Solo Dive

I've never been diving alone. The thought of it scares the crap out of me. There are way too many things that can go wrong. What if I get stuck in some abandoned fishing line and can't untangle myself? This is a common concern among New England divers. It's for this reason I impersonate a Bond girl and keep a knife strapped to my leg. (I also use the knife as a way to get Todd's attention. No, not that way. I unsheathe it and clang it against my tank until he gets the message. He loves that I do that, by the way. (not))

Laat Sunday morning we took the Under Achiever to the northern side of Prudence Island. Our friends Sean and Heidi were with us, and the mission was to collect as many quahogs as possible for the party with the Ya Yas that night. We armed ourselves with catch bags, Sean and Heidi rolled off the boat first. I rolled off next and waited for Todd to gear up.

"Beej, just go down. It's not like we'll stay together anyway. When we're digging for clams we'll kick up too much silt anyway. Just go down."

After asking him "Are you sure?" about 15 times he said "Yes. We're only in 10 feet of water anyway. It's not that big of a deal."

And it wasn't. But it was at first. I descended alone, and the viz sucked. I couldn't see a damn thing and smacked into the ocean floor.  You know, that big thing on the bottom of the ocean?  I didn't see it until I was in it. I swam into the current, so that on my way back to the boat I could ride the current and not be too tired to get back, with a catch bag full of clams.

I plunged my fingers into the mud in search of clams, then looked over my shoulder. Todd wasn't at arm's length away, and the butterflies awoke in my stomach. I sucked on my regulator a bit harder and tried to calm myself down. The depth gauge read 11 feet. I took a fix on my compass, and told myself "Just get some clams and get it over with."

I reached down and felt my first clam.  I pulled on it, and it wouldn't come free.  Then I pulled on it again.  I swam closer to it to get better leverage on it.  I yanked and it still wouldn't budge.  Then I noticed a dark blotch in front of me.  Holding the clam, I swam toward the blotch.  The blotch actually was Heidi.  The clam was in her catch bag.  I dropped the clam, hoping she wouldn't notice that I tried to steal it, and waved. 

After about 10 minutes I thought to myself, "Now where the hell am I?"  I'd been following a compass bearing to the southeast, but I couldn't tell where I was.  I popped up from 9 feet to see.  I saw the boat anchored not too far away, but didn't see Todd anymore.  I scanned the surface for bubbles, but couldn't see any through the waves.  I shrugged and descended again.  Hadn't found any clams yet that weren't already spoken for.  I plunged my hands into the mud again and felt something hard.

The clam was so big that I could barely Fit my hand around it.  It was firmly wedged into the mud, I pulled harder.  My legs flew up behind me, too buoyant.  I had set up my tank too high, so my head kept bonking on the tank valve and my legs flew up behind me.  This would prove to be a nuisance every time I tried to pull a clam out of the mud.  With every clam I found I would hold onto it with my fingertips as my legs flung themselves upward until I was completely inverted with every clam I caught.

I also learned on this solo dive that when you're digging around in the mud you can't see a damn thing.  I had to hold every hard object found in the mud up to my face to inspect it.  At one point I even learned that crabs don't like it when you yank them off the ground to look at them.  I felt the claw pinch my thumb.  I frantically shook my right hand to free it and watched it fly off ass over teakettle back into the cloud of silt around me.

I looked down at my air gauge and saw I was down to 800.  Time to surface.  I popped up, took a compass bearing and went back down, figuring I could catch more clams on the swim back.  A few minutes later I popped up again and heard Todd say "There she is!"  He jumped in a nd swam back to the boat with me.

He pulled my catch bag onto the boat and inspected it, "This is only half full.  You were down there for an hour and this is all you got?"

Sean looked in as well, "But they're fricken huge!"  Then I looked down and saw the mountains of clams that everyone else caught.  We robbed the ocean of 400 some-odd clams.

When the Boat’s Away

“So, now that the boat’s in Vermont what will you do this weekend?” a co-worker asked me on Friday.

“There are a zillion things to do,” I replied. “We can dive, hike, camp, lounge around, whatever.”

And we did just that. On Saturday we trailered the dive boat to the ramp in East Greenwich and motored over to Prudence Island. We heard about a concert going on over there and though we’d anchor to hear the music. When we arrived, on the eastern side of the island (located in the center of Narragansett Bay) we saw a band playing on a Sea Ray powerboat. The lead singer/guitarist was on the bow of the boat, while the drummer, bassist and keyboard player was inside the boat. We grabbed an empty mooring, unfolded the lawn chairs on the open deck of our dive boat and hung out.

