Dave's Dive (b)Log

IVS visits the Land Down Under!

Dave — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:06:59 +0000

Our long-awaited Australian excursion began as Team IVS began gathering in Los Angeles for the cross-Pacific journey. With folks from all over the country joining us on this expedition it made sense to start the trip off from the left coast and just meet a Los Angeles International to board our Quantas flight. The line was about 2 1/2 hours long and winding, but we felt the effort would be well rewarded, so most of us got in the line. Ray Graff hadn’t arrived yet, and I have an aversion to long lines, so I opted to hold my place in the Delta Airlines club room and enjoy the cold free beer and quiet atmosphere whiling getting a lot of last minute work done (like updating the blog entries!). Well the calls from the gang in the Quantas line kept getting more and more urgent, so finally I decided to stroll on down to see what the fuss was all about. Lo and behold, the airline gods were smiling on me, cause when I walked up there was absolutely no line, and the only person to come in behind me was, of course, Ray. So we checked in, and headed up to the bar to await the boarding call with the rest of the group, including Butch & Bev Loggins, Sue Douglass, Dave West, Donna Raleigh, Sandy & Dave Herbert, Tom Brennan, Camillo Romano, Bill Zyskowski, Barb Beck, and Don Yowell.

We finally boarded for our 11:30 departure (that’s 2:30 a.m. for those of us who came from the east coast) and we took off for the longest leg in our trip - a 15 hour journey to the Land Down Under. Dinner and breakfast, plus free drinks, kept us occupied when we weren’t sound asleep on the flight. The sun came up while we were still over the Pacific, so we got some great views of the reefs and land before touching down in Brisbane. This was actually only an interim stop for us, as we had another two hour flight ahead of us to get up to Cairns. The good news is that we didn’t need to clear customs at this entry, so our bags were transferred to our Cairns flight and we just sauntered on down to gate for another taste of Ozzie great friendly service. In fact, that was the case all the way through customs, and Oz airport security – what a pleasant difference from the usual sour “I hate my job and everyone that comes with it” attitude that is so prevalent in US airports and especially with TSA personnel. Once we landed our coach awaited us and the first less-than-pleasant Australian was driving it. We filled up the bus and still had four of us standing on the curb – he said he has been driving for ten years and never saw any group with so much luggage – we wondered if he had never, in his ten years of bus driving, ever picked up a load of scuba divers!! So we patiently awaited a second coach, and found that the attitude of the first driver must be a job requirement, as the second bloke was as much of a nasty sort as the first. The good news: it’s a very short ride!

Finally through all that, we ended up checking in at the Novotel Hotel, and what a pleasant oasis of Aussie friendliness this place was. From the front desk staff to the pool bar hostesses, everyone was up for customer service, and we immediately took advantage of our first chance to finally relax in over thirty hours of travel. Some pool games, some beverages, some laughter and most importantly, some showers! After a pleasant afternoon we walked a few blocks to the beachfront esplanade, and took in some of the sights and sounds of this very active town. On the way we got a chance to experience another Australian delight, trees full of large flying fox bats right in the middle of town! And I mean large – these guys were the size of crows when they opened up and took off – very cool. Well very cool unless your car was parked under these trees, cause the guana was abundant! Whew! Dinner ended up taking place at Barnacle Bill’s Seafood House, and the owner and staff were just great with filling us in on the real facts about our destination and putting an end to lots of those myths that so many had shared with us. Nothing like getting the straight skinny from someone who isn’t trying to sell you something (other than a great dinner!) Afterwards, we enjoyed some handmade gelati Italian ice cream, and retired to our rooms to get ready for a great start in the morning!

They say this area is ‘Japan’s Florida’ and no where was it more evident than at the breakfast buffet today! More things that I could not name or pronounce or even more telling, know what aisle in the supermaket to find them, should say something of the exotic variety of offerings that greeted us this morning. I think I would starve if I moved there! But thankfully they eat chickens and pigs in the Land of the Rising Sun, so eggs and bacon were available! Whew!

Our shuttles arrived spot on at 11:30 to take us for the very short ride to the marina to board the Spirit of Australia. This 130 ft long 26 passenger vessel with a crew of 11 was to be our home for the next eight days. We pulled up to the boat and were met by Phil & Trina, the owner/managers of the Spirit of Freedom and TUSA Diving. We were introduced to the crew, shown our cabins, given the nickle tour of the boat, and got ready to head right on out. We had two dives scheduled for today and we didn’t want to be late! En-route, after settling in our cabins, we set up our gear, and got our general dive and ship briefings for the week. Very concise, well-delivered and with a taste of Aussie humor, they proved to be both informative and entertaining.

We headed out about 30 miles to our first dive site, at the bottom end of the Great Barrier Reef. Our location was Turtle Bommie, a nice reef that rose right up from the sea floor, starting at about 70 ft and coming nearly to the surface. A great location for our first dives; a chance to shake the bugs out, get properly weighted, and make sure the gear was in order for the week. There was about a 15 knot wind blowing and 5 to 6 foot seas, so the ride out was a bit rough, and some of our travelers were looking a little green already! Not a good sign for the first day of a liveaboard trip! So out came the ginger tablets, Bonine, and various other recipes, and we hoped for the best. A little fresh air, a little vomiting, and things were looking much better overall! Finally we arrived at our destination, and everyone geared up and got ready.

We dropped in and headed over to the reef and within a minute or two we knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore! Napolean wrasses, Aussie groupers, cuttlefish, flounder, pygmy seahorses, butterfly fish of all sorts – this clearly was not Key Largo! The first hour long dive in the 81 degree water passed all too quickly, and we headed back to the mother ship for a short surface interval. Don Yowell’s new pony bottle set-up worked perfectly, and Donna Raleigh, Sue Douglass and Ray Graff all had new cameras out to get wet for the first time. After that, it was a twilight dive for round two, with some nice reef sharks, turtles, and more great critter sightings to confirm we had clearly made the right choice for this trip! Back on the boat, it was time for dinner, and then we started our 12 hour overnight journey about 120 miles north up the GBR for start of our “real” diving.

Tuesday morning we woke up to relatively flat seas and a light breeze, and our 6:30 a.m. wake-up call got us up and ready for our first dip of the day. A nice continental breakfast to keep the bellies from growling, and we dropped in to Wonderland, located on the 8^th ribbon reef of the GBR system. Here we enjoyed about an hour long pre-breakfast dive. The max depth was about 73 feet, and the reef was teeming with life, large & small. Unbelievable expanses of staghorn coral and hundreds of other varieties made for a great backdrop for all the colorful sealife that greeted us. About 33% of the GBR has been classified as a “Green Zone”, with no-take / no-touch restrictions, and the results of this effort were obvious everywhere you looked. Tons of life, amazingly healthy corals, and everything in between! After an hour or so it was time to head back to the mother ship for our real breakfast.

And what a breakfast spread it was, with something for everyone and lots of it! A nice leisurely second start of the day, and before long it was time to head in for our second dive. This dive was a nice little drift dive on the opposite side of the same site, so we loaded up in the inflatables and motored over to the reef. The teams dropped in like Navy Seals, looking sharp and synchronized as we hit the water and dropped below. Sandy Herbert & Bev Loggins aced their first backroll entries with flying colors! We hit about 110 ft on this dive, breaking the first of many Queensland rules; this one about prohibiting reverse profile diving. Oh well, you know with Indian Valley Scuba that rules=guidelines, so we were OK with the process. Another nice hour long dive, and we drifted back to the boat mooring, making the return to the boat very convenient.

