http://www.divebuddy.com/blogs.aspxScuba diving articles posted by members of DiveBuddy.com.http://www.divebuddy.com/blogs.aspxhttp://www.divebuddy.com/images/divebuddy_db.png240jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=6069Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:58:00 CDTTravelI recently completed my TDI Trimix and Advanced Trimix training in Central Florida with instructor Richard Dreher III, from Superior Dive Training (www.superiordivetraining.com). Richard is an excellent instructor, with a great attitude and professionalism. Originally from Minnesota, he now lives in cave country. He is active with the NACD and fully dedicated to cave and tech training. At first, I was a little apprehensive to sign up with a young instructor; I was extremely pleased immediately when I met him in person... It was refreshing to work with a young, knowledgeable and dynamic instructor. He represents the next generation of instructor and I highly recommend him. The first three days of training were dedicated to theory and normoxic trimix (17-21+% O2, in the range of 100-200 ft, 30/30, 21/35, 18/45). The last three days we focused on hypoxic trimix (10-16% O2, 15/55, 13/60, 10/70) with dives in the 180-330 ft range). Anoxic trimix (mixes with less than 10% O2) was outside the scope of this training and better left to explorers. All dives were conducted in caves at Peacock Springs and Eagle’s Nest, so full cave rating was required in order to do the dives. Day 1: Long day, 9am-11pm. We went over most of the theory and produced dive plans for the first two dives of the training. For each dive we needed to look into gas management and different contingency plans (e.g., if we stay a few minutes beyond our schedule, go a little deeper, loss of gas...) Day 2: The plan for the day was to dive Peacock III / Henley’s Castle (map) @ 180ft, RT of 98min, and Lower Orange Grove (map)@ 160ft, RT of 83min. Both dives on 21/35 bottom mix and deco EAN50 and O2. Another long day (9am-11pm), theory, dive planning, getting fills at Extreme Exposure, gear setup, etc. Nice dinner at Great Outdoors with Richard and Jim chatting about all kinds of ’what-ifs’ scenario from catastrophic equipment failure to the boat cutting loose from the mooring line while in deco. Makes you ponder... We also worked on some skills after our second dive, valve shutdown and breath hold swim. It was interesting to do a 45ft breath hold swim without mask @ 20ft and then being rescued by buddy to complete with an air share ascent without mask. Day 3: Two dives at Eagles Nest (map). Eagle’s Nest is a pretty impressive cave; it’s a huge sinkhole. Compared to the Black Abyss at Outland (Aktun-Hu), it is darker, colder and definitely not as well decorated... First dive upstream with Jim in the lead and I led the second one downstream. Both dives had similar profile: Drop our O2 bottle at 20-25ft, go to the cave entrance and wait for clock to reach 4 min. Start descent and reach the mound at the bottom, drop travel mix and switch to bottom mix, depart no earlier than 7min. Swim 200-250 ft to a max depth of 200ft, turn around at third or 12 min and start the ascend back at the mound at 19 min to pick up our EAN32 cylinder and start deco. Both dives on 18/45, EAN32 and O2, RT of 50 and 55min, respectively. After the second dive we worked on some final skills: ascent with an unconscious breathing diver and ascent using a lift bag as a buoyancy device. Moving to Advanced Trimix for the next three days. During this portion of the training, I had to demonstrate some more skills and plan and execute four dives, two on Tue, one on Wed and one on Thu. For this class, I borrowed a Liquivision X1 from Wayne at Amigo’s Dive Center in Fort Whyte. This is an amazing little computer with a great user interface, easy to program, switch mixes on the fly, etc. I used it with the V-Planner software with conservatism set to +3. Day 4: We planned our first two dives at Lower Orange Grove - I really like that cave, especially on the way down to the gold line... Richard lead the first dive installing the primary reel and we went to the bottom of the pit at 180ft for a couple of minutes with a total run time of 71 min. On the way out we left the reel in so I could easily find my way in for the second dive which I planned on leading. On the second dive, we checked out the circuit on the left at the first T. I pulled out the reel on the way out. Max depth of 162ft and RT of 55min. Both dives on 19/22 (we topped off yesterday 18/45 tanks with air as we got back too late to get 21/35 fills), EAN32, O2. Before getting out of the water, we did some skills; in particular, a breath hold swim of 66ft (20m) without mask - that’s pretty long... Two great dives and my SAC rate is back down closer to my usual breathing rate. Still on the high side, but on average, I’m in between .5 and .6 swimming with all these cylinders and .4 on deco. Day 5: The objective for the next dive was to visit the Super Room at Eagle’s Nest upstream. This is a 700+ ft penetration with max depth of 270ft, avg 230. Our dive plan was as follows: 0 on EAN32 descent to 20 ft and drop O2 cylinder, switch computer to proper mix, 4 start descend in the entrance tube, switch gas at 110 to 21/35 travel, and go to the mound to drop EAN 32 deco leave at 7, drop 21/35 travel and switch to back gas at 11, swim 8 min down to 260, then back up into the Super Room at 230 ft, turn at 24 min or third. I led the dive in and we turned the dive on schedule at 21 min reaching the end of the Super Room. The RT 113, which included an extra 10 min deco at 10ft. Mixes: 2 HP130 15/55, 1 AL 80 21/35, 1 AL 80 EAN32, 1 AL80 O2. 