The people watching was incredible. Dozens of boats were rafted together, forming long lines of boats tied side by side. When the wind shifted the whole line of boats turned on an axis, like a line of ice skaters synchronized kicking.  Children jumped off swim platforms.  They splashed and sprayed each other with squirt guns.  The adults danced with drinks in their hands.  Laughter could be heard all over the anchorage, occasionally it was louder than the music. 

Then we untied the mooring and headed to the south side of the island and tied the boat to an old pier. We put on the dive gear and descended to 20-something feet. We followed the pilings, though at first it was hard. Visibility was only 5-10 feet. In instantly lost track of Todd. After we found each other I only kept my eyes on him, and missed all the cool fish he saw under the pier.

Even if I didn’t see as much as I’d hoped, the dive was still great. It was our first dive of the season and I usually don’t care much about what I see and am perfectly content to be underwater. But on this particular dive I saw something I’d never seen before. I saw a starfish walking on the bottom of the ocean. Normally we see stars piled up on the sides of rocks and underwater structures. But on this dive I saw one slowly inch its way across the floor. We hovered near it and watched it for a few minutes.

I wonder how it must have looked from its perspective, two big human heads with big glass eyes and a mass of bubbles coming out of it’s food hole. Maybe that’s why it was going so fast?

Wet

There’s something amazing about watching people learn to scuba dive. It was the thing I liked the most about my stint as a dive shop owner. (And there was a lot I liked about that job: bringing my dogs to work with me, nobody telling me what to do, talking about diving all day long, etc.) The most fun part of the job was watching new students come back into the shop completely energized after their first open water dives, and they talked in a steady stream of exclamation points “And we went to 20 feet!!! And we saw starfish in the rocks!!! It was so cool!!!”

On Saturday our friend Sean was running a class that a few friends of ours were taking, and Todd and I went along for the first open water dives at Fort Wetherhill in Jamestown. On the first dive, Sean took them to 15 feet, and just had them try to sort out their buoyancy. It’s actually quite dangerous to be too buoyant that you float to the surface unexpectedly. But on the other hand it’s rather uncomfortable to be too negatively buoyant that you bumble around on the bottom too. So the idea is to establish neutral buoyancy, where you actually feel weightless. The visibility was lousy, as it often is in Rhode Island, but it was made worse by newbies stirring up the silt on the bottom. I hovered off to the side and helped keep the six students together, while Todd “sheepdogged” and went all over the cove to retrieve lost students. The phrase “herding cats” comes to mind.

I could read the frustration on the faces of the students underwater and was taken back to my first open water dive in Sydney Harbor. I joined the dive club on campus and took the lessons in my first month in Australia. The first open water dive was done from a rock entry, which meant that we walked out to the end of some rocks near the ocean and did a giant stride entry from the “cliff” into the water. The top of the cliff was maybe 6-8 feet above the water’s surface, and I hobbled out to the edge barefoot with 40 pounds of scuba gear strapped to my back. Nobody told me about needing scuba boots, and the barnacles on the rocks scratched against the soles of my feet before as I painfully hobbled to the edge where I donned my fins and jumped into the water. It even says in my dive log from that day, “I need boots. Ouch!”

The movement of the waves shoved me back and forth as I descended. I felt discombobulated and uncomfortable. As I climbed out onto the rocks after my dive I bashed my knee and I still can feel a slight bump from it, some 15 years later. My lips were raw and salty, like I’d eaten too many potato chips. Once in the parking lot I scanned my surroundings for a bus stop so I could escape. I hated my first dive, but I hadn’t driven myself to it and was stuck going on the next one.

Luckily the next dive was a calm beach entry. The sun had come out. Large blue grouper fish approached to check out the bubble makers invading their habitat. I kneeled on the sandy bottom and watched in awe as they circled above me. I was officially hooked.

I relay this story to every new diver I meet and say to every single one of them, “All you have to do is tolerate the first open water dive. It’s weird, it’s uncomfortable. Just get through it, on the second dive you’ll have a better sense of what to expect.” Every new diver I’ve met always confirms my assertion. “You were right, the second dive was much better,” they always say.

