Dive reports are SOO much easier when you can dive: Cove 2

[BigFameOne]

Ok, so many of you know my story. I got excited about diving, worked through some issues during OW (ear issues, a broken hand, and then things got tough) a few dives at Cove 3 then one dive in at Cove 2 on October 7th where I saw a HUGE GPO before a foot surgery that has kept me out of the water since. UNTIL TODAY....


My buddy Sean and I made the plan, I did the SCUBA math, we knew our turn pressure, we knew our rock bottom and we knew the plan. Swim out to the can buoy, drop down to approx 40 and let the compass take us to the HB. We had a plan to get back, we discussed what to do in case we were separated, we clarified some hand signals, we did gear checks and all, we discussed some skills we would like to spend a bit of time on even.....the one thing we did not do was read the signs.

Sometimes there are signs that tell you you shouldn't be doing what you are doing, omens that warn us that we are headed down the wrong path (for some I imagine they tell them they are headed down the right path, but I wouldn't know anythingabout that).

First sign: As I am laying out gear and trying to get sort of organized on the tailgate of my buddies Tundra, an evil Seagull flies by and drops a bomb that is a direct hit. Marcoux's HP130, my fin, and my leg are all casualties to the high tech smart poo.


Second sign: I dive wet, and this is my 6th dive so none of it feels natural yet, and I am not even talking about trim and buoyancy I am talking about how many times today I panicked that I had forgotten something. Hell even as I am gearing up I am having mini-hissy fits. By the time we are all geared up and about ready I realize that my hood is nowhere to be found. Obviously, I am not diving without it BUT I am not all too happy about putting on a wetsuit, weight harness, bp/w and the whole deal only to have to "thumb" the dive before we even make it to the stares down to cove 2. We look everywhere, through ever gear bin, bucket, backpack, etc. We look at the bulkhead and it's not there, just fins and such, not in the truck cab, not on the ground, and right as we are about to start doffing dry gear, I see that my hood has somehow become velcro'ed to the weight pockets on Seans belt and is hanging off his tush like a neoprene beavertail. I thought he was playing a joke on me it was so perfect.

We waddle on, get in the water and it's cold, I almost cried as the cold water made it's way down my spine but I was determined.....

Sign three (Three strikes and you are out right??): I dunk my head under water and my backup reg starts freeflowing. No biggie, I know to turn it over, only that doesn't solve it, I play with the venturi dealy bobber and no go. I am losing gas fast so we shut down the bottle, and try it again. Freeflow. Shut down the bottle and try again. You guessed it, freeflow.

I am not coming this far to thumb it without getting my face wet. Seems like a great time for an OOA. So as Sean is circling me in 4 feet of water I breath off his octo for a minute just so when I have to leave I can at least have been under water. As we start packing it in, we decide to give it one last try and this time my reg cooperates. I am down 1000psi and so clearly the dive plan has changed, we are not going to attempt the HB and with a secondary that is clearly not behaving we decide to keep it shallow and simple. We stay in near touch contact and are super alert to our gas reserve. I try some frog kicking, which I kind of pulled off, I am bouncing off the floor like a Spaulding in an NBA game so it is clear that one can do all the cyber diving in the world but it's going to take real diving to get good. We tried really hard to be aware of silting and to do our best not to make a mess of the cove but we failed miserably of course. In the end we spent 19 minutes in (according to my BT) and had a lot of fun, we were safe and are already planning the next dive.


Sincethis is the Report section I should share some info, vis was better than I expected it to be, I would guess about 10 feet or so, saw the normal stuff.....crabs, starfish, Giant Plumose Anemone's and such which I know are old hat for many of you but this is all very new and very exciting for me and I can't stop grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. Even saw a couple nudi's which was very cool. Aside from that it was cold, REALLY cold, like my hands barely worked when I was trying to get out of my wetsuit cold.

THANK GOD FOR CLAM CHOWDER and the patience of folks like Sockmonkey, Spat, and poor Sounder Sounder has gotten the brunt of it, I have to imagine his wife thinks he is having an affair with all the phone calls he is getting. Seriously guys thank you. They have put up with me for the last four months answering my questions (of which there have been MANY) just waiting until I could actually go dive. Now that I can, I expect I am really going to put those poor folks to the test. Be afraid, be very afraid.