1 spare AL80 EAN32 on the mound. Day 6: For the final dive of this training, we planned Eagle’s Nest downstream past the pit to a max depth 290+ft, and turning on schedule or third, whichever came first. I led this final (graduation) dive; we turned on schedule at 24min after 750+ ft of penetration from the mound where we dropped our deco stage cylinder. The total RT of 135 min. My oceanic computers showed 286 FSW, but I was in fresh water, which mean about 295 FFW. My other computer (Liquivision) showed 289 FFW. Similar dive plan as the previous day, but this time our bottom mix was 14/57. To conclude this visit to cave country, I had lunch with Wayne on Fri, dropped my drysuit at Gamble and went to see Avatar 3D in Gainesville... Then I got stranded in Orlando due to the snow storm in the northeast. It snowed 24 inches in 24 hours! Taking advantage of the situation, I went to the beach at Canaveral National Seashore hiking nature trails and jogging on the beach until I hit a fence where it says: "Restricted Area - No Trespassing by order of NASA"... after taking a few pictures of the rocket launch towers, I turned around and went back to my car, had dinner and an early night.]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=5774Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:00:00 CDTTravelAfter a week of drift diving in Cozumel with my wife and Alison, I headed to Puerto Aventuras for the final portion of my full cave certification with Steve Gerrard. Steve is a great instructor with a fun personality and lots of stories... He’s been cave diving for 30 years and teaching for about 25. If you want to know about him, visit his website http://www.deephorizon.info. Day 1: 2 good dives at Dos Palmas ~35ft. Water temp is 75F. Dive 1: 1h23 following the gold line to get acclimated to diving doubles wet and the new environment, and second dive 1h21 with 4 jumps and air-share touch contact drill. It’s nice to cave dive in wetsuit in crystal clear warm spring water. Lots of geological formation - pretty impressive. Looking forward to tomorrow. Steve’s pick... Day 2: First dive at the Cenote of the Sun (Naran Hal system). 91ft, 70 min bottom time and 9 min deco, EAN32. This was a fantastic cave. Long halocline like a mirror for about 100ft. Amazing white/bleached limestone and blue water. Beautiful cave ceiling and floor with thousands of formation. Great cave, definitely the best one so far for its beauty. 2 T’s and 1 jump. Second dive was my full cave graduation dive. We manage to do the traverse from Calimba to Bosh Chen on third. I led on the way in. We had a chat at Bosh Chen with the bats and Steve led on the way back while I pick up the spools and markers. 44ft, 84 min; 2 jumps, 1 T. Most interesting passages with restrictions, fragile formation, amazing ceiling and very large rooms. Tomorrow, some more fun... I’m here for 4 more days of fantastic cave diving :)]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=5719Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:05:00 CDTTravelThe weather was fantastic today in Cozumel. Air temp mid-80 but very humid. Sunny and calm seas. The water is warm, 83F, and a 2mm shorty is almost an overkill.... Can you imagine I showed up here with a 5mm. I was told a few weeks ago that the water was getting colder and it was time to dig out the 5mm.... That was probably only for a couple days before the current heat wave... This is our first day of diving with Alison and Carlos this week. They’ve painted the Maximus earlier this month and she’s all white and clean with nice lettering on her. We were 7 divers in addition to Alison and Orlando. Chace from Oklahoma City, a group of 4 from Kim, Joe, Sarah and John, the first birthday boy, and ourselves Nathalie and JF, the other birthday boy. We did 3 great dives: Santa Rosa Wall, Paso del Cedral and Las Palmas. The current was pretty strong today about 1 knot and hard to swim against. We saw nice marine life. Among other, a nurse shark sleeping, many turtles of all sizes, yellow stingrays, humongous crabs, spiny lobsters, groupers, many schools of different kind of fishes. On our last dive, we found a lion fish on Las Palmas. According to Alison, the first one was spotted about 9 months ago (about the time I was here in January) and since then, they’ve been catching a few every week. Compare to the ones I have seen in the Bahamas, this one looked like a dwarf. Nonetheless, this is such an invasive specie that whenever they can catch one, they get it our of the water... The stats for the day are (0:52, 73ft, EAN32), SI 1:27, (1:06, 56ft, air), SI 1:26 and our last dive was abruptly interrupted by the lion fish chase for a profile of (0:55, 68ft, air) coming back on board with about 1000psi. To our surprise, after Santa Rosa wall, we met a mermaid on the Maximus. Carlos picked her up while we were submerged... Once we were all on the boat, we headed to Palancar beach to eat a birthday cake and beat the mermaid to death. Nathalie gave the final stroke and plenty of candies came out of her belly and fell on the ground... This was so cool of Alison to bring cake with candle, birthday hats, blowers and obviously our mermaid pinata. Tomorrow we’re planning again 3 dives with the same group. Hasta Manana! P.S.: Sorry for the typos, it’s getting late and I’m tired. I’ll fixed those when my brain starts working again...]