Dive 188 - Reel Around The Lake

So last night, after attending both the Temple Israel Labor Day fair and Arts, Beats and Eats with the family, I met up with Keith, Chad and Brando and hit the waters of Union Lake. Brando had brought his scooter and was coming in off the bank and the rest of us entered beside the boat dock.

I had brough my dive reel along as I was planning on doing so line work for practice. It was clipped off to my rear D ring and it gets carried along behind you as you fin away.

The reel practice was not to be.

Heading out in about 1 foot of visibility (full on SFA conditions), I was finning like heck to keep up with the dimming glow of Chad's light. Keith had disappeared off to my left almost as the dive started (he lost us then hooked over to the underwater mirror), so I'm focussing on keeping Chad in sight as he searches for Brando.

I then realize that I'm missing something.

I reach back and only the double ended clip that was holding the reel in place is there.

I can hear a little B.B. King in the background "The reel is gone, the reel is gone away, the reel is gone baby"

Oh crap. That's an expensive piece of equipment to lose, and with the viz being so bad and overgrown vegitation everywhere finding it is like the needle in the proverbial haystack, or the reel in the proverbial lake.

So I finally catch up with Chad and rendevous with Keith and frantically signal that I'm hosed. He doesn't get it immediately, then I reach back and show him the bare double ended clip where the reel should be. His eyes widen and he clearly understands.

So we continue the dive without it, and go to the boats, and I do an excellent no-mask line drill.

The water is getting a touch colder and my bare face can feel it, but its ok. I apparently did it well, keeping in trim and staying level while following the line. I get my mask back on and we then all search a bit for the reel. No luck, this sucks.

At this point I'm suspecting it is near the boat dock and it fell off as I departed rather than in the weeds.

So we surface near Brando's entry point and we discuss things.

Chad and Brando want to chase after a boat prop Brando saw at 16 feet and couldn't grab while maneuving a scooter and a camera, and I really want to start backtracking towards the boatdock to look for Mr. Reel.

So Keith and I head out towards the boat dock carefully searching the lake bottom for the errant reel.

Sure enough, just a few feet fromt her boat dock, I see a black shape with a white spool appear out of the cloudy viz...its the reel!

A shout of triumph was heard underwater then.

I show it to Keith and he's pretty impressed I found it.

I'm quite ecstatic.

So we then wait for Chad and Brandon to come back up, they don't find the prop but they're happy after a good dive.

So the dive comes to a happy end and we get out.