THE THRILL OF THE DIVE!!!! NOT EVERY DIVE HAS TO BE FOR A BODY OR FOR EVIDENCE!!!!!















































Enough police training talk for awhile, I thought it time to share a bit of my underwater world with you folks as I'm instructing an open water class this upcoming weekend out at West Hawk Lake for some returning servicemen based at Camp Shilo, a project that myself and other local SCUBA Instructors have been involved in since I brought up the topic at a Manitoba Underwater Council members meeting 2 years ago. At the meeting I put a motion on the floor challenging the other instructors to donate some of their time to " give back" to our servicemen/women for their role in keeping our country safer and to say " thank you your effort's are not un-noticed".
I did not receive a single NO vote, the local dive shops donated the use of the equipment needed, I was in touch with the City Council which gladly donated the use of one of the cities indoor pools for the confined portion of the course, and it was off to the races. The only cost that these folks had to put out of pocket was for their own mask, snorkle, and fins. The dive shops even covered the costs of submitting the pro-forms for each student so their first C-Cards were paid for. In all the instructors in my area have added 273 new "guppies" to the ranks of the diving addicted. We are hoping that the base and 17 Wing take us up on at least that many this year. It was a privilege to be able to instruct these fine men and women of the forces. One of my students had PTSD so badly that he wouldn't speak for the first lesson, by the end of the course and the check out dives, not only was he "back to normal", he was the best student in the class, joined a local SCUBA club, and is considering GOING PRO by making SCUBA Instructing his career. I'll stand by him all the way, hell, I may even fly out to Nova Scotia to be there when he does his IDC.
As you can tell by the pics I have posted my dives are defintely varied when I'm on vacation, I included the pic of "Soggy" a dive buddy taking in pure oxygen as he suffered a DCS hit on this particular dive to stress that diving is not without it's inherent risks, so if you plan to dive, TAKE INSTRUCTIONS from an instructor you feel comfortable with and is with an accredited agency.
Whether it be a warm water dive down South or our more fridgid Canadian waters I love them all. I make most of my dives on open circut SCUBA, but I have posted a pic of my "baby", ( Megalodon CCR), which is a fully closed circuit rebreather. These machines are amazing, where a normal open circuit diver may be able to stretch a dive to 60-75 mins. using double tanks, this unit let's me stay down for as long as 5 hours on one small tank of oxygen and a small tank of a diluent gas, ( usually air but occasionally nitrox for deeper longer dives). To date my deepest dive has been to 320 fsw ( Not bragging) it was for the module 3 part of my CCR course, but like I tell students, " just because you are trained to dive to 300 feet, YOU DON'T HAVE TO everydive!!".
The wreck pics are from the Comet in Lk. Superior, The Bermuda wreck in Lk. Superior off of Kingston ON, the Mayflower wreck in Lk. Kaminiskig ON, and The Northwind which lays in the N. Channel of Lake Huron. The ones I like to refer to as " go ahead and jump" are at Cerulean Springs Kentucky, and the " wildlife photo" is a Lion's Mane Jellyfish taken off the coast of Newfoundland on a night dive, at 90 fsw., and if I had known how poisonous these creatures are I would never have gotten that close to have my buddy take a shot of me!! There's even a pic of my dive buddy in Oregon Aaron playing with a baby octopus. That was a dive to remember, it seemed everyone of the creatures we encountered were as curious about us as we were of them.
I'll have to go through some of my memory sticks to find other dive pics from my " tropical" and cave diving expeditions, and the most memorable of all, I was able to dive next to an iceberg off the Newfoundland coast in 2003, and over in the UK in 2004 at Scapa Flow checking out old German U Boats that had met their match. Those dives are really not for the faint of heart as besides being deep, the current's are ever changing, and on one dive there wasn't one diver who would let go of the shot (down) line!!!
Hey maybe this blog has peaked a bit of interest in diving for you?? I hope it has!! I know for sure The Farmer is going to like this one!!!

Comments

The Farmer said…
You've been on some spectacular dives, I love the wreck photos
June 08, 2009 12:01 AM
Texas Ghostrider said…
I thought you were just teasing the farmer with all of these photo's. I will let ya'll two go under water I will stay topside and enjoy that view.
June 14, 2009 1:24 AM
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