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=5634Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:14:00 CDTPersonalI can’t believe it’s been a year since I last posted a blog. What happened? I became a scuba instructor... I did my IE on Nov 9, 2008 on my 200th dive at Dutch Spring and this is the last entry in my dive logbook... and last month, I logged my 350th dive in Monterey Bay. During the last 12 months, I’ve managed to fun dive in the Exuma Cays on the Aquacat liveaboard, drift dive in Cozumel, explore many central FL caves, dive the Duane in Key Largo, the Pompano wrecks, the U-85 in the OBX and dive with the seals in the Kelp Forest at Point Lobos and Monterey Bay area. Over the summer, I spent many weekends at the local quarries Dutch Spring and Millbrook teaching OW, AOW and rescue students and managed to train enough students to get my PADI MSDT rating. In many ways, I’m glad that Fall has arrived. I can now relax and focus on my personal training and skills. I’ll be visiting Cozumel and the Riviera Maya at the end of the month relaxing and fun diving with my wife. When I return, I’ll start working on my trimix and rebreather training. If all goes as planned, by next Fall I’ll be happy to report my 500th dive and completion of my tech training. Safe Diving! JF.]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=5632Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:05:00 CDTTravelDiving in Monterey Bay area was fantastic. I rented tanks & weights, got fills and hired a local dive guide from the Monterey Bay Dive Center (MBDC.com) across the San Carlos Beach Park. DMs Chris and Tamin, and owner Jim Field are great local guides. The plan was to do 2 dives on Saturday and Sunday. I ended up staying an extra day to dive at Point Lobos on Monday and doing a total of 8 dives over 3 days. Point Lobos is booked months in advance, so early planning is necessary (not my strength) to be able to dive this site on weekend. On Saturday, I was paired with Gerald, a diver from the UK. Chris was our guide and Tamin tagged along with Jim. Our first dive was towards the Metridum field. We followed a large pipe towards the middle of the bay. We had low visibility (5-8 feet). We saw some marine life, lots of sea stars, kelp, anemone and a few fish. There were a huge number of brown (sea nettle) jellyfish (6-8in diameter, 12-18in tentacles) when we hit 30ft, it was hard not to get in contact with them. We had to swim very close to the bottom, under them no to get sting... When we arrived at the Metridum field, the visibility was bad and we lost Gerald for a couple of minutes. After we found him, we called the dive and we got separated from Chris on the return, but made it safely to shore as Jim was just behind us. Our second dive was on the Breakwater wall. The visibility was better (10-12 feet), but not so great. Gerald aborted his dive (actually shot at the surface) due to a buoyancy problem. Chris came to his rescue so I could continued my dive with Jim, the owner of the shop. After lunch, I decided to dive the Breakwater wall again, but this time in solo to go at my own pace and take the time to observe the marine life. Now instead of a 40 min dive, I did a 70 minute dive. After diving on Saturday, I walked on Cannery Row from the beach to the aquarium. Saw all the touristy stuff but it was past 5pm by the time I got to the aquarium, so I did not enter it due to my lack of time - next time I’ll plan better... Walked back to San Carlos Beach and continued to the Old Wharf where I had a nice dinner: clam chowder and grilled salmon with steam veggies... On Sunday, I met Gerald at the shop and we had 2 additional divers. They had not dived for 3 years and I was offered to dive with Tamin instead of with the group so we could stay down longer and go further out taking the time to visit the Metridium Giganteum field. Reached there in 10-15 minutes and enjoyed the field for a little while. Visibility was better than Saturday, but not so great either. On the way back, got to dive deeply in the kelps between the hidden beach and San Carlos beach; it was a lot of fun.... For the second dive, Chris came with us since the 3 other divers had bailed out on him after their first dive - too rough and low viz. We started from the hidden beach with the plan to head South East when we hit 40 feet. We ended up far off in front of San Carlos beach and got separated from Chris as I got busy looking at an anemone that had just caught a fish and closed itself completely.... surfaced to look for Chris and after a few minutes, descended and headed back towards shore. That was fun, but not as planned.... After lunch, I went solo again to the Breakwater Wall for my third dive. That was my best dive of the weekend at San Carlos Beach. I saw many kinds of nudibranchs, got to swim/play with a harbor seal (had big eyes and fast; may have been a sea lion, I was too excited to notice if he had ears of not...), there were so many different kind of invertebrates (sea stars, cucumbers, jellyfish, etc.) and the best visibility of the weekend so far. Upon my return and after some discussion with Jim and Chris, I convinced them to bring me to Point Lobos early Monday morning so I could dive the kelp forest. On Monday, we met at 7:30 at the shop to pick up tanks and headed towards Carmel. Point Lobos is a gorgeous wildlife reserve at the ocean’s edge. Historic Whaler’s Cove is the entry zone. There were about 20 harbor seals swimming and looking at us while we setup our dive gear. The seas were a little rough comparatively to San Carlos beach, but not too bad as long as you don’t get too close to the cliff. For the first dive, we went around the Cannery Point Wall and Cannery Pinnacle towards the Bluefish Cove. Fantastic dive! We hit 90+ feet for a 50 minute dive. The marine life was amazing. After swimming there, I understand why it is called the Kelp Forest... It was so fun to dive with the seals, fish, anemones, corals, sea stars and nudibranchs. Never seen so much marine life. It was simply magical. The kelps were like trees extending for 70-80 feet to the sky, forming like the ceiling of a cathedral. The schools of fish were like birds flying in the forest. The sea floor was so colorful it was amazing... For the second dive, we cut across the Cannery Point Wall and headed directly to the Bluefish Cove. It was fun to dive in the middle of the thick kelp forest with the surges, 40 ft forward, 15 ft backward... Again the marine life was fantastic. I would venture to say that my first dive at Point Lobos, with 80+ ft visibility and 50F water was probably my favorite dive ever. It was amazing to see all the marine life at the bottom; the fish were like birds in the kelp forest and I was suspended right in the middle in amazement.]