Back in the water

I was back in the water last Sunday after a long break.  I made a scooter run at Alki with friends.  It was a typical training dive for us; what we do in between the ‘big’ dives.  
We traveled out about 3000 feet with the average depth a bit more than 100ft and a total run time of about an hour (with deco). Pretty short dive.  Along the way we made deco bottle drops for ourselves and the team behind us that was planning to push quite a bit further.  We also made a stage drop for them at the 3000 mark before heading home.    
On the way back we ran an ‘out of air’ drill – which involves donating your breathing gas to your buddy, switching to your back-up, stowing your scooter and then getting into a tow position so the two divers can situate themselves as one long diver inline behind one scooter.  We also ran some valve drills while in the shallows just before deco.  
All in all a good refresher dive.

Alki Plains Line Project

The last month and a half I’ve been diving with the aplponline.org group making extended range dives on DPV’s (diver propulsion vehicles), a.k.a. ‘scooters’. 
Starting at Seacrest Cove 2 (off Alki) we have more than 7000ft of cave line run at an average depth of 110ft.  The round trip is nearly 3miles.  Pretty incredible dive to make/distance to cover at that depth.  

The goal has been to get proficient at laying cave/wreck line while running scooters, repairing & working with loose line (dealing with entanglement hazards, etc), improving communication and line protocol and active training for bigger/deeper dives.

The last dive I made out there we had a great encounter with two harbor seals.  They were being so friendly and curious… checking us out and brushing up against the scooters – it honestly looked like they thought the scooters were other seals.  After disappearing for awhile, one seal came up behind me and nipped one of my fins – which gave me an adrenaline jolt based on the number of shark encounters we experience in this area as well.   

It’s been fun; but I am anxious to get back out in the lake to see and possibly find more historical wrecks.  More on those efforts to come…