Time to get the nitrogen levels back up in the bloodstream, and what better way to do that than to head down, way down, on some deep wrecks off the sunny shores of Key West?

Steve Lewis, VP of TDI, along with Joe Weatherby joined Dave V on a technical diving excursion to explore some of the deeper wrecks located off the southernmost key.   Sadly, the weather gods are not giving us any good signs for this weekend, so we are heading south with fingers crossed for the best!

Thursday evening we arrive at IVS-Key West’s base on Stock Island and set up camp in our condo there.  This is one nice home away from home for sure, and we are thrilled to have met the owner, Mike Bullock, through our favorite dive operator here, Chris Norwood, owner of Florida Straits Diving.  Three bedrooms, accommodations for eight, newly refurbished throughout, this is living large indeed!

Friday morning comes and with it the 7:00 a.m. NOAA marine weather update.  Ruh roh - six to eight footers on the outside today with twenty-five knot winds whistling through.  Not the perfect recipe for a small boat and heavily laded divers on the ocean!  So, do we cancel?  Are you kidding?  We get a slightly larger boat! 

Our friends at Sub-Tropic step up and offer their boat for the day, which coincidently was available since no customers wanted to head out in these conditions!  Works for us, and we loaded up our gear, and motored out to the Vandenberg.  Seas were, shall we say, a bit testy, but we managed, and in spite of the topside conditions, the ocean below was perfect, with minimal current and 200 plus feet of visibility in the clear blue water.  Nice!

We dropped right into the #2 cargo hatch, descending down to 130 feet, and slip inside for Joe’s exclusive “hole in the wall” tour, covering over 400 feet of this wreck’s interior and never popping out until we drop into the engine room in the stern.  What a cool tour it is, lots of tight passageways, many turns, some areas with no alternate exits…all good for a great dive and a nice adrenalin rush too!

We spend 46 minutes at depth, finish off a ten minute deco obligation, and climb back aboard with big smiles.  The ladder is a bit challenging, balancing doubles on our back, and two slung stage bottles each, but we manage, and get ready to enjoy a few minutes of de-briefing and relaxing on board. 

OK, few minutes are up, it is time to dive again!  Gear back up, splash, and drop down, this time towards the stern of this majestic wreck.  Take a quick look-around at the stern, then we head up to the hanger area, where they used to store the weather balloon.  Once inside, we drop down the chute to the laundry room, at 140 ft.  This is a very cool drop, as the chute is about an 80 ft vertical drop, and it is only one diver wide.  Best part?  Once you enter, there are NO outlets till you get to the bottom, so commitment is key here! 

We exit out the bottom, and take a tour of the former laundry room, still full of steam presses and washers and dryers that completed their duty at sea.  This is a real tight area, and you have to by uber-careful to not silt things up once inside.  Buoyancy control and situational awareness is key, cause things could go to hell in a New York minute here.  After some good photo op’s, we head out the rear stairwell, up one level, then begin a tour forward through lots of crew berthing areas.  Bed frames, toilets and sinks, and personal storage lockers tell the story of what these spaces once were.  All sorts of new life forms are here now, ”scouts” in a sense for a whole generation of new critters to come to these areas of eternal darkness (OK, except for the occasional zillion megawatt divers lights!),  Very cool to be witness to a sort of evolution as the sea reclaims this vessel.

Another forty minutes of bottom time passes too quickly, and we head back up, finishing off with a little 50% and 100% O2 mixes on the way to the surface.  A good day of diving, great wreck, great boat and crew from Sub-Tropic, and it’s time to head back in.  The sunset ride in just tops the day off, and we grab a quick bite and prepare our dive plans for tomorrow’s activities. 

Saturday morning comes and the wind continues to blow hard, from the south, which is a bad thing, cause there is a lot of ocean to blow across between here and Cuba, giving the wind, and the waves, time to build themselves up nicely.  None the less, we are here on a mission, so in spite of being the only boat heading out, we’re going diving!  We head our after lunch, and our first stop is the USS Curb, a former naval tug that sits upright now in 185 feet of water.  There it is on the sonar, so we check current direction, and make a few passes over the wreck to confirm we are on it.  The grapple is dropped, and we hook into it (there are no mooring balls).  One, two, three, we drop down into the abyss, and are greeted with views of the wreck from well over a hundred feet away. 

An absolutely amazing quantity and variety of life live on this wreck, sitting like an oasis in the middle of miles of flat, sandy plains.  From the smallest baitfish (what do you have to do wrong in this life to come back as a baitfish?  You don’t even get a name for your species, just “baitfish”) to huge 400# Goliath groupers (at least they get a name!), this wreck is a haven for life.  Marauding amberjacks and horse-eye jacks make passes at the smaller fish, and the fray is exciting to watch as someone goes home with dinner, while some else becomes a dinner.  Enough eloquent waxing on my part, back to the wreck!  Covered with snagged fishing nets and miles of monofilament, this wreck is a snagged diver waiting to happen, so make sure you have your line cutter or z-knife handy, and a bigger blade for the larger stuff. 

We’re diving a mix of 20% oxygen, 25% helium, and 55% nitrogen on this dive, so we enjoy 20 minutes of bottom time at 170 feet, followed by a nice 30 minutes of deco as we ascend.  The conditions remain perfect so the hang time is a pleasure with all sorts of things to watch as we pass the time.    

Stop number 2 is the Vandenberg again, but this time it is a night dive, as the sun has dipped below the waves for the day.  We hit 146 feet as we spent a lot of time exploring the engine rooms and machinery areas, racking up another 35 minutes of bottom time on our remaining trimix.  My friends spent most of the time shallower, but I wanted to pictures of the machinery, and these conditions would be tough to match another day, so my entire dive was spent below 140 ft.  Of course this comes with a price, that being a fifty minute deco obligation, with the last thirty minutes alone, hanging in the dark, catching the occasional silvery flash of a barracuda or other night time predator as they flew by, checking out the life form that was hanging there in the water.  Finally, an hour and twenty-five minutes after descending, I am back on board, and we enjoy a few beers as we toast the day’s events.  The sea had even laid down a bit for us as we headed back to the dock, making our nocturnal journey a little more mellow!

So it was time to grab a late dinner, so my friend Steve, who is Canadian and has traveled extensively through Cuba, and Joe, who is not, but somehow has also traveled frequently to Cuba, decided that is what we need to eat tonight - Cuban fare!  Well anyone who knows me would realize that Dave and any food containing spices don’t match up well, but I go, figuring there should be enough Presidente Light to wash down whatever I am convinced will be safe for this gringo to eat.  Dinner is fine, service is great, and we call it a night again.

Sunday, the winds are down a bit, but not gone, and our target today is the former naval cruiser USS Wilkes Barre, which likes almost 20 miles north up the coast from Key West.  So we batten down the hatches and head out, staying inside the reef as long as we can to minimize the seas, but eventually heading out to find our wreck.  This 650 ft long vessel was being used for the testing of underwater demolitions, and the test worked great, being detonated directly underneath the ship, and the concussion essentially ‘breaking the ships back’, as it lifted, ripped apart, then settle to the sea floor.  The stern is sitting perfectly upright in 240 feet of water, and the bow is settled a short distance away, laying on it’s port side.  Are target is the stern so we can enjoy this multi-level treasure and really get a chance to some some exploring.  We pick it up on sonar, sure enough it has a huge signature, and the grapple is dropped.  We complete our final gear checks, and splash.  Our blend today is 18/35, the lower oxygen content to avoid CNS toxicity and the resulting convulsions and death that typically accompany it, and the higher helium blend helps reduce the nitrogen in our mix, better to avoid being narc’d out of our minds and forgetting to do things, like maybe ascend!  We complete our ensemble with a couple of stage bottles, with our flavors today being the tried and true 50% and 100% oxygen mixes.

Well we start down the line, and we descend, expecting to reach the top of the wreck at 165 ft or so. This is where it gets a little weird, cause there is no wreck there.  OK, 175, 185, hmmmmm….finally, as we pass 200, there it is, a huge wreck, laying, well, on it’s side!  What the heck!  We are hooked to the bow section, not the stern!!  Time to rethink the dive plan a bit, but we’re OK, as we had planned a pretty aggressive dive depth-wise, and now the conditions matched our plans!   So we dropped down to 230 feet and spent about ten minutes there, checking out the gun turrets, deck fittings, and piles of things that have been snagged on this wreck over the years and lost by other boaters.   Up to 200 feet for another 12 minutes, then let’s grab the grapple hook and tie it off to itself so it doesn’t snag on anything else.  Well, the current had evidently picked up on the surface while we were down, cause when we unhooked the grapple, it took off like a kite, with Steve and Joe trying to tie it off, and me trying to hold the line down below our first stop depth. 

On another dive this might have been fun, but with our bodies chock full of helium, the rate of descent is very critical.  Those little molecules really like to jump out of our cells easily, so they need sufficient time for us to breath them out of our systems.  So, after a little struggling, we get the hook tied up to itself, and stabilize our depth, and begin our 50 minute, 13 level ascent to the surface.  Once there, we are careful to avoid the Portuguese Man ‘o Wars that are sailing by in the stiff breeze, with tentacles a’trailing, looking to sting something into submission, like us!

Well that was enough excitement for the day, and we call it, heading in for our last night in Key West.  A light dinner and beers at the Hogfish Cafe, conveniently located right next to our Key West condo!

Monday morning we started our journey back north, but we still had some diving to do! So we headed up to visit our friends at Conch Republic Divers in Tavierner, and get one final tec dive in on the Speigel Grove.  Forty eight minutes of bottom time below 120 ft, followed by forty minutes of staged deco, wrapped up one great weekend of Florida Keys technical diving. 

If it’s December it must be time for Indian Valley Scuba to invade the Florida Keys one more time.

Twenty four of us headed down Thursday to one of our favorite dive destinations, Key Largo, for a long weekend of diving, fun and laughter.  Some of the gang headed down a day early, and by tonights night dive we had 5 divers and 3 riders on the boat.  We headed out at 6 o’clock for a very nice dark night dive and tied up to the Benwood wreck.  Meredith Bernardo and I enjoyed a nice hour-long dive on this wreck, running right into a turtle to kick it off, then a big southern stingray, lots of lobsters, crabs, basket stars, spiny urchins, shrimp, sleeping parrot fish, spotted drums, feeding tube anemones, puffer fish and more.  At the same time, Pam Schools, Chris Muller, and Andy McConaghie, representing Dive NY, enjoyed a nice dive on the reef adjacent to the wreck…tell me again, what was that part in the briefing about going down the mooring line to make sure you find the wreck?  Hmmmm….looks like we’ll be helping them out  with a few navigation pointers over the weekend.  None the less, everyone had a great time, and the trip is off to a good start!  We followed that up with a nice snack at the Paradise Pub, joined by Katie Chin, Steph Skelton, and Jesica & Sheril Tyre.  Dave Hartman joined us along with his friend Seth, an independent film maker in town to work with our friend Ken Nedimyer and the Coral Restoration Foundation - amazing small world!  Even cooler, our group represented the far and wide reaches of the IVS family, with Ohio, California, Florida, New Jersey & New York divers in attendance on this trip. 