A little snack of fresh fruit served to us on the dive deck, and we went about the task of organizing our gear. The Spirit of Freedom is very well set up for diving, with cubby storage spaces at each diver location, and a tank filling whip system, so all you needed to do after each dive was disconnect your first stage, and the crew would re-fill your tank and you’d be good to go for your next dive. No humping gear anywhere, no need to pack & unpack, just very relaxing and pampered diving for all.

While we off-gased, the boat motored a short distance and we moored at Pixie Gardens, located at the beginning of the 9^th ribbon reef. Another great dive, 52 ft deep and 80 minutes of bottom time allowed for many more great animal sightings. Back to the boat, and it was time for lunch, served up piping hot and delicious. While we ate, the boat moved again, and we anchored at Challenger Bay, a little further up the 9^th ribbon reef. Our first dive here was great, depth in the seventy foot range and bottom times well in excess of an hour. More cuttle fish, more sharks, lots of larger predator fish, and all the great coral reef environment the Great Barrier Reef is famous for. Back on board, a delicious dinner, followed by our first night dive, still on Challenger Bay. This time we headed in the opposite direction, and the larger fish that seemed so nice during our earlier dive clearly showed their true hunter colors as they used our dive lights to light up their dinner and they nailed the reef inhabitants with frightenly accurate frequency and ferociousness. During one tussle while I was filming away, a reef shark shot straight up between my legs to get in on the dinner frenzy, adding to the excitement. We spent about an hour and a quarter on this sight, and finally headed in for snacks, after diving appertifs and an early bedtime.

Another bright beautiful Australian morning greeted us this fine Wednesday, and we rolled out of bed at 6:30 once again for our pre-breakfast dive. Today we started at Pixie’s Pinnacle, another location off Ribbon Reef #9. We dropped in, and enjoyed more of the great life we have started to become accustomed to here on the great Barrier Reef. We had sharks cruising all around us, and all the small reef inhabitants coming out of their coral bunkers after the night. The pinnacle is just that, a straight column of coral and rock rising straight up from the ocean bottom at 115 ft to about 3 ft from the surface. Sheer walls added to the dramatic effect you would expect from such a site. Great dive and a great way to start the day.

Back to the boat it was time for breakfast and the crew once again served up a good one. Time for a little early morning sunning on the upper deck, while we motored a little further up the reef to the area known as the cod hole. This area supports a huge population of Potato Cod (that’s Australian for spotted grouper) and we could see them under the boat as we prepared to dive. The site starts at another very high reef structure, coming to within 3 or 4 ft of the surface, and from there it drops down in a series of steps to 40, 70 and 105 ft deep. Very nice layout for easy cruising up and down the reef. We had giant clams of all colors and sizes, and although I tried to get Dave West to stick his head in one, Siegfried & Roy style, he decided it was not his day to risk beheading. In fact, Dave had a bigger plan for today – he snuck up on a school of diagonal banded sweetlips, at first startling them, but the more he hung around them, he carefully studied their habits, until he finally turned his head into the current and hung motionless with them. The school filled in right around him, and you knew the moment was complete – they had truly accepted him as one of their own. For his efforts and achievement, David will always be known in our group as David “sweetlips” West. Make sure you call him by that next time you are in the shop!

Our next dive was at the same location, and it was a potato cod feeding dive. Although this event is a bit of a highlight on this trip, our group, who have collectively attended more than enough Slate’s Creature Features and chumsicle shark feeds in the Bahamas, the feeding of the cod (which of course are really groupers, but don’t tell the Aussies) was somewhat anticlimatic. Nevertheless, after some entertainment, we swam off and enjoyed the reef, finding 3 or 4 sharks, lots more groupers, more giant clams, some sting rays, and more. This is some very nice diving for sure!

Back on the boat, another meal, and another dive briefing. This time we moved up one reef to Dynamite Pass, on Ribbon Reef #10. The incoming tide was just starting to peak, and we ran up the reef in the inflatables for another hot drop. Three, two, one, go! and we were out of the boats and down to 100 ft. The current was absolutely head over heels ripping here, and we sailed right along for the first twenty minutes of the dive. Finally the current slowed, and we got to poke about and see so much more of what we came for. Lots more sharks, great coral formations, fellow divers – all the stuff we love to see under the sea! Finally back to the mother ship, but alas, no dive tonight, as we need to sail to Lizard Island for the morning to rendevous with some new passengers and to let a few off, who had chosen to only take half the week-long trip.

Tonight’s dinner was a barbecue on the upper deck, with lots of great food, laughter, and Australian wine. After a few drinks and some de-gassing, the talk turned to how so many of us listened to so many well-meaning but mis-informed experts who warned us of how many things live in the ocean here with the sole purpose to kill or maim us. From toxic cone shells, to Steve Irwin’s stingrays, to deadly box jellyfish, sharks, and the lethal blue ring octopus, the odds of our group coming back home intact were not with us. Knock on wood, we are still healthy and kicking at this point! Only four days left if they are going to get us!

For the first time in four days we get a chance to set foot on land today as we take a little tour of Lizard Island. Pretty cool little resort island at the top of the Great Barrier Reef, some high-end resorts and really nice boats moored in the harbor, plus a little airstrip. While we were there six of our fellow passengers left the boat, while ten new ones came aboard. You can book this trip either northbound (like the past 3 days) or southbound (like the next 4 days). Not ones to let waters go un-dived, we managed to talk the crew into letting us do a drop right here in the harbor, and we enjoyed a nice little reef structure with a lot of cool little critters. It was the first time they had ever let a group dive during this “switch-over” morning, but is it a surprise that the first ones to do it were IVS divers? Nice dive, saw some coral munching Crown of Thorns starfish, and the usual cast of characters. Once the new folks were on board, we headed south again to the GBR, and did two nice dives on a site known as the Monolith. Lots of good photo op’s, including a large turtle that loved being filmed so much he crashed right into me with the video camera. Also enjoyed some other animal interaction, with a large trigger fish who felt compelled to bite something, and we got him biting the camera lens, and my fins, multiple times! All good! That night as dinner was served the crew came down and gave us the bad news – we had a 130 mile voyage across open water to complete tonight, and the key word there was ‘open’. Depths would average 1,000 meters, and at times exceed 1,800 meters – that’s well over a mile deep! Needless to say, the serious seasickness pills were distributed, not only to the passengers but to the crew too! This was big water for sure, and the wind action made the crossing very “nautical”. Waves hitting the bow and spray flying over the boat, and Bev and Sue standing on the bridge just daring Neptune to bring it on! It was a rocking-n-rolling night in our bunks for sure, but by morning we had arrived, unharmed, and ready to dive Osprey Reef, smack dab in the northern corner of the Coral Sea.

It’s Friday now, and our 6:30 wake-up call to dive came nice and early. After the rough night of sailing, our weary group assembled on the dive deck for our morning briefing. Our first site for today was called Around the Bend, and it was a nice wall dive with about 1,000 ft of depth down the face of the reef. Very lively site, lots of sea life, octopus, spotted and green moray eels, and sharks. We dove this site twice, both times as drift dives from the inflatables and back to the boat. On our second dive we were treated to a nice size manta ray, cruising right through our group – very cool!

