait till later.

There were ever less people there today than there were yesterday.

I had 2 hours in the pool today. There were no OW students, so it was just my two instructors (going over things in preparation for a DM class they're teaching next month) and another guy trying out a new camera. It was just a fucking good session.

My flutter needs to be slowed down, but form is very good. I was apparently doing the frog kick pretty decently at one point, which made me burst out laughing when instructors mentioned it, as I wasn't trying to do frog at all! We experimented with weight placement and are much closer to the sweet spot. Started out with 8 lbs on belt. I was still more head up. Put 2 lbs in trim pockets and 6 lbs on my belt. Not quite all the way horizontal, but much better than I was. This was on top of BP and 5 lb STA insert. Buoyancy was much better. I have trouble just hovering in the water, but when I'm moving I'm now hardly hitting the bottom at all, when swimming just above bottom. I have no shit that drags. I hate seeing the people with dragging consoles.

Tried new fins, too. My left knee has been bothering me, and my bat fins (Hollis F2 for the pool, Apeks Rocket R3 for dry suit) seem to just be requiring too much effort with my knee issues. Instructor uses split fins due to a decades old knee injury. An Ohio dive buddy was shopping at DRIS yesterday and left me her spare pair of Dive Rite XT fins to try. OMG, did they make a HUGE difference. Still somewhat stiff, but they are much lighter than either pair of my bat fins and my knees did not hurt at all.

I've been smiling wide all evening. It's excellent when stuff clicks.

You should've! I didn't mean to be a jackass if I got in your way, those tanks got quite floaty and threw me off toward the end and resulted in a bit of a loss of control. I had about 800-1000 left in each when I headed back for the steps. Doubt I'll have that problem with my Worthingtons

I copped an LTZ off my buddy (was diving the Meg with orange fins) who's like 1/3 my size, so lots of adjustments to be made before I pay him for it, but he offered me a decent price. I think I'm gonna like it. Right now I'm about to go grab my sets of doubles out of the car and break them down again so I can start installing the worm screw bands and making leashes for them.

I think once I get my own rig and new SPG hoses that don't bend down at 90 degree angles, I will have a lot better time, but either way I had a blast yesterday. The wing on this LTZ should work a little better too as the harness I had yesterday was trapping air under the shoulder straps.

You weren't a jackass. I think my fins bumped into to you once or twice. It happens. It's the recreational guys are are vertical in the water kicking like a mofo to stay up when they can simply inflate their BC.

Are those AL80's. If they are put a pair if D-rings on your waist band. Then when your tanks hit around 1800-2000ish PSI you simply unclip from the butt plate and clip them off on your front D-rings. Them they're right back in trim.

Personally, I run my 1st stages up so they're sitting on top of the tank between it and my armpit, versus under like you have them set up now. I use a 2 brass and glass HPG that runs on a 9 inch HP hose down the centerline of the top of the tank. When I need to check pressure I just turn my head and gauge and take a look, it also gives me a chance to back reference a little bit as well.

Lollipoping your gauges works well if you have angled valves (impossible to find anymore), you use a 6 inch HP hose, and you use a 1 1/2 inch plastic gauge. Otherwise you tend to get curb feelers. Personally, I find lollipoping hard to read.

Heck if it's Worthingtons you interested in I have a pair of 107's lying around here collecting dust because they're just too heavy for me.

The tanks I was using were Genesis HP100's. When I clipped them off at the steps after my first dive they were at 1500 (got out to grab the camera) and one of them went butt up almost immediately after I dropped it to the bottom while I was unclipping the second tank.

I'll probably play around with their placement in the pool, as I used the valve handles pointing straight out to the side the first time I tried SM (with the regs up against me), and that seemed a little better IMO.

The HP 100's have a reputation for getting a little floaty in the butt as they empty. You could try putting a pair of D-rings on the front of your waist band and recipe them as they start to float up. You might also be able to move the bands a little lower, but I don't know how much lower your butt goes.

If you have the SAC rate LP-85's are the tank of choice right now. That's why i'm looking to get rid of my 107's and get another set of 85's.

I have my clips clocked so the valves hand down at around 45 degrees. It makes accessing them a piece of cake especially if I need to feather them.

