Norrander's Reef

Tell us your tale of coming nose-to-nose with a 6 gill [--this big--], or about your vacation to turquoise warm waters. Share your adventures here!
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camerone
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Norrander's Reef

Post by camerone »

So, bright and early this morning, Eric (YellowEye), myself, my better three-quarters - Heidi, and our friend Dan braved the dawn and the ferries to head over to Bainbridge and dive Norrander's Reef. Eric and Dan had their rebreathers, I had my awesome hot pink doubles, since the rebreather's still in pieces on the little shop bench of horrors, and Heidi had some singles with her. None of us had ever been out to the site before, so we decided to do something a little different today.

We got to Norrander's about 10:30 or so this morning, and the seas were calm, the current non-existent, and the visibility looked promising as we were kitting up on the beach. This was a test dive for the new dive light I built for Heidi yesterday, along with a new hood for her and some more gear tweaking pre-Antarctica for her.

We splashed in there around 11:15 or so, swam out to the little buoy at the north end of the park, dropped in about 15 feet of water, and followed the line out to the site. It's amazingly intact and well maintained (who's responsible? Kudos for that one...) We hit the first reef at around 35-55 feet, and made our way around it... one small octo back in a crack, lots of huge crabs, and I think I counted more than 15 different species of fish. We kept getting stuck in the middle of schools of tubesnouts on the way out and the way in, and the place was a giant festival of shrimp.

At the end of the first reef, we picked up the rope again and headed out to the remaining boulder piles, bottoming out at 88 feet before Heidi hit thirds, leaving the two of us turning and heading back in while Dan and Eric stayed on. Heidi swapped tanks on the beach, and we went back to the water, bumping into Eric and Dan who were just coming back out. We did another 40 minutes or so before turning around.

There's a lot to see out on Norrander's. Viz was spectacular for the first part, at around 30 feet, but it dropped to about 15 or so by the end of our second dive when the tide began to flood...the flood also brought a slight current - nothing noteworthy, but enough to move you back in.

Turns out that it was totally worth the trip out there on the ferries to do the site, and next time, Eric and I are going to head back out there with the scooters to do Mertridium Wall and the other southern reef. I'm too lazy to surface swim, and I'm definitely taking the rebreather... one hour of bottom time is just not enough out there.
There are no stupid questions, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots...
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Tom Nic
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Re: Norrander's Reef

Post by Tom Nic »

Nice report. I need to do this site... keep threatening to, but haven never gotten out there.
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Diver_C
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Re: Norrander's Reef

Post by Diver_C »

I like that Reef. Did that with P-Pants and Serg Pepper once. Great dive! We had good vis too, and saw all sorts of interesting sealife.
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sheahanmcculla
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Re: Norrander's Reef

Post by sheahanmcculla »

nice report! you'll have to post your light on thr DIY thread.
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camerone
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Re: Norrander's Reef

Post by camerone »

sheahanmcculla wrote:nice report! you'll have to post your light on thr DIY thread.
There's not much to it...I just slapped together a 21W HID with a salvaged Halcyon head, the better Brightstar bulb components, and a 6 amp lithium canister using a magnetic reed switch and N-channel MOSFET to turn it on. Part of it's just leftovers from the scrap parts bin, and part of it (the can) was from a gamble from a new divelight manufacturer that didn't pan out and needed to be completely re-engineered before it was usable. What should have been a 30 minute project to install the lighthead on the sample canister I got ended up turning into an eight hour affair with me rebuilding his circuit from scratch, boring out cable glands, re-welding the battery pack, and cursing people who don't know how to solder, etc... Frankly, I should've just turned the can on a lathe myself, as it would've been faster #-o Came out okay, though, and Heidi's thrilled to have a "real" light instead of the dinky Light Canon she's been using.

The interesting project will be the twin 60W HID video lights that I've been gathering pieces for. Unfortunately, I think that's going to get delayed until summer time...but that'll be worthy of a DIY post.
There are no stupid questions, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots...
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