Back in for lunch and a bit of re-positioning of the boat, and we jumped back in to the reef at a site called The Gap, aptly named because it was a cut through the fringe reef through which huge tidal flows passed to the lagoon within the center of Osprey Reef. Lots of fish of all varieties, hundreds of giant clams, some great swim thru’s and caves, and super healthy coral. Very nice!

Now we headed over to another site known as the Admiralty, named after the manufacturer of an anchor that was trapped in one of the swim thru’s on the reef – a boat must have dropped it and to their surprise, it managed to fall through a hole in the reef and got itself lodged in the cavern underneath. Sucked for them, cool for us. Neat site, lots of sharks, octo’s, and the rest. We stayed here for our night dive, and enjoyed another hour under the sea, this time with some great video footage of an eel snake cruising about, turning to attack me not once, but twice, with blinding speed and accuracy! That, plus sharks, bumphead parrots, and marauding jacks feeding under the lights of the boat. And while we were diving, Butch Loggins managed to slice his foot wide open on a broken wine glass on the sun deck, and ended up spread out on the wheel house floor while the captain attended to his wound. It was stitches or crazy glue, and Butch opted for the latter, so we’ll see in the morning how well his treatment will hold up!

Saturday morning dawned bright and blue, with no hint of the drama that was about to unfold. We briefed for our first dive, a drift along the east wall at the top end of Osprey Reef, at a point called North Horn. This was to be a wall dive, and the official current report from the crew was a brisk flow from the planned dive site towards the boat. Good plan, so far at least. So a portion of Team IVS geared up and loaded into tenders #3 & 4, and headed out to our drop point. Our immediate group included Bill Zyskowski, Dave West, Barb Beck, Donna Raleigh, Don Yowell, Ray Graff, and myself. Ominously, the driver of our boat observed the bubbles from the group just before us and noted that they (the bubbles) appeared to be heading in the wrong direction. Hmmm…was that a sign? So we got to our drop point, and it was 3-2-1-GO! and off into the sea we went. Except that as we fell, we noticed the wall passing before us, in the WRONG direction. Hmmmmm…was that another sign? So, OK, maybe it’s us, so let’s put some muscle into our fin kicks and make this a great dive. OK, maybe a little more muscle. OK, maybe evey single stinkin’ bit of muscle we have……wait….is this another sign? Finally, after twenty minutes of struggling and advancing perhaps 100 yards towards the boat, we opted to call the dive, head up for our safety stop, and go to the surface for a pick up. So that we did, and we hit the surface as a team, looking good and coordinated. Out come the big 8 ft DAN safety sausages, and we get them inflated, and start to look in the direction of the Spirit of Freedom for our inflatables to come pick us up. Wait, is that another sausage from another group over there? And another over there? Hmmmm…..I am thinking these are definitely signs! So we wait, figuring the crew has spotted us and will be over shortly. Surely they cannot miss this many big bright orange sausages on the open sea. Well, if perhaps anyone was looking, they probably wouldn’t. But, it seems that the safety watch doesn’t really start to look seriously until about 40 minutes into the dive, at which point we had been on the surface over twenty minutes and drifting quickly across the Coral Sea. The depth under our fins was about 3,000 feet now, and we were graced with a few of our dark gray friends circling below us as we waited…and waited. Our humor was good, lots of laughter, seven of us holding together and drifting across the south Pacific. “Take a look at the boat, do you see the tenders?” “No?” Hmmmmm…..definately a sign, and not a good one. We start to consider videotaping messages to friends and family, then decide to wait, and talk about how the movie rights will somehow make this all worth it! We drop our weights and watch them drop down into the bottomless abyss. Gee it’s dark down there…….we think. Staying close, checking that each of us are OK, sharing some air as the surface waves are consistently breaking over our heads. “See the tenders yet?” “No!” Hmmmm……we start thinking about the book, Barb Beck suggests the first title ‘ Hour one, day one’. The sun is hot overhead, and we think about dehydration…just kidding, at least for now, we are still cracking jokes and laughing in spite of the sharks, and the 3,000 feet of water, and the fact that the boat is getting smaller and smaller as it starts to slip over the horizon. Finally, someone spots a tender, an hour and 15 minutes after we first surfaced and inflated our sausages. There clearly was a disconnect among the crew between being assigned to watch for divers and actually watching for divers. It was fairly obvious that no one was looking for us, or we could not possibly have drifted that far off the reef into the open sea. In the end, we survived, made it back to the boat, and all grew stronger from the experience, but clearly it made us watch the crew with a bit more detail to see how they were going to man the tenders and pay a wee bit more attention to us.

Dive #2 today was scheduled to be a more relaxing, laid back dive – a shark feed! Into the drink we went, lined up with our backs to the wall of a natural cutout in the reef at about 45 ft. As with most animal behavior modification programs, the sharks clearly knew what was going on, and had started to gather in great numbers. Mostly gray and white tip reefs, plus a few silver tips, along with a solitary hammerhead, all came early to get a good seat for the feed. The setup for this feed was kinda unique, the crew hooked a pulley system up to a spot on the bottom, then ran the line up to the surface where they attached it to a trash can full of tuna heads strung together. Then over the side with the trash can, the diver holding the end of the line thru the pulley swims like hell, and the can comes down into our midst. A second crew member pulls the release on the can’s lid, and shazam! it’s shark feed frenzy all around! Big and small sharks, and the ever-so-aggressive groupers, piling in the fray, grabbing whatever they can get or steal from each other, snapping at each other to make room - kinda like a Michael Vick home video of his puppy training! Ten minutes later, there were no tuna parts to be found, and life returned to normal on the reef, with the sharks going about their daily routines and the smaller fish breathing a sigh of relief that this human insanity was over, at least for today. And, unlike dive #1, we all made it back to the boat this time!

The boat makes a move while we enjoy lunch, and we find ourselves at a site known as Silver City. This was a nice protected side of Osprey Reef, with minimal current and nice relaxing conditions as the wall rose to about 8 ft from the surface and dropped down to ledges at 100 ft or so before dropping off into the abyss. Did two nice dives here, just great reef conditions.

Sunday now, and during the night we have sailed during the night back down the GBR to Ribbon Reef #3. We are moored at another pinnacle known as Steve’s Bommie, and it is just a coral covered rock that rises straight up from the bottom to within about 15 feet of the surface. Lots of fish life surround it, and we had some curious octopus, leafy scorpionfish, and some large Australian Stonefish out to photograph. Two very nice dives.

In for lunch, and as we are sailing towards our second site for today, suddenly we are thinking John Scott must have snuck on board, cause it’s “man overboard!” Actually no, it is an unannounced crew training drill, and based on our earlier experience, we estimate they’ll start looking in earnest in about an hour. But much to our surprise, the crew is right on it, and they toss the throw ring, launch the tender, keep the eyes on the victim, and bring her back alive. Well done!

After a short sail we are moored at our next location, a site named Grumpy’s, named after a quite large Potato Cod that lays claim to the area. For those of you familiar with our Key Largo diving, this fellow was much like Bruiser from the City of Washington. Large, intimidating, friendly and not shy at all! Nice dive, more clown anenome fish, beautiful corals, etc.

