[m2b]

Talk about not understanding what I have been experiencing/seeing, err not seeing. Try this on for some fun.

I'm mostly into diving for the fun/uniqueness of it. I'm not in it for competition or spearfishing. I don't spend any time at the bottom, no desire to. I dive down and come straight back up. One thing I have found, with warmer water, that I like is to play dead at the surface. Having no weight on makes it possible to be super bouyant and just to completely relax. The only other place you could truly totally relax is in outer space. Now I understand why NASA trains in oversized swimming pools.

I have been staying in shallow water since it's close to shore and I swim out to where I dive. Since I don't have to best of cold water gear the colder water up in these parts makes it a smart thing to find dive spots that are close to shore. I still like to find 30-50 foot water and there are several spots around that I know of that I can find that with only a 1-200 yard swim from shore.

Goshen Ocean(local nickname) is a small man-made lake used for flood control. Pretty much stream fed from nearby Mount Sunapee. At least 40 feet deep, maybe deeper but haven't had any real decent chance to really fin around the lake and drop the dive line down to check depth, and I haven't seen any depth charts online for the lake. It's a smaller lake with a walking trail that goes all the way around the lake. Its 3 miles long. Like I said, a small lake. Drive time is about 10 minutes from my house. Gas powered boats are prohibited. I can be in 28-40 foot water within 100-150 yards of shore.

Lake Sunapee, spring fed lake, 100-140 feet deep, million dollar homes all around the lake and one of the two dive shops that are within 30 minutes of my house. Does see some stream runoff, I believe, from Mount Sunapee but it is mostly spring fed. Over 4000 acres in size. Of the 4 public access sites on the lake only one is really decent for diving, all the other accesses doesn't drop off until you are quite a nice swim off shore. The decent dive spot is about 10 minutes from my house and I can be in 35 foot deep water within 150-200 yards of shore. The state park beach is 3 minutes from my house but it doesn't drop off fast at all, you have to be way out in the meat of boat traffic before you see anything over 20 feet.

After remembering about Goshen Ocean a couple of weeks ago I started diving there and stopped diving anyplace else, simply no boats and I like it that way. Yes, I dive solo as there is no one else that freedives in the area. I have asked at both of the dive shops in the area. The only freedivers are the guys that spearfish at the ocean that lives on the other side of the state. I don't have the newest of car, the best of cold water gear or the money so I dive locally with the equipment I have recycled from whitewater kayaking.

The first day or so of diving at Goshen Ocean, normally two dives per day, thanks to cold water, maybe three dives if I'm lucky, I was able to get down to 28 feet without any trouble. I would get back up to the surface and wouldn't even think about starting to breath, no reason for it. I did notice something though. When you get down to 22-23 feet the visibilty "drops" and the water turns colder. Over the past couple of weeks it would be 65-70 on the surface and 55-60 at 28 feet. It almost seems like someone turns the lights out when you get into the 22-23 foot range.

After the first day or so I started having trouble making it to the bottom. It wasn't breath hold problems but I had been thinking that it was the bad visibilty. The mind just wouldn't let me go all the way down. It would make me chicken out and head back for the surface. I come to see yesterday that I do need to do some adjusting to the water world as I'm not used to the concept of the underwater world yet. I watch as I bumped into a rock yesterday at the bottom of Sunapee. I "freaked" and shot straight up for the surface. No reason for my reaction but I'm just not use to the environment. I totally understand that. It only comes with experience.

Last Sunday on the first dive at Goshen Ocean I only made it to around 22-24 feet and then bailed. On dive two I made it down into the "black zone" and the mind kicked in and I bailed. I grabbed the dive line and headed up to the surface with it. I was essentially planning on using it to tell me how far down I actually made it, kinda like grabbing a tag off the line in a competition, except I take the whole line up with me. As I got about 2/3-3/4 of the way to the surface I noticed out of the bottom of the goggles that there wasn't hardly any of the line beneath my hand. I was shocked, to say the least. Turns out I was only two feet from the bottom and I still couldn't see the bottom. The temperature on the surface that day was 65 and it was 55 down at 28 feet.