Ruh-Roh!  Friday morning came and so did the rain!  It was absolutely pouring this morning - so unlike the weather we had ordered!  Oh well, we’re here to dive, so dive we must!  The rest of the gang had showed up during the night, including Brian, Mary & Dan Young, Kim Luisi, Dave McLaughlin, Alex Cajkovich, Nikolina Cejvan, Luke Miller, Rick Jurewicz, David & Katie Manninen, and Felix Gryn.  Most of us had managed to arrive uneventfully, but Luke & Rick had the pleasure of meeting one of the locals on the way down from the airport, as she nailed the back of their rental car, ripping the whole rear bumer off!  That’ll make for some ’splaining to do at the Rental Return counter!  After introductions and hugs, the boat headed out with most of the gang, while Sue and her students, accompanied by Meredith and I, headed over to Jules Undersea Lodge.  Our dives there were great, all skills completed with panache, and we were greeted with lobster everywhere, and even a sleeping nurse shark, right there in the lagoon.  This team is ready to take on the ocean!  Meanwhile, the guys on the boat were hammered by the rain, but still managed to get two decent dives in.  

Friday afternoon we headed back out, with the Speigel and Benwood our wrecks of choice and in spite of the snotty seas, the dives were quite nice.  Decent viz and no current on the Spiegel, so the trip was definately worth it - and most of us were graced with a visit from one of the huge Goliath Groupers that call the Speigel Grove home.  Our second drop was the Benwood, and although the vis was down a little, still a really nice dive to wrap up our first full day of diving in Key Largo. 

Time for a short dinner and we head out for a Friday night dive, moved up a night because the boat parade is Saturday night.  As we load the boat the trees are sorta whistling overhead, so it is not a good sign.   Not ones to give up easily, we head out to sea, hoping for the best.  The whitecaps in the bay might be a bad sign, but we soldier on, eternal optomists that we be!  We pass thru Adam’s Cut, and head out into the open sea.  The whitecaps grow a little but it’s still OK, we keep a positive attitude!  The waves are sorta breaking over the front of the boat…OK….maybe this is getting worse…..OK…we have to slow down even further…..OK…..finally prudence overcomes the desire to dive, and we decide to turn around and call it a (diveless) night. Funny thing was that somehow Katie lost her underwear on this non-dive, and there were reports that Andy had some ’splaining to do with his laundry the next morning……

Saturday morning came upon us and so did the rain.  The winds have been blowing all night at 25 knots plus, so the conditions on the reefs and the sea reflect all that energy that nature has been throwing at us all night long.  Early reports indicate that it sucks out there, so we decide to hold off on the morning trip.  Finally the winds are down to about 18 knots, so we decide to head out at noon for a three tank trip.  We are diving in standard IVS reverse profile mode, doing two reef dives followed by a deep one to the Speigel Grove.  We head out to French Reef, the deepest of the local reefs,  and hope for the best.  As it turns out the vis is under 20 ft, so keeping the group intact is quite the challenge.  We manage none the less, and our open water candidates truly shine in the less-than-optimal conditions.  Two nice reef dives, and then a Nitrox-enhanced dip onto the Speigel Grove, with conditions approaching perfect - what a pleasant surprise indeed!  It is truly amazing what a difference of a mile or two can make with regards to the conditions on and under the water.

Finally it is time for the big holiday celebration, and our token house mother Stephanie has been busy all day shopping and prepping for tonights bayside feast.  Seth steps up to the role of grillmaster, and he does a splendid job preparing the meats to everyone’s liking.  Burgers, dogs, fixin’s, sides, salads - Steph has outdone herself making this a special holiday treat!  And no holiday celebration would be complete with a visit from the big man himself, and we were not disappointed at all, as Santa (aka yours truly), assisted by his lovely elf Meredith, joined the party and helped spread the holiday cheer.  And we were joined by DiveNY’s own Chris Muller, who was fully dressed in his holiday pixie (or was that elf?) smock.  Amy Slate joined our party with a group of her friends, so it was a great evening for all.  We were even joined by former astronaut Scott Carpenter, who is a fellow member of the Explorers Club and shared some of his amazing stories with us.  And in keeping with the international flavor that IVS embraces, we had cerveza’s from many nations oveflowing from our coolers to celebrate the holiday event.  Some of those libations might be behind the rumored theft (or as they call it in New York, a ‘relocation’) of one of the Amoray golf carts - we’re not naming names here, but how it ended parked in front of Katie’s door that night might be a good place for CSI-Key Largo to start the investigation. 

Finally Sunday morning dawned, and so did that fantastic weather we had ordered.  Clear skies, beautiful sun, and flat seas were the order of the day!  We headed out to two nice dives on the Elbow, starting with the City of Washington, where we got to crash another Creature Feature feed being conducted by our friends at Slates Atlantis Dive Center.  Huge grouper interaction, but alas, no sharks today.  We also ran a little Fish ID class on this great wreck, but it’t tough to focus when the 300 lb grouper keeps bumping into you.  We then motored over to the Train Wheel Wreck, where conditions were a little snottier and the surge a little stronger.  Still a good dive, viz was great, and we all enjoyed another 60 minute dive in Key Largo.

After a brief lunch and a quick turnaround at the dock, we sailed out for our final afternoon of diving, which was a double deep adventure to the Duane and the Speigel Grove.  Conditions on the Duane were fantastic, with the exception of the current, which was absolutely ripping!   Talk about a baptism of fire for our newest divers - what a ride it was indeed!  A good briefing prepared everyone for the worse, and without exception the group had a fantastic dive, even enjoying some precautionary air sharing to ensure that ample gas supplies were available for the ascent and return to the Amoray Diver.  The viz was forever, and the fish life abundant, so all in all a great dive - but the descent and ascent were a rush!   The best part was the ’spider man crawl’ down the front of the Duane’s wheelhouse.  Of course, after Dave jumped over the rail and headed down, Katie Chin was trying to figure out how to follow, with her significantly shorter arms not quite reaching like Dave’s did - but the rest of the group enjoyed watching her crawl over the rail, one leg at a time, and finally make it down to the main deck where Dave was patiently waiting.  All good, everyone ascended without incident, while experiencing diving in some real serious current conditions, and another great dive under our belts.

Our second location was the Speigel Grove, and again, what an amazing difference a couple of miles can make.  Nearly no current, great viz, a huge turtle putting on a show at the surface for us, and another fantastic dive.  Again, our newest divers performed fantastically, with lots of nice comfortable planned penetrations into the wreck - welcome to the world of IVS!  And, never to overlook a break-thru moment, Sheril Tyre was finally comfortable enough in her diving on this second visit to the Speigel to relax and pee in her wetsuit - amazing how the little things come together!  Thank goodness it was an Amoray rental!     

We wrapped up the trip with dinner at the Conch House, and our guest of honor was Sue who was celebrating her birthday today in perfect style - underwater and surrounded by friends!  And talk about making it an even more perfect birthday party, we had the Eagles on the big screen and watched as they kicked NY butt (sorry Dive NY’ers!) and cemented undisputed first place in the NFC East conference!  On top of that San Diego put the Cowboys in their place, and the Browns even embarrassed the Steelers with a win - great day for the IVS football fans in attendance (again, sorry Dive NY!).  And of course it was time for the graduation ceremony, as we congratulated our newest PADI National Geographic Open Water Divers Jesica & Sheril Tyre, and Luke Miller, our newest PADI Deep Divers Dave & Katie Manninen, and our newest PADI Enriched Air Diver Alex Cajkovich.  Finally, we announced the winners of the coveted ADD (All Dives with Dave) Award - Meredith Bernardo &  Andy McConaghie - way to go guys! 

Monday saw most of the group head home, while Felix, Pam, Chris, Andy, Dave Hartman and Dave V took a scenic ride to Key West, with the destination being the wreck of the Vandenberg.  We met up with Chris Norwood, owner of Florida Straits Diving, and one of the significant players in the actual sinking of the Vandenberg.  Our first stop was our newest Keys lodging choice, a waterfront condo on Stock Island, from where we’ll be basing our Key West op’s for 2010.  The condo is first class, and located right next to the Hogfish Bar & Grille, a great local hangout.  We settle in and then head downtown to get this diving started!

As it turns out the wind has been kicking pretty strong all morning, so rather than beat ourselves up on Chris’s boat, we all jump onto the Lost Reef Adventures boat for the double dip on the Vandie.  I had arranged for our good friend and Vandenberg project manager Joe Weatherby to be our tour guide for some deep and dark journeys through the wreck and he was ready to show off his baby.  We dropped in as two groups, with Andy, Felix, Chris M and Pam enjoying a self-guided tour, and Joe, Chris N, Dave H and myself set for some serious ‘learning the lay of the land’ touring.  Down we went, with 80 ft or better visibility, 80 degree water, and zero current for our first dive.  We dropped in the forward cargo hatch shaftway, dropping down to the 4th deck at 134 ft, then beginning our tour towards the stern.  We passed through room after room, zigging left and right, around equipment, shelving, and furniture, finally exiting at the beginning of the engine rooms.  We move up to the main deck, and Joe and Chris head for the ascent.  Dave H and I are fine with our gas and deco obligations, so we head aft, circling the stern, and then work our way forward, circling the bow also - that 540 ft of wreck - you can tell there is no current when you can do that on a dive!  We work our way back towards the moring line, and finally surface after a 50 minute, 134 ft deep dive - first class!  And my personal thanks to Mike Cochran and his team for developing the algorithm that makes dives like this possible!

We enjoy a brief surface interval, which was not brief enough, if you ask Chris Muller  - cause the entire time we got to enjoy local divemaster-candidate (and Speedo wearing) Tom ogling Chris’s manly physique.  Hey, we’re in Key West, and if this thing with Pam doesn’t work out, at least Chris knows he has options!  Finally, enough of that, we descend again, this time dropping right down onto the wreck, and touring the weather balloon storage garage, complete with basketball backboard, then down into the hydraulic steering room, out and under the rudder, hitting the sand at 144 ft, popping into the engine room and winding our way through the myriad of catwalks, piping and ductwork there, through the tank room, and finally out the side, then up into the berthing area.  Another great dive, 40 minutes of bottom time, and back on the boat with nearly 1500 psi left in my 120 - almost sacriligous, if not for that deco obligation part!   As we head back to port we enjoy a beautiful sunset, two cruise ships leaving port, lobster boats heading out to check their traps, sail boats all over the harbor - almost a Norman Rockwell scene, with an IVS twist of course! 

Back to the condo, we gussie up a bit, and head over to the Hogfish for a bite to eat, then some of the crew head back into town for dessert while Felix and I decide to crash at the condo for the evening and enjoy some Monday night football, another great surprise as the Niner’s kick butt in Arizona.

Tuesday morning Pam, Andy, and “Tom-bait” Chris head back up to Miami to catch their flights home, and Felix and I have one more day of diving.  Our mission today is to visit the USS Curb, a WWII naval salvage tug that sits in 220 feet of water off Key West.  This is another exploratory dive for our IVS tech trip schedule for next year, and we’re excited about getting our first chance to dive this intact and upright wreck.  Our second destination will be back at the Vandenberg to wrap up a great weekend of diving.  The winds have dropped down to 10 knots, and the seas are relatively flat, helping to ensure a great afternoon of diving.