[DiverDown]

Thanks for the report! I remember when I first started diving, everything was amazing to me. Discovering new things meeting new folks. Learning new tricks, its to easy to forget those things the longer youve been diving. :occasion5:

[spatman]

we were all there at some point (and some of us still are). good to see that you have a sense of humor about it. keep diving - it only gets better and more comfortable.

[Pez7378]

That is by far the best dive report I've read in a long long while. I laughed hysterically at the part about the hood! Funny stuff. Keep it up Jake, and let's go diving!

[BDub]

Great report, Jake. Glad to see you finally getting back in the water.

[Scubak]

Jake,
Glad to see you are getting in the water.
Anytime you want to go, let me know and I will try and work something out!
Cove 2 on Southward....
And I can travel on Sats.
I love helping new divers and love pointing out all the cool things to see...and I am not too bad with gear!
Kirsten
Scubak@comcast.net

[Joshua Smith]

Ok, so many of you know my story. I got excited about diving, worked through some issues during OW (ear issues, a broken hand, and then things got tough) a few dives at Cove 3 then one dive in at Cove 2 on October 7th where I saw a HUGE GPO before a foot surgery that has kept me out of the water since. UNTIL TODAY....


My buddy Sean and I made the plan, I did the SCUBA math, we knew our turn pressure, we knew our rock bottom and we knew the plan. Swim out to the can buoy, drop down to approx 40 and let the compass take us to the HB. We had a plan to get back, we discussed what to do in case we were separated, we clarified some hand signals, we did gear checks and all, we discussed some skills we would like to spend a bit of time on even.....the one thing we did not do was read the signs.

Sometimes there are signs that tell you you shouldn't be doing what you are doing, omens that warn us that we are headed down the wrong path (for some I imagine they tell them they are headed down the right path, but I wouldn't know anythingabout that).

First sign: As I am laying out gear and trying to get sort of organized on the tailgate of my buddies Tundra, an evil Seagull flies by and drops a bomb that is a direct hit. Marcoux's HP130, my fin, and my leg are all casualties to the high tech smart poo.


Second sign: I dive wet, and this is my 6th dive so none of it feels natural yet, and I am not even talking about trim and buoyancy I am talking about how many times today I panicked that I had forgotten something. Hell even as I am gearing up I am having mini-hissy fits. By the time we are all geared up and about ready I realize that my hood is nowhere to be found. Obviously, I am not diving without it BUT I am not all too happy about putting on a wetsuit, weight harness, bp/w and the whole deal only to have to "thumb" the dive before we even make it to the stares down to cove 2. We look everywhere, through ever gear bin, bucket, backpack, etc. We look at the bulkhead and it's not there, just fins and such, not in the truck cab, not on the ground, and right as we are about to start doffing dry gear, I see that my hood has somehow become velcro'ed to the weight pockets on Seans belt and is hanging off his tush like a neoprene beavertail. I thought he was playing a joke on me it was so perfect.

We waddle on, get in the water and it's cold, I almost cried as the cold water made it's way down my spine but I was determined.....

Sign three (Three strikes and you are out right??): I dunk my head under water and my backup reg starts freeflowing. No biggie, I know to turn it over, only that doesn't solve it, I play with the venturi dealy bobber and no go. I am losing gas fast so we shut down the bottle, and try it again. Freeflow. Shut down the bottle and try again. You guessed it, freeflow.

I am not coming this far to thumb it without getting my face wet. Seems like a great time for an OOA. So as Sean is circling me in 4 feet of water I breath off his octo for a minute just so when I have to leave I can at least have been under water. As we start packing it in, we decide to give it one last try and this time my reg cooperates. I am down 1000psi and so clearly the dive plan has changed, we are not going to attempt the HB and with a secondary that is clearly not behaving we decide to keep it shallow and simple. We stay in near touch contact and are super alert to our gas reserve. I try some frog kicking, which I kind of pulled off, I am bouncing off the floor like a Spaulding in an NBA game so it is clear that one can do all the cyber diving in the world but it's going to take real diving to get good. We tried really hard to be aware of silting and to do our best not to make a mess of the cove but we failed miserably of course. In the end we spent 19 minutes in (according to my BT) and had a lot of fun, we were safe and are already planning the next dive.