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2648Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:29:00 CDTTraveljfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2647Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:10:00 CDTPersonalIt’s been almost three months since my last blog. Don’t worry, it’s not because I stopped diving; it’s because I’ve been too busy diving every weekend. Since completing my DM training in September, I divemastered at Dutch weekend of Sept 20-21; headed down for more cave training with Reggie Sept 29-Oct 4; upon my return I did my AI with Kevin D Oct 11-13, IDC with Kevin L Oct 17-Nov 2, took the IE Nov 8-9 at Dutch Spring; weekend of Nov 14-16, I taught an OWD boot camp; took my EFRI Nov 19-21; did OW certs on Nov 22-23, went for a cave trip in central Florida Nov 27-30. Now that this crazy time is over, I’m catching up with my life and some blogs; I logged 40 dives in since my last blog! I’ll be writing about some of my recent activities in the next few days while I prepare for a week long live aboard trip on the Aquacat Dec 20-27 with my son Louis. To keep me busy this weekend, I may go for a chilly dive at Guppy Gulch with Nathalie and Stephanie. I also need to get my gear serviced...]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2421Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:50:00 CDTEducationaljfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2420Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:31:00 CDTEducationaljfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2419Sun, 14 Sep 2008 14:06:00 CDTTravelI spent Labor Day weekend diving at Dutch Springs with Sterling Silver. This was the busiest weekend I have seen at the quarry. There were tents everywhere and the access ramps were always busy... Nonetheless, with the gorgeous weather and great dive team, we had a wonderful weekend! I also met a group of fellow French Canadian divers from Montreal. It was fun to speak about scuba diving in French - a new experience... Anyway, I arrived Saturday morning with my wife Nathalie and daughter Stephanie, and, Kevin, Carmen and Austin, with whom we caravaned from NoVA. Had a couple fun dives with Nathalie and Julie, accompanied some students on a wreck adventure dive. Setup camp, had dinner and then went for a good night dive with Carl and Derek: we did a grand tour of the quarry following ropes: starting at the south peninsula, going to the cesna, tanker, bus, and coming back while passing several platform. The dive lasted a little over an hour... and we were out just in time to not be kick out of the camp site... On Sunday, Kevin and I had two deco dives. In between these, I accompanied Nathalie and Julie for a guided tour of several wrecks (crane, boat, bus) and the wall of the peninsula. For the first deco dive, we started by accompanying AOW students on an deep adventure training dive. After the students were sent to the surface, we continued our dive in the whole at about 85-90 ft. We practice drills such as backup and primary regulator failure, air sharing (long hose) and stayed at the freezing bottom (40F) following cracks and looking around until we reached deco. We stayed for a little longer before ascending to 60 feet, swimming towards the south peninsula ramp. Once we reach our destination, we inflated our lift bag and started our deco stops. The first one was at 30ft (simulation) for 3 minutes and the second one at 15 feet for 5 minutes (We actually came out of deco on our 30ft stop, so we simulated at 15 feet instead of 10ft for the actual planned stop). Total dive time was 57 mins at max 90ft and avg 77ft. For our second deco dive, we started by touring the pump house. After 10-15 minutes, we navigated NW towards the peninsula until we reached the big boat at 60ft. Since we still had a lot of air and I was leading, I decided to go towards the crane, trolley and then go down at 90 ft until I would reach deco - we adjusted our plan... On our way back toward the platform we started our decompression procedure. I had 9 mins of deco at 10ft and Kevin had 10mins. Total dive time was 65 mins, 90ft. Once we got out of the water, the camp was all pack... We quickly packed our gears since our families were waiting for us... We exited Dutch at 6pm sharp, had a nice dinner and hit the road toward NoVA reaching home at 11pm. Overall, it was a great weekend. I was thrilled to complete two training deco dives. I did not have many opportunities to have such deep and long dives at the quarry... Nathalie also logged a few dives. It was the first time she dived without me as her buddy and dived dry all weekend.]