That was also very true with the group on Saturday. On the second dive, Sean took them through some skills underwater. The group lined up and kneeled in a row as Sean went one by one to have each diver demonstrate the skill. The divers stayed still. They understood a little more how to control their buoyancy (I am still learning about buoyancy even now. I still learn something new with every dive.) And they all said the same thing at the surface, “The second one was way better! I felt more confident!” Yesiree!

On Sunday we took the “Under Achiever” out for a spin to see how it’ll do as a dive boat. Todd and I first rode out to Hope Island and dropped the anchor. The ride south to the island was a bit hard on me. Even though water is fluid, it is still a hard surface when a boat crashes onto the surface after getting thrown upward by the waves. I tried to sit in my chair and felt my ribs do a bump and grind dance with my clavicles every time the boat slammed into the water. I let out an involuntary “OOF!” every time the bottom of the boat flopped into the surface.

Once anchored, we followed the line into the murky green water to the bottom at 20 feet. I extended my arms out in front of me and could not see my fingertips. Visibility was 2-3 feet. We bumbled around on the bottom, looking for quahogs. I didn’t look for any, and just kept my eyes on Todd. If he strayed more than 2-3 feet away from me he would slip out of sight. His light blue fins revealed his location, though I was close enough to him to risk being kicked in the face. I held my hands in front of my face to catch his kicking fins, and didn’t bother with sight seeing. We ascended and declared the site “sucky” and got back into the boat.

A few moments later, thank you 150 horse engine, I dropped the anchor just north of Patience Island where the water was calmer. We descended to 15 feet, and I clipped the catch bag to my BCD. Todd crawled along the bottom, stirring up the silt as he hunted for clams. He handed several dozen to me before I became weighed down by the catch bag. At this spot I could still see a foot or so beyond my fingertips, but once Todd stirred up the mud, visibility became zero. I reached out and grabbed his arm just to make sure I knew where he was.

Carrying the catch bag for Todd underwater is much like carrying a purse on land. “Here, can you stash this in your purse?” he asks, while handing me his cell phone and his gigantic collection of every key he’s ever gotten (we joke that he’s in janitor training with all those keys. What do they open? Who knows?!) I toss them into my backpack purse and brace myself from the weight. He handed me clam after clam, like so many keys and cell phones. The quahogs in the catch bag added weight to my left side and discombobulated my sense of buoyancy.

The salt water stung my right eye as we dove, and I closed it and looked through the left one for the duration. I am a bit persnickety when it comes to my gear. If there is a single strand of hair caught in my mask seal, water will freely flow into the mask, irritate me, and ruin my dive. I closed my right eye, and made my way through the fog using on my left. (Every season I toy with the idea of taking a page from the book of Taoist Biker, and shaving my head for dive season. Maybe someday.)

We ascended and brought the clams aboard. Todd rubbed his hands together in delight over fresh clams for dinner, while I lamented how my house would stink from their preparation.

With the anchor safely stowed, we bombed around the bay and explored. We still had our wetsuits on and I cannot decide if we looked like dorks with them on, or if we looked cool. Though I think I would have looked cooler with a shaved head after all.

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

I haven’t been writing much lately because I’ve been in such a pissy mood. Since I got back from vacation, reality’s been hitting me a bit harder than I’d like. I haven’t been handling it all that well. My fight or flight instinct is pointing to flight.

Work has sucked a bit lately. They’ve changed my job around, and I am not 100% convinced that I like the new gig they’ve laid out for me. The parts I really liked about my job have been reassigned to someone else, and they left me to do the parts of my job that I really did not like. I did those parts of my job that I didn’t like because it, like it or not, it was my responsibility to accomplish those tasks. And now I am stuck with doing those tasks all the time. The part of my job that I looked forward to is now gone.

I am sad, annoyed and disillusioned. No talking about it with the powers that be has made a bit of difference. I groan as I roll out of bed in the mornings. I hide at my desk all day and avoid everyone I work with. My choices are to leave the job, in the state that has the second worst unemployment rate in the country. My odds of landing another gig, never mind one that I would hate less, are slim to none. Or I can stay and suck it up, knowing that I am not psyched. I don’t want to leave, however. I liked the job I did. I liked the company. I liked the people. My job felt purposeful. But I dread what they’ll ask me to do next.

I am trying to look at the bright side, but can’t seem to find it yet. My excellent husband brought home a bright side for me just the other day. We’ve been talking about getting a small, trailer-able power boat that we can dive off of. Shore diving in Rhode Island is kind of been-there-done-that for us, and we’re getting the itch to check out some new spots in the middle of the Bay. We found a boat for a great price. Todd sea-trialed it on Wednesday, and we bought it the following day. It's nothing special, just something to cruise around in with tanks and gear in the back.