I'm going to be doing this shipwreck archaeology workshop. Right up my alley.

Link

That's awesome! If I were still living up north I'd be taking that right alongside you. Be careful as you get involved in the Great Lakes shipwreck world. It's all the stupidity and immaturity of GD coupled with the mental instability of DU. Lots and lot of politics, and those politics are based on who likes who at the time. It's a lot like cave country politics.

Thanks for the warning. I just finished reading Shadow Divers and something tells me the GL shipwreck world is similar to that of the NE described in the book.

ETA: my local quarry even has an underwater archaeology artifact park for training.

Link

Great Lakes wreck clans are a buncha pompous stuffed-suit assholes and have been since Cousteau started the scuba industry.

I remember going there when I was 17 for my first wreck dive with an experienced wreck instructor. We were treated like trash by the other divers on the boat.
I do remember one of the blow-hards on the boat realized he'd exceeded NDL and sweated being bent for the remainder of the time we were out. Karma can be a bitch.

I've never been back to the Great Lakes since that trip. I've dove much better wrecks in way clearer waters since then.

Which lake?

Good thing I didn't sign up for the OH uw archaeology  workshop. I checked my LDS' website and they just posted the class schedule for the season. My uw nav class will be the same day.

That's the entrance via Devil's Eye. You swim down to the bottom of a circular depression and then in through that hole, down into the dark spot to the right of me and there's another similar hole in that room you swim down into. A couple places you have to be careful going through in backmounted doubles or you'll bang your tanks/manifold on the ceiling, but otherwise it's not bad.

IMO, far easier getting in there (unless you meet someone coming the opposite direction) than it is to try and swim against the flow going into Devil's Ear out on the edge of the river - there's less that I've found to hold on to going into the Ear, and you definitely have to pull yourself into the system using either entrance. I'll see if I can find some other pictures or video of the path in through the Eye.

EDIT: here's a screenshot from another video I had:




This video from YouTube (not mine) shows the exit from the Gallery (first big section of the cave after you get in from either entrance, this is where both the Eye and the Ear meet within a few feet of one another):



Exit starts around the 17:45 mark

Michigan and Erie

Interestingly, a couple of people have mentioned that there are a bunch of a-holes on Erie.

For Michigan, I'll be diving off the two boats owned by my dive shop. The dive operator out of Alpena (Thunder Bay, Lake Huron) is a nice guy. It will be wholly my group

Almost all of my cave training has been done in the various parts of Peacock Springs, with one day at Ginnie for a taste of high-flow caves. My instructor prefers Peacock so he can really see if the student's buoyancy and trim are in tune like they should be, but does take you in high-flow caves so you know how to handle those environments as well. The fact that you're less than two miles from Dive Outpost is just an added bonus - it's super close to run back to the shop and grab whatever part you may need if something breaks or you forgot a part of your gear at home (happened to me, I had my Light Monkey 12w LED flood twice in my cavern class before we realized it was because the goodman handle attachment ring was too far back on the light head and the material on that part was not made to take the torque I'd placed it under wrenching the clamp ring shut, so it allowed water in).

It's even better at the end of the day if you're staying in the cabins out behind the shop - you just load up at the park, drive back, drop your tanks off at the shop, go back to your cabin, hang up your wet gear on the porch with the supplied clotheslines and hangers, take a quick shower and go grab some food if you want in either Mayo or Live Oak. Come back and go to bed, and pick up your tanks the next morning at 8am when the shop opens. She also does really good fills there - 3600psi in the water so you know they're north of there for sure if it's 85-100 degrees out LOL

Sadly, Ginnie is all that's pretty much open right now. Everything else is flooded out which is a shame because Ginnie really is pretty much at the bottom of my list of places I'd prefer to dive.

Same. We will end up back there again this Friday getting my LTZ squared away unless Peacock opens back up. I wish Blue Grotto had a shallow-water training area other than their pool, but not bad enough that I'd rather pay $10 more to dive there than at Ginnie...

I'm looking at this big blob of rain heading this way and I don't think Peacock is going to reopen anytime soon. I may have to bite the bullet and start diving Manatee or head out west towards Jackson Blue (yeah, I hate Ginnie that much).