It’s going to be a late start as our dive buddy and local celebrity Joe Weatherby is being honored by the local chamber of commerce this morning for his work in the Vandenberg project.  Finally we head over to fil tanks, choosing mixes of 24% and 32% nitrox for our two dives.  Load the boat, prepare the rigging with 300 ft of down line, a heavy grapple hook, and a big poly ball float, and we’re ready to head out.  It’s about a  40 minute run to the Curb, and we run right over the wreck, watching it pop up from the bottom on the sonar.  We make three passes over it before our hook finally grabs the wreck, and we gear up and head down.  Conditions are great, but the sun is quickly setting, so it’s a bit dark as we approach the wreck.  The deck sits at 170 ft, so by the time we have dropped in, explored the engine rooms and lower chambers we are pushing 180 ft on this dive.  There are scores of big black groupers on this wreck, huge horse eye jacks, and a school of really large bar jacks working a silverside bait ball at the bow.  The wreck is covered with monofilament and fishing nets, so it’s an entanglement nightmare, but we’re careful and avoid snagging ourselves.  With the depth, our planned run time is 20 minutes, and it passes all too quickly.  Felix has already started to head up, and Joe is accumulating major deco obligations, so it’s up to me to run down and untangle the grapple hook from the lines it is caught in.  Joe motions to just cut the line, but I can’t do that, heck, I love a challenge at depth!  So I drop down to the grapple, and carefully untangle the lines, netting, and ropes it is fouled in, finally achieving success and tieing the hook back on itself to avoid snagging something else.  I start up the line, with a 13 minute deco obligation, and my first stop at 50 ft.  Felix is well ahead of me, but Joe is using his ”pink” computer today, and so I get to spend an additional 27 minutes of run time hanging with Joe and waiting for his computer to clear. By the time I surface it has been a total of 60 minutes since my descent - thank goodness for efficient breathing!

Back on board, we motor over to the Vandenberg, and the sun has long set now.  Fifty minutes of surface interval is more than enough, and we drop down on the great wreck again.  Our mission this time is to visit one of the more dangerous areas of the wreck, the laundry room.  Access is limited to a shaftway from above and one set of winding stairs within the room.  We enter the weather balloon hanger, and drop straight down the shaftway, into 125 feet of darkness, in a space that is barely one diver wide - talk about a cool rush!  Finally I am in the room, and Joe & Felix follow me, being super careful not to silt ourselves out.  We tour the space, and then locate the stairs and work our way up to the 3rd deck, where we make a long 350 ft run through the crew berthing areas, ending up right under the bridge.  One last narrow passage and it is total siltout, as Felix loses sight of me.  Through the cloud I can see him turn, looking up one passageway, then another, not seeing me straight ahead due to the silt.  He turns around, and I follow, signaling to Joe that our plan has just been modified.  I chase Felix back out through the silt until I finally catch him, and we head out to exit the ship and begin our ascent.  It’s so easy to get fouled up in a wreck, and the Vandenberg has more than it’s share of tight passageways and lots of Key West silt throughout the interior.  We end up with a 43 minute total run time on the wreck, and I manage to score a brass light fixture complete with an intact frosted lens!  Finally we reboard, and enjoy a pitch black ride back to port to wrap up a fantastic weekend of diving and adventure.

Now a quick rinse of the gear, and Felix and I make the 4 hour drive to Miami where we’ll spend the night and catch our flights home in the a.m.  We can’t wait to get back here and explore these wrecks again - February seems so far away!

They came in droves, the spotters, the netters, the snarers, and the grabbers…….specialists all, with a common goal - to put as many tasty spiny lobsters into the pot for Friday nights annual Indian Valley Scuba Lobster Festival in Key Largo.  This event is held each year, to coincide with the Florida Lobster Sport Season, a two-day hunt held the last contiguous Wednesday & Thursday in July.  This mini-season precedes the opening of the regular hunting season, and is only open to divers, snorkelers, and netters - no commercial take is allowed. 

Team IVS arrived on site Tuesday evening, and set right to work prepping the gear for an oh’dark-thirty departure in the moming.  Final checks, calibrating the gauges, making sure the snares worked smoothly,  trying on the new gloves, installing new batteries in the lights, and the oh-so-important task of making sure the zipper on your lobster bag was nice and closed - all important tasks necessary to ensure our team would do it’s part for lobster population control on the reef.

It’s three thirty in the morning and the alarm is ringing……yikes!..time to get up and get ready!  Brush the teeth, grab a bagel and diet Coke, and start loading the boat at 4:15.  Capt. Joe and First Mate Lindsey delivered the safety briefing at 4:30 and we pushed off into the darkness, with an air of anticipation of what laid ahead.  Our team consisted of Ray Graff, Bev & Butch Loggins, Randy & Connie Rudd, Joyce & Charles Kichman, Tricia and Jeff Mento, Sue Douglass, Brian Laspino, Mike & Lin Gusenko, Terry Gibbons, Bob Benson, Wendy and Alex Lepore, and John Glodowski. For a few, this was not only their first ocean dive, but also their first boat dive, night dive, hunting dive and drift dive - what a way to get baptized in scuba, eh? 

We splashed at the legal opening minute of the lobster hunting season in Monroe County, 5:48 a.m.  Lights were shining back & forth, as the divers scurried about., looking to be the first to get a ”keeper” in the bag!  In order to take a lobster here, they need to be of a minimum length, which we measure with a gauge prior to bagging them, and they must also not be bearing eggs.  Thus it is important to exercise caution and catch them in a kind and loving fashion, in case they fail to pass one of those tests, and we need to set them free, to grow (or hatch their eggs) and hopefully visit us again next season!   This is also why we are careful not to damage the lobsters or break their spiny antennas, as they would have a difficult time defending themselves if they don’t end up qualifying for our dinner pot.  We completed three ninety-minute dives this morning, each one better than the previous, and ended up with 21 lobster tails in the freezer by noon.  Time for a quick lunch and siesta, and then we’ll head back out and do it again.  

Our new crew, Captain Dan and First Mate Andrew, arrived, and we loaded up and headed out at 3:30 for the afternoon three-tank trip.  Three great locations, three more hour-plus drift dives, and we were “on the meat” at every one!  36 more lobsters joined our growing collection in the freezer, making Friday’s night feast looking all that much better.  Last splash was at 8:00, allowing one last hour of night diving before the season closed for the day at 9:10 p.m.  We got back at 11:00, just in time to crash into our beds and get a few hours rest before the alarm clock rings again!

Just to keep things exciting, we decided to head out a little earlier this morning and try our luck up north a bit, around Carysfort Light. So we loaded up at 3:30 a.m., and cast the lines at 4:00 to make sure we didn’t miss a minute of hunting time.  Well today our luck was not with us, even with the efforts of the ‘Lobster Charmer’ Tricia Mento, giving her best effort.  Only 8 more bugs were added to the pot, so the pressure’s on for this afternoons team.  Lots of mouths to feed tomorrow night!  Maybe we should have them make some extra salad and dinner rolls at the restaurant!

Thursday afternoon found most of the rest of the gang showing up, including the rest of the Valaika clan, Brad Creveling, Rich Kessler, Keith Wallerman, Bill & John Zyskowski, Rob & Jen O’Donnell, Stephanie & Cynthia Shaeffer, Niki & Csaba Lorinczy, Steve Holak, Judy & Ron Monaco, June Malinowski, Beth Long and Alex Pulsilze. Local IVS-South instructor Dave Hartman joined the gang for the last lobster run this evening also.

Thursday afternoon also marked two very important milestones in the Indian Valley Scuba dive family - Tricia Mento celebrated her 100th dive this afternoon, and even cooler than that, she celebrated her fourth consecutive 29th birthday in the most wonderful way, diving for lobsters with Team IVS!

The boat returned at 10:30 and with 28 more bugs in the bag, the final lobster count ended up at 93, a few shy of last years record 106 bugs.   We need to work on this for sure!!!

Friday morning and the weekend officially starts, with most of the group boarding the Amoray Diver for a run out to the reef, while our newest divers joined Dave and some of the IVS staff for a ride over to do our first two open water dives at Jules Undersea Lodge.   The Amoray Diver headed enjoyed two reef dives in perfect conditions, and the group had a great morning.  Meanwhile the Jules gang enjoyed some cool dives getting all those necessary skills out of the way, and preparing us to head out on the open seas after lunch. 

The afternoon boat headed out at 1:00 and our first stop was the Coast Guard Cutter USS Duane. To say the current was “RIPPING” would be a gross understatement.  It was truly smoking all the down to the wreck at 105 ft.  Four teams of divers headed down and once on the wreck we had some great visibility and lots of large animals taking refuge in and around the wreck, so the sightseeing was great.  Major gathering of very large horse-eye jacks kept circling the wreck and buzzing us - where’s my speargun??

Once back on board, we headed over to the Winch Hole site on Molasses Reef, and enjoyed a great dive with minimal current and super visibility, and just loving that 87 degree water!  Back to the dock in time to freshen up, and head over the the Key Largo Conch House for our lobster dinner festival.  Reservations for 48 were made earlier this year and our friends at the Conch House did not let us down a bit!   From their award-winning lobster bisque, to broiled lobster tails, and all the fixin’s that go well with that, our group had a truly pleasant evening under the stars, chatting, dining, sharing dive tales, and generally enjoying the social interaction that is such a huge part of the dive life. 

Saturday morning brought us another dose of the weather that entitles Florida to be called the Sunshine State - absolutely perfect, sunny, with clear blue skies.  We laoded up and headed out to French Reef, the oldest of the reef systems that lay just offshore of the Keys.   Our first location was Christmas Tree Cave, an area chock full of swim throughs formed by the mature corals growing over hundreds of years and fusing together on top of the reef, forming large open archways along the sand.  These are great spots to find great numbers of smaller and mid-size reef fish taking refuge from the surge while enjoying protection from predators, and often you’ll also find some larger species also, such as groupers.  They were all out in force today, and our divers were treated with turtle sightings, actively feeding stingrays, sharks, eels and all the rest of the usual cast of characters.  Dive #2 of the day was just a few mooring balls down the reef, at the last dive site on French Reef, apropriately named North French Reef.  Similar to the first dive, conditions just as nice, and the sea life just as abundant.

Back to the dock for a quick bite to eat, change tanks, and the ride back out to sea.  Location #1 for the afternoon was the Spiegel Grove, and the seas were a’rolling, with waves breaking right across the deck of the Amoray Diver.  We were almost wet enough to start counting our bottom time before we even got hooked up to the wreck.  We tied into the port crane, and the current was as strong if not stronger than yesterday’s Duane experience.  We organized into teams on the boat, conducted our group briefings, and slipped into the water.  Pulling against the mooring line was something akin to swimming up a fire hose, with the water just about ripping our masks off and regulators out.  What a rush indeed!  Hand over hand, we made our way down the line to the wreck, hitting the top of the crane at 65 feet.  Once on the wreck , we were able to use the ship to shield ourselves from the current and the diving conditions were superb.  Every team was able to enjoy the dive to the level they planned, from simple sightseeing about the exterior to some of Dave Hartman’s fine deep, dark, interior tours.  By the end of our dive, 37 of our 40 divers made it back to the Amoray boat - we won’t mention any names, but let it be known the Spiegel has a newly named mooring ball now, called the “Z” ball, in honor of couple of navigationally challenged IVS diving brothers and their fellow Polski sidekick.

After that it was a short ride to the Benwood for a good chance to see the wreck before we re-visit it for our night dive.  It never ceases to amaze me how the sea life can change so greatly on a specific location, within just a few hours. And it does this every night of the year - amazing!  Another hour in the water, and it was time to head back in, re-fuel, and load for the night dive.

Nighttimes on the Benwood are always a blast, and 17 of us descended into the inky black waters to check out the night life on the reef.  Lots of cool critters, some octopus sightings, all the other great nocturnal attractions, and an 80 minute dive to boot!  Laughter, brewskis and fun all the way home, and everyone gathered at the Paradise Pub for a thorough debriefing afterwards!