Now we motor a short ways to our final mooring for the week. Our last dive, plus a nice bonus dusk dive added by the captain to offset the morning dive fiasco from yesterday, are scheduled for this spot, known as Flair Point, also on Ribbon Reef #3. This was a nice sloping site, with a good flat top reef at 6 ft of depth, dropping off to about 60 ft at the bottom. Lots of life, very healthy, major fish population. Nice!

Finally we pull anchor for the last time, and we head back to port to end the first phase of this journey. Bill Zyskowski, Donna Raleigh, and Tom Brennan are heading back to the America, and the rest of us are heading into the outback!

Well our first full day on land, and clearly not one to relax! A 6:30 breakfast call, and we are up, bags are p

Randy Rudd warms up Dutch by going way south!

Dave — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:51:49 +0000

It was time for our last official visit of the season to Dutch Springs this past weekend, and Mother Nature helped us confirm why we don’t schedule any more weekends there later in the season. It was a bone-chilling 39 degrees each morning, with a little breeze just to add the thrill of knowing you are about to go swimming in that weather.

Well Team IVS managed to suck it up and rise to the thermal challenges and we showed up in force, occupying about ten tables on the student side of Dutch. It looked like we owned the place, as IVS divers outnumbered everyone else on shore and below both days!

Dyslexia hits Dutch - 47 on top, 74 below!

Dave — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:51:34 +0000

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!!

IVS North cleans up - literally!

Dave — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:14:39 +0000

Team IVS, Canadian version, spent last weekend …………………..

The curtain starts to close on Dutch……

Dave — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:52:14 +0000

But Indian Valley Scuba still has three more weekends to spend there before we put the virtual cover on the pool for the winter. And this weekend was a great one to enjoy at the local pond, with 55 degree air in the morning, warming up to nearly 80 each day. The water is still great, at 75 degrees down to about 40 feet, so the diving is as good as it can get there.

Both Saturday and Sunday saw some huge IVS crowds there, enjoying the return of Bev to the grill, cooking up some beer-steamed chicken, fresh Amberjack from North Carolina, and the usual menu of dogs, burgers and salads. Team IVS does eat well, that is for sure!

Congratulations to Jarod Rodgers, John Zyskowski, Brenden Malloy, Brad Creveling, & Rob Lunny, on completing their Advanced Open Water certifications this weekend.

John Glodowski, lead designer on the IAHD back-mounted scooter, was on site both days tweaking the development of our third generation scooter, designed specifically to allow handicapped divers with little or no use of their legs to be able to motor through the water alongside the rest of us. This is a phenomenal product that opens up the sport of scuba diving to so many of our less-than-able-bodied friends. Make sure you stop by the shop and check out the IAHD scooter.

Do you hear the Quarribbean music playing our tune?

Dave — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:11:34 +0000

It’s that time again, time to visit our favorite local water-filled hole, Dutch Springs! And we did it this weekend, in spite of hurricane/tropical storm Hannah raining on our parade! We were hammered by the weather today with up to 6 inches of rain falling in the area, but did that slow us down? Not one bit!

The IVS crew sailed into the eye of the storm, without a moment’s hesitation, cause we heard the call of the quarry (and also cause we didn’t hear the call of Key Largo or some other palm-tree filled place this weekend!). Our team headed in early on Friday to set up the road show tent and secure our space for the weekend, and we are glad they did, cause it was hopping there!! Amazing with the weather how busy it was at Dutch this weekend. Our gang showed up bright and early, with the typical myriad of classes to complete, fun dives to take, great barbecue to enjoy, and friends to meet. All good!

Our own Ray Graff and Richie Kessler manned the grill this weekend, and although the’re not Beverly, it sure beats cold cereal for lunch! Realistically, both Ray & Richie are great on the grill, and no one walked away hungry.

As usual there were lots of revelations this weekend, but perhaps the most telling was Julia Tate, remarking when our own Aussie staffer Rob Tenille slipped off his drysuit - “wow, you are completely dry!’. Hmmmm, did we miss something here in our open water class, Ms. Julia????

We want to welcome Tom & Crystal Colleran, Rob, Don & Janet Filson, Ian Matthews, and the lovely Ms. Julia as our newest PADI National Geographic Open Water Divers! Way to go team! And as always, not only did our divers complete their open water certifications, they also earned the PADI Peak Performance Buoyancy and Coral Reef Conservation specialties.

We also want to congratulate Art Poontang & Steve Holak as our newest PADI Advanced Open Water divers. Nice job guys!

Overall we had 32 members of the IVS dive family out with us over the weekend, and it just keeps getting better, with several new faces joining us from North Jersey and New York, and more of our local divers making the switch to the IVS brand of Kool-Aid. We’re all about diving, training & having a great, safe time while doing it, and it shows in every one of gatherings! We’ll be back in two weeks to dip our toes into the near-balmy waters here again - hope to see you there!

IVS takes over Canada! The Great White North will never be the same, eh?

Dave — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:38:13 +0000

If it’s Labor Day it must be time for IVS to visit the St. Lawrence Seaway! And visit we did, with a contingent of eleven Americans and nine Canadians converging on Caigers Resort in Mallorytown, Ontario for a four day dive-a-thon. James Dahlberg, Sherwood Probeck, Csaba Lorinczy, Sue Douglass, Donna Raleigh, John Glowdowski, and I, as well as John Scott, who was traveling under a one-day pass from his lovely bride, Theresa, enjoyed motoring up in a convoy Thursday evening. We stopped off at Bingham’s Diner and enjoyed a great meal, even buying up a few loaves of the fresh baked banana-nut bread to enjoy between dives later in the weekend. A hundred miles later, Csaba was our driver and designated speaker with a heavy Hungarian accent as we passed through the Canadian border patrol station, and let’s just say we should have rehearsed a little bit before letting him lead us into Canada. Maybe the first hint was on the way up, when he said “We are going to Canada?”. When asked by the border agent where we were going, he drew a blank on the resort name and town. When asked where everyone was from, a second blank. Hmmm…not off to a good start. He did finally get it figured out and we passed the test, being allowed into Canada, in spite of the fact that we were carrying weapons (dive knives) after Csaba assured them that they were “very little knives”. Note to self: team briefing before the next border crossing! We finally arrived late that night at the resort and were greeted by some of the friendliest resort staff we have ever encountered. The folks at Caigers are unbelievably accommodating, and we are thrilled already with our lodging choice. And to top it off, they have some fine imported beer on tap at the bar, Coors Light!! I’m in heaven!

Friday started off with us getting our tanks filled first thing in the morning at Divetech, in Mallorytown. Owner Dan Humble and his staff turned out to be a tremendous asset on this trip! This is a technical dive center in the middle of Ontario province, on a country road, fantastic service, great inventory, with no water in sight - an amazing resemblance to Indian Valley Scuba. Multiple compressors, over 200 bank bottles for gas storage, two Haskel pumps to top off oxygen to 3,000 psi - these guys are VERY serious about filling scuba tanks with everything from air to trimix to argon. We really feel at home here with this group. Before we knew it our 20 tanks were filled with Nitrox, analyzed, and loaded back on the truck for the 20-minute ride back to the resort. Sweet!

While we were hard at work, John Scott was on the phone for his 11th? 12th? 13th? call to his wife, and got the green light to stay and do the afternoon dives too, rather than just the morning! Way to go John!