If I didn't have a doctors appointment on Friday I'd try to hook up with you on Friday and get a dive or two in after your class. Good luck with it, let me know how much you like that LTZ as I'm thinking about trading in my Nomad XP for something a little less expeditionary.

I got my first full-sized tank last night. Shiny new AL80. LDS gave me a good deal. I'll get another one later.  Also got a pair of Dive Rite XT fins to fit my drysuit boots. A friend loaned me her spare pair and I've worked with them in the pool a couple of times (both with a tank on my back and when doing laps). They don't tweak my knees like my current bat fins (Hollis F2 for pool and Apeks Rocket RK3 for drysuit). So much nicer! I've got loan of friend's fins for as long as I need, so I'll use hers for the pool and buy my own pool pair later.

I'll sell both pairs of bat fins.

I may not be able to go - depends on when my package from Dive Gear Express gets here. I ordered about $200 worth of hardware, hoses, SPG's and a few other small things (DIN to yoke conversion for my fill whip so I can transfer some of the gas in my doubles to my girlfriend's tanks too) the other day so that box has to show up before I can go diving or I'll just have to buy it all again at a shop (likely for twice the price). Only part that sucks is my instructor isn't free this weekend, so if the box doesn't get here before Friday... guess I'm SOL for the week.

That fits with how the rest of my day is going though.

I got an Underwater Kinetics Hangair a couple of days ago. It's da bomb! It's a strong plastic hanger that can hold 100 lbs on a stainless steel hook. It has a non-ozone producing fan inside (15ft power cord) to dry wetsuits, drysuits, etc. I got the inside of my drysuit wet while washing the exterior in my bathtub. It dried it out really quick. Well worth the $46.

Car packed up for tomorrow! Just got done separating my doubles at 12:30am. Now to wake up at 6am... too bad I'm wide awake after being asleep til noon today as work got canceled...


ETA: Fell asleep shortly after I made this post and had no trouble getting up when the alarm went off, but I had zero desire to go anywhere after about 30 minutes of being awake. Dragged myself outta the house, met my old Sergeant to give him some ammo I sold a guy I used to work with (hello $150 toward sidemount) and off to Amigo's to get gas. Somehow I beat Tony there (a first) and got my doubles refilled. Happened to find this:



I'd been debating on buying the VL7500P for $480 on Amazon (originally wanted to get it from Bigblue themselves since I'm about 1 hour and 45 minutes away from their HQ in Clearwater, it was listed on their site for $540)... then I found the 8300 lumen version for $450 and was like "yep, that's happening!" It's super bright... unfortunately I did not get to use it today, but I will soon.

Trying out the Nomad LTZ today was a total goat fuck, as one of my friends would say. I could not stay in trim to save my life, and I had this annoying habit of listing to the left immediately anytime I'd stop kicking (which I later realized was because each one of us grabbed a tank from the back of the car and somehow I ended up with a Worthington HP100 and a PST LP80. Never doing that again! It wouldn't have mattered though. I might've used a little less gas (burning nearly 1500psi off of each tank during a 30 minute dive into the Catacombs is NOT my actual SAC rate) and been more into doing some cave dives if that hadn't happened.

The cave dive was nice... would've been a thousand times better in trim...

Definitely going back to the XT. Might be more expensive to buy one new, but holy hell if it wasn't 1000% more comfortable!

The Nomad XT is a good sidemount BC. I've used it with AL80's, LP85's, LP107's so far. It's worked pretty well with all of those different type of tanks. There's also a kit that you can get that will allow it to do back mount doubles as well.

Personally I use 25 inch OPV kit on the top dump position. I have the pull knob mounted on my left shoulder harness and I run the LP inflator hose from the bottom left and across my chest. On the bottom right dump valve I put on a bigger pull knob that I found at West Marine; it makes it much easier to find and dump if I have too.

I used some mosquito screen and cut it to fit inside the OPV's. The way I don't have to worry as much about percolate raining down on me and getting stuck in my OPV's.