On Friday afternoon he picked me up in it after work, and we took a quick spin on Greenwich Bay and took along one of my co-workers. It ran well, and we were very happy with the motor’s performance as we tooled around. (Then it started raining cats and dogs. The three of us were completely drenched. But that’s another story.) We trailered the boat and headed for home, thrilled at the prospect of getting in a few new dives this summer.

Today we towed the new boat to the ramp, thinking we’d spend the afternoon bombing around the bay playing with the new boat. I’ve never really driven a power boat, and I need to learn how to get around on this one. We dropped her into the water, and I parked the truck and trailer in the boat launch’s parking lot. (I am shockingly bad at backing trailers into spots, and have to make 23544974 attempts before getting it right. Learning curves.) Todd waited for me at the dock, with the motor running. We untied it from the dock and put it in gear and it stalled. We started it, put it in gear again, and then it stalled again. The tide carried us as we started and stalled, started and stalled, started and stalled. I noticed a slick of gasoline trailing behind us and we determined that there is likely a hole in a fuel line.

We beached the dive boat on the shore. I held onto it while Todd went to get our dinghy from the marina just down the road. The plan was to tow the boat using the dinghy pack to the public boat ramp. Eventually I saw him approach on the dinghy and asked him “Did you walk down there? I didn’t see our truck go down the road.”

“No, I got a lift from some guys hanging out at the ramp,” he replied. “That’s a story I’ll tell you about in a minute.”

We tied the dinghy to the dive boat and towed it back to the ramp while Todd told me about the man that gave him a lift. This man had lost his job and was evicted from his apartment in February. Since then he’d been living in his car and was kind enough to help Todd out even though he only needed to walk about a quarter to a half mile down the road. It's damn cold in Rhode Island in February. I imagined this man lying in the back seat of his car on the first night he slept in it. The despair that he must have felt while the windows fogged up from inside and he hunkered down under, hopefully, a warm blanket. Then in the morning he'd open the door, crawl out and stretch his cramped legs in the cold morning air while he blew on his hands and rubbed them together to warm them.

We pulled the boat onto the trailer, and I drove the dinghy back to its dock down the road. We tried to give the man a few bucks for his trouble, and he refused to take our money. As we rode home Todd lamented the dive boat’s engine failure.

“Well, how can we possibly be annoyed at an outboard motor’s failure. A homeless guy was nice enough to help us out because we were inconvenienced by a motor boat engine,” I shrugged.

I know that sentiment applies to other parts of my life other than the engine’s failure to give us a good time. I should be thankful for what I have. I want to be thankful for what I have. Because I do have a lot to be thankful for. And I feel like an asshole for not being more grateful.

Yeah, work sucks.

But it could be a lot worse.

New England Aquarium Dive

Back when I owned the dive shop I got involved with all the local dive clubs. We volunteered at their events, held meetings at the shop, and kept on top of all club goings-on. One of the first things we did when we bought the shop was to host the Frozen Fin Dive on New Year's Day. We provided a free heated tent, free chowder, burgers and coffee, and blared tunes all day long. We gave out free T-shirts, we held a raffle. We entered the RI dive world with a splash.

We ended up selling the shop, but we still help out the New England Aquarium Dive Club, which operates out of Boston. Every fall they run an event at which divers can hunt for rare fish species and donate them to the Aquarium. The Club runs the event, they do the food and raffle thing too.

Last fall Todd and I attended the event, and put down a bid for a dive in the New England Aquarium in Boston. We bid prohibitively high, figuring that we'd either win or we'd help the club raise money for the Aquarium. We managed to accomplish both.

On Saturday we went on the dive.

We dove with a 450 lb sea turtle named Myrtle the Turtle. There were also sand sharks, moray eels, and a nurse shark. But what was particularly great about diving the NE Aquarium was that we were given permission to touch the animals. I scratched the back of Myrtle's neck. I ran my hands down the sides of the sharks as they swam by. I played with Myrtle's fins. I pet the big nurse shark as it dozed on the bottom. I looked out at the little kids who stood with their mouths hanging open watching us.

I've dove the tank at Epcot. I've dove the tank at the Georgia Aquarium too. But this dive, in this little 200,000 gallon tank, was the best of them.