Back at Caigers, we loaded the boat with our tanks and gear, and then reviewed the manifest which had been electronically forwarded to U.S. Customs. This is an amazing complicated and absolutely BS-laden process designed, I hope, to protect our borders from those invading scuba divers, but alas it really seems to simply provide a job to a lazy civil service employee, specially selected from a special genetic pool to ensure they have zero personality, zero incentive and zero motivation to get things done in any fashion other than slower-than-molasses. Once we ensure the manifest is correct, we fire up the engines and head over to the US Border Patrol station located on the dock at Boldt Castle Island. Our captain goes to the window, they bring up our manifest on the computer, print out the obligatory multiple copies, and then, with their official GSA-issue little black pen, they make the official checkmark on multiple official copies of the manifest as each diver stands before the agent and holds up their passport to match the face and name with the divers listed on the manifest. Amazingly, each of us looks like the diver listed on the manifest so we are allowed to re-board our boat and head out to dive on a wreck which happens to lay on the US side of the bottom of this riverway. Friggin amazing, but sadly, true. And, it gets even better!

Once we have been cleared to transit from Canada into the US to tie our boat to a mooring in the middle of this river that just happens to be on the US side of the invisible dotted line that runs down the middle of the river, we can do the dive. However, when we are done, and start to head back across that dotted line again into Canadian waters, we must stop, and the captain needs to call the Canadian Customs from a “designated phone” and let them know they brought us back into the country. So if dive #2 is on a Canadian wreck, we need to travel to a dock where one of those “designated phones” are located, make the call, then head back out to the dive site and do what we came to do. And of course, the borders have been kept safe for all!

OK, I feel better now…let’s talk about diving!

Back to Friday - our boat is loaded, manifest checked, customs paperwork is reviewed, and we are ready to head out. Our crew for the day is Captain and owner of Thousand Island Pleasure Diving, Wayne Green, assisted by his young and wonderful captain-in-training, Chantal. This team was perfect and sync’d with the IVS gang within moments. This was going to be a good day. So we motored out, and stopped at US Customs, processed through quickly, and headed out to the wreck of the Keystorm. This steel canal boat, measuring 250 feet long and 42 ft wide was built in 1910, and was less than two years old when she ran aground on a foggy night at Scow Island Shoals, and sank with no loss of life. She sits nearly upright in 118 ft of water, and her tall intact profile and easy penetration makes this a great dive for all advanced and technical dives alike. The wreck provides lots of opportunities for penetration with minimal entanglement issues. Our second location was also in US waters, and was the America, a former drilling barge that flipped over and sunk in 1932 while it was drilling and blasting the rocky shoals to widen the shipping channel. As it blasted the rock one of the four legs that were extended down to stabilize the barge was kicked out, and the barge capsized and ended up settling up inverted on the bottom at 78 ft. This wreck sits right in the shipping channel so the entry is on the shoals at 30 ft and then follow a permanent guide line about 100 yards to the wreck site. A good wreck for fish, with lots of walleye, perch, and large sheepshead.

Back to the dock, we make the required call to Customs, and disembark to unload tanks and grab some lunch. A quick run over to Divetech, filling 20-plus tanks, and back to Caigers. For lunch we stop in and meet Darlene at the Mallorytown Diner, a Canadian version of a greasy spoon sort of diner, suffering from some identity confusion about whether it is a diner or a pizza parlor. Let’s just say we enjoyed Darlene a lot more than the food. After lunch we re-board the boat and head out at 6:30 for our scheduled 1:30 afternoon dive , this time to dive on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence, negating the need to involve U.S. Customs and all that goes along with it. Felix Gryn has arrived and opts to join us on our night dives. Our selected dive site was the Kingshorn, a wooden sailing barge that sunk in 1897 while being towed as part of a convoy of seven barges loaded with grain. Only three of the barges actually made it to port, with the others lost somewhere in the dark abyss of the main channel which is in excess of 300 ft deep in places. Some of you may recall this divesite as the the last known invasion of Canada, which was accomplished last year and ended up wht the IVS crew being summarily arrested and detained in Canadian Customs until they realized we were but harmless and misinformed scuba divers from America. Well this year, instead of the half hour internment and rush of excitement, we opted for the far more conventional and waaaaay more slow process of actually informing the other country that we were coming in for a visit. Next time, go back to Plan A! Anyhows, this wooded wreck offers a fairly intact hull, sitting in about 90-120 ft of water, upright and easily penetratable. We dropped in at 6:55, enjoying the dive at twilight, and ending as a night dive. We hung out on the boat for a short surface interval (thank goodness for dive computers and Nitrox), then revisited the wreck for a true night dive, going in at 9:00 in the evening. Another good hour-long dive, with Donna and her buddy John G giving us a nice unplanned macrame performance in tieing yourself up while trying to practice using a reel at night for penetration. No harm, no foul and everyone came out of the wreck wiser for the exercise.

Back at the resort, Mark the owner and his fine staff take care of us at the bar, keeping the libations flowing well into the evening. You can imagine that the Indian Valley Scuba gang brings just a little more energy, excitement and late-night laughter to a resort that normally caters to a more mundane crowd of early-morning fishermen and their families. Finally it’s off to bed, get some well-deserved rest, and be ready for the a.m.

John S managed to rack up a few more hours of international cell phone charges, but it resulted in him getting his pass extended to the morning dive trip.

Saturday morning we start off with another tank-filling run to Divetech, hauling and humping another 22 steel tanks and doubles in for filling and reloading them into the IVS truckster. Back at Caigers, we repeat the boat loading process, and this time we board a different boat than we had yesterday. Different in many ways, perhaps the most important one being that although both boats were equipped with two inboard engines, only yesterday’s boat actually had both engines operating! Broken boats seem to be an IVS tradition, so what the heck, we load up and begin to prepare to slowly head out to visit our friends at US Customs to seek permisssion to come home to dive for the morning. Except, a quick review of the manifest shows that we had missed the 24-hour advance window to notify U.S. Customs that John Scott had gotten permission to visit America again, so it was hold the boat, bacak to the computer, re-send a revised manifest and make some sort of official phone call, and finally, finally we are ready to depart. Except now, with that circus behind us, we tell John in no uncertain terms that he owes us the afternoon dive, so he might as well recharge his cell phone battery now in preparation of the call(s) he’ll have to make to his wife.

OK, the mooring lines are untied, and we start to motor out towards the border. Our boat was joined by a another vessel, this one loaded a bunch of Canadians, led by IVS-North instructor Jim Cormier. The group included Jim, his lovely wife Peg, and kids Sarah and Matthew, along with Earl ‘the hugger’ McLean, Brian Post, Steve Mueller, John Beck, Brian McPherson, and Steve’s lovely counterpart, Brenda. Needless to say, our progress was much slower so we waved goodbye to our northern neighbors as they quickly pulled away from our boat. Customs today was far less simple than yesterday, being Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and also by virtue of the fact that it was approaching noon by the time we arrived. Progress is amazingly slow, and the experience is the same as yesterday, only slower. No welcome home hugs for us from the Customs agent, boo hoo.

