Crab Dive at Muk Tomorrow 7/2/08

[TCWestby]

Anyone up for a crab hunt at Mukilteo tomorrow morning?

I'm meeting Smike at 7:00 but want to make a party out of it and I would like to get 3 dives in.

PM Or call me, info is in my profile.

[Nwbrewer]

I won't be able to make it, but for everybody going out tomorrow, just a heads up that the vis at Muk T dock at the moment is complete crap, 5-6' at most. Good luck with the crab and stay safe.

Jake

[Maverick]

I dove it saturday and the vis was fair, about 10 feet. amazing how it changes, Chef and I had 20' at the boat, but i realize most don't hunt for crab at 120fsw. good luck have fun and enjoy the crab, but only harvest what you eat. Leave some for me too

[H20doctor]

Hey jake how would you know what vis is...? YOU never dive.. Ha HA HA HA

[TCWestby]

Well, Viz sucked today, didn't get to the oil dock but finally found the debris field nearby. Saw allot of juviniles and females and got a few keepers.

Next time I'll have to get to the dock.

On the drift back to the T-Dock in the saw allot of perch and shiners in the sstub pilings in the shallows, nice to seel the fish finally coming back.

Won't go into detail about hhe FD response but to say it all ended well, right MW? BTW you7 took all the crab

[Sounder]

Well, Viz sucked today, didn't get to the oil dock but finally found the debris field nearby. Saw allot of juviniles and females and got a few keepers.

Next time I'll have to get to the dock.

On the drift back to the T-Dock in the saw allot of perch and shiners in the sstub pilings in the shallows, nice to seel the fish finally coming back.

Won't go into detail about hhe FD response but to say it all ended well, right MW? BTW you7 took all the crab

Fire Department response to Mukilteo on the opening day of crab season? I'm interested in hearing the details.

[Nwbrewer]

Yeah, spill it....

[H20doctor]

i see more crab at night there then during the day... Yes tell the class what happened...? or we will have our way with you and your little comrads..

[jeff98208]

to late h20, lets have our way with jake... diffenetly see bigger ones at night there! and there will be no fiddle music either jake hahahaha

[H20doctor]

I have the Dirt on the story..... Ha HA HA ... But due to a Gag order from Smike I am not at liberty to tell.... So the innocent can be protected... But Dam that was a Cool lingcod SMIKE... !!!!

[Nwbrewer]

Ok, then Mike let's hear it. If the FD had to be called, I'm sure there is something that all of us can learn from.

[dsteding]

That's two years of opening day with the fire department being called at Mukilteo. Last year a woman broke her ankle walking to the oil dock in 3 feet of water or so.

Sounder was there. She was screaming like a banshee, seemed to be in real pain. I think they finally cut her drysuit off of her.

Crabs we got that day were tasty, but after observing from shore (my drysuit was leaking) I decided I'd avoid that circus in the future. I was surprised no one got run over by all the boats in there.

[Sounder]

That's two years of opening day with the fire department being called at Mukilteo. Last year a woman broke her ankle walking to the oil dock in 3 feet of water or so.

Sounder was there. She was screaming like a banshee, seemed to be in real pain. I think they finally cut her drysuit off of her.

Crabs we got that day were tasty, but after observing from shore (my drysuit was leaking) I decided I'd avoid that circus in the future. I was surprised no one got run over by all the boats in there.

It was wild. I find it interesting how many people who don't dive regularly will come out to go crabbing. The draw of crabbing is quite impressive, and some of the "great ideas" people have (like pulling the boat in close to shore and towing divers out with them hanging onto the boat) present serious hazards. You've also got to watch out for the crab pot depth charging while you're hunting... look and listen for boats and pots. They're large, have lots of rope/netting on them, and they'll land on you fast.

[Pez7378]

There were a few divers in the water tonight. Some crabbing, some just diving and some just Monkeying around That sure looks like fun eh? Neither of them got close enough for me to cut the tow cord though. I was always on the lookout and fortunately I could hear the scooter, then see the lights before they came out of the murk and scared the crap outta me. Saw three or four small Octos getting ready for their nightly hunt.

Thanks Joe and Chris

[jeff98208]

i see the doc has been sworn to secrecy... then in that case then, lets roast him!!!!

[smike]

OK, I can finally talk about this.

First, many apologies to Todd, because I scared him, and really ruined his day.

We did our first dive, and at 25' or so I realized I had left my dry suit inflator hose disconnected. Couldn't find the thing, so I ended up spending the next 1/2 hour squeezed. We maxed out at 57', and other than feeling pretty squeezed, nothing special happened. Caught some crabs, and walked back up the beach. I think we both showed excellent buddy skills during this dive.