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2308Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:09:00 CDTTravelSterling Silver Scuba was at Dutch Springs August 1-3 weekend for its 4th seasonal trip. We had three students taking OW, five AOW, two rescue and a couple of divemaster candidates doing internships. The water temperature was 78F at the surface, 72 at the platform (27ft), 65 at 30-50ft, 60 from 50-70ft and 44F below 70. The weather was fantastic; sunny during daytime and cool at night... My objectives for the weekend were 1) to assist with the AOW or Rescue as needed, 2) do a couple of fun dives with my son JP and 3) complete my TDI deco procedures certification with Kevin. Unfortunately, Kevin had been under the weather since the middle of the week with a bad cold and was not sure whether he would be able to dive with me for the deco training. Carl, Maggie and JP showed up early Friday to setup the camp on the peninsula and do a couple of fun dives. Jess, Happy, Heart and Larry showed up at Dutch before closing while Kevin, Melissa and I left NoVa late Friday afternoon and missed the gate closing and had to stay at the hotel for the night... Kevin was still badly congested Saturday morning, so he decided to work with the Rescue students from the shore. Larry was in charged of the AOW under the supervision of Kevin. Carl and Jess took care of the OW. Heart and I assisted Larry with the AOW while Happy assisted Carl and Jess. The selected dives for the AOW were Peak Performance Buoyancy, Navigation and Wreck on Saturday and Deep and Search and Recovery on Sunday. For our first dive of the day (PPB), we started by discussing the knowledge review and then adjusting buoyancy at the surface. We went to the platform at 27ft to practice some skills: swimming through a hula-hoop attached with a 4lb weight, holding an egg with a spoon while swimming and going through the hula-hoop, etc. At the end of the dive, we concluded with a safety stop at 15ft under the pier. Our next dive was the navigation adventure. The students corrected their knowledge review and did some land drills before splashing to repeat the drill under water. For those who wonder how long the platform is, I measured it end-to-end (from the floating buoy to floating buoy) and it measures about 150 feet. I used my cave safety reel (140ft) and I was about 10 ft short... I need about 27 kicks to swim the whole length, which means I now glide about 5-6 ft per kick cycle (actually frog kick in my case). I worked some more with Julie on her buoyancy while the first four students did their navigation skill tests with Larry. At the end, Julie came out of the water saying that she had had her best dive ever since she could now control her buoyancy. It made me feel very proud to have helped her figure out her buoyancy. Its so much more fun to dive when you can control your buoyancy... The third training dive of the day was a wreck dive. We started by visiting the boat at 60 ft east of the south platform. The students had to measure it and draw it on their slate with proper orientation, etc. I played with my primary reel while they were taking all their measurements. Once they were done, we went to see the other boat about 100ft south and then started ascending to visit the Cesna on top of the island at 25ft. We concluded our dive with a safety stop above the Cesna and surface swam back to the dock. I managed to splash with JP for a fun dive today. Since Kevin was not diving, he offered JP to try his DSS BC (SS plate, basic Hogaratian harness and Torus 35 wing). JP was thrilled. We started on the platform on the east side of the peninsula to adjust JP’s buoyancy. After a few minutes, we headed to the school bus, did a swim through and then headed for the new Helldiver airplane. The visibility was very bad but we managed to find the plane somehow... After a few minutes circling the plane, we decided to head back. Our return path was to go back to the bus, head in the direction of the island (following the rope to the Cesna above our head), once at the island, go right to find the boat at 70 ft, then the one at 65ft, then follow the rope to the south platform and exit at the south dock of the peninsula after a safety stop. JP has been making a lot of progress this summer and is a very good diver; he has a good grip of his buoyancy, communicates well under water and stays with his buddy, making me less nervous when he goes diving with others. We both used an AL80 cylinder on this dive. I still had 1000+ psi but JP was very low on air (300 psi). Next time we dive together, I’ll make sure he takes my HP100 and I’ll take an AL80. This way we’ll probably reach 500 psi at about the same time. I managed a fifth dive on Saturday accompanying Carl, Elizabeth and Russ on a night dive. We splashed around 20:30 and surface swam to the Sirkovsky where we descended following the line. It was Elizabeth’s and Russ’ first night dive and we tought it would be easier to descend following a line rather than navigate underwater from the dock. Our dive plan was to stay for approximately 15 mins at the chopper, then swim back towards the dock, go left once we reached the quarry wall and swim near the bottom to exit at the south dock. After spending our first 1000psi (15 mins or so), we decided to swim back towards the quarry wall, then turned left. After a few more minutes, we saw the boat at 65ft, swam around for a few minutes. We headed to the deco rock (at 20ft under the south dock) where we did our safety stop. Since we still had 1000+ psi, Carl and I decided to continue to follow the wall towards the aqua park. We found a platform at 30ft we had never visited before. We exited the water around 21:25 after a 55mins dive. After a good night’s sleep, we started the day with a deep dive. JP tagged along for the dive. The plan was to go to the car at 85ft and perform some drills. We swam about 30 yards passed the trolley and did a free descent. Once the students touched down, the silt went up like a nuclear explosion. It was fun to observe. They each did a math problem and a bowline knot with their gloves in 44F freezing water. Once they were all done, we swam towards the trolley at 70ft and ascended without a line and did a 3 mins safety stop. Unfortunately, this was my last dive of the weekend. I packed camp with Kevin so we could head back to Reston to have a family dinner. Melissa was our cook for the weekend. We had BBQ/grilled chicken and sausage with salad Saturday evening, hotdogs and burgers for lunch and the classic eggs and bacon for breakfast! We will be back in 4 weeks, Aug 30-31 for our Labor Day weekend trip. Stop by and say hello if you are around. Cheers, JF.]