3-10-07:

DUDE!

REALLY important note to self: When diving a dry suit, the bib of the hood you wear goes ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE SEAL AGAINST YOUR NECK.

*slaps hand to forehead*

No wonder I was so cold. I mean, I knew it wasn't going to be warm, warm but I just kept finning along but had a lot of trouble with my buoyancy. Which I chalked up to the fact that it was my first quarry dive, my first dive in colder water, my first dive in the TLS-SE drysuit (which fit me perfectly and would have been excellent if not for my major bone headed mistake in leaving the bib under the neck seal, letting in the entire quarry inside the DRYsuit.

I only used 16 lb. of weight. And no weight on my ankles. No problem gettng down and staying down.

I did go the deepest I'd been yet: 61 feet. Almost three times what I've ever been before. I had about 10 seconds of trepidation when we reached the wall and Dave looked back and me and motioned that we were going over...there was a "oh crap. here it is." kind of thought and then I refocused, looked at Dave and figured, okay. Let's go. And I did. I didn't drop like a rock to the bottom of the thing so that's good.

To be honest, with the cold, my memory isn't exactly clear on everything. I did remember to keep checking my air consumption and watching Dave for signals and we eventually went back up, slowly, and then we were back in 30ffw and then 20ffw and then we were done.

Getting out was tricky. I had on thicker gloves (5m I think) and I was sluggish and slow from being cold, so I just sort of took my time, found a rock near the dock and sat down to remove my fins. And made my way back up the hill to the table. That's really when I figured out just how slow my brain was functioning because I was standing there, looking at the picnic table, trying to figure out what to take off first. I didn't even register "bc and tank" right away. Dave figured out the problem pretty quick though and directed me to the side where I took off the BC and got unzipped and that's when I felt all that water drop down into my boots.

I figured it out pretty fast: my buoyancy was messed up, I had been very cold, memory fuzzy after about 15 minutes being under: NO WONDER.

So that's my first rock quarry dive.

Let's hope today goes much drier. :)

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