Sunday morning brought another perfect sunny day, and we headed out to visit some spots on the Elbow Reef.  The ride out was a hoot, with 4 to 6 foot rollers breaking across the bow of the Amoray Diver and running down the decks - everyone grab your gear!   The seas calmed down as we got to the reef, but the slow progress on the way out cost us first dibs on a spot on the City of Washington, so we settled for her next door neighbor, Mike’s Wreck.  Final set of skills for our newest open water divers, with navigation patterns and bouyancy skills checked off to complete their National Geographic Open Water certifications.  Congratulations to Jen & Rob O’Donnell, Anna & Alexis Valaika, and IVS Instructor Rich Kessler’s first two Open Water divers, Stephanie & Cynthia Shaeffer!   We also managed to get our penetration reel work done, so congratulations to Todd Gibson and Brian LaSpina, our newest Wreck Specialty graduates.

Dive #2 was on the City of Washington, and wow was the sunlight and water clarity perfect, combining to make this picturesque wreck even more beautiful for this Sunday morning visit.  Supersize Goliath Groupers and some nurse sharks joined us on the dive, swimming in and out of our group, looking for a handout.  We completed a couple of REEF Fish Surveys on this dive, helping that great organization with their work on the fish population database programs.

Back at the dock, and I said my goodbyes to the gang as the family and I were headed down to Key West for some vacation and a visit to the Vandenberg, Florida’s newest major wreck.  As luck would have it, the seas had turned, for the better, and the group headed out to the Speigel Grove and enjoyed nearly current-free conditions and fantastic visibilty - what a change from the last two days!  After that, it was some deep reef exploring offshore from the Benwood, some swimming and cavorting on and off the boat, and a slow return to the dock as one engine had decided to take the rest of the day off - talk about timing, eh?

And speaking of milestones, this afternoon the face of IVS Key Largo, Dave Hartman, logged his 1,000th dive, of course doing it surrounded by the IVS gang!  He marked this special celebration with a personal signing of commenorative Spiegel Grove t-shirts for his Ultimate Speigel Grove Deep & Dark Dive Tour Team.

With the boat down for repairs, any Monday morning dive plans went by the wayside, and the group headed to the airports for their rides home.  Meanwhile, in Key West, I hooked up with Southpoint Divers, who had hosted Csaba, Niki, Bill & John earlier in the week, and set up a two-tank double dip on the Vandenberg for Tuesday morning.  Woo hoo! 

Tuesday morning came and I boarded the Southpoint boat at a nice late 8:30, for a 9:00 departure.  What a difference it was to not be with Team IVS divers - it is just an amazing contrast as divers were asking how their computers worked, how to set up gear, were clueless on weight requirements, didn’t know how to set up a weight belt “because I only dive integrated weights”….geeeeesh!

On top of that, we are scheduled to do two back-to-back deep dives on the Vandenberg, and the only gas they have on board is air.  Amazing.  None the less, the crew is friendly, so we listen to the briefing and fire up the nice fast Newton diesels and make the 35 minute run out to the wreck.  En-route, I get “insta-buddied” with Deb from Cherry Hill (the weight belt expert), and listen to her rant about the shop staff and how they would not refund her money for the trip since she work up with an ear ache and was not sure she could clear…..i am sensing an interesting dive ahead.  Finally we’re on site, and we splash.  Current is moderate so they had run a descent line down, and a tag line to the anchor.  Only problem is the boat is about 46 feet long, and the tag line they used is about 150 ft long, so it starts at the mooring line, passes under the boat, extends about 50 ft past the boat, circles back on itself, and finally ties back into the descent line.  What a mess of entanglement possibilities!  I drop down and begin my descent and thankfully my buddy du jour is keeping up with me - so much for that ear clearing issue I suppose.  As we approach the wreck the viz is terrible, maybe 20 ft at best, and we finally see the forward kingpost rising out of the murk.  We drop down to the deck, and cruise about, as I attempt to get some decent video despite the gloomy conditions.  The captain’s briefing, geared to the touristy crowd, was for a 20 minute dive, max depth 90 feet.  That’s exactly why I bought my Cochran dive computer, so I could do profiles like that…..NOT!  Forty minutes later I surfaced, and the crew was amazed - not in deco, still in excess of 500 psi in tank - geez, just a regular IVS dive!  Of course all the other divers were back on board, looking nearly dry, so I figured they had a 20 or more minute head start on their surface interval. 

During the break I am talking to some of the locals, and they are lamenting about this years lobster season, how they only got one dive in before getting “blown out’ by the weather.  Seas were rough, they said, and it was dangerous, so they called it early Wednesday morning and never attempted to go out on Thursday.  Wow, I say, where were you diving?   Key Largo, they tell me!   Hmmmmm….I guess that local perspective on sea conditions sure is different than ours! 

Finally our magic 45 minutes of surface interval has passed, so it’s time to head back down with my buddy Deb for a second dive.  During our break, however, the current had picked up and some wonderfully clear blue water had moved in, making the wreck visible from the surface.  Sweet!!  Of course, during that time, nothing was done about the excessive lengths of line in the water, so that mess of rope still had to be dealt with.  I dropped in, and as I started to make my way forward, one of the locals with a huge camera system smashes right down on top of me……good to see such a display of excellent dive skills & buoyancy control!  I firm up my grip on my own video system, brace for the rest of the divers to visit me, and pull myself down and out of the crash zone.  As I head down to the wreck it is obvious how the viz had improved, and I can see well down the wreck in both directions from the mooring line.  We drop down the kingpost again, and boogie down the port side of the wreck towards the stern, passing the one radar dish that had broken off during the sinking and is not tied in place with cables, past the one still attached, and past the rear stack.  The ship protected us from the current on this side, and when we decided to turn back, we simply swam over the the starboard side and enjoyed the full effect of the current as we sailed back towards the bow - nice ride indeed! I managed to score some decent footage and snap a few shots of the wreck along the way, and finally, after another 30 minutes of bottom time, it was time to head on up.  I enjoyed a leisurely ascent, clearing my 3 mintes of deco obligation along the way as I did my deep stops, and got up to the 20 foot mark for my final hang.  I feel a nibble on my leg, and look down, and there is a juvenile file fish, maybe 3 inches long, biting my leg and using me to hang on in the current - very cool!  He stayed with me during my entire hang, enjoying a break from fighting the current and some protection from predators at the same time. The DM is on the line, and she is indicating that she has 2 minutes of deco hang remaining, so I signal that I am OK and I’ll hang here.  She signals me again that she has two minutes of hang, and again I indicate no sweat, I’ll stay with her.  Well this goes on for another ten minutes, and I wonder exactly what kind of computer she is using.  Turns out that like many things in Key West, the signals are a little different too!  Her two fingers in the shape of a “v” meant nothing, just her way of saying “are you OK?”.  Yes, strange but true.  Reminds me of a certain instructor from Lake Sheridan, Wyoming…..but that’s another story all together!  We finally surfaced, after fifty minutes, and headed in.  Good dives, but I’d do it different next time for sure.

After that it’s another day or two of Key West, then up to South Beach for some more culture shock, before the Valaika clan head home Friday morning.  Great couple of weeks in the Keys for all!

 Part I - Driving & Diving our way south, aka John & Ray & Dave’s Excellent Scuba Adventure

Today marked the start of Indian Valley Scuba’s Annual Memorial Day Key Largo diving trip, and this year’s event is the most special yet!  Expected to run ten days, it includes Cave Diving in northern Florida, drift diving and spearfishing off Boynton Beach, working with the Coral Reef Foundation to restore live corals to damaged areas of the Key Largo reef system, a typical IVS dive-dive-dive four day 14-dive wreck & reef weekend, and finally some shark tooth collection dives in the muddy Cooper River of South Carolina on the way home!  Add some rebreather training, open water checkouts, a ton of specialty and advanced training, and you have a typical relaxing week in water for Team IVS.

Sunday John Glodowski, Ray Graff and Dave loaded up and headed out, driving the first 980 miles to High Springs, Fl, to get ready for our first cave dive tomorrow.  Long, long drive, 15 hours with rotating drivers and lots of caffeine to get the team on location on time and not miss a dive!   Clear sailing through Washington, but raining from there to Florida made it an even longer night of driving.  Thank goodness for Diet Mountain Dew and Red Bull! 

Our first morning found us knocking on the doors at Ginnie Springs as they opened up at 8:00 a.m.  As usual, perfect customer service greeted us in this most organized operation, as the three of us signed in and registered for a morning of cavern and cave diving experience.  The river has dropped substantially since our last visit here a month ago, and the springs were running clear once again.  We set up and dropped into the Devils Spring system, first getting comfortable and our buoyancy adjusted in the shallow water above the Little Devils spring, basically a fissure down into the rock, measuring about 6 feet across, 40 feet long, and dropping almost 40 feet down.  The spring that feeds this enters through a small hole in one corner, and is clearly a “no-mount” entrance, meaning that in order to pass through the very tight restriction you would have to be holding your tank and regulator in your hands; as you would not fit if it were on your slung along your sides - yes, it’s that tight!  So we passed on that entrance, and made our way down to Devils Eye, and dropped down into the entrance.  Basically a shaft about 12 ft in diameter and 20 ft deep, it provides access to the entrance to the cave system.  We made our tie-off at the entrance, and our secondary just inside, and away we went, spooling out line and exploring the various nooks, crannies and passages through the cave system, finally reaching the main line and tieing off the reel.  From there we exited through the Devils Ear entrance, stopping for a safety stop while being washed by the significant outflow from this subterranean spring system.  From there we surfaced, and had an opportunity to debrief the dive, discussing the experience, and talking about our re-entry.  After a little surface interval, we dropped back in, re-tracing our steps, picking up the reel and slowly working away back to our original entry point.

Very cool dives, and now we were ready to enjoy a bit of a drift dive down the Santa Fe River.  The entrance to the next spring system was about a 1/4 mile downriver, so we kicked out a bit, and dropped down into the tannic-stained water for a brisk ride downstream.  Lots of freshwater mullet, bass, and a couple of large turtles were encountered on our way.  Popping up a few times to make sure we didn’t miss the next turn, we finally saw the small clearing in the trees that indicated the entrance to the Ginnie Ballroom spring.  We kicked up that waterway, finally crawling, and eventually walking, as the water got shallower and shallower as we approached the cavern entrance.  Suddenly the bottom dropped down to about 20 ft, and we swam down to the cavern entrance.  A narrow slit in the wall, and we slid in, as the cavern opened up into a massive underground area, hence the name, Ginnie’s Ballroom.  We explored the space, dropping down to 65 ft inside, and visiting the inlet spring, barred off for safety, that flowed so strongly that you could not swim and hold yourself in place near the entrance - an amazing amount of water passes through this cavern!

With only three dives under our belts for the day, we knew we needed a little more nitrogen racing through our veins, so it was off to Paradise Springs.  Located just an hour down the road in Ocala, this private spring & cave system is located on a horse farm, well off the beaten path. Find the little sign along the side of the road, take the one lane path through the woods for a half a mile, cross the railroad tracks, a right, a left, past two homes, through the gate, and to the house to check in!  Pay your fee, watch an orientation video, and it’s time to head down to the spring entrance.  Located about 40 ft below grade, it’s a bit of a hike to get down, especially wearing double 100’s.  But the trip is worth it, as we slipped into the small pool that was the entrance to this underground system.  Another buoyancy check, bubble check and a safety drill, and we began the exploration, dropping down into the cave system to a depth of about 140 ft before finally encountering some serious silting deep down in the narrowing passages.  Good spot to turn the dive, and we headed back up, stopping to examine the great variety of fossils and bones trapped in the side walls and ceiling of the cave.  From whale vertebra to lizard bones to sand dollars the sizes of dinner plates, this is a pretty cool spot for some underground education.   Finally it was time to head to the surface, and we climbed back out to the truck, loaded our gear, and got ready for the next leg of our journey - a five hour ride to Boynton Beach, FL.  We’ve got some photos to share from this portion of this trip - click here!