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2260Sat, 26 Jul 2008 20:38:00 CDTEducationaljfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2245Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:41:00 CDTTravelI just came back from a trip to the Bahamas (Nassau, Stuart Cove’s dive operation) booked through PADI travel. What started as a group of two couples turned out to be four couples of divers: KevinD and Carmen, Jason and Melissa, Carl and Maggie and Nathalie and myself, all from Sterling Silver Scuba in Northern Virginia. We landed as planned at Nassau International on Wed at 12h30pm and headed for our hotel, Orange Hill Inn on the west side of New Providence Island. As soon as we checked-in, a group of three (Jason, Carl and Maggie) went scouting the dive operation and went for a 2-tank boat dives. Kevin, Carmen, Melissa, Nathalie and I decided to take it easy, have lunch and visit the area around the hotel. Wednesday, July 9 PM (Snorkling at Orange Hill beach) We went snorkeling and saw several star fish, juveniles, a baraccuda and sea cucumbers. It’s a sunny day in the mid 90’s and the water temperature is 81F. After showering, we went for a walk on the beach and had local food at the Traveler’s Lodge (20 mins walk on the beach North from the hotel). Thursday, July 10 AM(David Tucker Wall: 41 mins @ 106 ft; Mike’s Reef: 50 mins @ 59 ft) I’m thrilled, this is the first dive of the trip. This is a pretty impressive wall going straight down to 6500 ft deep into the abyss. Since the dive is pretty short, I decided to stay about 10 mins at 100ft or below to consume some of my air... after all, the plan is for a 35 mins dive, so no need to think about saving air... After 20 mins or so, I ascended to 40 ft to return to the boat. At 35 mins, the dive was called and we went for our safety stop.... On the second dive, we visited Mike’s reef. Uneventful dive, nothing special to report. Thursday, July 10 PM(Shark Wall North: 57 mins @ 71ft; Shark Arena (feeding): 50 mins @ 41ft) I managed to get a spot on the shark dive boat in the afternoon with Carl and Maggie. I buddied with Aaron who I met in the morning. The first dive was to get familiar with the shark arena and check buoyancy. The scariest part was to jump in the water when you see all the sharks hanging out near the boat... Once in, I descended to the arena and waited for the others so we could go dive the Shark Arena North Wall. It is a pretty nice wall, not much current and lots of coral and some fish. While everybody was checking their buoyancy, I was looking for shark teeth and found a sea horse... I was pretty happy with my encounter... On the second dive, I added 4 pounds to make sure I was really negatively buoyant... and kneeled at the circle of the arena. To my left were Carl and Maggie, while Aaron was on my right hand side. There were lots of carribean reef sharks (25+) ranging from 6 to 10 feet or so. They were not interested in the divers at all, but enjoyed the red snappers... Once the shark feed was over, the divers approached the center of the arena to look for shark teeth. I found three small ones (1/2 inch) and a fish hook.Thursday, July 10 night dive(Willaurie Wreck: 54 mins @ 51ft) The dive operation doesn’t do regular night dives unless there is a group of 6 or more who ask for it. We were 8; so we managed to schedule one. We went to the Willlaurie wreck. Nice boat that was used in a movie just recently. The max duration was 45 mins. The divemaster did not dive with us. It was my first ocean night dive without a divemaster. Each buddy team went their own way. I stayed with Nathalie and we dove around the wreck until we decided to go farther for some more adventure. We saw several criters: lobsters, large crabs, huge puffer fish and baby ones, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, lots of lion fish and bio luminescent organisms. We managed to get lost and find our way back to the boat as our time was running out. Decent night dive, but I was hoping for more marine life. Friday, July 11 AM(Palace Wall: 47 mins @ 107 ft; HMS Royal James / Willaurie: 52 mins @ 55 ft) Great wall with lots of coral and algea growing on it (reminds me of Honduras, but the reefs in Utila were in worst shape); few fish. The coral reefs are in bad shape. Is it due to the lion fish eating all the small fish? Tourism/Pollution? On the second dive, we revisited the Willaurie that we dove the previous night. It was fun to visit both wrecks since we could not find the Royal James the night before. Also, the lighting, holes in the wreck and skeletons left from the Bollywood movie created interesting underwater scenes. Saw a yellow stingray, the usual lion fish and a couple of spotted moray eels. Friday, July 11 PM(Bahamas Mama/Ray of Hope: 48 mins @ 54 ft ; Shark Feed: 56 mins @ 41 ft) This