IM IN UR OCEAN. EATIN UR CARDZ.
I promise not to turn jillapalooza.com into a website of cat videos… this one is just too funny. Nick found this video for me, isn’t he sweet? :)
Dive 6
Woo-hoo, my first official “Fun Dive”!! Curtis, Kristen and I headed up to Brainerd to participate in the Fun Dive yesterday. Kristen and I used our free fun dive coupons, saving us about $80 each. We went to Shangri-La in Alstead. At first I was kind of disappointed to hear we were going there since W. Alstead is where our first checkout dives were, and there really wasn’t anything to look at other than the platform.
I don’t know how many divers went in total, but there was a caravan of two MSD vans and about 6 other vehicles en route to the site. Tim (red-headed-ponytail-guy-who-fixes-stuff-at-MSD) joined the 3 of us for the dive. Shangri-La proved to be really neat. There were lots of trees. Visibility was only about 25′, so when we were down at 40+ I looked up and it appeared as though the trees went on forever. There was also an old car down there. I’m not sure what it was, but it looked like your typical late ’80s 4 door sedan. A Hot Topic bumper sticker was stuck on the dash and was in really good condition, leading me to believe someone stuck it there. Curtis said there was a beer bottle on the floor of it… perhaps that is why it is in the bottom of the mine?
The only downside was that the water was friggin’ freezing. Not to say it has necessarily been warm since I started this endeavor two weeks ago. But the previous times the water would slowly seep into the wetsuit and I would be slightly chilled, then after a few seconds it would warm up and be quite comfortable. This time the water was downright cold. The first half of the dive wasn’t too bad, but the second half was very uncomfortable. The thermocline was at… oh, let’s say 0 feet. I learned later the surface temp was 52°, whereas my previous dives have been around 62°. One of my toes went numb and it took about 30 minutes to restore feeling to it. Kristen had purple lips. Actually she had a purple line around her lips and the centers were all pink so it looked like she was rocking the thick plum lip liner look.
Although I’m sad Nick couldn’t attend, we were the last group out of the water with no one running out of air right away. We estimated our max depth at around 45′ for about 45 minutes, putting us in the pressure group S, which is a definite record setter for Kristen and me. Since I’m pretty sure I won’t be diving in MN until the spring, I’m eagerly looking forward to our trip to Belize!!
Dive 5
On Saturday I did my first official dive!! Since Kristen was feeling better, she scheduled her final checkout dives for Saturday afternoon. Curtis, Kristen, Nick and I headed to Brainerd in the wee morning hours. While Curtis & Nick participated in the morning fun dive, Kristen and I tore up the town buying winter wear and lip gloss. We stopped for lunch at Poncho & Lefty’s then headed back to the dive shop, lounged in the Explorer and read magazines for an hour or so.
Once the guys got back, Kristen and I got our rental gear all picked out. Curtis, Nick and I then tagged along to Mahnomen II & III where Kristen and the others were doing their dives. One of the most entertaining points of the day was watching the boys put their wet wetsuits back on. Especially Curtis because he was layering about 6 of them. The water felt a bit chillier than it did on Tuesday, possibly because the air warmed back up to the mid-60s, but once underway I was quite comfortable. There were mostly trees and long grass to look at during the dive. We did see some large schools of tiny fish and a couple really big northerns. No attacking loons, however. The thermocline must have been around 30′, I didn’t go much lower than that. Nick was getting really low on air (surprise, surprise) so we surfaced, only to find out we swam a really long way away from where we began. Since Curtis and I had plenty of air left, Nick offered to snorkel back while Curtis and I dove. I was having the same problem with my ear again after surfacing, so I decided to hang around 10′ for a bit. All of a sudden I felt some resistance. I turned around to see Nick mooching off of my alternate. He hung around long enough for Curtis to snap a photo, then back to the surface for Operation Snorkel Home.
We got to the shore right before Kristen and her fellow divers. After Kristen finished up her papers at MSD we headed over to the cafe that welcomes back door guests for dinner.