We arrived late at night in the still-pouring rain (three days in a row now) and got a few hours of well deserved and much needed shuteye in at the Holiday Inn Express.  Tuesday morning we finally saw some sunlight and hints of blue in an otherwise gray sky, so we took that as a good sign!  We found our way down to the marina and met Captain Shane of Deeper Dive Charters, our host for today’s activities.  We boarded, got squared away, and headed out in some good seas for a 3-tank trip, sightseeing and spearfishing the offshore reefs.

First location was Briny Breezes, a barrier reef at 80 feet. All the diving here was of the drift variety, and everyone had a job to do - John was hunting, Dave was shooting too, both of the video and speargun varieties, so we appointed Ray as the flag-master for the day, and he was assigned to tow a navigational-aid size surface float and marker flag for us while we dove.  We motored over to the spot, and it was “dive-dive-dive” as the command came from the bridge to drop in!  A very nice drift at 80 feet for almost 70 minutes - it’s great when you drive down and can haul your own doubles! We followed that with a long 20 minute or so surface interval, then headed to our second location, Gulfstream, another nice offshore reef line.  Lots of color, good coral formations, but nothing worth firing at so we enjoyed the scenary, including a huge 6 ft long turtle with a locator beacon attached to his shell - pretty cool to see such a mature animal.  Our final drop was at Delray Ledge, another nice 70 footer with some nice profile and vertical relief, and here John managed to give one nice rooster hogfish a headache I’m sure he’ll remember for a long time!  Gotta watch that angle on the shot!!  Finally we headed back in, disembarked, stopped for a nice curbside dinner at a Boynton Beach cafe, and headed down the road for a 3 hour jaunt to Key Largo.  And of course the rain continued to pummel us non-stop!

Part II - Coral Reef Restoration & Key Largo Diving

Confusion was the order of the day on Wednesday morning, as we woke to a nearly unrecognizable sight - the SUN!!   Woo hoo - the first time in our trip so far!  Once again, the scuba gods were smiling on Team IVS as they graced us with spectacular weather to kick off our coral reef restoration portion of this adventure.  This is one of the highlights of this year’s trip, and what a tremendously educational session we kicked it off with.  Ken Nedimyer, founder of the Coral Restoration Foundation, spent the morning sharing all the in’s & out’s of the coral reef system and what his foundation is doing to help restore it to a healthier more vibrant state with our restoration team, including Bob Stitzinger, Larry Gould, Butch Loggins, Sue Douglass, and Ray Graff, J-Glo and Dave Valaika.  The foundation currently specializes in Staghorn corals, and has over 3,500 live corals growing in their nursery, located about 6 miles offshore near Molasses Reef.  His presentation was thorough and his passion was obvious for his cause, and he quickly converted the attendees into coral advocates of the highest nature!  We broke for a brief lunch, and then headed out to the nursery.

Once on site, we began the task of cleaning and preparing the corals that we were to relocate on Thursday.  Scraping off the algae and other growths, we cleaned each live coral specimen with care.  Standing 3 to 4 inches high, these corals were the results of successful clippings of three different genealogical strains of staghorn coral.  The corals grow at a rate of about 1 millimeter a day, resulting in an inch or more of growth each month - wow!  So the corals we were about to plant had just been clipped off of healthy specimens earlier this year, and were already ready to go forth and help restore the reef!  We prepared 50 corals, and spent the remainder of the dive doing some routine maintenance work on the underwater ‘farm’.  Our second dive was at the site of the 1983 grounding of the Wellwood freighter, which drove into and onto Molasses Reef, causing a huge swath of damage, not once, but twice, as the salvage tugs dragged it back off the reef.  This site has been the scene of intensive study of reef restoration projects and techniques, and it was interesting to see the progress or lack thereof of some of the methods utilized over the last 25 years.  The most outstanding success by far was the restoration of the Staghorn coral population, and this was completetely the result of the Coral Restoration Foundation’s efforts.  We toured the site, and surveyed the locations for our restoration work scheduled for tomorrow.  Finally, we wrapped the evening up with part II of our coral education program, and got into the details of what would be expected of us tomorrow as we actually worked on the coral relocations.

Thursday morning we headed right out to the nursery, and spent two hours underwater, working to prepare fresh clippings onto bases and clean more growth off the nursery stock.  It is imperative that the corals are as clean as possible as the water warms or significant die-offs and incidents of White Band Disease show up in July & August.  So clean we did, scrubbing, scraping, and chiseling the various plants, sponges, and critters that had taken up domicile on the nursery plantings.  It is a very interesting shift in one’s mindset to go from our normal all-eco-inclusive “don’t touch, take nothing, leave only bubbles” mentality to working on behalf of the Staghorn coral and removing / destroying other species that pose a threat to them, in the nursery environment.  As we wrapped up our nursery duties we loaded the clippings we had prepared yesterday into tubs and hoisted them up onto the boat for a short ride to their new home.

After a short break for lunch, we motored out to the Wellwood site once again, and brought out little coral friends down with us   The lovely Miss Amy Slate was on board for the afternoon’s activities, and Carlie & Leslie Adams had also joined us for this afternoon in the roles of video and photo documenters, so we were set to get a lot of great footage of the activities.  Each restoration site was actually a grouping of three corals representing the differnt genotypes that Ken has nurtured at the nursery.  We chiseled and hammered and scraped the hardpan to prepare a suitable attachment point, mixed our two-part epoxy, and bedded the mounting disk that each coral was attached to into the reef.  Once set, we worked more epoxy in and around the base, smoothing the structure out and providing a more ideal platform for the coral polyps to grown and expand downward as well as upward.  Finally, we measured and documented the size and development of each coral and affixed a permanent ID tag into epoxy with a unique identifier number so that the growth and progress of the program could be monitored for years to come.  Our mission for the day accomplished, we headed back in.

After a round of hugs and kisses and T-shirt & email exchanges at the dock, it was time to turn to the next matter at hand - a night dive!  John Zyskowski, as well as Glen & Drew Hotte, had arrived and were itching to get wet, so we grabbed a quick bite and headed back out to the wreck of the Benwood, our favorite nightime dive site.  We arrived well after sundown, as we prefer, and slipped into the blackened waters to explore the nocturnal scene below.  Our efforts were well rewarded with some great up close turtle encounters, inquisitive squid visits, and the usual cast of characters out and about.   A perfect first night dive experience for Drew and a great Adventure Dive towards his Advanced Open Water certification!

Meanwhile, as we played under the sea, more of our group had arrived, including Stephanie Skelton, Meredith Bernardo, Kris Kritchell, and Tom & Debbie Brennan.  Also arriving tonight were our open water students, including Luanne & Jeff Stauffer, Katie & David Manninen, Joe Brown, and Katie Chin.   The weather continued to be perfect, save for an occassional downpour, but the sun keeps coming out, the wind stays away, and the seas are calm.

Friday we had half our group heading out on the Amoray Diver for some reef visits, and the rest of us headed over to Jules Undersea Lodge for our first two checkout dive.  With Instructors Butch Loggins, Ray G & Dave V, assisted by DM candidates John G, John Z, Carlie & Leslie, the group did great, progressing through the skill sessions with no problems at all!  While we were diving, a huge thunderstorm blew through, with lots of lightning striking all around and thunderclaps that made you jump, while the rain poured down on us - pretty cool!  Two great easy dives under our belt, we headed back to the resort to grab some lunch and get ready for the afternoon boat.  Our first location was the Spiegel Grove, and of course our newest divers had to sit this one out, but it was a beautiful day topsides to kick back and enjoy being out on the sea.  The rest of us jumped in, and were greeted with great visibility and ripping currents, not a bad combo!  Some of us did this dive with double 100’s and ended up with a 60 minute run time on this massive wreck, very cool to have that much time down there to really do some exploring!  Of course, IVS-South instructor Dave Hartman was on board to lead some of his famous deep & dark tours through the innards of the Spiegel Grove.  Our second location was Sandbottom Caves on French Reef, always a popular site, with some really cool easy swim thru’s and lots of large marine life to entertain and amaze us.  Visibility continued to be great and there was no current on this site to speak of so a great dive was had by all.  The dives were so cool, in fact, that Katie & Dave Manninen made the decision to not miss the “coolest dives” and opted to stay and dive Sunday, rather than head down to Key West - smart move!  Friday night more of our party arrived, including Tricia Arrington, Mike Parzynski, and Jack Sandler.

Saturday morning again the fantastic weather continued, with Bill Zyskowski joining us as we boarded early to head out to Fire Coral Cave, another superb site on America’s most popular living reef system.  After a 60 minute dive there, we motored over about 5 mooring balls to dive site #2, Eagle Ray Alley.  The site lived up to it’s name with some eagle rays spotted cruising through, a very photogenic turtle, and even a shark visited some of our divers! 

Back for a quick bite to eat, and it was showtime for our new divers as we headed out to visit the Spiegel Grove once again, and give everyone a chance to experience some deep wreck diving.  Greag Roll had joined the group at this point, and nearly everyone was accounted for!  Current was once again….shall we say…ripping?  Great experience though, and while this type of diving didn’t impress everyone right away (Luanne!) it was a good chance to expand our diving horizons and see a little bit of what else we can enjoy on our trips.  Stop # 2 was on the Benwood Wreck, perhaps the fishiest dive in the Keys, and the wreck was jammed with tropicals of all sizes and flavors. 

One more run back to the dock and most of us loaded back up for the night dive.  Heading out late, thanks to the great relationship we enjoy with Amoray and Capt. Joe, we entered the water well after sunset, so we were sure of much more nocturnal activity than most of the other Keys operators treat their clients to.   Got some great video of a couple of turtles and Meredith spotted not one but two octopus - way to go girl!!  Back to the ranch, some quick showers, and then we headed over to the Paradise Pub for burgers, wings and brews.

Sunday morning again the weather gods smiled on us, and Wendy & Alex Lepore joined us for some great dives.  Our first location was the City of Washington, where we got a chance to oversee the fish feed that Atlantis was conducting that morning.  About a half dozen nurse sharks showed up, some nice groupers (but no Bruiser!) and of course Psycho, the Great Barracuda.  We conducted some REEF Fish ID classes on the wreck and it was great for our divers to have a chance to actually participate in the REEF fish counts we do year round in the Keys.  For more info on REEF click here!  Site #2 was Mile’s Wreck, again, more turtles, sharks, and critters large and small, and another FISH ID dive survey completed.

After lunch it was time for our trademark double-deep dip on the Duane and Spiegel wrecks, sowe loaded up the Nitrox, and headed back out.  Conditions on the Duane were great, with some strong currents on the line, but nothing within the confines of this 327 ft long wreck, and the visibility was along the lines of 100+ feet.  A huge goliath grouper hung with us on the wreck as well as a large turtle and a stingray, so another memorable dive on one of the earliest members of the Florida Keys artificial reef system.  After that we visited the Spiegel, enjoying even more string current but great viz.  On this dive we were conducting some penetration training with reels, and Jack  & Mike did well, most  importantly learning how multi-tasking at depth with reel, light, buoyancy control and leading a dive is a major challenge!  And even more important, both Jack and Joe Brown geting a first hand lesson in why it is important to use the wreck to shield yourself from the current, especially when you are heading up for the ascent line!