afternoon, Nathalie joined me for the shark adventure. Jason, Melissa, Carl and Maggie also joined. Kevin decided not to come since it goes against his belief to feed the wildlife and change its natural behavior. On the first dive, we opted not to follow the group on the North Wall and went to visit two nearby wrecks: Bahamas Mama and Ray of Hope. The current was pretty strong but we managed to make it to the wrecks. The Bahamas Mama was of decent size 40-50ft, on its side. Lots of lion fish, school of grunts, and sharks around. The Ray of Hope is a large wreck of about 180ft. As with the Bahamas Mama, there was a lot of marine life around. Nathalie and I decided to turn around earlier than the others due to current and visibility. Once we got back to the arena, I looked for the sea horse I had seen the day before, but it was not at the last location anymore. Nathalie found a couple of small shark teeth (1/2 in) and I found a large one (3/4 in). On the shark feeding dive, we went straight to the arena kneeling and waitied for the feeding. Jason and Melissa were on our left and Carl and Maggie to our right hand side. The feeding was ok, but not as impressive as the day before as there were less sharks and the feeder had some difficulty with a nurse shark who did not want to go away... Nathalie was breathtaken and it was a much more calming experience than anticipated when she realized that the sharks were absolutely not interested in her skinny bones... Ironically, it was my lowest SAC rate ever: 0.3 cuft/min/ATA - the prior day, I had 0.34 cuft/min/ATA; a little more excitment and I was anxious with all those sharks bumping into me. Interlude: We went to eat at the Traveler’s lodge for dinner. We closed the place and left around 10pm. We started walking back toward the hotel when an off duty bus came along. If you want a free bus ride at night, let Nathalie tag along; she knows how to get a ride.... I won’t eleborate.... as the saying goes, "what happens in the Bahamas stays in the Bahamas".Saturday, July 12 AM(Pumpkin Patch: 39 mins @ 70ft; DC3: 50 mins @ 59ft) Last two dives of the trip. For the first one, we went to Pumpkin Patch, a reef where orange coral grows. The current was pretty strong and we were drifting fast, kicking strong to stay near the wall. Nathalie was freaking a little. We almost had to abort midway since she was overexerting due to the strong current and kicking hard to stay near the wall. We decided to head back towards the boat and got closer to the bottom where the current was milder. She finally regained control and we managed to finish the dive after seeing some nice marine life and the orange corals. We also saw a couple of turtles, several pipe fish, lion fish and a spotted moray eel! As a side note, a slate would have been useful to communicate. For our last dive we went to visit the wreck of two DC-3 sunken planes that were used for the movie ’Into the Blue’. This was an easy and nice dive. Aaron buddied with us and we were the first ones to splash. Visited the two wrecks<]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2242Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:09:00 CDTTravelSterling Silver Scuba was at Dutch Springs July 4th weekend for its 3rd seasonal trip. We had a dozen students taking OW, AOW and Divemaster training (myself included). On the staff side, we had Kevin, Carl, Jason, Rob, Jeremy, Annette and JF. Melissa, Nathalie and JP were also part of the logistic team helping with food, tanks, and so on. Despite the occasional rain, we had a great time certifying 8 OW (our youngest was 11yr old) and 5 AOW. We did several deep dives (~90ft) for AOW visiting the far east area of the quarry (where the trolley and 6x6 are), played with reel on wrecks and one night dive on the helicopter Saturday evening. Annette and I completed our DM internships and mapping project. We had BBQ/grill all weekend! Unfortunately, no cheminey/fire this weekend... Well be back in 4 weeks, Aug 2-3. Stop by and say hello if you are around. Cheers, JF.]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2124Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:36:00 CDTTravelWe finally made it! We are in Pensacola, FL, for a weekend of wreck diving on the USS Oriskany, aka The "Mighty O". We are here for fun dives, dive buddies reunion and to visit the area in preparation for a fall trip with Sterling Silver Scuba dive shop. This adventure started a few months ago when Kevin and I got the urge to dive the "Mighty O". Our first attempt to dive the wreck got cancelled due to very bad weather (tornados). This time, Derek, David and Duncan joined us for the adventure. David and Duncan drove from Northern Kentucky, Derek from Savanah, GA, and Kevin and I flew from Washington DC. We all met at the Suburban Extended Stay hotel next door to the MBT Divers dive shop. We are booked on the H2O Below, a Newton 36 dive boat owned and operated by Captain Doug Hammock. The plan is for two days of two-tank boat dives, rec profiles. We’re renting LP95 filled with EAN30 (MOD 140 at PO2 1.6, EAD=120). We’re planning our dives for an average of 35 mins (no-deco). We’re sharing the boat with a group from Ozark Dive, Co. of Poplar Bluff, MO. Day 1 - (0:30 @ 140ft, 0:42 @ 115ft) Our boat ride to the dive site was long due to bad weather. Capt Doug asked us after an hour whether we wanted to turn around - we were about halfway and it usually take 1h15 to reach the site. Everybody wanted to continue, so we went ahead and reached the dive site after a 2h30 boat ride. The storm had left the area and we had a nice sunny day. The viz is about 50-70ft and there is a mild current of about 1knt. On dive 