Dive #71 - First Midwest Dive - Cold and Wet

Last Sunday we went to Whitestar Quarry in Ohio for the first dive of the season.

My regular teammate Jerry (Rob couldn't make this one as he had to go study) and I met Dan (a diver and friend of Jerry's) and his wife at Jerry's house and off we went. After a stop for breakfast we arrived at the quarry in good time and prepped to go in.

We met up with the rest of the Scuba Cult, our local group of hard-core DIR divers and off we went. The water was a brisk 36 degrees F.

Dan and Jerry's dive lasted about 8 minutes. Dan had a freeflow and drysuit issue and aborted, Jerry had his primary reg bubbling and a leak off the right post and called it.

I was then passed off to join the team of two others of Scuba Cult - Maki and Scotty (both of whom, may I add were absolutely fantastic divers - way, way above me in skill level and I had to really work to keep up, and they're both divers worth trying to emulate) so we formed a team of three and away we went. We got to the blockhouse and went inside, which was quite cool.

Actually it was fargin cold, about 36 degrees cold. I had developed a leak in my drysuit on the left arm and water was trickling in nicely. I was either leaking at the cuff dump or the left glove didn't seal right, or its something else. A swim in the tub is in order once the suit dries out.

I called the dive due to being ridiculously cold and we headed out. I was soaked through from left arm through the lower regions and on standing up soaked to my socks. A Substantial amount of water came out of my boots when the suit came off....

The good: Jerry did an excellent job on his emergency drill, shut his post down like a pro and did damn nice. I had good communication throughout and somewhat decent dexterity with the dry gloves. A further upside is I have dove every month from April to March with the exception of January this year. An almost year round sport.

The bad: One very wet and icy cold Aaron in the world's most expensive wetsuit.

My tanks are now in the shop to get vipp'ed and O2 cleaned and I'll have them in a few days and be ready for more diving once my core temp gets to normal again.