Sincethis is the Report section I should share some info, vis was better than I expected it to be, I would guess about 10 feet or so, saw the normal stuff.....crabs, starfish, Giant Plumose Anemone's and such which I know are old hat for many of you but this is all very new and very exciting for me and I can't stop grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. Even saw a couple nudi's which was very cool. Aside from that it was cold, REALLY cold, like my hands barely worked when I was trying to get out of my wetsuit cold.

THANK GOD FOR CLAM CHOWDER and the patience of folks like Sockmonkey, Spat, and poor Sounder Sounder has gotten the brunt of it, I have to imagine his wife thinks he is having an affair with all the phone calls he is getting. Seriously guys thank you. They have put up with me for the last four months answering my questions (of which there have been MANY) just waiting until I could actually go dive. Now that I can, I expect I am really going to put those poor folks to the test. Be afraid, be very afraid.

I'm so glad you're finally back in the water! Thanks for a hilarious dive report! Trust me when I tell you that it gets a lot better with practice; but it definitely sounds like you're heading down the right path. Like you said- all the cyberdiving in the world is no substitute for time in the water.

I miss that initial sense of absolute wonder I had at first, when I'd blow through a 119 in 20 minutes, and have to turn the dive on my very patient dive buddies, but I'd come up grinning from ear to ear just because I'd been UNDERWATER. I still love just about any and every dive I do, even the crappy ones. But nothing will ever be like it was when I was seeing everything for the first time- I remember going to work one day a couple months after I started diving, and there was a serious problem on the project I was managing. My Boss was on site, and, well, he wasn't yelling at me directly, but he was pretty worked up, and going off about this situation....I couldn't hear very well, because I had forced equalizing the night before (like an idiot), and had fluid in my ear drums. I had done like, my 19th dive, and seen the I beams for the first time. I felt like I was seeing the sunken remnants of a lost civilization- like I was a real explorer- like I was on a National Geographic exploration team! And we saw a small red octo and a big ling cod! I was beside myself when I got home. My wife couldn't shut me up!

Anyway, the next day at work, my boss was going on and on about something, and I couldn't hear him very well, and my mind wandered back down to the I beams....suddenly, my boss asked me quietly what the hell I was smiling about. I came back to reality, and realized that I was standing there, grinning like a moron, when I was supposed to be very focused on "the problem at hand." I managed to talk my way out of that one, but it was a real problem for a while. Diving just seems so much more significant than "real life" sometimes.

[Dusty2]

I remember my first dive at cove two. It was only my third or forth cold water dive . I thought that first buoy was at least a hundred yards out there! I had a BC that wanted me to swim face down and I was having one hell of a time. By the time we got to the buoy I had to wait to get my breath back before I could even think about dropping. Good thing my buddy that day was an experienced diver and very patient with me. I think someone must have moved that Buoy since then. No way it could have been that close back then!

[Nwbrewer]

That's a great report. Glad you guys had a good time anyway, makes me think about my first dive out of OW....

My first dive out of OW was probably the most dangerous dive I've ever done.

First off, I'd been dry for about a year since my OW for lack of buddies. So I met up with a buddy from college who says, don't worry about renting gear, I have some backup stuff that will fit you fine. I rented an al80 and met him at EUP.

"Here try this on..."
I wrestled my way (somehow) into an OLD O'niel neoprene drysuit. I'm putting the reg on the tank,
"How come there's only one second stage?"
"Don't worry about it, if you need gas, I have a backup, if I need gas, we'll just share air."
"oh...Ok"

Strapped on a poodle jacket that was so tight it was kind of hard to breathe.

"How do I work the drysuit?"
He pushes the inflator once and says
"That should be enough, don't touch it now."

The dive itself was an exercise in frustration. The drysuit leaked, so I had this constant stream of water running down my back, and squirting up my sleeves. I was underweighted, and had no idea how to use a drysuit, so I was kind of inverted the whole dive, swimming down.

I blew through an al80 in about 20 minutes, max depth something like 27fsw. Towards the end when I was running out of gas I got so light and tired that I couldn't swim down anymore and corked to the surface.
My buddy says -
"That was fun, when are we going again?"
"uh, I think I'm gonna get some of my own gear before I dive again"

I'd like to say I never dove any of that crap again, but I know I borrowed that reg a few more times.