1, we recon the island, looked around for a place to put a time capsule, touched the flight deck @137-140ft. On the descent line there were a lots of barnacles. It is important to wear gloves... On dive 2, we dropped Derek’s time capsule in the smoke stack. Derek’s father served on the Oriskany in 1957 and assembled a time capsule with old pictures for us to leave on the wreck. After droping the time capsule, we did some penetration on the bridge and adjacent corridors, going between levels via flight of stairs. On one of the penetration, we exited on the current side where all the fish were hanging out. We were swept away by the current and had to hold on the wreck... The marine life is starting to grow on the wreck; lots of sea urchins, small sea cucumbers, some large barracudas and school a amber jack. Had nice dinner at the Fish House and ice cream at Sonic! (a new fast food experience for JF...) Day 2 - (0:42 @ 121 ft, 0:40 @ 123ft) The weather is much nicer today, we didn’t go into the storm, but watched it go away. The sea was a little rougher and we were the first boat on site. There was a little bit of rain on our way out and back, but nothing serious like the day before. The surges were 1-2 ft with a mild surface current. There was minimal current on the wreck. 2 great dives. The viz was about 70 ft. The wreck was so large that I could not even see the width of the flight deck. We did some more advanced penetrations on the island. Duncan led a long one going through several rooms exiting from a small opening created to sink the ship. After a nice boat ride back to shore, we had dinner at Carrabba’s and ice cream at Marble Slab! It’s over, we rinsed our gear at the dive shop and trying to get them dry before packing for our return flight.. Let me tell you it doesn’t smell good in our room with 3 full set of gears hanging all over the place. Overall, a great weekend! 4 fantastic dives, we made new friends and are bringing back lots of good memories. We’ll be back in the fall. Watch out for the announcement. Next time we’ll have the entire boat and do some deep tech dives in the hangar. Cheers, JF. Update: some pics from the time capsule dive....]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2078Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:14:00 CDTTraveljfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=2035Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:22:00 CDTTravelSterling Silver Scuba had its first weekend of the summerfest at Dutch Spring during Memorial Day weekend. More than a dozen new OW students were certified. In addition, we had a few AOW and several specialties: wreck, DPVs, Drysuits, etc. The water was in the 60’s up to 30ft and 45-50 below the thermocline. The visibility was about 30ft. On Friday, the SSS staff (KevinD, Jason, Carl, Dan, Larry, Jeremy, Annette, JF, Melissa and Derek) left Sterling as a caravan around 10am. The caravan reached Dutch mid afternoon around 2:30pm after pit stop midway. Most of the staff took a DPV training specialty course with KevinD before the students showed up. On Saturday, we broke the OW student into 3 groups (1 large group of HS students, and two smaller groups with young divers) for their 3 first check out dives with Carl and Dan. Kevin was focusing on the specialty dives. After many hours of training, we had a BBQ for all the staff, students and family. After dinner, a group of braves went for a night dive to the Sikorsky. On Sunday, we completed the OW check out dives and additional specialty dives. Immediately after, Larry and Jeremy guided a group of newly certified divers on a fun dive at the Sikorsky. After lunch another group went to the chopper and the new Corsair wreck. As for myself, I had a great weekend camping, eating and diving with my family and staff. JP, Steph and Nathalie spent the weekend camping with me. I did a couple of fun dives with Nathalie. Stephie had a cold and couldn’t dive. JP did a couple specialties (wreck and DPV). I also had a few dives with Derek in preparation to our Oriskany trip in a few weeks, a couple DMC internships with Kevin during the specialty classes and did a fair amount of logistics as a DMC. Overall, a very busy weekend.... 15 new OWs, 4 AOWs, 1 wreck, 4 Drysuits, 8 DPVs, 1 DM and a bunch of DMC internships... See you all weekend of June 14-15 for our Summerfest Dutch trip 2.]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=1941Mon, 12 May 2008 22:22:00 CDTOtherA few divers from Sterling Silver Scuba (Nathalie, Kevin, Austin, Jason, Kyle and I) went to Millbrook this weekend for some training dives. The water was warmer than a couple weeks ago, 50F at the surface, 45F on the platform at 30ft, 42F at 80ft. Vis was less than 10ft from the surface down to the platform at 30ft. As soon as we reached 40ft, the visibility improved to about 25-30ft, but it was very dark. Without light, it was like a night dive... The layer of algea was so thick (30ft) that it completely blocked the light at 50ft. Nathalie and Austin (KevinD’s son) did very well on their drysuit training dives, demonstrating all the skills necessary to meet PADI standard to get certified. In the meamwhile, Kyle, an AOW student, braved the cold in a thick wetsuit and did a couple adventure dives (deep and nav) with Jason. Congratulations to the new drysuit specialists! You should get a couple promo items from PADI since it’s the specialty of the month...]]>jfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=1871Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:12:00 CDTOtherjfhuardhttp://www.divebuddy.com/blog.aspx?BlogID=1866Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:22:00 CDTTravel