Dives 3 and 4
Nick and I did our last two check out dives last night. Unfortunately Kristen didn’t accompany us due to some ear/sinus/vomiting issues. Hopefully she will be feeling good soon so she can finish up the certification and we can have some celebratory birthday cake ice cream at the Chocolate Ox and/or Brainerd cafe that welcomes back door guests.
Nick and I arrived at MSD a little before 4 pm. Our fellow divers of the night were Chucky and 10 year old Alyssa. Bill was at the shop and told Dan that he needed some empty Nitrox tanks for the morning, then he pointed at us and said “give them Nitrox.” Dan told us not to equalize too hard or else [insert motion of head blowing up here]. Which made me very uneasy. Until I found out an hour later that he was joking, then I felt very stupid.
Dan drove us out to Louise where we started our dive at 5:15 pm. Louise is a quaint little mine pit with a 170′ bottom at the center and a little sunken boat at about 25′. The air temp was 45° but with the wind chill it felt like, I don’t know, -5°. Needless to say, the 60° water felt fantastic with air like that. Our first dive was just a bunch of swimming around. We had a couple of resurfacings due to some technical difficulties. And by “some technical difficulties” I mean “the 10 year old.” First she lost a weight pouch. We had hardly descended when Dan spotted her going back to the surface. He gave Charlie and I the thumbs up, so we returned to the surface. I asked her if she lost another weight and she said that something hit her in the head, and she didn’t know what it was so she just went back up. What? Really? I peeked down and saw Dan and Nick searching around the wooden platform that was underneath us, so I was sure they were on a very unsuccessful weight search. After that issue was resolved (btw, something = tank), we descended again. This time when we reached the bottom, Nick, Charlie and I found ourselves alone in the abyss. After standing there looking at each other like lost fools for what seemed like an eternity, we headed back up the sloping bottom and found the platform again (my brilliant idea). Soon after we could see bubbles, then make out the figures of Dan and Alyssa heading toward us. Phweeew. It was shortly before or after this that my regulator started taking on water. I would get a bit of water splashing in my mouth for four or five breaths and I had to use my tongue as a splash guard. I’d give a nice hard exhale now and then to clear it out. Then it would work fine for a few minutes … and repeat. We swam around for quite awhile, eventually making our way down to 44′. I think on the way up I started to get a bit of a reverse squeeze. My right ear was just killing me. On top of that my regulator seemed to be letting on water a bit excessively. I was about 5 seconds away from giving Dan the somethings wrong sign, but I could tell by the way he was swimming along the slop of the bottom that we would be soon on our way up. Finally my ear started making a funny noise and I could feel something bubbling out of it. Aaaaaah, sweet release!! We were up and down on the first dive, but used 30 minutes for our bottom time, which would have put me in the pressure group of “I” had I been using normal air.
I asked Dan about my regulator but he didn’t seem too concerned as long as I could handle it. During our 11 minute surface interval we swam back to the boat using our compasses. Then we descended for our second dive, swam away from the boat with our compasses and returned to the boat in the same manner. Then it was time for the CESA. I went first, which I was happy about, because I got to watch everyone after me come up. To make a long blog not as long, our second dive lasted 24 minutes with a depth of 32′. I finished roughly in PG-N. (I don’t feel the need to be as thorough in my dive blog as Curtis, as I plan on keeping a better organized log in the book, where there are pictures and check boxes and what not.)
The air above was quite chilly after removing my wet suit, which I was glad I did last. Back at the dive shop we filled out our log books and required paperwork. Then I had a gorgeous post dive photo taken for my card. Hmmm… at least polaroids aren’t super high quality, which probably helped me look better. On a side note, there was a Scuba Diving magazine with the top 10 reasons to love Belize, so I’ve definitely gotta snag myself a copy of that.
The time from Friday to last night has kind of been a blur. The certification was time consuming more than it was physically or mentally demanding, although after the weekend I was very fatigued. It was a great experience and I’m proud to have accomplished it. Looks like I’ve finally found myself a hobby :D