At my urging my buddy has since gotten quite a bit more safety conscious,we still dive together sometimes, but I make the dive plans, and I even convinced him to get some new (non-life threatening) gear.

How the hell did I survive?

[LCF]

Great report, Jake! Reminds me of my first "independent" dive -- the first one I did without somebody much more experienced to babysit me. It was Cove 2, and my buddy and I high-fived each other because we were so proud of ourselves.

I've done a lot of very cool dives since then, but probably not any that had quite the feeling of accomplishment.

[Pez7378]

Now Joe and I laugh about the thought of doing Deco stops that are longer than our first few dives together!

[BigFameOne]

Thanks guys, I hope in time to be able to put up dive reports with more useful info to other divers. For a while though I hope to just get a LOT of reports up, and maybe make a few of you chuckle. Thank you for all the shared stories and offers to dive (trust me I am making a list).


Lynne I know what you mean about the high fives, every now and then when I'd look over to Sean he would look at me and since we couldn't really communicate we would end up just spontaneously high fiving.


I am serious about taking you up on those dive offers folks. I have been pooped on, had my hood stolen by another mans ass, and had my backup reg shoot ice into my throat and I am trying to talk Sean into a dive right now in the snow. Trust me folks you will be getting the call.

[Joshua Smith]

Now Joe and I laugh about the thought of doing long weekends at cute little Bed and Breakfasts that are longer than our first few dates together!

[Pez7378]

Now Joe and I laugh about the thought of doing long weekends at cute little Bed and Breakfasts that are longer than our first few dates together!

Dude, I've spent more time with you at the Hideaway than Joe and I have spent together...............

[Joshua Smith]

HEY! You know the rule:

"What happens at the Hideaway, STAYS at the Hideaway."

[Sounder]

Nice report dude! Birdie-bombs on my 130 - priceless.

You sounded totally "put-together" from starting with a good plan to managing a free flow and making an appropriate adjustment to the plan on the fly. Nice work.

It only gets better from here!!

[Sockmonkey]

About freaking time Jake! I think I actually clapped when I read this.

Keep these reports come'n. Besides allowing other people to wax nostalgic, and provide good noob fodder, you'll soon look back on them as a measure of how far you have gone with your diving.

Now go dive.

-Eric

[Ken G]

Great report! We have all been there at some point. Keep at it and it will become easier and more natural as you get the kinks worked out (and the bird sh^* cleaned off).

[airsix]

I have been pooped on, had my hood stolen by another mans ass, and had my backup reg shoot ice into my throat and I am trying to talk Sean into a dive right now in the snow. Trust me folks you will be getting the call.

Jake, you are a lot of fun to have around this place.

I have to congratulate you. There is a minor detail in your story that speaks volumes. You saw nudibranchs. That tells me that despite the challenges, you were not overwhelmed. Divers who are overwhelmed don't see nudibranchs. Congrats, dude. You are on your way.

-Ben

[Aquanautchuck]

You sure brought back some memories for me. The learning experiences came rushing back like a bad flash back.

I will never forget my first ow dive. The dive club from the shop I got my cert from had a club dive the next weekend. They were going to a place called Shack Hole (aka: Duck Beach, aka: Jorgstead Creek). I got certified in late February so it was cold and rainy. You know when the rain drops are about 6" across and you get soaked just getting out of the car. After getting into my new 7mil wet suit (first mistake in my long scuba gear purchaseing career) and already being cold I discovered what shore diving in the NW means. The trail to Shack Hole just has be experienced on a cold rainy day. After a couple of falls, I tumbled to the beach. I was going to tag along as the third wheel with a couple of divers. Now there is a big difference in getting your gear all together with DM's hovering over you and all by yourself the first time. I finally figured out that the 2nd stages face front not back and was ready to go. My buddies told me to just follow along. To date I had a total of like 30 minutes underwater. As I followed them under (under weighted of course) It seemed a lot darker and colder than I remembered. Since my buddies told me they were going to about 60' or so I was not concerned too much. I do not remember seeing anything along the way since I had a laser lock on my buddies fins and my gauge. After a couple of minutes I figured my SAC rate was 100 pounds per minute. Watching my air gauge drop was like a gas gauge on a 427 cu" with a double pumper. When they blew through 70' I kind of started to get worried but just kept following along. When they got to where they were going it was this real cool horse shoe shaped wall with all the new critters a new diver see's on it. After 18 minutes I was real worried since I was down to about 1100 lbs. We headed back and when we got to about 15' I surfaced and they continured diving. A 25 minute dive that I will never forget. Funny thing is that I was so focused on not getting seperated that it took 8 more dives to find the same wall I had gone to and it just did not seem the same. Kind of blah....not a lot there.