Once we clear customs, we begin to head upstream to the Vickery. The boat is making about 6 knots, and the current is running about 5 knots, so you can do the math here. You can almost here the Gilligan’s Island theme song “three hour tour” as we plod slowly towards the dive site. Thank goodness it is a beautiful day and the scenery along the river is phenomenal, so there is plenty to look at and enjoy. Our captain for the day, Rick, has something to say about everything we see on both sides of the river, but unfortunately, most of it is wrong or has no ending. Interesting to spend your entire life working on this river and being so clueless about what you look at each day. It’s a little past one now, and we have the dive site mooring in sight now. We are excited and start to slip into wetsuits and re-check the gear. Putt-putt-putt, we’re almost there, when suddenly with a look of shock and amazement in his eyes, John “first in the water, whether we’re at the dive site or not” Scott falls off the back of the dive boat into the river! Well we immediately roll into our man-overboard drill, and question whether we want to tell the captain since it has taken so long to get this close to the dive site, and to go back for John would mean we would have to retrace a good chunk of our route. Well after a quick vote and a rock/paper/scissors tie-breaker, we decide to turn around and get John. We pull his sorry butt back on board, and he knows the incident is blog-worthy material already.

With all divers now re-accounted for on-board we finally make it to the mooring and tie into the wreck. Our selection for this dive is the Vickery, a 136 ft long schooner that struck the shoals and sunk in 1889. She lies on a sloping rocky bottom from 65 to 120 feet in depth. Off the stern the two masts invite divers to travel down to a little over 150 ft to see the crows nest and rigging that lie near the extreme end of them. The current is smoking here, so careful use of wreck reels and using the wreckage to shield yourself is key to a safe dive experience. The rudder is a dramatic site at the stern, rising almost 15 ft vertically. Very nice dive overall, and it was finally time to head back to our boat. Well, time for most of us to go back to our boat, as Sherwood “Inspector Gadget’ Probeck opted for mooring line #2, heading off to make new friends on another boat, and helping take a little of the blog pressure off John Scott for his earlier escapade. This makes Sherwood 0-for-2 on making it back to the boat he jumped off of. We are confident we can improve that this weekend!

Once roll is taken, Captain Rick suggests a dive site that is even further upstream from where we are, and we unilaterally tell him he is out of his freakin’ mind if he is thinking about plodding any further against the current in the S.S. Minnow. That being said, he says he has another site for us, and we turn the boat downstream and make some decent headway down the river. We cruise along for a while, and I think perhaps it might be wise to see what ideas are rolling around in our captain’s head with regards to dive #2. So I head up to the bridge and we talk about the site, and what is there, and why we might enjoy it. Then I ask what country the site is located in, and he says “Canada”. “Wait one cotton-picking minute here, you mean we have to go back to shore and tie up while we are making that call from that “designated phone” and requesting entry back into Canada?? I don’t think so. Stop the boat!” “Where are we now?” “America?” “Yes”. “Good. We are going to drift dive the wall right along the island that we are passing, right now.” “Well we never dove here” he says. “Well you are about to”, I say. So we gear up, jump in, and drop down for a pretty cool drift dive along Deer Island, which is owned by some secret society that Captain Rick couldn’t remember much about. Nice dive, lots of big fish, good wall structure, and nearly an hour later we drift into a quiet bay and get picked up for the short ride home to Canada. Mutiny over.

Once back at the dock I sit down for a little pow-wow with Wayne and we work out a plan to salvage this day for us. Unload the boat, get the tanks filled, and let’s head about 20 kilometers east and jump on his other boat in the town of Brockville. Sounds like a plan! We unload the gear, hump a kazillion tanks into the truck, stop by our new buddies at Divetech for gas, and, choices being limited, visit the Mallorytown Diner for a bit more of Darlene and the fun we enjoyed yesterday. Finally it is 7:30 and we are pulling away from the Brockville dock with Wayne at the helm. Our first stop for this afternoon’s dive (yes we are still working on our 1:30 trip) is the wreck of the Muscallonge, in it’s day the largest tugboat to work the river, which suffered an explosion and sunk in 1936, settling upright but badly damaged on the bottom in 99 ft of water. It’s always an extra thrill to do your night dive on a new site, in strong current. This is an adventure trip for sure. The dive was enjoyable but the damage to the wreck made it more of a ‘Sanford & Son’ junkpile than a shipwreck, taking a little out of the experience. Back on board (all of us, including Sherwood!) decide to keep the adrenalin flowing, and we motored over to another brand new site for our second night dive of the afternoon, dropping in at 9:30 p.m. on the wreck of the Robert Gaskin. This 136 ft long triple masted barque actually sunk not once but three times while working on a salvage project to re-float a train-carrying ferry that had sunk in the channel. They say three times is a charm, and that proved to be the case here, as on the third attempt to raise the ferry one of the pontoons they had attached to the sunken vessel and were filling with high-pressure steam to float actually broke loose and rocketed to the surface, striking the Gaston, making this perhaps the only Canadian ship in history to torpedo itself. The damage from this event was too great and they left the wreck on the bottom, but coincidently did manage to re-float the train ferry. This wreck sits upright in 55 to 70 ft of water, with more good penetrations thoughout. Another great first visit on a night dive, with current and penetration! What were those guidelines again?

Thankfully all of our dives this afternoon were in Canadian waters, so no calls to Customs were required as we returned to the dock. Unload gear, hump tanks, and head back to the resort for some more laughs and brewskies at the bar. John S boogies for home now, leaving at 11:00 p.m and due home in time for his wife to leave for work at 5:00 a.m. - way to cut it close John. It’ll probably be a long time before he is allowed out to play with us again! Meanwhile, Dave West and Ray Graff had arrived this evening, and joined in the beers, merriment and story sharing. We ended the evening with Csaba and Ray enjoying some fine Cuban cigars (available in Canada) on Caigers waterfront patio while the stars treated us to a nice show.

Now it’s Sunday and we kick off the morning with our daily exercise, humping 20-some tanks and doubles for gas fills at Divetech. Down to the boat, load gear on the S.S. Minnow again, and head out to meander upstream to a couple of locations on the Canadian side - enough of the customs nonsense. Our first site is a drift wall dive along Eagle Point and highly rated by Captain Rick. It was a pretty cool dive, and I hit depths to 160 feet along the wall, which dropped down that distance again to the bottom. Lots of fish, some really dramatic rock structures, and a pretty nice current to kick along with. For our second dive we opted to forego the planned second drift location and instead visited the Kingshorn, to actually see it in the daylight hours. A nice dive for everyone, and thanks to the location, a quick ride back to the resort for us.

