Tom Falardeau
July 8th, 2007, 09:18 PM
Regular as clockwork, openwater checkouts at Burton's happen once a month during the season, year after year.... they flow like the rivers of time, engulfing our lives like... um... like
Okay. Sorry, I was getting a little carried away by my fine spirits (from Scotland via the LCBO), while Sweet's "Love is Like Oxygen" is playing on You Tube, the repository of everything old and new, mainly stuff you want to forget like the glam rock and disco of my nerdy youth. But I digress. Hang on a moment while I put on some Kiss.
So this fine summer weekend was another round of turning tapoles into divers. Speaking of summer, has anyone seen it? Seems to have gone AWOL. Probably went to see Al Gore, scared of all the talk about global warming.
But this isn't about the tadpoles - they were just an excuse for me to go out on the river and pretend to be a real diver, instead of a cave rat. Of course, with my better (and better looking) half now an instructor, I get the fun of running shore operations as Divemaster on the first day of checkouts - the deal being I get to dive on day 2. On day 1, yesterday, to keep me company, I brought our two dogs with me. Together they make about the weight and size of half a house cat, and the noise of a pack of teenagers at the mall. But I digress again. Must be my KRAFT disease (kan't remember a f***ing thing).
So I got to dive on day 2, being today, and since I don't actually swim in the St Lawrence anymore, I brought my trusty X-Scooter along. Fellow cave rat and scooter person JimC was there as well. I did do my divemasterly duties in sofar as putting in the dive float and downline, but then, Jim and I decided to have some fun. Fun at the Connie means going upstream, through the gap between the river and the Gallup canal and up Lock 28 to the wreck of the Wee Hawk. Most people do this dive the other way around, since it's a pretty neat drift. We figured what the heck... let's be lazy and scooter, right?
The visibility was about as much as we get in Ottawa River caves on this fine, rainy and grey day, so we were diving as we do the caves: solo, but on the same trajectory. Yes, we were in sidemount and therefore perfectly safe and redundant (no comments from the peanut gallery, please).
It all went well until we reached the gap between the river and the canal. It was all my scooter could do, at maximum speed, to keep me stationary against the ripping flow. Hmmm..... nice - interesting, but examining that same patch of weeds got old fast. Jim, from the little I glimpsed of him, was also doing the stationary high-speed dance. We finally found ourselves on one edge of the gap and actually hauled ourselves into the canal with one hand, while the other still ran the scooter at full blast.
It got better on the other side. Somewhat. The encouraging part was that I made headway against the flow - er, current. Jim too, although by then, we were out of sight of each other. Slowly, but steadily, my trusty scooter pulled me up the canal and into Lock 28. The main feature of said canal, in my limited field of visibility, were the fish - huge bass and carp. No wonder there were so many people fishing even on a crappy day like today. It just made life a little more interesting, dodging the shiny lures (must.... not..... bite). It took me 25 minutes from leaving the Connie until I literally bumped into the wreck of the Wee Hawk. The distance wasn't all that great, but fighting the current.........
The first thing that greeted me was the wreck itself... the second was a huge cloud of silt. Hey! Jim got here before me :D
I kid (no I don't). While I examined the wreck on the outside, Jim gave into his baser instincts and penetrated it. Since I don't like sloppy seconds on a silty wreck, I let him have his fun. My gas was getting lower anyhow: I'd done 2 cave dives on that set of cylinders without a refill, and now the run up Lock 28.
The current I fought (well, okay... my scooter fought) against for so long was now my bestest buddy on the return trip. All I had to do was dodge the shiny lures - nice shiny (slap!). I literally flew down the Lock into the canal.... and hit an eddy. Okay... look at the compass and make sure I have the right bearing, hit the trigger and off we go..... Oops, suddenly the current is back and pulling me towards the gap to the river. Now I know what it feels like to be flushed down the can - sucked into the tube - spat out like a watermelon seed... Ahem... you get the picture.
I was back in the river and right in another eddy, just yards downstream of the gap. Check the compass, turn right at the dead carp and hit the trigger until I'm out of the eddy and back to doing a lazy drift. At the second dead carp, I simply turned left (kids, this is what we call natural navigation and food collection) and emerged at the entry point, to the amazed and worshipful gaze of our students. Okay, they were laughing at me, but it was in a nice way. Jim was moments behind me, which is good - one more time where I don't have to explain to his wife how I misplaced him.
All in all, that run up to the Wee Hawk was more fun than any dive at that site has any right to be. Mind you, a bit of sunshine wouldn't have hurt (hey David Suzuki - global warm me this, eh). The hardest part of the whole thing was working up the guts to unzip the drysuit after the dive, during a pouring rain shower.
Ah well.... if you can't dive sexy caves, screaming up and down the shoreline behind a scooter is the next best thing.
I guess the students did okay, since Marie brought them back to shore after their qualifying dive, and didn't have to spend 15 minutes debriefing them on the dive in excrutiating detail.
