alstead

Arco Point, North Alstead, dive 33

June 18, 2009

Dive: 33
Season Dive: 1
Date: 6/13/09
Site: Arco Point, North Alstead
Avg/Max Depth: 16/24
Temp: 59
TBT/CBT: 0:55/25:38
Buddies: Curtis & Kristen (& Nick, Mike & Adam)

The long awaited first dive of the season finally came last weekend!! In attendance were Nick, Curtis, Blog Reader Kristen, Mike, Adam and myself. Our desired dive location was Arco Point located in North Alstead. Dumbheadedness ensued the moment we entered the pits. Wrong turns, backward hookups, forgotten hookups, forgotten weights, gloves stuck to heads. Fortunately non of these errors were executed by me. For my first dive all went quite smoothly.

Our group got divided in half almost immediately. Kristen tagged along with Curtis and since (for the record) Kristen and I were officially buddies I tagged along with her. Besides, I like being in Curtis’s group, his frog swim is very calming to follow.

It was refreshing to be back in the water. We stayed around 20′ for the majority of the dive and the temp stayed at about 59 degrees, not too chilly. We made friends with a rock bass, but other than that there weren’t too many fishes spotted. Except for the Mega Eelpout which Curtis somehow commanded to attack me. I narrowly escaped.

Because of the landscape we bobbed from 20′ to 10′ and back a few times. That always seems to take a toll on one of my ears. For the return trip I tried to stay above 15′ which wasn’t a problem, especially when we neared our exit and the depth decreased to one foot. I wanted to stand up, but since I was virtually laying on my stomach from swimming it was much too late to get any type of footing. Curtis was smart enough to go around the rocky sandbaresque obstruction. Nick asked why us girls were surface swimming, probably hoping that we ran out of air before he did for once (psssht, yeah right, I finished with 1800psi).

Good dive buddies, good dive.

Fun Dive #1

October 21, 2007

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 52Â°, whereas my previous dives have been around 62Â°. 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!!

Check Out Dives 1 & 2

October 8, 2007

Dives 1 and 2

(yes, I am totally ripping off Curtis’s dive recording formatting)

Kristen, Nick and I decided to do our first 2 open water checkout dives on Sunday after we finished the classroom and confined water dive portions of the PADI Open Water Diver Course curriculum. Everyone except Mullet Chuck and the 10 year old decided to go along. Mark accompanied us again as well. We exchanged our thin wetsuits for some thicker farmer john wetsuits, hoods and gloves.

We arrived at the dive site, West Alstead, shortly after 4 pm. Kristen traded in her 10 year old partner for Nate, who was now partnerless as well. Suiting up took a bit longer than normal, but we were soon underway. Well, most of us were underway, I for one was aboveway. Due to a minor miscommunication with Nick I hit the water with a mere 12 lbs instead of the 26 lbs I should have had. I ended up being able to sink and stay sunk with 24 lbs. In the interrum, Nick and I partner swapped with Kristen and Nate. Sounds dirty, but it really wasn’t. Kristen and I took a leasurely pace from there out.

For our first dive we swam around a bit to get a feel for our new environment and get a grasp on controlling our buoyancy. For the second dive we did some underwater skills. We started out on a platform about 15-20′ below the surface and were quickly greeted by a tiny sunfish who swam into the middle of our circle to hang out and watch us. During the mask removal I ran into a little glitch. I had some difficulties getting the mask over the hood, then getting the mask under the lip of the hood with my bulky gloves. After what felt like an eternity I got my mask on long enough to clear it for a few seconds. Mark signalled for me to remove a glove. Now why didn’t I think of that sooner? After doing that I quickly got my mask back on. Eventually we ended up at the surface for some more skills, then took a leisurely underwater trip back to the shore line. The majority of us followed suit after Dan and stayed in the 30ish foot range. Of course Nick, being the pioneer that he is, dipped down to 40 feet, got cold and quickly ascended some lightheadedness from his 10′ trip.

After the dives we wrapped everything up and piled in the MSD van right before the sun set and the rain hit. We headed back to the classroom to fill out our first two entries in the dive log book. We left for Cloud after that, dropping Kristen off and having a quick chat with Curtis. We arrived home around 11 pm.

It was a long weekend and I am thoroughly exhausted!! I’ll have to rest up so I can be back on par for our final two dives this Tuesday.

…to be continued