After unloading the gear and packing the trucks for the tank fill run and transfer to the Brockville boat, we decided to try a new location for lunch, and headed west to Rockport to dine at the Boathouse Tavern. Great food and more chances to enjoy local Canadian fare such as poutine, which is french fries with brown gravy and cheese curd on top - yummy! Lunch was a blast as every gathering with this gang has been, and we wrapped it up and hustled over to Divetech to get our tanks filled once again. The guys there work like we do at Indian Valley Scuba, with the scheduled 5:00 closing time coming and going with no one even thinking about quiting as there were still plenty of customers in the shop and many tanks to fill. Finally we finished ours, and headed into Brockville again to load the boat. This was the closest we were yet to actually making an afternoon dive in any part of the day that resembled the afternoon as most of us know it. We loaded up and headed out to the wreck of the Daryaw, a 220 ft long steel freighter that ran aground in the fog in 1941, turning turtle and wedging itself in a deep crack in the shoal. The top of the wreck, actually the keel of the ship, lies at 55 ft deep, while the superstructure is about 90 ft below the surface. The current was ripping along this wreck from bow to stern, so a firm grip on the downline and the tag line running along the wreck was a necessity. Just prior to entering the water, Dave W managed to tear his dry suit neck seal right down the front. Well, try as he may to use this as an excuse to call the dive, those of you who know me know that you need to have bones sticking out to be allowed to call off a dive, and we made no exceptions in this case. Even Sherwood, who has had an endless supply of tools and spare parts in his kit for us all weekend, doesn’t have a new neck seal to remedy the situation. So Dave sucked it up, and we went in and enjoyed a great dive exploring this wreck and making some exploratory excursions into the interior. His suit did not flood completely until we were on the ascent line, so kudos to him for managing his trim in the water and keeping his neck down the entire dive. And a good chance for everyone to see that flooding your dry suit on a dive is not life threatening in spite of the yarns that some instructors like to spin. Bottom line, very cool wreck, very disorientating as it sits completely upside down. In addition to the dry suit damage, Dave W and Ray also were suffering a little light envy, as Csaba, Donna & Sue were all styling and showing off their brand-new canister light systems. What a difference a great light makes for deep, dark wreck dives like these! All in all, a very nice dive on a very nice wreck, and well worth the drive to Brockville.

Since we were well versed in the art of visiting and exploring brand new wrecks in the dark and swiftly-moving waters, we figured we were ready for our final Brockville dive, opting to visit the Lillie Parsons, a 130 ft long inverted wooden two-masted schooner which met it’s demise during a blinding squall in 1877, hitting wall along the edge of the channel head on and sinking immediately. Her cargo of 500 tons of hard coal is very evident all around the wreck, with the material that they were not able to salvage still dropping out of the hold. The neatest part about the wreck is the entry to the dive site. Due to the currents here, which were without a doubt the strongest we encountered all weekend, you actually drop in at a point about 300 ft in front of the island that the vessel wrecked on. Once in, we dropped down immediately and kicked a little to the left to ensure we made it to the right side of the island as the current separated around the land mass. We hit the wreck in about 20 seconds so you can imagine the speed of the current. Once on the wreck we made sure everyone was OK, then proceeded to explore the wreck around the perimeter with some very minor visits underneath it to check out the cargo hold. The masts heading down into the dark abyss were calling our names, but we opted for caution (whoa, did I say that?) and chose to not head down to see what may be at the end of them. Once we were done playing around the wreck, we re-positioned ourselves between the wreck and the rocky shoal wall, finding a crack to ascend up from our 60 ft depth to the 30 ft range, and we literally sailed head over teacup along the wall, bumping into fish, scaring the large crayfish, and just having a laugh on this ride, as we kept out eyes open for a rope that marked the turn into a sheltered bay where our boat was waiting for us. Here it comes, grab it, hold on for your dear life, and slide on up to the 15 ft mark for our safety stop. Cool!! Once done, we kicked around corner into the bay, and swam to our boat. What a ride!!!

Finally, it’s Monday and time to head back to the land of opportunity, America. We say our goodbyes to our new friends at the resort, run out for a final tank fill at Divetech, and start to head across the border. ‘Start’ is the operative word here, because the process for a truckload of Americans to return home was, in a nutshell, ridiculous. First we have about six border agents directing traffic into the clearly marked lanes to pass through customs, as if we could not figure that out on our own. Then we inch up to the front, and finally we are next in the queue for the agent. Large, clear signs indicate that you should advance when the lane clears, so we wait. The car in front of us appears to have answered the customs agents’ questions incorrectly, and are being directed to the body cavity search area. Since the lane is clear, we begin to pull up, only to see the agent throw up here hands to tell us to stop. Realizing that we have advanced about 24 inches closer to our homeland, she throws up her hands again in obvious disgust at our failure to read her mind. So she signals us to advance a little bit more forward, but not quite to the booth. I feel like we are in “tweener land” between two countries, and had war broken out, it would be a crap shoot as to which way to run. She takes care of her business with the occupants of the car that did not pass the test, and turns her attention to us. We have been studying and practicing furiously, and are hoping that she is grading on a curve today. Mickey’s girlfriend is Minnie, it was the Yankees who won the world series in 1952, Grover Cleveland was the 14th president of the US….what else might they ask to authenticate our citizenship? Oh no, while we were waiting in tweener land, they switched agents in the booth, and we are not prepared for the new male border guard. I pull up, careful to stop at exactly the prescribed line at the booth. “Passports please” he says, and I hand them over. Csaba has already been briefed to feign sleeping, while Donna, if questioned, will be our token deaf/mute. Sounds like we have the bases covered! I hand over the passports, and he asks if I can shut off the truck so he can hear my answers. Geeesh…ready for the interrogation! Sure, I say, and I shut it off…then to add a bit of levity, I ask “so, do you have jumper cables?”. “You must be kidding”, he says, without a change in expression or tone. Hmmm, I am thinking, maybe I should compliment him on how well the scar is healing, from where they REMOVED HIS PERSONALITY!! OK, I think, maybe he would not appreciate that joke since it was so close to the truth, and I refrain. “Where were you”, he asks, and I tell him. “What were you doing?” “Scuba diving”. “What are you carrying?” “Duh, dive gear!”. Truly working with a rocket scientist here, I refrain from offering more info than he can process. When he asks if we are bringing in any alcohol and tobacco, I almost say “No, Ray & Dave have that in their car behind us”, but again, I refrain. We are finally allowed to resume our place as resident taxpayers, and pass through the golden gates into America. I pull over to the side after going through to wait for Ray & Dave, and you would have thought I was slipping into my suicide vest as the border guys dropped what they were doing and started gesticulating wildly for me to move further away from the customs station. I am thinking they really need to get a life there.

We head over to Alexandria Bay, NY for a nice little shore dive right next to River Hospital. Things could not be more perfect as we snag two parking spots right on the water, gear up, brief and head down under the water. We expore the wreckage of the former townfront, visit the Stonehenge of the St. Lawrence with neatly arranged chairs, tables, glasses, plates and beverage bottles all at 70 feet. Slipping along the shore we pass under the floating bar, see more former pilings and piers, and end up with a nice exploration on the wreck of the former wooden passenger ship Islander. This was a sidewheel steamer, 125 ft long and displacing 118 gross tons, which operated as a mail boat and passenger steamer between Clayton and A-bay from 1871 until she burned and sank at the dock in 1909. It sits in 15 to 60 ft of water, with minimal current, making it a nice easy shore dive and training site for local shops. A nice 60 minute tour and we are ready to slip out of the gear for the 13th and last time this weekend.

