Dive: 21
Season Dive: 6
Date: 8/17/08
Site: PADI #79, Mahnomen II & III
Max Depth: 48 feet
TBT: 73 minutes
CBT: 16 hours, 41 minutes

On Sunday morning Curtis and I did a one tank dive. Nick and Kristen preferred to stay at the cabin and relax. We were on the road around 7:15. Still early, but late enough that the sun wasn’t too blinding through the filmy Explorer windshield.

We stopped to investigate a couple of dive sites before deciding on PADI #79 again. One of the sites had a treacherous entrance point, the other was mostly in the shade. Since we dove this site twice the previous weekend, we decided to dive the shaded half in order to see something new.

Shortly after descending we came upon a wall. It was probably the most wall like wall I’ve seen in my short 10 months of diving. At almost 50 feet it was quite chilly down right cold (although not as cold as last October) and in the shade visibility wasn’t all that good. Sure there were trees, but fishes don’t hang out in the cold dark water so there wasn’t anything too interesting to look at down there.

As we made our way up to warmer tempuratures we were greeted by many curious fishes (I refer to everything as fishes because unless it’s a northern or a rock bass I have no idea what kind of fishes they are) in a brush filled area. We deflated and sat on the sand trying to snap good pictures. I like it when the fishes come up all close and peek in my mask. Curtis says they do that to make us go cross eyed. I think they like it. Little devils.

We stayed around 15′ on the swim back. We were in the midst of a mad dash at the end for a well needed pit stop when we came across another platform. A couple shrugged shoulders and we headed over to practice air rings. I had to pee too bad to concentrate and couldn’t be bothered with them after a couple attempts. I also discovered I prefer to blow them on my knees rather than lying on my back (sounds dirty).

It was a really fun dive. I was shocked to find out the dive was 73 minutes. It didn’t even feel like half as long as the dive the day before. Probably because I wasn’t plagued with problems. Or maybe it was the place. I’m liking this PADI #79 business.

Dive: 19
Season Dive: 4
Site: PADI #79, Mahnomen II & III
Max Depth: 65 feet
TBT: 51 minutes
Grand Total: 14 hours, 09 minutes

My goal for the surface interval was to leave my suit half on because I didn’t want to deal with getting my legs back in it while it was wet. Problem was I had to use the bathroom so bad that I had to take it off. While we were having our surface interval a few car loads of divers arrived. We decided it was probably a good time to head back in for dive #2. My suit went on surprisingly easy. Not as good as when it was dry, but much better than the week before. I dropped my weight down to 20 pounds. Curtis dropped 10 pounds (pipe dream). We started our second dive well before the other group of divers was ready… even with Curtis discovering he had to get out and get more weight.

There definitely wasn’t as much visual stimulation this time around. There were a few giant northerns. One gave Curtis quite a shock and he had to take out his underwater slate to express his feelings. We went much deeper on this dive, 65 feet to be exact. It was much colder than it was at 45 feet and my entire body knew it. It was also the deepest I had dove in non tropical waters. I held the regulator to my mouth a couple times because I was afraid my lips would go numb and it would fall out. I wasn’t too concerned about free flowing because it wasn’t that cold. I was, however, afraid that something with a giant set of jaws would come out of the abyss and swallow me whole. Must have been from watching Shark Week on the Discovery channel for the last 5 days. I kept telling myself that there was no way for a bull shark to get into the pits and that I was safe. But them my mind wondered to the Loch Ness Monster. “What if there was some similar monster here? That’s not logical or there would be rumors. Someone else would have had to have seen it already, right? Maybe no one has lived to tell about it…” Gotta love the fear of the unknown. Too bad the cold water couldn’t numb my ridiculous thoughts.

We weren’t down there very long before heading back up to shallower water. Since Curtis had a smaller tank we made our way back after coming up from the depths. We passed by the platform as the other group of divers was congregated there and opted to blow bubble rings in the sand instead. I had a few good ones. Ok fine, they were mediocre at best. We swam back in through the minnow farm where I got to be ALL POWERFUL again. As we got out we saw a couple speedy boats fly by. It made the surface pretty choppy and I imaged the visibility becoming horrible as the red bottom was being churned up. Talk about good timing for Curtis and me. Not so much the other divers. That’s what you get when you don’t get up at o’dark thirty!!

ALL POWERFUL:

Random fish:

Dive: 18
Season Dive: 3
Site: PADI #79, Mahnomen II & III
Max Depth: 47 feet
TBT: 66 minutes
Grand Total: 13 hours, 18 minutes

Curtis and I had the pleasure of being dive buddies on Sat Aug 9th. I headed up to the cklahr cabin alone on Friday night, dive gear in tow. Nick stayed home to attend Bolin’s baseball game and BRKristen couldn’t be bothered with renting an exposure suit… although I think second thoughts were setting in when we were all up at o’dark thirty.

I slept horribly from the excitement of knowing I was diving in the morning, but was wide eyed and bushy tailed at 6:30 when the alarm went off. We had some breakfast and hit the road at 7am. It was my first time driving to the pits. We decided to go to PADI #79 located at Mahnomen II & III. We were the only ones there so it was pretty quiet except for a sheep bah-ing in the distance. I assembled my equipment and got my suit on without a hitch. Much different than the week before. Curtis helped me with my last couple inches of zipper and lifted the BCD on my back. I managed to get my own weight pouches in. I decide to cut back to 22 pounds to see how that felt.

It was a fish filled dive. We were greeted with a bunch of small mouth bass. When we crossed over the training platform we practiced some air bubbles. Not too bad for my first time, but not good by any means. It was pretty much same diving, different day. Lots of trees, good visibility, fishies, etc. We ended up going to 45 feet and it was pretty chilly. I could feel the cold on my exposed face. Burr!! The cold surrounded me, but it wasn’t seeping into my semi-dry suit. It was quite comfortable for being 50 degrees. We ascended to the mid 30s. I was just thinking how I was feeling pretty warm when Curtis gave me the cold signal and we went up another 10 feet. The water felt really warm up there, but better than being really cold.

We took the rest of the dive at a leisurely pace in shallower water. Curtis searched under rocks for crayfish and used them to lure the bass closer. The sunnies were friendly, coming right up and peeking into my mask. I tried to snatch some up like Nick did but that didn’t work so well. I kept envisioning my hand moving so much faster than it actually would.

On our way back we stopped at the platform again for more air rings. Close but no cigar for me. Curtis had quite a few good ones as usual. The sun was hitting the shallow water just right, and on our swim in I realized we were surrounded by millions (yes, millions) of minnows. I kept making quick jerky movements of my hands and they would turn on a dime in synchronization, their little bodies reflecting the sun like shiny coins. It made me feel like I was ALL POWERFUL, so I kept doing it in what felt like a band conducting type manner. Soon we were back where we entered and started our surface interval.

More air rings by Curtis:

Random trees: