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Andrew Bullock
Last modified 16th September 2006
9th-10th September 2006, Bonneville Seabase, UT, USA.
Open water certification dives (4) and another one for fun! At ~4500' and warm water (~80F). Less than 3' visibility but did manage to feed lettuce to scat and angel fish. Saw a nurse shark feeding and found out which cave they like to hide in although we couldn't find it in the dark. Probably best as we had to feel our way everywhere.
th-th ? 2006, Bonneville Seabase, UT, USA.
Back at Seabase, need to look up the dates for this trip. We did (most) of our Advanced Open Water Certification dives on this trip. Only failed on the navigation dives because there is too much metal in the bay to let the compass work correctly. Cold. Vis poor. Buoyancy mostly ok... If only there was more to see.
24th-25th March 2007, Blue Hole, NM, USA.
Dry suit course with New Mexico Scuba Center. Blue Hole is an eight foot deep, sixty foot diameter hole in the ground fed by spring water at a constant temperature of 62 F. Pretty cold if you are in a wet suit. Visibility was 20' plus for most of the time there, I guess it dropped to ~10' by the end due to the amount of silt stirred up in the water. We were to blame for some of that. We spent Saturday going over the class session and practising in a pool in Albuquerque before making three dives on Sunday at Blue Hole.
Most dives were meant to be between 35-50'. We ended up down at 74' on one: buoyancy issues, but were getting better by the end. My trim needs work (this probably should have been mentioned by someone by now!) but it is easy to tell in a dry suit as you actually get air in your legs... Doesn't feel so deep when you can actually see things! So much nicer than Seabase! Oh, and the staff and instructors at NMSC were fantastic. Stacy, Ralph, Mike and Kevin are those I remember, but we met others as well. Friendly, helpful and fun. Highly recommended.
24th May 2007, Horsetooth Reservoir, CO, USA.
Took ourselves and the dry suits out to Horsetooth Reservoir in the Rocky Mountains just west of Fort Collins. Altitude 8000+'. Not really a problem as we chose to dive from the swim beach and only got down to a depth of 16'!
Took us an age to get in, lots of learning issues, but we seemed comfortable for about 10 mins at least. Towing a buoy was an interesting experience anyway, I like my reel but not easy to hold that and a Jon line without one slipping out. Visibility about 8' I think, which was great, and possibly more depending on how you measure it as when I looked up I could see the float on the surface. Didn't see much apart from green moss (Chris insists it was red).
Last modified 16th September 2006