It’s time to start for the 5 hour ride home, but first, hey, let’s get something to eat here. I recommend Cavalliaro’s where we enjoyed a fine meal last summer. We agree, and we pull into the lot and park. They have tables outside, so we figure how perfect is that, we can eat and watch the gear in the truck at the same time. Well, it’s 3:30, and they don’t open until 5. ”Sit down and have a drink with us” is what the gang on the porch says, so hey, who are we to argue! There is some minor rumbling from the gang, thinking why do we have to wait 90 minutes to eat and still have this long ride home. Well, we put those concerns to rest within the first two minutes as the girls on the porch, Cindy, Shirly and Joanne, along with Tara the owner, pulled up extra chairs to their table and ordered libations to share with us. What a perfect fit, us and them, as we shared stories, told jokes and basically laughed our butts off for the next three hours. They don’t serve dinner on the porch, we are told, and haven’t since they opened in 1962. “Sounds like a guideline to me”, I say, and yes, you can guess it, the IVS gang enjoyed the first-ever meal served on the porch! Our new friends were an absolute hoot, and it ended up being a most wonderful way to end a great trip. Cindy shared some of her observations with us, pointing out that perhaps I was not very good at advertising and should keep my mouth shut! Dave West enjoyed a prime rib that took probably two cows to make, and the rest of us enjoyed the finest food of the weekend. After dinner, desserts and more drinks, along with additional doses of laughter. Our bellies were full and hurting from all the laughter by the time we shared hugs and goodbyes with everyone there.

Four hours and 22 minutes later, we are safe & sound back in Harleysville, and planning for next years trip already!

Drew “tutu” Meyers dives at Dutch this weekend!!

Dave — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:10:24 +0000

If you have never seen the little diving man with the tutu on under his wetsuit, you have been missing it! Fresh in from his most recent Puerto Rico escapades, Tracy Meyer’s young protoge Drew joined us this weekend and showed us all a few new tricks about diving. For those of us who know Randy “the ice dancer” Rudd, learning that one of our divers was wearing a tutu (or was it 2/2?) under his wetsuit had us all asking questions of all sorts, as you can well imagine. Well as it turned out, it was indeed a 2/2 shortsuit he had on under his 4/3, so finally all the gender confusion questions were put to rest. Now, whether mom will let him come out to play with us again any time in the near future is still to be determined!

It turned out to be a most beautiful weekend, with almost fifty - yes fifty - IVS divers out to play with us, get wet, eat well and share laughs. Lots of old faces, some new faces, and lots of the regulars all mingled together as we celebrated the passage of more new divers into the Indian Valley Scuba family. And kudos to Kerri Bates, Steve Holak, Art Poonbunroj & Neal Spear on completing their PADI Advanced Open Water certifications with honors! Nate Clemmer became our latest National Geographic Open Water Diver, and there were a host of other training activities going on all weekend long.

Bev had the grill a-hopping with all the regular great stuff, plus fresh-caught Jersey lobsters and clams sizzling on the barbie too! Steve Holak and Randee Bates brought some delicious pasta salad…….More to follow…. And more ‘Secret Shoppers’ visiting us incognito - read the June 21st blog post for more details on this! You gotta come visit us at Dutch before the season ends!

100 more try SCUBA with IVS!

Dave — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:58:24 +0000

This has been one smoking week for the FREE Discover Scuba Diving programs offered by Indian Valley Scuba. Sunday night found us offering complimentary scuba sessions at the Harleysville Swim Club, Wednesday at the Towamencin Swim Club, Thursday afternoon at New Life School, and Thursday evening at the Indian Valley Family YMCA! All told, over 100 folks of all ages tried scuba diving this week, and the smiles broadcasted the results!

NJ Wrecking it - Again!

Dave — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:11:55 +0000

Dave West, Robin Valicenti and I responded to the 4:30 a.m. alarm and traveled down to Belmar, NJ for another great day of diving aboard the Venture III. We could not have asked for a more perfect day to sail out to sea - the sun was bright, the sea was calm, and the company was great!

Our first site was the Algor shipwreck. This was an Andromeda class attack transport built by the U.S. Navy. This class was also known as a “Victory Ship”, although often incorrectly referred to as a Liberty Ship. It was one of a series of Navy transports named for stars; Algol is a star in the constellation Perseus, also known as the Demon star. Originally constructed in 1943 in Oakland, Calif as James Barnes , it saw service in a number of conflicts, the most recently being the Vietnam War. It is a large wreck measuring 459 ft x 63 ft, with 13,910 displacement tons, and a registered crew of 429 crew, including embarked Marines. It was sunk as part of the NJ Artificial Reef Program on November 22, 1991, and sponsored by the Federal Aid in Sportfish Restoration group. This intact wreck sits in 145 ft of water, with the upper decks accessible as shallow as 70 ft. This was a great intro-to-reel work dive for Robin, who quickly learned how difficult it is to multi-task with reel, depth, wreck and dive to deal with. Good start, a nice dive with viz in the 40 plus foot range. We ended up with a 130 ft dive for a 50 minute run time.

The Algol was a Navy transport ship that had a long and successful service career from World War II to the Cuban Missile Crisis. After lying in the mothball fleet at Norfolk for some twenty years, she was transferred to the New Jersey Artificial Reef Program and sunk with little fanfare, unlike the much-hyped ( and not much bigger ) Spiegel Grove in Florida.

This is the largest vessel yet used in the New Jersey Artificial Reef Program, and ranks as one of the largest vessels ever used as an artificial reef anywhere. She is also the largest vessel of any kind sunk in this region, excluding the Andrea Doria, and narrowly edging out the San Diego in tonnage.

The Algol is completely intact, upright, and huge. It would take several trips to fully explore it, without doing any penetrations. A good dive can be had on this wreck at almost any depth you want, from the top of the superstructure at 70 ft to the main deck at 110 ft to the sand at 140 ft. Since its sinking, currents have scoured out a hole around the hull that is significantly deeper than the 125 ft of the surrounding area. The cargo holds are also quite deep, but are filling up with silt.

Since it was sunk as an artificial reef, considerable effort was put into cleaning and opening up the Algol before it was sunk. All windows and doors are removed, as well as the cargo hold hatches. As a consequence, there are many areas that can be penetrated easily, including much of the superstructure and the cargo holds. Because of its multi-level nature, the Algol is often used for advanced training dives.

No part of either the hull or the superstructure has even begun to collapse yet - even catwalks and railings are solidly in place. The superstructure is like a large three story building. The smokestack has been removed, leaving an ugly teardrop shaped scar which can be used to orient yourself. The fat end of the teardrop points toward the bow, and the narrow end points toward the stern. At the bow and stern, paired tubs for anti-aircraft guns are still evident. There is a large hole into the hold in the port-side hull near the sand below the superstructure, where a hull plate has fallen away.

Our second location was the Klondike Rocks site. All along the coast there are natural rock formations in the otherwise sandy or muddy bottom of our underwater environment. The Shrewsbury Rocks are the largest and most well-known of these; the Klondike Rocks further south are similar but lower. Many others are not clearly defined, but are listed as “lumps” or ‘ridges” on fishing charts.

The Artificial Reef Program has greatly augmented the natural hard bottom of the region with millions of tons of dumped rock from construction and dredging projects. These low outcroppings appear in small to large patches over a two mile area called the Klondike, and elsewhere, at depths ranging from 60 to 90 feet. The overhangs, crags, and holes afforded by the piles of rocks and boulders provide excellent homes for fish and lobsters. Visibility can be great here at times, but today it was in the range of 10-20 ft, mostly due to the silty bottom in most places. It’s easy to get lost here, so it was another dive for the reels to be employed to make sure we had our “breadcrumb trail” to get home.

This site proved productive as we ended up with four nice bugs in the bag, and I missed a monster that had to be at least 10 pounds! Our profile for this dive was 81 ft for a total run time of 60 minutes. Bottom temp was in the 54 degree range, but we were toasty and warm in our Whites and DUI drysuits!