Oh my best dive so far..
I should have sent this in ages ago but lethargy took the best of me, sorry.
Well suffice to say my dive lacked the grace I usually don't display
while diving.
Ort Quarry dive site: The dive site was an abandoned quarry Just west of Rome, NY in upper NY State. One of the engineers I use on my buildings dives there from time to time. A friend of his owns it. It was a truly crappy site collapsing sheds rusting trucks. I'm sure a body or two at the bottom of the quarry. Its strength is that it is -210' of relatively clear water.
We got there early and I swam out to setup this coolest decent line ever. I've got this huge float with a 5.5mm decent line on a cam pulley to take up the slack, complete with glow sticks every 20'. Very "sweet", to use a word my nephew uses so well in describing sports cars.
We shot the sh#t for a while until it was decided that I should do
the dive or we were all going to leave for Denny's. Seeing as
how I despise Denny's I said ok lets dive. I warmed up for 45 mins with a nice swim and face immersion without a mask. I started my new rhythm breathing focusing on adjusting the tempo and fullness of each breath. I then did two warm up dives to 20m (65'), then a third to 40m (131').
I felt really good nice and loose. I was slipping through water
nicely and my mind was relatively calm. The weird thing was that I was thinking about a video game a friend had me playing instead of the dive. I started my 10min then 5min breath-up all the while thinking of this stupid game. My alarm went off at the 30 sec mark my breathing was right on schedule increasing in depth and duration. I was as ready as ever.
0 sec, down I went. After six strokes I was in the glide position. A
few glow sticks later I started to pick up speed. I closed my eyes
and just felt the water moving my hanging limbs. I was loose and
falling. I tried to concentrate on the dive but my thoughts strayed
to that stupid game. I forced the thoughts of this game from my mind and looked at my depth gauge -175'. OUCH that's deep shot through my skull. I watched my gauge moving to the -200'mark when I should have been looking for the bottom. I found it the hard way, or it found me. It was so surreal I was just in purest, deepest silence I have ever experienced. A perfect silence. I felt like both the master and minutia of this silent world. I had to shake myself to start the return trip back up.
It was hard to get my legs to start kicking again. I looked at my
hand as gauge moved down I could see all the veins and contours of my finger bones,, cool. I passed by my safety diver Karl and gave him the "OK" he gave me the finger (Engineers are tools). It was getting lighter and warmer. I breached the surface calmly and just floated for a while.
It was done I didn't time myself mainly because I hate diving
numbers. Karl estimated 2:45-3:00 mins. I buried the needle of my
depth gauge, which only goes to 60.9m (200') Karl's reading on his vyper was 62.4m (205'). I loved the dive even though my thoughts were else where. I'm wondering if the distraction helped?
I loved the dive so much, the silence. I plan on doing allot of deep
diving this summer to my "silent depth".
Jeff
www.eastcoastfreediver.com
I should have sent this in ages ago but lethargy took the best of me, sorry.
Well suffice to say my dive lacked the grace I usually don't display
while diving.
Ort Quarry dive site: The dive site was an abandoned quarry Just west of Rome, NY in upper NY State. One of the engineers I use on my buildings dives there from time to time. A friend of his owns it. It was a truly crappy site collapsing sheds rusting trucks. I'm sure a body or two at the bottom of the quarry. Its strength is that it is -210' of relatively clear water.
We got there early and I swam out to setup this coolest decent line ever. I've got this huge float with a 5.5mm decent line on a cam pulley to take up the slack, complete with glow sticks every 20'. Very "sweet", to use a word my nephew uses so well in describing sports cars.
We shot the sh#t for a while until it was decided that I should do
the dive or we were all going to leave for Denny's. Seeing as
how I despise Denny's I said ok lets dive. I warmed up for 45 mins with a nice swim and face immersion without a mask. I started my new rhythm breathing focusing on adjusting the tempo and fullness of each breath. I then did two warm up dives to 20m (65'), then a third to 40m (131').
I felt really good nice and loose. I was slipping through water
nicely and my mind was relatively calm. The weird thing was that I was thinking about a video game a friend had me playing instead of the dive. I started my 10min then 5min breath-up all the while thinking of this stupid game. My alarm went off at the 30 sec mark my breathing was right on schedule increasing in depth and duration. I was as ready as ever.
0 sec, down I went. After six strokes I was in the glide position. A
few glow sticks later I started to pick up speed. I closed my eyes
and just felt the water moving my hanging limbs. I was loose and
falling. I tried to concentrate on the dive but my thoughts strayed
to that stupid game. I forced the thoughts of this game from my mind and looked at my depth gauge -175'. OUCH that's deep shot through my skull. I watched my gauge moving to the -200'mark when I should have been looking for the bottom. I found it the hard way, or it found me. It was so surreal I was just in purest, deepest silence I have ever experienced. A perfect silence. I felt like both the master and minutia of this silent world. I had to shake myself to start the return trip back up.
It was hard to get my legs to start kicking again. I looked at my
hand as gauge moved down I could see all the veins and contours of my finger bones,, cool. I passed by my safety diver Karl and gave him the "OK" he gave me the finger (Engineers are tools). It was getting lighter and warmer. I breached the surface calmly and just floated for a while.
It was done I didn't time myself mainly because I hate diving
numbers. Karl estimated 2:45-3:00 mins. I buried the needle of my
depth gauge, which only goes to 60.9m (200') Karl's reading on his vyper was 62.4m (205'). I loved the dive even though my thoughts were else where. I'm wondering if the distraction helped?
I loved the dive so much, the silence. I plan on doing allot of deep
diving this summer to my "silent depth".
Jeff
www.eastcoastfreediver.com