Not quite as interesting as last week's cave dive report - Jim decided he wouldn't do any death-defying stunts, but a nice dive nonetheless.
Okay. Sorry, I was getting a little carried away by my fine spirits (from Scotland via the LCBO), while Sweet's "Love is Like Oxygen" is playing on You Tube, the repository of everything old and new, mainly stuff you want to forget like the glam rock and disco of my nerdy youth. But I digress. Hang on a moment while I put on some Kiss.
So this fine summer weekend was another round of turning tapoles into divers. Speaking of summer, has anyone seen it? Seems to have gone AWOL. Probably went to see Al Gore, scared of all the talk about global warming.
But this isn't about the tadpoles - they were just an excuse for me to go out on the river and pretend to be a real diver, instead of a cave rat. Of course, with my better (and better looking) half now an instructor, I get the fun of running shore operations as Divemaster on the first day of checkouts - the deal being I get to dive on day 2. On day 1, yesterday, to keep me company, I brought our two dogs with me. Together they make about the weight and size of half a house cat, and the noise of a pack of teenagers at the mall. But I digress again. Must be my KRAFT disease (kan't remember a f***ing thing).
So I got to dive on day 2, being today, and since I don't actually swim in the St Lawrence anymore, I brought my trusty X-Scooter along. Fellow cave rat and scooter person JimC was there as well. I did do my divemasterly duties in sofar as putting in the dive float and downline, but then, Jim and I decided to have some fun. Fun at the Connie means going upstream, through the gap between the river and the Gallup canal and up Lock 28 to the wreck of the Wee Hawk. Most people do this dive the other way around, since it's a pretty neat drift. We figured what the heck... let's be lazy and scooter, right?
The visibility was about as much as we get in Ottawa River caves on this fine, rainy and grey day, so we were diving as we do the caves: solo, but on the same trajectory. Yes, we were in sidemount and therefore perfectly safe and redundant (no comments from the peanut gallery, please).
It all went well until we reached the gap between the river and the canal. It was all my scooter could do, at maximum speed, to keep me stationary against the ripping flow. Hmmm..... nice - interesting, but examining that same patch of weeds got old fast. Jim, from the little I glimpsed of him, was also doing the stationary high-speed dance. We finally found ourselves on one edge of the gap and actually hauled ourselves into the canal with one hand, while the other still ran the scooter at full blast.
It got better on the other side. Somewhat. The encouraging part was that I made headway against the flow - er, current. Jim too, although by then, we were out of sight of each other. Slowly, but steadily, my trusty scooter pulled me up the canal and into Lock 28. The main feature of said canal, in my limited field of visibility, were the fish - huge bass and carp. No wonder there were so many people fishing even on a crappy day like today. It just made life a little more interesting, dodging the shiny lures (must.... not..... bite). It took me 25 minutes from leaving the Connie until I literally bumped into the wreck of the Wee Hawk. The distance wasn't all that great, but fighting the current.........
The first thing that greeted me was the wreck itself... the second was a huge cloud of silt. Hey! Jim got here before me :D
I kid (no I don't). While I examined the wreck on the outside, Jim gave into his baser instincts and penetrated it. Since I don't like sloppy seconds on a silty wreck, I let him have his fun. My gas was getting lower anyhow: I'd done 2 cave dives on that set of cylinders without a refill, and now the run up Lock 28.
The current I fought (well, okay... my scooter fought) against for so long was now my bestest buddy on the return trip. All I had to do was dodge the shiny lures - nice shiny (slap!). I literally flew down the Lock into the canal.... and hit an eddy. Okay... look at the compass and make sure I have the right bearing, hit the trigger and off we go..... Oops, suddenly the current is back and pulling me towards the gap to the river. Now I know what it feels like to be flushed down the can - sucked into the tube - spat out like a watermelon seed... Ahem... you get the picture.
I was back in the river and right in another eddy, just yards downstream of the gap. Check the compass, turn right at the dead carp and hit the trigger until I'm out of the eddy and back to doing a lazy drift. At the second dead carp, I simply turned left (kids, this is what we call natural navigation and food collection) and emerged at the entry point, to the amazed and worshipful gaze of our students. Okay, they were laughing at me, but it was in a nice way. Jim was moments behind me, which is good - one more time where I don't have to explain to his wife how I misplaced him.
All in all, that run up to the Wee Hawk was more fun than any dive at that site has any right to be. Mind you, a bit of sunshine wouldn't have hurt (hey David Suzuki - global warm me this, eh). The hardest part of the whole thing was working up the guts to unzip the drysuit after the dive, during a pouring rain shower.
Ah well.... if you can't dive sexy caves, screaming up and down the shoreline behind a scooter is the next best thing.
I guess the students did okay, since Marie brought them back to shore after their qualifying dive, and didn't have to spend 15 minutes debriefing them on the dive in excrutiating detail.
Not quite as interesting as last week's cave dive report - Jim decided he wouldn't do any death-defying stunts, but a nice dive nonetheless.