After Doris dropped me off I had to get ready for my evening dive. I collected together all my dive gear and put it in my mesh dive bag.
I went to a nearby restaurant, Cafe Chianti, across the street from the Westin Nova Scotian Hotel. I had a mid-afternoon supper of salmon and salad followed by a decadent ginger slice with ginger ice cream.
Back to my room to change into diving duds and grab my bag. I hustled down the street to catch the bus to Torpedo Rays SCUBA Adventure(http://www.torpedorays.com/). One bus got me there in about 20-25 minutes. My gear bag must have weighed at least 40 pounds. A very difficult and awkward carry. The girl at the dive shop, Michelle, helped me get rental gear together: a filled tank, two-piece 7mm wet suit, hood, 3-finger mits and weights. Weights... I'm used to diving with about 6-8 pounds but with all this neoprene (14mm on my core and thighs) Michelle advised 34 pounds. Also, I had forgotten how difficult it is to get into 7mm of neoprene. I was sweating profusely from the exersion of squeezing my body into the suit. I was regretting lugging my own wetsuits (full 3mm and 5mm core warmer) with me too. Once I got my gear together and paid the rental fee I waited. John, the dive master, was my ride to the boat.
We arrived at the boat and everyone else was already onboard and gearing up. Argh!! I was going to have to boogie if I was to catch up. So as the boat cast-off, I started squeezing into the neoprene 'sausage casing' on a bouncing boat. The group seemed like a nice, friendly bunch. One of the guys had a novelty hood with 'Batman' ears and symbol. Quite funny. We arrived at the site with me still trying to get all my gear on, so I would be last in. I got talking to Angela, another single diver on the boat, and she offered to buddy-up. Great, I hate having to buddy with the dive master/leader. We talked while I got my gear set up and she seemed like a good competent diver. Just learned last year but has been diving regularly and often. This would be my first cold water dive since 1994 and the coldest water I'd ever been in. Yes I was slightly nervous about the temperature. Surface temp was 14 deg C and bottom temp about 11 deg C. Although, as I found out later, the 14 was fairly consistent to depth with a minor thermalcline on the descent. Anyway, I was concerned that I might over-breath due to the cold. Well, correction, I was huffing and puffing before getting into the water just from getting geared up into all that neoprene and 34 pounds of lead filling my BCD pockets and belt. When I rolled off the gunnels of the boat the cold water actually was a welcome relief from the heat built up inside my suit. But I did over-breath for a couple of minutes until I was able to recover from the waddle-shuffle to get from the stern to starboard-bow of the boat with what felt like half a ton of gear on.
Once I met up with my buddy, Angela, at the mooring rope we started our descent. Hell, I sunk like a rock. So much so that I had to hold the rope to slow myself so I could equalize. I didn't want to put any more air in the BCD in case I had to bleed it off. Once on the bottom I had to waste a lot of my precious air filling my BCD just to keep off the bottom. But I still kept sinking. Argh! Could have used 6-10 pounds less... easily.
The water was nowhere near as cold as I expected and I was quite comfortable most of the time. John had suggested I leave the camera behind because it was my first time dealing with so much gear. I regretted that the minute I saw the dive site.It was an interesting dive. The wreck was the SS Daniel Steinmann which was a schooner rigged iron ship that sank 3 April 1884. It ran aground at low tide in bad weather after going off course due to a mistaken identification of the light. It went down at Sambro just off Sambro Harbour south of Halifax. More info at http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/Wrecks/daniels1884.html. The Sambro Lighthouse is the oldest standing and operating lighthouse in the Western Hemisphere. (http://www.nslps.com/lights/lighthouse_page_01.asp?ID=355)
There were lots of broken bottles everywhere. I was told that the ship had a cargo of booze or champagne (depending on who I was talking to) and that nothing was salvaged. The iron plates cover the bottom and where we were moored was right at the bow which is still intact. There were loads of sea anemones , sea urchines (Echinoidea), fish (several types, some were similar species to those I saw in the Caribbean) and starfish. I saw a huge starfish (12-16 inches across) nestled between two 3/4inch thick sheets of iron from the wreck and it was surrounded by little baby starship that were about 2 inches across. I wanted so much to have my camera!!
The dive ended when I started to feel the chill and my air was down to 1000psi. That was the limit set by John. We had been down only 18 minutes. I hate having to end a dive so soon but it couldn't be helped. Climbing back onto the boat was a real pain because all we could hand up were fins. The climb was a good 4-5 feet up a ladder, fully loaded. And we had to breath canned air because of the rough water. I used another 400psi getting out of the water. Now I know why we had to have so much air left.
Getting out of the gear and packed up was much quicker. I asked around to anyone heading towards downtown Halifax for a ride and Angela offered. Nice car... an Audi. It was about 20-25 minute drive back and we chatted like friends all the way back. So an excellent evening all around. BTW: half the divers, including Angela, were diving dry (drysuit) and I think that's the best way to go. They found it so much more comfortable.
It took me over an hour to rinse all my gear off in the shower and take a shower & wash my hair. By the time I was done it was about 10:30 and I was totally wiped. The day had started at 6:00am and I had not stopped all day. I fell into bed and when I tried to read a bit before lights out I only lasted about 2 minutes. For the next 5 1/2 hours I was a dead body but I woke up at 4:30 and wasn't able to get back to sleep. Over-tired.
Posted by gailene at August 30, 2005 08:35 PM