Some of the other learning points in the Early Years were.... the time I surfaced after a dive to find my boat starting to drift at Sunrise Beach with the out going tide. By the time we both got in the boat it had drifted 1/4 mile. (This is when I discovered there was a big difference between anchors for lakes and for salt water, since corrected) (BTW: The learning curve to dive safe from a boat is not much shorter than learning to dive) Or the time both my regs went into free flow at about 100' (thank god for pony's, when I got shallower they settled down). The time my dry suit zipper blew on a dive and I had to climb into my Zodiac with at least 30 gallons of water in it. Remember water in a suit underwater is weightless (still has mass) but once out of the water it was all I could do to get in the boat. And the creative way I got the zipper undone with a bungie cord so I could get out of it.

Like Joshua, I miss the wonder sometimes we had a new divers. That was one reason I became a DM for a couple of years. Seeing the joy and wonderment on new divers over a sea cucumber or kelp crab brought back some for me.

Keep the stories coming great to read.

[LCF]

(BTW: The learning curve to dive safe from a boat is not much shorter than learning to dive)

Now, there's a depressing thought for a new boat owner . . .

[airsix]

OK, I'm going to post a story. Hope you don't mind us jumping on your thread like this, but you've sparked something in a lot of us. I want to publicly thank you for reminding us about the magic. Things like snow, pay-cuts, layoffs, flu, etc. have taken a tole on moral lately. Your story is a nice pick-me-up. Thanks.

My Cove 2 story:

Imagine that you had never tried ice-cream, but had heard it was really great. So you went looking for some, but all you found were cones. No ice-cream. Just cones. So you ate cones. They were ok for a while, but pretty soon you lost interest, because how many cones can you really enjoy, anyway?

That was my diving experience in the early years. I got into diving to be an explorer and to experience the ocean. But I grew up in Idaho, and Idaho doesn't have an ocean. It has cones with no ice-cream. So I got bored and quit diving.

One day in my mid-30's I realized that the goal was always the ocean and that I'd never made it there. I lived in Washington now, was grown up a bit, and fresh out of excuses. So I called my little brother who had experienced almost the same inland freshwater burnout as myself, and said "We're going diving in Puget Sound. When can you be here?" (he still lived in Idaho).

So, with 1980's vintage dive gear piled in the back of a pickup we descended on Seattle. We crashed at the Travel Lodge up on Alaska street, which is a real dive. The kind of hotel where you make sure to park directly in front of your own door, and you don't get very good sleep because your .45 is making a lump under your pillow. But it's only a 5 minute drive to Seacrest Park. We ordered a pizza and hit the sack. Early the next morning we were on the beach, surveying the site. Brimming with excitement. Holding a compass and a print-out of a Cove2 map. I hadn't dived in 4 years, and never in the ocean. Jake had done a few dives 3 months earlier. His first in 3 years. We suited up and swam out to the can buoy. Some of you may have already heard me say that I saw more on the swim out to the can buoy than on any freshwater dive I'd ever done (I had a full logbook of freshwater dives from a decade earlier). This was on a weekday, early morning. The weather was beautiful, and we had the cove all to ourselves. We dropped into gorgeous vis by local standards, and made our way to the jackstraw pilings. Our freshwater diving was always cold and murky so that part felt like home. But we saw stuff. Everywhere. It was sensory overload. It was like drinking from a fire hose and I loved it. And with a max depth of about 40ft I sucked down an 80 in 20 minutes. I was underweighted and as my tank got ligther I continued picking up rocks until my arms were full. But I wanted to stay down. I wanted to stay down so bad. There was so much to see! There was finally ice-cream in my cone! And it tasted G-O-O-D. As we surfaced we barraged each other with a torrent of babblings and exaggerated hand gestures that continued uninterrupted all the way to the dive shop at which point we turned the double-barreled enthusiasm on the shop staff. We left the shop with 6 full bottles and raced back to Cove2 like it was on fire.