The thoughts of this crazy situation kept coming back to the same concept, the dark water was forcing me to bail out of going to the bottom and nothing else. I thought about it a little on Monday and Tuesday. I decided it was time for a switch of dive locations. Goshen Ocean may not have the best visibility but it's still better than some spot I have been in before. Lake Sunapee is known for having real nice visibility, not ocean quality by any standards but still one of the best, non-ocean, in northern New England. I learnt that talking with the local dive shop owner. The owner had said the at 90 feet you still have 10-12 foot visibility but at 100 feet you are lucky to have 2-3 foot visibility. It seemed like it would be a good choice to answer the "long" standing question of what was going on.

Since the state website that has many of the lake/pond depth charts doesn't list Lake Sunapee or Goshen Ocean, I did some more searching online to try to find which of the 4 public access spots on Lake Sunapee would get me into 30-40 foot water the closest to shore. I saw one of the town beaches drops off quite quickly, almost but not quite as quick as Goshen Ocean.

I work in landscaping and lawn mowing. A lot of the lawns we take care of are around several of the different lakes/ponds in the area. Several properties are lake front on Lake Sunapee. I have noticed that a lot of boats have been taken off the lake for the summer. With that knowledge and the warm temps we had this past week I decided to spend a midweek evening on the lake and see if I couldn't solve the mystery. Little did I know what was going to happen as a result. One question left unanswered, a thousand more questions asked, DRATS!!!!!!!!!

After getting off work late Wednesday I waited until Thursday after work to heas out to the town beach. I knew I only had 30 minutes top to be in the water due to other plans for the rest of the evening. I get in the 66 degree(quite important)water and fin out and drop the dive line down. I swim a little further until I'm once again in 28 foot deep water. I breathe up and dive down. I have no trouble making the bottom??? The "black zone" wasn't there like I have always noticed on Goshen Ocean but the visibility still seemed to be about the same, at least until you get a couple feet from the bottom and then everything opens up and you have 10-12 foot visibility in any direction, still seems strange???

I surface and breathe up and take the second dive. Once again the same thing, no trouble making the bottom. This time I grab the dive line and take it up with me. I quickly check the water temp and see that its only 63 degrees at 28 feet. Quite a big difference from the 55 degrees that I have been seeing otherwise at Goshen Ocean???????????

Friday I head back out for a couple of sunset dives at the beach. As I put the fins and other equipment on I have the dive line in the water at the shore checking the surface water temp. The past few days have been unseasonably warm, in the upper 70s to low 80s. I saw the surface temperature had risen 4 degrees, to 70 degrees, in the past 24 hours????????

I fin out and drop the line where I figure is probably 28 feet and find that I'm actually in 35 foot water. I stay there and start the breathe up. I dive down and once again have no trouble making the bottom????? I do have a little trouble, for the second night, equalizing, but I manage to correct that. It has started to seem like putting my hand on my nose makes me think about equalizing so I do it normally but with the new nose clips I don't have the hand on my nose so I don't think about equalizing until pressure builds. I do notice a bit of a temperature change that I hadn't noticed the day before and I also noticed it was a bit darker toward the bottom than the day before but I still made the bottom.

I breathe up and go for the second dive pretty much right at sunset. Once again I make it to the bottom. After "stumbling, err fumbling" around at the bottom for a second or so I head back up with the dive line. Upon reaching the surface I check the temp and it was showing 59 degrees, questionably. I tend to believe what it was showing.

The reason I have been grabbing the dive line is to get as quick a check on the temp as possible, out of curiousity. The Timex watch that I have been using does seem to respond rather quickly to temperature change in the water, as I noticed today, so by taking it with me as I surface I end up getting a better reading of the bottom temperature.

Continued next message,
Ryan