Camping and Diving In Ohio

Our new Hooligan 4

This weekend was the first weekend of the year where we could camp at White Star.  Remember what I said back in this post about diving being a highly social activity?  Well, when you get the opportunity to camp with some great people, it really shows.  We roughed it in our new tent this weekend, a Christmas present from Aaron's grandparents.  While our old tent was nice, it was also HUMONGOUS!  Like, two queen size air mattresses, a bathroom (with the appropiate plumbing) and a fully outfitted kitchen complete with double ovens could fit in there.  Ok, maybe just the two queen sized air mattresses.  Point is, the tent is far too large for just Aaron and I, but it will be nice the day we take our future children camping with us.  The best part about the new tent though - it's the Hooligan 4 by Coleman - is the cool little vestibule thing that is incorporated into the rainfly.  We can throw our gear in there and keep it mostly covered from the elements.  And we can leave dirty shoes outside of the tent, but not have to worry about them getting rained on or all dew-y over night.  

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Wonderful visibility at Whitestar Quarry

On Saturday, we got in three dives - the most we have done in one day in MONTHS.  We were exhausted.  The first dive was unhooking a floating dock so that it could get hauled out of the quarry and then hauling out some bouys to mark a couple underwater objects.  We got two of the three objects bouyed - the third we couldn't find.  The quarry is currently in the process of "turning over," meaning that the water on the surface is warming and the different layers within the quarry are mixing and, thus, churning up the bottom.  This usually creates poor visibilty, which on Saturday was about 10 feet.  Really kind of crappy for the quary (and significantly less than the 100+ foot visibility we were spoiled with this winter).  On the second dive, we hauled out the swim platforms from the beach and hooked them up to the concrete blocks at the bottom.  Diving over in the swim area is kind of cool.  They've put down sand for the swimmers, and it's fairly shallow, so if you squint just right, it almost feels like your in the Caribbean.  Except for the 41 degree water.  The third and final dive of the day was lifting another one of the platforms.  We were aiming for the middle one (we did the left on a couple weeks ago), but couldn't find it (again, the viz was crappy), so we did the right one instead.

Daniel waking up after a cold slumber in his Kia

Platforms raised, bouys out, gear doffed (taken off for those unfamilair with the term), we headed to a local bar/restaurant for some dinner.  After dinner, it was back to the campground for some time by the fire and beverages.  The weather during the day was nice - windy, but sunny and mid-50s - but we were hoping that at least the wind would die down once the sun set.  It did not.  Add in a dropping temperature and it made for one cold night next to the fire.  But, good people and good conversation totally made up for the bone-chilling wind cutting through the 4 layers I had on, most of which I also slept in.  Between the 50 degree sleeping bags, extra fleece blankets, sweatpants, Under Armor, hat and hoodie, I was actually quite toasty.  I did come to one conclusion this weekend though: winter camping is not for me.

Dave and Tracy after completing placements

Sunday saw two more dives.  This time, they were fun dives.  Aaron and I have aquired new dive computers - the Shearwater Petrel - and we were playing around with them.  They are actually technical diving computers, capable of doing decompression profiles, but they do have a recreational mode, which we use.  Until we are more used to them, we are still diving our Suunto Cobra's as back ups (and pressure gauges since the Petrel isn't air integrated yet).  Aaron decided that on his first dive, he wanted to try to get his Petrel into decompression, just to see how it would react.  He was diving Nitrox (33% I believe), and programed that into his Cobra but set his Petrel to air.  And then we went and sat in the crusher pit at 78 feet.  He was 6 minutes away from his no-decompression limit (NDL) when our third dive buddy signaled that he was at half tank.  So, following good gas management practices, we headed back.  Alas, we are still unsure about how the Petrel will react when it reaches its NDL.  I suppose we will have to go diving another weekend to figure that one out.

The final dive of the day was another fun one in the crusher pit.  A friend of ours (not the same one as from the first dive on Sunday) had bought a couple of Torrent pulses and we played with those.  Essentially, they are a "gun" that shoots rings of air underwater.  They are "supposed" to be used to signal people when you're diving; however, I will leave it up to you to decide what they were actually being used for (keep in mind two boys, I mean guys, were using these).  Nevertheless, they were fun to play with.

Original Tony Packo's Restaurant

On our way home, we stopped by the famous Tony Packo's in Toledo for dinner.  I went for the classic: one hot dog with a bowl of chili and a side of their Paprikash.  It was tasty and now I want to try all the menu items!  

After 5 dives this weekend, we were both exhausted.  It ended up being somewhere around 3 hours or so underwater cumulative.  Once we got home, we unloaded the truck and crashed.  Hard.  It was another one of those weekends where I need another weekend to recover.  We made one quick stop at the National Museum of the Great Lakes which recently opened on Front street in Toledo.  We will be visiting the museum and posting much more information in the future, but for now you will need to settle for these pictures from the outside.

Dinner at Tony Packo's

Scout trying to catch something in the water

Trying to stay warm after a cold night

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First Open Water Dives of 2014

Something magical has happened this week.  Something we here in Michigan, nay, the entire northern half of the United States, have waited months for.  I think...it's possible...that spring is finally here!  However, Mother Nature sure did make us work for it!  Before the sun started shining and the temperature warmed up, it snowed.  Again.  No accumulation.  But still, it snowed.  In April.  In Michigan.  Alas, that is the beauty of Michigan weather for you.

Last weekend, the quarry looked like this.  Not enough ice to ice dive (which was totally fine by me - I've had enough ice diving for a while), but too much ice for open water diving:

WSQ on 3/29/14 Photo Courtesy of Rich Synowiec

But this weekend, the quarry looked like this.  Glorious, beautiful, open water!

WSQ on 4/5/14

Granted, the water level is up.  Way up, which isn't really an issue.

This weekend was the first weekend of open water diving for 2014.  I forgot what it was like to dive WITHOUT a line tied around your waist, without someone on the other end almost constantly tugging on you.  My buoyancy this weekend...nearly spot on.  It was glorious.  Truly amazing.  And we had pretty good weather to boot!  A little chilly (mid-40s), and windy, but it was sunny.  If you could manage to find a spot out of the wind, and squinted your eyes, you could almost trick yourself into thinking it was summer.  Almost.

The dive this weekend had a mission: raise a platform.  White Star Quarry is used extensively for training and open water check-out dives (the first dives that a new diver will do outside of a pool and determine if they become certified or not).  As such, platforms are kind of essential.  The quarry bottom is silty and too much agitation anywhere near the bottom will kick it up and the silt won't settle out for days.  This is where platforms come in - they provide a good place for classes to sit and perform essential skills - mask clears, regulator retrievals, out of air drills - without stirring up the bottom.  Well, stirring it up too much.  In the winter, they sit on the bottom of the quarry.  In the spring/summer/early fall, they are suspended from the surface by four large buoys.  So, this weekend, we had to get one of the platforms up off the bottom and attached to the buoys on the surface.  This involves a semi-complicated maneuver of lifting one side with liftbags (essentially, bags filled with air), attaching that side to the buoys and then repeating the process on the other side.

Since the water is still cold (my computer read 41 degrees), we only did one dive.  But that one dive was awesome and totally worth the hour and 15 minute drive down.  Aside from the diving, we got to hang out with some great friends and spend sometime outside, which really, is also a crucial part of diving.