I don't care how many other sites I dive, or how great they may be. Cove 2 is special. It's where the magic happened for the first time.

-Ben

[Aquanautchuck]

Great story Ben. I is nice to every once in awhile revisit the wonder and excitement we all had when we first started to dive.

[BigFameOne]

No worries Ben, I am more than happy to share space and if my thoughts reminded someone of the excitement of being a new diver great. Just remember that this means you owe me a dive. Cove 2 will always be special to me too, I did all my OW dives in Cove 3 and was amazed at how much cool stuff there was to see. My ow instructor Gerry, kept telling us "Wait till you see Cove 2".


I remember my OW class, Sean, Eric, and I talking about how we weren't even sure how cove 2 could be any better. On our last OW dive, after passing all the skill based requirements we did our Cove 2 dive. We were told to stay sharp BUT that this dive was about enjoying a tour of one of Seattle's real dive treasures.

Whatever.....



Well we were totally overwhelmed by the shear abundance of sealife, crabs all over the place, anemones, star fish, nudis, and the highlight of my short (so far) dive career. Two beautiful Giant Pacific Octo's at the HB. As we approached the HB I was so focused on looking down that I very literally almost bumped into three divers, I looked up and couldn't figure out how my class made it ahead of me. Then I noticed that they were all in drysuits, and one of them had a red harness, another of them had some camera set up that looked to me a little like Robocop. They pointed under what looked like a pile of boards to me, then grabbed my arm and made a hand gesture I couldn't figure out. I thought the stranger in red was telling me to "shill out", I assumed he was upset by my wild approach and the silt I brought with me. What I figured he didn't get was that this was by far the best I had ever looked. He kept pointing at the boards, and then laying his hand flat and pushing down. Again I thought he was telling me to chill. Finally it dawned on me that he wanted me to move down to see something, I figued this out when he "helped me" into position.

I know Octos are special to all NW divers, but not like this. I was really astounded, I talk about it even now. Whenever anyone asks me if there is anything to see "down there" I tell them all about that dive.

I have since learned that the man in red was Doug M, the guy with the sweet camera was Scott L, and the third diver was Socals own 'dette.


I have pics that Scott took of that Octo saved on my computer, and to me it is a big deal to get to share that. It is not everyone in the world who has been able to be that close (5 to 7 feet I'd guess) to such a magnificent creature. That is why we went back, we wanted to see the HB again since I was so task loaded I only remember a very little bit of the dive. We had our reg issue and so the dive plan changed, but in no way do I see it as a failed dive. I had a blast, and look forward to many, many more dives.

I saw it mentioned that things have been a bit tense around here, that the economy, lay-offs etc are hitting close to home. I can relate, my roomie is laid off and so I am sucking up more of the bills now, I have been cut back from 50-60 hours a week to 35 and so things are very tight right now. A can light will have to wait, and so will finishing up the refurb o the drysuit i have here. For now though I am just glad to have the gear that I do have, and such wonderful diving so close, not to mention my finally being able to dive, not just read about it and bug you guys.

Went and Matthew got my reg all set up today (thanks dude), bought Scott Boyd's wreck book, a copy of wreck diver magazine, and a new bright red moleskin notebook to be my new dive log. I know not everyone logs dives, and I don't know if I will forever, but for now I think it will be really cool to track my SAC, take notes to see how my skills and knowledge are progressing and so that one day I can look back on my early dives and relay those stories on NWDC when a silly new diver is sharing their early experiences and wondering how it all started for others just as you guy have for me. Thanks to you all. this site is great, and this community is great, I feel really lucky to be on the verge of becoming apart of it.

[airsix]

Jake,
Log your dives. All of them. And be detailed. Write down the funny things that happened. The cool stuff you saw. The stuff that went wrong, and the stuff that went right. Years later you'll read those entries and they'll flood you with priceless memories.

In fact, the way you tell stories you could probably have your logbook published.

-Ben