Part III - Conch Republic & Cooper River Shark Tooth Diving

 A lot of the gang headed for home port Monday, but a bunch of us drove down to Tavernier and boarded the Conch Republic Divers boat for a day of diving on some new locations.   Stop one was the wreck of the Eagle, and you could not have asked for better conditions. Viz forever, and minimal current, as we enjoyed this 120 ft deep wreck, torn in two pieces a few years back by Hurricane George.  Click on the link for more information and some history on this wreck.  Our second site was Patches Reef (also known as the Aquarium) and we once again took the spear guns for a swim, with nothing presenting itself for us to bring home to the dinner table.

Our afternoon plans were to dive the Bibb, sister ship of the Duane, but the current was absolutely ripping on this site, so we opted to head up once again to the Spiegel.  The good news is that this ship is so large that you can enjoy many, many dives on it and each one will find you exploring new territory and areas of the ship.  After a nice dive there, we headed to our final Keys location, Conch Wall, located just outside the Aquarius habitat.  This wall, sloping from about 40 ft to over 100 ft, is a majestic site, with lots of high corals, good fish populations, and something for divers of every ability.  Once again, we brought the guns out for a swim, but this time I managed to sneak up on a nice black grouper and put a shot right behind the gills.  Finally one for the cooler, I thought, as the fish shot out, but no, he ran right under a coral head, and as fast as I could swim there, it wasn’t fast enough, as he managed to wriggle off the spear -darn!  OK, I thought, now we play the game as John G and I slowly stalked our soon-to-be grilled fillets through the reef.  He was good, but we figured we had him outgunned, and it was only a matter of time before he popped out enough for us to put the finishing shot in him.  But suddenly, our group of two hunters became three, as a large shark joined in, aggressively running up and down throught the reef, clearing picking up on the trail of our dinner!  Now the question was, who was going to get to the grouper first?  Well, the fact of the matter is, the shark won, chasing our grouper off a bit out of our range, and I’m sure ultimately enjoying our efforts.  Darn!

Well gosh, you’re thinking, this is like the children’s tune, ‘The Song that Never Ends’, but we’re getting close!  (ha ha…I have you hearing that jingle in your heads now, don’t I? ).  Well John, Ray & I packed up the truck and headed north, driving all night to make our next appointment with Alex Blalock of Deep South Rivers, our host for Tuesday’s diving on the Cooper River in South Carolina.  What a beautiful river area, with remains of former rice paddies, indigo fields, and life from days gone by, not to mention lots and lots of big alligators swimming in the river or sunning themselves on shore!  We managed to get three good dives in, with water temps around 72 degrees, and visibility in the 18 to 24 inch range!  Serious black-water diving was the order of the day, and our efforts paid off with some really nice findings of Megladon shark teeth, fossils and some fragments of early Native American pottery. 

Diving the Cooper River is unlike any other diving that IVS does the rest of the year.  Picture this:  head over to your local volunteer fire department, say around midnight, when it’s good and dark.  Then have the crew turn on a 4-inch hose and direct it right at your face and chest.  Now, have a couple of bus boys from the local restaurant continuously throw handfuls of tossed salad at your head - get the picture?  Between the unbelievable water movement, the amount of vegetation that flows in the river (and wraps around your face, head, regulator and every other part), and the fact that you can’t see more than 18″, this is some adrenalin-pumping diving, and worth every moment in the water!!  And if that’s not enough, remember that no good IVS dive trip is complete without an engine breakdown, and this trip was no exception, as we experienced some serious knocking & banging on our way back in.  One long, long ride at 5 mph but we managed to make it back, adding a few more photos of dive boat captains bent over a broken engine to our collection!

Finally, all great things must come to an end, and after 9 days, 34 dives and nearly 3,000 miles driven, it was time to jump back into the truckster and drive the last twelve hours home, through the night, of course, arriving back to reality at 6:30 a.m.  Just in time to head to unload the truck and head to work!  Well OK, John & I headed to work, our more senior amigo Ray has passed that point in his life, and he headed home for a leisurely siesta!

Indian Valley Scuba’s St. Louis dive center is getting ready for a Memorial Day Grand Opening! 

Charles St. Amant spent the last week in Harleysville working with the staff and getting his final training completed before he and his wife Cherie open their doors at IVS-St. Louis later this month.  Charles worked with Indian Valley Scuba’s IT-guru Csaba Lorinczy putting the final touches on his POS system, completed the design and pre-build of his gas filling & blending system with Bob Stitzinger, and worked through the last details of retail and training inventory with Bev Loggins.  An amazingly busy week, but super productive!

This weekend we find Rich Peterson, Ray Graff, Bob Stitzinger and myself headed west for our 14 hour, 900 mile drive to the Kennerly Street store location.  Our mission: to complete the final build-out and fit-out of the store with Charles & Cherie.  Packed in the trucks with us were the gas compressor, cascade bottles, fill system, retail displays, service tools and retail inventory that in just a few short days will transform an empty storefront into a fully operating dive center, ready to serve the needs of the St. Louis market.

Charles has already secured exclusive contracts with three area YMCA’s and class registrations are coming in daily.  The first open water classes will start in early June, and run monthly after that.  Of course each class will have the opportunity to join IVS in Key Largo for their checkouts, or head out for a weekend at Mermet Springs, just a short ride east from the shop.  

So after a thirteen hour ride, we arrive in St. Louis all fired up and ready to go!  Charles opens up and we begin unloading, tanks, compressor, fixtures, furniture and everything else needed to turn an empty space into a dive center!  Rich, Bob, Ray & Dave put in a solid 14 hour day, knocking off just in time to secure some local quality cigars and wines, and gather around the pool for a thorough debriefing!  Meanwhile while the crew relaxed, Keri Stinchcomb spent a few hours in the shop working to restore the luster to the floors and tiles, and her work was shining bright by the end of the night.

Tuesday morning dawns bright & blue for the crew, and after a well-deserved nights rest, we head over to the jobsite early!  Well most of the crew, that is, with slowpoke Rich nursing the post-wine affect from the evening before!  Today IVS-St. Louis Divemaster Mike Landers joined the crew and we kicked butt all day, finishing the compressor installation & gas filling system, building cabinets, desktops, counters, workbenches, storage racks -you name it, it got built today!  By the end of another long day the store was ready to be filled with product, and Charles & Cherie will spend the next week putting the finishing touches on the set up and inventory.  The Harleysville gang packed up their tools and trucks, and made the long journey back east.

We’re all excited about bringing the IVS magic to the St. Louis area, and watching Team IVS grow in the midwest.  The official opening is scheduled for Memorial Day weekend, and from there it should be nothing but upward and onward for this latest addition to the IVS family.  

Deliberately different, is how we like to think of Indian Valley Scuba and how we operate.  And this weekend is no different, with our Instructor Development Course candidates heading down to warm and sunny Key Largo for thier PADI Instructor Examinations.

Last weekend we had the honor of welcoming Richie Kessler into the instructor ranks, as he survived the chilly waters of Dutch Springs and competed his exams with honors!  Bogden Bachmatiuk joined Richie in our local waters, and they both made us proud.  Way to go men!!

However, the rest of the class decided that a nice, warm water instructor examination sure sounded more alluring than braving the near-icy waters of Dutch, so we headed to Key Largo for this weekend’s exam.  Steve Clem, Bill Zyskowski, and Csaba Lorinczy came down to IVS South, aka the Hartman Estate, to spend the weekend in their little PADI coccoons, ready to break out and hopefully spread their wings as Open Water Scuba Instructors come Sunday afternoon.  Of course I had to come down and assist in this endeavor, and sure, it’s convenient that the Keys Full Moon celebration party is tonite, and a coincidence that the Christmas boat parade is tomorrow, but none of that had anything to do with me being here to cheer the men on and support them in their endeavor.  it’s all business!!

Dave Hartman has rented us a private boat for the weekend, and our plan is to use that to finalize our inventory of lobster-laden dive sites for next season’s lobster mini-season.  But first we needed to make sure the guys were prepared for the start of the instructor exams tomorrow.  Tonight we had our orientation, with introductions, a review of the weekends’ activities, assignments being given out, and a general overview of the goals and expectations for the next 48 hours.  After a brief stop for dinner, the men hit the books, reviewing their assignments and preparing their academic presentations.  It got a little testy at times, with some harsh words as teaching aids were claimed and reference books grabbed.  But after a little while, everyone calmed down, and great stuff started to come out as they practiced their presentations before each other, critiquing and evolving the process with the goals of maxxing out tomorrow with scores in the high 4’s to perfect 5’s.  Finally, time for a break, and some reminiscing about how this whole process has evolved, from learning to dive, advancing through the various levels of certification, and finally getting to the point they’re at today.  Well let’s get this paperwork completed, Dave says, so we spend another two hours wrapping that up!  So as the clock strikes nearly 2:00 a.m., our little butterflies retire to their bunks to rest up for the big two days ahead.  

Saturday morning dawned bright and early as our candidates headed off to the first day of the examination.  Meanwhile, Hartman and I headed out to pick up our boat for the weekend.  We chose a nice 23 foot center console, with 225 Yamaha horses on board.  After a brief review of the boat’s features, we motored on out and headed through the canal systems to Dave’s house to load our scuba gear.  At 10:30 my cell rings, and Csaba gives me the update - confined water presentations and skill demo’s completed!  Yahoo!  Now they are heading in for the written exam portion.

Dave & I load the boat and head out to sea.  We have a brisk 20 to 25 knot wind coming out of the north, and the ocean is awfully full of white caps and chop.  Our selected site for our first recon mission is Carysfort Light reef, which is about a 9 mile run from Dave’s house.  Let me tell you, it is one loooooong nine miles as we are pounded incessantly heading into the seas.  It’s a wet and rough ride, and the boat & crew are getting a serious workout.  As we near the reef, we can see 5 and 6 foot waves rolling and breaking over the shallow portions of the reef - just the picture you want to see to start your dive!  And with the sea conditions, it is not surprising that we are the only boat on the ocean, in fact, we only passed two boats in the canals on our way out, so it’s awfully lonely out here!  And, while we were heading out, our depth finder decided to take the day off, so now it’s a crap shoot on the depth under us, making the site selection even more diffficult.  We finally choose our first location, and drop the anchor in a sandy clearing just outside the reef.  With the confused wind and seas, the boat is spinning on the anchor, giving us the sinking feeling of being caught in a whirlpool….hmmm, is that a sign??  Well, we didn’t sail this far out to sightsee, so we gear up, roll over, and head on down.  First stop - to inspect the anchor!  Why, you may ask?  Let me share a little story of a dive from my past…..

Some years ago, I was out in my own 23 foor center console, diving alone about 8 miles off the Jersey coast.  That day had a lot of similarities with today, with some strong winds and choppy seas, but I was full of bravado and knew I could prevail against whatever Mother Nature decided to throw me.  Ah, the foolishness of the young man!  On that day, I was alone, so I anchored the boat on a rock pile in about 90 feet of water, headed on down, gave the anchor a quick look, and set off searching for lobster.  It proved to be quite the productive dive, with quite a few bugs in the bag, and finally my doubles were getting a bit low, so I headed back to the anchor.  Well, at least I thought where the anchor was.  So I looked around, pretty darn sure that this was the rock the anchor was set in, but hmmmm, maybe it was that one, …no, maybe that one over there!  Finally, after expanding the search pattern to the limits of the dwindling supplies of gas left in my tanks, I knew it was time to head up and sort things out on the surface.  So I slowly ascended, did my safety stop, and broke the surface, spinning slowly as I did, looking for the boat.  OK, let’s spin again, and find the boat.  Alright, maybe three times is the charm……no…..ok….not so funny now, and my mind starts to run through the possibilities….boat was stolen…boat sunk…..the common denominator being me here, boat not.  I spun around again, and again and again, and it was obvious the seas had picked up from when I first went in, with gentle rollers now in the 5 or 6 ft height range, making my view of the sea around fairly limited.  It was probably on my 12th or so rotation, when finally I was on the crest of a roller, and so was my boat, that I realized what had happened.  As the seas picked up, my anchor must have lifted out of the rocky crevice I left it in, and my boat had slowly drifted away, driven by the wind, but thankfully slowed by the dragging anchor on the sea floor.  Never-the-less, the distance between me and the bobbing boat was close to a mile, so I kicked back, and started the long and tiring swim to my little floating island of salvation.  An hour or so later, I finally was there, at the side of my sturdy vessel, and after an extended rest, I tossed my bag of lobsters on board (yes, I had never let go of my catch - priorities, you know!).  I climbed on board, and vowed to never dive alone again!

