Dive #133 - A Night Dive at Union Lake

Wes, Keith and I, accompanied by the far more experienced Chad and Maki went for a night dive last night.

Chad lent me one of his Oceanic Shadow masks to try out - a real nice mask with a great fit and no leaks like my current mask so I may have to get one.

Night dives are pretty cool - you can only see as far as your light cuts through the dark, and you can lose your reference points pretty easily if you're not paying attention. The lake is different at night - more of the small fish come out and you see things you don't notice during the day.

I saw a really big Mudpuppy as we were doing our ascent. These strange creatures are rather shy and not seen on every dive. Neat to finally see one.

During our practice over the sunken pontoon boat, I finally completed a full valve drill! I could reach all my valves and get them closed and opened in proper sequence. I stayed in control and maintained decent buoyancy while doing it. This was my current diving bugbear and now that I've been able to complete it, its time to work on refining it. Lots of arm stretches and changing my undersuit to a more flexible garment have really helped me reach my valves. Hooray for me!

We did some back kicks, out of air drills and some general good team practice - nice team awareness and communication and a smooth ascent - still lots to work on but we're really coming together as a team and have made a ton of progress!

We got out of the water and completed our decompression obligation at The Library Pub with a few drinks of choice. A nice night for a dive.