Had a surface interval of 20 minutes or so, felt good and was excited to get a second dive in.

Went for a second dive, and we swam out a ways into 15' water or so, and descended, immediately losing site of one another We were too far apart to begin with.

OK, this is where it gets really stupid, because I was blaming Todd for not staying with me, and I thought, "if he can't stay with me I don't want to stay with him either". I think the whole dive (I was down for 30 minutes), I was pretty irrational, although I realized I was by myself and made sure I went no deeper that 20'. When I finally came up, Todd told me he had called it in. Now I realized what I had done.

How do you recover from realizing you have done something so stupid and thoughtless, taking off and leaving your buddy to wonder what happened to you? For 30 minutes, I may as well of been dead. I am so sorry Todd.

The firemen talked to me and made sure I was OK. I went from the beach to work.

At work I was so entirely WORN OUT. Reading some of others posts recently, I am now convinced I was slightly bent, from the first dive.

I am embarrassed to write this, and feel horrible to relive the memory of screwing up Todd's day. I owe this post to Todd, and, I owe it to myself to understand what happened in my own mind, of course to not repeat it, and also, to make self evaluation of where I am.

What I have learned:

1.) If there is a problem that shows up during a dive, get it fixed, minor or not. Get buddy to help me. I am not holding up the dive because I need to stop and fix things.

2.) I am responsible for staying close to my buddy, and using the finding them protocol. It might feel uncomfortable at the surface to be almost touching, but too bad, I need to be really close to assure we make it to the bottom together. I must talk with buddy before descent about getting OK at depth before continuing.

3.) Just because some divers are more experienced does not mean that they have habits and attitudes I want to imitate.
I have had an attitude that I picked up from some more "experienced" buddies, that they will find me, I am showing bubbles - after all that is how I found them again, when I corked and they just kept a going. (it wasn't you Todd). You take classes, and learn the right way to dive, then you find out others don't do that, and you can think that that is OK in the real world. Nope.


So there it is, and If anyone doesn't want to dive with my because I have bad form, then you have your excuse with this posting, I'll understand. If someone had done what I did to Todd, I would think twice about diving with him again.

S'Mike

[scottsax]

Ouch. I got separated from my buddies at Redondo last time. We went down to the carousel boat, then planned to head to the VW, but we didn't discuss when/where we'd turn. We started heading back up the rope, and I was in front. They turned, probably at the pipe, but I missed the pipe because I was looking at other stuff, and I realized at some point they weren't behind me anymore. I turned around, swam back down the rope to about 50 fsw, looked around, didn't see them, so I decided to head up. Did a 1/2 stop at 35 fsw, did a full 3 minutes at 15-20 fsw, then slowly came up as the current picked up and the viz went to hell. Fortunately, standing on shore, I watched as their heads popped up one by one moments later.

It sucks to find yourself alone. Glad you're OK, and nothing seriously went wrong. (Although a slight DCS hit is nothing to sneeze at.) Seeing the FD show up must've been awkward, though. It's experiences like these (the ones we walk away from) that make us better divers and better buddies in the future.

Thanks for sharing!

[H20doctor]

I dont think there is a diver out there who hasnt been seperated from their dive partner or group, its bound to happen at one point or time in your diving life... Heck I lost Joe ( Fishtig ) at our group dive at sund rock..!!! one minute on the rock slope Joe was below me and I was above him, I could look down and see joe and didnt think much of it... Next thing I know I saw a crab claw...? A CRAB CLAW...!!!!! stuck in a grove and some how wedged in this crack... My thought was how the heck is this thing stuffed in there...? OHHHHHHH then I thought maybe there a octo in there..? I turned to see where joe was and guess what..? NO FISHTIG.... 40 feet and no dive partner... so I came up depth and no one there.. So I ascended and on the way up I ran into Joe... we surfaced and then dropped down again to finish our dive.. SO smike it happens..

[Nwbrewer]

Doc, separations happen, we've all lost a buddy at least once, the difference between, "Oops I lost my buddy", meet up on the surface, and "Wow, what are all the fireman doing here" is following procedure, search for 1 minute and surface (or whatever plan you agree upon.)

Mike, glad you're OK.

Jake

[TCWestby]

Mike don't worry about it we'll do better next time. I just didn't want to make the bad call to your wife in case the worst happened and we should have gone over procedures again so partly my fault. The good thing is we learned something.

Let's try this again real soon, minus the MFD....