Well, here we are today, and although I am not diving alone, technically, with both of us in the water, that sorta makes for the same situation, with no one on board to monitor the boats position.  Oh well, what/s the odds, I ask?  So, that being said, let’s double check that anchor, and sure enough, it is solidly buried in the sand, so we begin our dive.  We circle the entire reef, and my mind keeps flashing back to that day long ago, but I maintain control of that demon, and finally, we return to our starting point, and sure enough, our boat is still there!  Woo-hoo!  Cross that calamity off the list!  After that, we hit a second location, and although we see lots of lobsters, they are all shorts, so our take for the day is zero.

So we start the long and pounding journey back in, and on the way, the cell rings, and the men are reporting in the good news - Team IVS is shining in the instructor examinations.  A few glitches, but we are well on our way to becoming PADI instructors.  I am thrilled, and we decide to celebrate by taking the boys out to see the Christmas boat parade that evening on the bay side in our sturdy little boat.  All the horror stories we have shared over the years with boats breaking down on our trips, this time we are feeling good, in command of our own little vessel, which has performed so well so far!

We get back to Dave’s dock, clean the boat, the guys return from the exam, so we pack the coolers with refreshments and head out to enjoy the parade.  Yes, we heard the warning about operating the boat after dark, but heck, Hartman is a local, so he knows the route through the mangroves!  The wind has died down, so it is flat calm as we head out for the 4 mile run through the mangroves.  It is pitch black out tonite, as the sky is terribly overcast, making navigation a bit of a challenge, but my captaining skills are up to the challenge.  We enjoy the ride, and finally make it to the ocean side of the cut through the island.  The boat has gotten quite the workout today, with lots of serious pounding on the ocean, and our depth finder is still not working, so we are careful in our voyage through the darkness.  As we pass through the cut, Bill is on his phone, struggling with text messaging in the dark, so he moves to a spot near the stern, where he can get a little illumination from our stern light.  Wow, it’s wet back here he says, and as I slow down to turn and look, it goes from wet to about 6 inches of water running across the deck - Holy Smokes, we are sinking!!! 

We check to see if the bilge pump is on, but it is too deep to get down and confirm.  We think “need to find a dock”, and start to look towards the Marriott Resort or the Sundowners docks….no, this water is really starting to rise, so scrap that dock plan, we need help!   Trying to pick up speed to avoid the Titanic-remake, it’s challenge with all the darkened boats in the bay making all sorts of targets for us to steer around.  The anxiety picks up and bit and the boat is getting hard to steer as we sit lower and lower in tthe water.  Well, the boating gods were smiling on us, and who is the next boat we can make out in the darkness??  SeaTow, the boat rescue people!   “Hey, we are taking on water” we say, and they pass us a small bilge pump and a battery to pump it out.  No, this isn’t going to work, this boat is going to end up on the bottom, so we’d prefer a shallow bottom at that!   We pick up the pace, and the boat is really wallowing in the water now, as we are standing knee deep in water on the deck.  Finally, the motor is too deep, and it stalls, and we are dead in the water.  Quickly, we pass a tow line to the SeaTow boat, and they drag us the last couple of hundred yards to the beach at the Caribbean Club, where we sink gracefully in 2 feet of water just off the beach, to the delight of the cheering crowd of hundreds of juiced-up partiers!  The SeaTow boat pulls up tight to us, and we break out the big 2 inch gas powered pump, and as we are passing lines and hoses back and forth, I look up and who is crewing the SeaTow boat but our own Captain Anna from this years lobster trip!  What a small world it is in Key Largo. 

Finally, we we pump enough water out to realize we must have been torpedoed or something cause the inflow is like a small fire hydrant.  The boat is light enough now that we are able to enlist the help of some of those on shore, and we drag it half onto the beach.  I get down and inspect the hull, and it appears that it has split open on a joint for about 5 feet of the waterline - no wonder we are taking on water!   I can stick my hand in right through the crack!  No doubt the day of pounding on the ocean was a bit too much of a test for our little craft, and thank goodness that this took this long to open up, or we’d have been in deep doo-doo!  So our crew slogs ashore, McArthur-style, and we trudge through the Caribbean Club, leaving our vessel.  We grab a cab, head down the road to grab a pizza dinner, and call it a night!  Enough excitement, but at least we did get to see the parade!

It’s Sunday morning now, and I head to the Jules Undersea Lodge for the final part of the exam with the guys.  The PADI examiner has requested my help to move things along and get everyone done this weekend.  Seems a lot of the other candidates have a hard time understanding the concept of “brief” being a key part of the briefing, and they are waxing on way too much to maintain their audience’s attention.  This is so important, and something we preach AND practice at IVS - it’s not about the talking, it’s all about the doing!  So today’s activities are the open water teaching presentations along with the rescue workshop, and I take care of the rescue aspect while the examiner takes the two teams underwater for their presentations.  Finally, the debriefings are given, and congratulations all around as we welcome a total of ten candidates into the society of PADI instructors! Way to go men!  

Once again Team IVS heads down to sunny Key Largo, but this time with an distinctly eastern European accent for sure!  Twenty two divers from as far north as Canada and as far east as Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania made up the group as we once again took over the Amoray Dive Resort and spent the weekend enjoying some fantastic weather, dining & fun in our favorite southern locale.  New-comers to our southern journey for this trip included the Polish contingent of Damian Chojnowski, Sebastian Jastrebski, Ratislav Kovalcik, Jaroslaw Wolezszo, Boguslaw Kozilor, Pietrucha Zdzislaw, Szyle Krzysztof, and the Zyskowski brothers, Bill & John.  Captain Joe & Divemaster Dan on the boat are still trying to untangle their tongues after the weekend of pronouncing (more often mis-pronouncing) those names.  And who’d have thunk that some of these guys were actually coined “siss-kies” for wearing their drysuits in the Keys! 

Sisskie-ness aside, these guys know how to eat!  Every day the post-dive snacks on the boat definately included kielbasi and fresh bread.  Between that and Sam’s chinese snack foods, we had quite the cultural culinary smorgasbord going on.  And the steaks they grilled on the barbecue each night were like something out of the Flintstones TV show! Remember, three key things in life - red meat, vodka & women - arrange them in any order, but red meat never gets less than second billing!

So how did it go, you are thinking.  Let’s review something new I learned:  Two guys walk up to each other and one of them has food in his hand - but who gets to eat it?  “How much do you weigh?”, one asks.  “270″, I say.  “285″, says the other.  The answer: he who outweighs the other gets the snack - that’s the way it’s done, my Polish friend Jarek explains, as he promptly eats my pretzels. Hmmm…didn’t see that coming! 

This was the last scheduled IVS trip to the Keys for 2008, and as you might imagine, we closed the season in a colorful manner.  Thirteen great dives overall, 4 dives and phenomenal conditions on the Duane and Spiegel Grove, non-stop laughter, a great fireworks show as we headed in from our Saturday night dive, Dave doing his break-dancing routine at the Big Chill, crashing a local wedding, cheeseburgers at the Paradise Pub - just a typical weekend with the IVS dive team!

Congratulations to Amy Dunn and Dave Moyer for completing their National Geographic Open Water certifications, including graduation dives on the Spiegel Grove while breathing nitrox!  And also to John Zyskowski and Sam Auyeung for completing their Rescue Diver certification (and actually getting Sebastian out of the water and onto the Amoray Diver).  Brian Dunn finished his Advanced Open Water, and he and Amy completed their Enriched Air Diver certification.  And Doug Berne celebrated his 100th dive this weekend, while completing his Enriched Air Diver cert too!

Felix Gryn, Steve Holak, Roy Scherrer, Tracy & Drew Meyers, Dan Hilt, Bev Moyer, Neil & Terri Derstine, and ‘Wreckmaster’ Dave Hartman rounded out our group as we closed the door and turned the key in the latch for Key Largo until February.  See y’all then!    

It was our next to last trip of the season to local watering hole Dutch Springs this weekend, and the weather certainly made it clear to us why this is the next to last trip of the season for us - it was 47 degrees this morning!!  And windy!  My hands are so cold I can’t even type this!

In spite of that, we had a great turnout, spent more time in the water than the cold air, and kept the soup and hot chocolate pots going all day on the grill!

When are we going back to Key Largo???? 

This just in - it’s official, Key Largo has been taken over by the Indian Valley Scuba gang!

Forty IVS divers descended on the quiet hamlet of Key Largo last evening, and immediately set up camp at Amy Slate’s Amoray Dive Resort!  Other guests at the resort were aghast at the news - there are NO spots available on the boat all weekend unless you are with IVS!  Team IVS has filled the Amoray Diver to capacity and then some.

Our group started arriving Thursday at the resort, to join the twenty lobster hunters already in position,  We kicked it right off with a night dive to the Benwood wreck, enjoying perfect conditions above and below the surface.  Great viz, 86 degree water temps, lots & lots of sea life to enjoy - what a way to start off the trip!  While 18 of us were enjoying this night dive, another 8 were completing the last lobster dive of the mini-season, helping to ensure that there would be plenty of lobster for everyone at our dinner Friday night.  We ended up with 106 lobster tails in the freezer by the end of the two day event.  This night dive brought my personal time underwater to 15 hours over the last 42 hours - I feel like I am truly a walking talking DAN dive study.

Friday morning, and the perfect weather we have been enjoying all week continued.  No wind, blue sunny skies, all good stuff!  We motored out to French Reef this morning and started off with a  dip on the City of Washington, carefully timed to coincide with a Creature Feature dive that was being run by Capt. Slates.  We got to enjoy the feed, with about 7 or 8 friendly nurse sharks coming in for the feast, along with barracuda and a large green moray.  Nice chance for the IVS gang to enjoy some big animal encounters with plenty of photo opportunities.   Great dive, period!  We followed that up with a visit to the Train Wheel wreck, another nice 30 ft dive on the beautiful reef system.  It’s a lot like Dutch Springs here, with a distinct thermocline in the water column - the difference being that the surface temp is 90 degrees with a big drop in temperature to 86 at about 15 feet - brrrrrr!

Our afternoon trip took us out to visit one of our favorite wrecks, the Spiegel Grove.  As we approached we could see the ominous signs of a strong current with the mooring balls hanging partly submerged and the water piling up against them….hmmm…not the best sign, but hey - we’re here to dive!  So, our teams got themselves geared up, and began the entries into the water and down the descent line.  The current was absolutely ripping on the line all the way down to the wreck - with each diver hanging off the line like a flag as we went down.  Once on the wreck, we used the mass of the large ship to hide us from the current, and each of the teams enjoyed a great dive, with a great first deep/ocean/wreck/nitrox experience for a bunch of the group, including Rob Lunny, Jamie Winchester, Brad Creveling, Tim Brown, Brenden Malloy, James, Jonathon & Nicholas MacKnight, Jenna Murray, and Dave Elmer.  IVS Instructors Ray Graff, Sue Douglass, & Butch loggins, assisted by DM’s Frank Gabriel, Bill Zyskowski, and Csaba Lorinczy, worked together to ensure a great experience for each group.  I took Niki Lorinczy and  John Glowdowski for some wreck penetration training running a reel line inside the wreck.

