Paul called me Saturday afternoon wanting to know if I wanted to be the 4th on a Sunday boat dive launching out of Holmes Harbor, in Freeland.

"Of course I do!"

We met at the dock at 0900 -- Boat was already in the water, most of all the gear already onboard. It's times like this that makes me happy I was 15 minutes early. I hate it when the boys are waiting for me.

We weren't going out very far-- about a 10 minute trek. I spent the time attaching my steel 92's to my BC, getting all my gear out of the H2Zero bag and began to suit up. Paul walked by me and asked me if I needed anything.

"A smaller ass, please."

...as I wrestled my neoprene...

Paul looks around the deck of the boat, shrugs, and says,

"Sorry Kit. I failed to bring my 'spare ass' bag."

Smart aleck. (Smart Ass?)

When we got to the dive site, Paul & Pete jumped in first. The objective was to find a sunken barge in about 100+ feet of water. Todd and I stayed with the boat during their dive, so we could be live to go get them, if they came up anywhere other than the Diver Down buoy line.

It was a little overcast, about 61F, hardly any current to speak of.

After Paul & Pete came back up, Todd and I went about finishing up putting on our gear so we could splash. Unfortunately, the boys couldn't find the barge -- they instead managed to notice just how much of a sandy bottom Holmes Harbor has. That's a shame.

*Todd (sitting) and part of Paul's head

*Paul (l) and Pete getting ready to giant stride at the Holmes Harbor dive site

So, after they came up, Todd and I got into the water. It's a little disorienting, descending down a line and seeing particles in the water drifting around you. You know you're descending, but without some sort of visual focal point, you feel... well, loopy. I started to see the bottom when we got to about 100'. I slowed my descent and checked my air supply. RBT - 5: I guess I really get anxious when I go to a new dive site. I breathe heavily and the lung icon pops up on my SmartCOM. I mentally scolded myself.

"Relax, breathe, slow your breathing, breathe, breathe, breathe, you're ok, breathe, Kit, breathe."

RBT went back up after I berated myself a little.

There really wasn't much to see. The barge was a skeleton. What was left of the beams rose directly out of the mass. Copper rock fish haunted what was left of it. There really wasn't much left to look at. Some anemone's found homes, but for the most part. Sand, Sand everywhere.

We turned to go back up the buoy line. At around 60' my computer read that I had a RBT = 0:
I looked up the line and Todd was within arms reach. All three of the boys dive redundant. I could reach Todds' pony without a problem. I shut my eyes tight for a few seconds, went back into a calming mode, slowed my breathing and did my safety stops as I should.

As I ascended, I felt better.

I've decided that I don't really much care for deep diving. Maybe when I have a little more experience and I can control my breathing a little better.

We pulled up the Diver Down buoy and headed back into the dock. We barely caught the dock at a tide where Todd could off load the three of us, jump into our cars and do our Surface Interval while we drove down to the Langley Marina.

The tide was going to go out even further, so it made sense to move the boat to a area where we were able to dock the boat to offload gear after our second dive. Otherwise, it would have been hours before we could have gotten close enough to the Holmes Harbor dock.

*leaving Langley Marina to head to Greenbank dive site

So... it's interesting driving a car with neoprene on... wet neoprene. Paul offered me a towel to sit on because your's truly forgot to bring herself one. We waited around for Todd to bring the boat down the island, watching a big Bald Eagle evading some Seagulls. I guess he got a little to close and they were in serious pursuit of the big guy. Pete and I chatted about the final season of the Soprano's. It was either a brilliant or horrible ending. I haven't been able to figure out which one it was. Either way... I was sad to see it end.

Todd showed up and off we went out of the Langley Marina. We had about a 30 minute cruise, so again, not wanting anyone to have to wait for me, I got busy changing out my tanks and getting my gear ready.

*Todd

Objective for this dive: Find the man-made reef, comprised of sunken boats. Todd said one of the boats was a large kayak, planted in the sand so it's bow reached up to the sky. Todd threw out the anchor so we could all splash at the same time. We found the dive site with ease. The kayak was pretty cool to check out. Todd had me "stand" on my fins next to it and wave so he could take a picture of me. If I knew how it was mounted, I would have slipped inside of it and pretended I was workin' oars.

Not a lot of life growing on the boats here either... there was a lot of sand and a lot of Copper Rock fish again. After about 30 minutes, we went back to the anchor line.

I guess due to some increased workload from the previous dive and this one, my computer wanted me to be a little more cautious on ascent. Todd motioned he was going to take more pictures, and I told him I was going to head up since I had a long ascent ahead of me... I had a required safety stop at 20ft for 2: & another one at 10ft for 10:

Strange. But, ya know... better safe than sorry.

I was a little cold after this dive. Paul came up and put a towel around my shoulders. Heh. Now I have two of his towels.

We have a new set of kiddies coming into WIDC tomorrow - so I'll bring them back then. Anyways, we got back to the Marina, sun was shining and we set about hauling all our gear back to our cars.

Todd decided to moor his boat in Langley for the week since he was working just up the road.

Oh... for the record? My Canon S1 SI is toast. This is the camera I use for my underwater pictures. The housing flooded last week so there won't be any pictures taken by me underwater for awhile. The pictures in this post was taken with my Tilt. Hopefully Todd will send today's pictures to me and I'll put them in this blog later.

Will keep ya'll posted.

(Oh, Gas on the Island now : $4.67)