The one bad thing about the XT is that it's a big freaking BC so it doesn't travel very well. For a tropical and travel diving rig where you're going to be diving no more than a pair of AL80s, AL63s, or Lp50s I use one of http://www.diveequipmentco.com/bcd-s/sidemount.html. I actually use the skeleton harness 2 and it works really well not only for travel but also off of things like kayaks and boats. I haven't tried it with my AL80s and a deco bottle but I'm told it can be done.

Got confirmation today our local quarry is going to be open for cold water diving next weekend (since there is no ice for the ice divers). Will likely be diving with a couple of people from my LDS.

Can't wait to get in the water again.

Yeah, I'd likely pick up a second rig in the future if I was doing anything that would require a smaller profile or more simplistic setup (Bahamas, Mexico, etc). I don't see jamming myself into real small cave passages anytime soon, something like the Catacombs is about my comfort limit.

I'm admittedly a little torn between trying to make this LTZ work, and just biting the bullet and buying a Nomad XT with the dual bladder. The LTZ I borrowed from my friend doesn't have any redundancy, and since I don't see myself buying a drysuit anytime soon (or enjoying using mine enough to get the seals replaced and learn how to dive in it, considering it's neoprene and weighs a boatload by itself), there's really no argument against getting a redundant bladder for me. I found the Dive Rite buttplate (the original rectangular one) and the other parts you mentioned to make it more suited to my body size for about $75 total, but there would still be some tweaking involved. I could sell my rec wing, aluminum backplate, plastic backplate, Sola 1200 light, and a few other things to make up some of the difference in buying a brand-new XT. Having to give my buddy the rec wing and $250 cash is much more preferable in this case, but if it's gonna be a ton of work and effort to get it right, with 50 trips in and out of the water to make minor adjustments or multiple days of diving waiting on parts I've ordered to come in from here and there, it's not worth it...



Yup. That's how it felt a couple times going into the Eye yesterday. Couple that with my tendency to roll to the left (meaning my left leg was wrecked from constant movement trying to keep myself level) and the buoyancy/trim issues I was having with the new rig, and it's easy to see why I called that dive after like 22 minutes. Not even worth continuing at that point! I'm glad we didn't spend a lot of time there when I was just beginning to learn all of the skills at the cavern level... I'd have been screwed. I remember one of those dives, he told me to practice running a reel, and get it right, no matter how much of the dive it took to accomplish.

Well, I did it... I may have spent 15 minutes running a reel from the log in the Eye, to the gold line, but I did it.

Personally, I'd run the XT if I were you and I'll tell you why.

Since you're going to dive wet you're going to need more lift than if you're going to dive dry. As your suit compresses with depth you'll loose buoyancy so you make this up by inflating your BC more. IMHO 35lbs of lift is barley adequate for diving wet with heavy steel cylinders. You can get a pair of bottles and your deco bottle but once you start adding stages then you're going to eat up a lot of remaining lift real fast. In my semi-dry with a pair of LP85s I'm using a lot of the wing to keep off the bottom and I'm not a big guy.

Redundancy. I'm not sold on the idea of combining your wing with your drysuit to attain the amount of lift you need. I see a lot of guys having to do that when they start running stage bottles and I have to wonder what happens if they have a failure. You don't have redundancy at that you you have dependency. This is why I'm not necessarily sold on the idea of wings with 35lbs of lift. They certainly fill a void and at some point I'll pick one up to use for certain kinds of diving. However, they're also a one size fits all, middle of the road solution that does a few things well but is also something that you can quickly outgrow.

Redundancy cont. Even if it's a used XT you can drop it off at Diverite and they can install a 2nd redundant bladder that can provide emergency lift. In a cave system this isn't that big of a deal since you can pull and glide, or bouncy bounce your way back; it's a messy solution but it's a solution. In big caves, or open water you're now talking about an entirely different problem where the added redundancy of an extra wing or dry suit can make all the difference.

Comfort. I got the chance to try a couple of BC's when I took my class and I found the XT to be the most comfortable of the bunch. If I recall you also found it to be a comfortable BC. That's going to make a difference as your dives get longer and longer.

As far as tweaking goes I can help you if you'd like. I'm pretty much free most of the time and I already went through the growing pains and frustrations that you're going thru now. Plus you can see how someone else sets their rig up etc... and that's never a bad thing.