After coming in from our dive and gussying up, we headed over to the Key Largo Conch House for our third annual lobster feast.  Our friends Ted & Laura Dreaver, owners of the Conch House, went out of their way taking care of us and cooking up our 100 tails and all the fixings to go along with them, making a perfect dinner under the stars for us. Perfect opportunity for a lot of bonding between the IVS group with a lot of new friendships solidifying. 

Saturday dawned with another perfect weather day, and we loaded the boat to head out for one of the signature Key Largo dives - Key Largo Dry Rocks, or more commonly referred to as Christ of the Abyss.  Perfect conditions greeted us, with decent viz and no current or surge to speak of.  Donna Raleigh & Jenna Murray worked on their Fish ID specialty, completing REEF fish surveys on this and the next dive.  A perfect 60-plus minutes was spent exploring this site. The time passed too quickly, and it was time to enjoy a long and arduous 12 minute surface interval while we motored over to our second site, north Key Largo Dry Rocks.  Another great reef dive, more good stuff for all.  These were the last dives of the weekend for two of our lobster assassins, Tricia Healy & Gary Kai.  Gracing the topside and soaking up the sun for our afternoon ride were the designated bathing beauties for the trip, Isabella Gabriel and Stephanie Skelton.

Back at the dock, we had a generous 25 minutes for lunch and then it was time to head back out for another visit to the Spiegel Grove.  If yesterdays current was ripping, today’s was clearly ripping plus!  Like jumping into a washing machine, we entered the water and went hand-over-hand across the mooring line to begin our descent down to the wreck.  “Hold on to the line - don’t let go” was truly the order of the day. We had a few different groups once again, with Dave Hartman, representing IVS South, leading a penetration tour under the well deck, with Frank G, Bill Z, John G & Csaba L gearing up wth stage bottles and working as teams to run some reel lines into the wreck for some serious technical exercises.  The rest of us split up into a couple of tour groups, with Butch, Sue and myself leading each of our groups on nice penetration tours of this fine wreck.  In spite of the conditions everyone came up smiling and laughing, and wiser for the experience.  Niki Lorinczy finally got her breathing under control, nearly matching the gas usage of the much older and much larger Dave Valaika.  The ‘lame-o’ tour, led by me, ended up with the longest bottom time and most penetration time of all the groups - what’s up with that??

We followed that experience with a visit to the Benwood, giving everyone the opportunity to see this World War II wreck in the daytime, and to be able to appreciate the change in sea life that happens each day after dark.  Butch & Bev Loggins, along with Frank G, Mike Conn, Jason Stelle and a few others, headed off the bow to visit the “Benwood Wall” a nice 90 foot sloping drop 150 degrees off the bow of the wreck.  Amazing schools of fish surrounded the wreck today, and just further fueled the question - “where do they go at night??”  And as is typical with IVS, the training never ends - using darkness and night diving to raise the stress conditions a bit, Butch and Rob Lunny practiced running penetration reels as a team.  They performed flawlessly, running nearly 300 ft of line throughout the wreck area, maintaining perfect buoyancy and light communications, and just clicking as a team.  We’ll see the results of their practice tomorrow when we put this to a test in the Spiegel Grove.  While they were hard at work, Donna Raleigh shared her biophosphorescece illuminating gear with several of us, using a special filter on her lamp and polarized lenses over our masks, we were able to see the unbelievable glow of the phosphorescence of certain hard corals, sponges, anenomes, and a few other of the seas critters - very cool study in an area that is unknown by most.  For more information on this check out this link - (insert link here). And Jenna and I had a nice startle - while focusing in on some photography of a nice size crab out for the evening, Jenna looked up and suddenly grabbed my arm, so I raised my light up and Holy Smokes Batman!! - look at the size of the shark, sitting almost on our heads!   A very curious and not shy gray friend, either a reef or bull, out for dinner and not perturbed about us being in his dining room at all!  Very cool, and a great rush too!  And to top it off Jonathan MacKnight shot some super video of a turtle swimming along with us - check out our U-Tube clip here (insert link),

We had a bit of rain during the night, and a light breeze greeted us Sunday morning.  The wind caused some choppy surface conditions, but it was all bark and no bite as the sea was calm below as we visited the Wellwood wreck site on French Reef, followed by Hardbottom Caves on Molasses.  Very slight surge, but viz was super, lots of critters to enjoy, and a couple of great dives overall.   Sylvia Lorinczy ended up with completing two 45-minute dives on a single 65 CF tank, returning to the boat with an amazing 600 psi left - unbelievable!  Julie Antidormi, Steve Monte, Linda Malloy, Tom Brennan, Sandy Stelle, & Don Yowell wrapped up their weekends diving this morning, preferring to avoid the reported rough conditions on the afteroon’s double-deep adventure.  While we motoring back in, we listened to reports coming in from boats on the Duane, our target this afternoon. Not good, it sounded, as divers were aborting the dive and calling them before even starting down the line in the current.

In light of that report from the Duane, we opted for the usually better but still supposedly ripping conditions on the Spiegel, doing a double dip on this wreck.  Well, as usual when you get reports on sea conditions from the locals, everything is bigger and worse than reality, by far.  We arrived at the Spiegel, and you could not have asked for better conditions anywhere.  Near-flat seas, zero current, great viz - we really should learn by now, when you get the local report, divide by four for the actual wave height and current speed.  The dives were great, with more deep & dark penetration for the IVS gang, exploring all sorts of nook, crannies and voids deep in the bowels of this ship.  On an international note, we learned that the Hungarian symbol for “crane” is almost identical to the PADI symbol for “fin pivot”, so you can imagine the blank looks and WTF’s that you get underwater when you use this sign to ask everyone where the crane is while you’re down on the wreck.  Have to admit, the fin pivot exercise on the deck was humorous, but finally the group managed to understand the alternate translation, and make it back to the ship’s crane to return to the Amoray Diver.  And Niki is off the hook on getting the Air Consumption Queen Award on this trip, as her dad managed to make the first dive this afternoon a nine minute express version.  The bottom line for the day- all great stuff.  This afternoon we saw Shelly Liu, Meredith Bernardo, Craig Bentley & Jason Stelle all getting in their fourth Spiegel Grove dives in for the weekend. 

And if all that wasn’t enough, we opted to add a third night dive to the trip, heading back out Sunday evening to visit the City of Washington, after dark.  A light breeze from the East made the ride out a bit wetter and bumpier than normal, but it didn’t detract from the stellar conditions underneath.  Zero current, zero surge, just fine diving with all sorts of fun animals out to entertain and amaze the divers - octopus, lobsters, cuttlefish, eels & sharks - all made for a great last dive for most of the group. With the following breeze the ride back was smooth as can be, and we were treated to a great light show with lightning flashing all around us the entire ride in.  Another perfect day in paradise. 

Monday morning dawned darker and breezier than any day of the previous week, and we counted our blessings for the fine weather we enjoyed every day of this trip.  Never the less, Don Yowell and I headed out for one more visit to the reefs this morning before we had to head up to the airport for the trip home.  The ride out was very wet with a number of waves breaking over the bow of the boat, but we soldiered on.  The reward: two nice dives on French Reef, with Hardbottom Caves and Christmas Tree Caves as the chosen sites. Great quiet relaxing way to wrap up a superb trip to the Keys.  It was not without a moment of sadness, as I had to take my regulator off my tank for the 32nd time in the last 5 days, and this time I had no new tank to put it on.  Finally Don & I headed to the airport, officially turning the Key Largo back over to the locals.  Not to worry, we’ll be back soon enough!

Winers of this trips ‘ADD’ Award (All Dives with Dave) are Jason Stelle, Jenna Murray, Brenden Malloy, Shelly Liu, Mike Conn, Dave Elmer, Rob Lunny & Craig Bentley.  Make sure you visit the IVS website for photos and videos from this trip! 

To call this years two-day Florida Sport Lobster season amazing would be an serious understatement!  Team IVS kicked lobster butt as we caught 106 keepers over the course of the two day sport season, held every year on the last two contiguous Wednesday & Thursday of July. 

We chartered the entire Garden Cove Divers fleet for the entire season, scheduling four 2-tank trips each day.  Yours truly worked as the first mate for Captain Anna on the boat for all dives on both days, ensuring another spot for Team IVS on each trip.  Starting at 4:00 a.m., Mike Conn, Bill Zyskowski, Gary Kai, Dave Hartman, Frank Gabriel & Tricia Healy loaded scuba tanks and hunting gear into the boat, and headed up, geared up and ready to splash at the exact minute that the season open in Monroe County, where Key Largo is located.  The season opens one hour before legal sunrise, and ends each day one hour after legal sunset.  So that translates into 5:47 for this morning, and the divers hit the water the moment the clock struck that hour.  Underwater, the lights were flashing and dancing about, spotlighting the prey as they scurried for cover in the reef system.  Snares, tickle sticks, nets and skilled hands worked in tandem to put eighteen ’bugs’ in the bags over the course of the next sixty minutes.  What a way to kick it off!  This was followed by dive two for the first team, adding another 11 bugs to the count.  After that it was back to the dock, swap out tanks, and have team two board the boat.

Our second team included Jason & Sandy Stelle, Sue Douglass, Shelly Liu, Judy Jaskiewicz, and Tricia Healy again.  This location proved to be a mere shadow of our first spot, producing a lowly 4 bugs total over two 1-hour dives.  Then back to the dock, switching out to team 3, including Bev & Butch Loggins, Brenden Malloy, Don Yowell, John Glowdowski, and Tricia Healy (again!)  We headed out to a different reef spot and although better, still only managed to produce 6 bugs total for the cooler.  Of course by now the reef was filled wth boats and lobster hunters as far as the eyes could see, an amazing number of grabby hands competing with us for the succulent lobsters we sought.  Finally the night crew boarded, same guys as morning shift plus Ray Graff.  Of course, as is customary with most IVS trips, the engine started to falter and the hatch cover was opened up, and our multi-talented Captain Anna crawled right in there, twisting wrenches and making adjustments until the Caterpillar diesel roared back to life.  Great job Anna!  Finally we motored out, and after a false start on a patch of grass that was supposed to be a reef, we re-positioned and nailed another dozen keepers for the evening, ending our hunting at exactly one hour after legal sunset.

The alarm rang all too early for the morning shift again, and there we were at 4;00 a.m., loading tanks and slipping into still-wet wetsuits to head out for another days hunt.  Another strong start for the day, with 22 bugs in the cooler as we came back to the dock.  Team 2 jumped on board, and put another 13 in the bag.  Meanwhile, Bill Z couldn’t nap after the morning trip, so he threw on snorkel gear and went out in the bay behind the Amoray Dive Resort, nailing another couple of bugs from their roosts and adding them to the count.   Team 3 continued the picked up pace, adding twenty more to the catch total.  Finally, the night crew headed out, and after sharing some of the catch with the captain and some of the helpful locals, we ended up with another 8 in the bag, bringing our two day total to 106 spiny lobsters!   Another late evening of cleaning bugs at the dock and bagging them for the freezer, and we were off to the Paradise Pub for a celebration dinner.  Way to go teams!

Be sure to visit the IVS site to see the pictures from this trip! [add link]