This is Todd, making his dream of diving the tank come true.

This is me, the monkey in the zoo, flirting with the audience.

Photos from the Georgia Aquarium

At last I've gotten off my lazy butt and cleaned my memory card from my camera. I took 204 pictures of the exhibits at the Georgia Aquarium, here are the best.

Zebra Turkey Fish

Open mouthed whale shark

Turtle in flight

Todd snapping a pic of the reef exhibit with his cell phone. This exhibit was very impressive. When you walk in, the reef is in front of you, floor to ceiling. Above you, the glass curves, and there is a wave machine right above as well. Every 2 minutes the machine creates a wave, and the music playing in the exhibit swells every time the wave crashes. Beautifully executed.

Todd petting a ray.

Saw fish

Sea horses

Dozing otters

Dah.... DUNT! This is a silouhette of a whale shark.

Octopus against glass

Jellies

Belugas having lunch.

Baby hammerhead

Alligator with reflection.

Alligator above and below.

Alligator distorted.

9 ft ray, or a jumbo jet, it's up to interpretation.

Whale Sharks Just an Arm's Length Away

The first time we went to Atlanta we were woefully unprepared for the onslaught of really great restaurants. We stayed in a hotel downtown and were given a list of recommended restaurants by the front desk. The list was 3 pages long, and was printed on both sides of the paper. This time around we expected that our trip would be punctuated by one terrific meal after another, with a dive with the whale sharks in the Georgia Aquarium for dessert.

On Monday we left Alon’s Bakery (oh, Alon, if I wasn’t already married…) after another wonderful lunch and said to Todd “We should be careful when we go on the dive today, they’re going to mistake us for whale sharks and forget to let us out of the tank.”

We arrived at the aquarium after lunch, already familiar with the exhibits. On Sunday we spent the entire day there exploring every gallery. We stared in awe at the gorgeous whale sharks as they lazily swam through the water. We watched the beluga whales gracefully turn somersaults through the water, with a grin on their faces. Our mouths hung open at the sight of the giant reef whose tank arched over our heads. Words cannot do the aquarium justice. The habitats are beautiful, the animals graceful and plentiful. We also took a behind the scenes tour on Sunday afternoon, and learned a great deal about how the animals live at the aquarium. How their food is prepared, how they are cared for and we watched the caretakers feed the belugas and the whale sharks.

On Monday the anticipation bubbled inside of us. We geared up and sat on a dock on the edge of the Ocean Voyager exhibit and watched the four whale sharks circle below us, the largest one measured 26 feet long. We watched the hammer head shark skulk around near the bottom, and the 9 foot long manta ray flap along around the edges of the tank. The dive masters helped us into our gear, and we dropped into the water.

The 75 degree water gave me a bit of a chill at first as I descended to the bottom. I clenched my teeth just to keep my regulator in my mouth, because I knew that my mouth would hang open and I’d drop it. Five thousand fish swirled around me as I kneeled on the bottom. The whale sharks circled above us.

We were led in a figure 8 pattern through the tank, as groupers and hump head rasses approached to investigate and massage themselves on our bubbles. A whale shark passed to our left, close enough so that Todd could barely extend his arm and touch it, if we were allowed to touch them. The hammer head shark swam directly in front of us, his tail fin a mere centimeter from Todd’s face.

We waved at the visitors who watched us on the other side of the glass. We kneeled at the bottom again and just watched the fish in the habitat in 3D as they approached us, and they swam in their patterns.

The dive master gave the thumbs up sign, and we grudgingly approached the surface, turning circles the whole way so we could just take in a few more minutes of this magical habitat that we were lucky enough to visit for just a half hour.

We surfaced and I wondered if the dive masters would notice if I just grabbed another tank and descended again.

It’s Like the Last Day of School

Tonight we are getting on a plane bound for Atlanta. Todd’s birthday is in a few weeks and as a surprise I bought us a dive excursion in the Georgia Aquarium. On Monday we’ll dive in an aquarium full of whale sharks. Whale sharks! Our suitcases are packed and they’re in the car, the dogs are also in the car waiting to go to kennel at lunch time.

I can’t concentrate on anything except the whale sharks that I’ll meet on Monday. I also cannot shake the feeling that I’ve forgotten something of critical importance at home. That feeling will pass once I figure out which travel site Todd used to book the tickets so I can print out the itinerary. At the moment I not only have no idea which airline we’re flying on, but I also have no idea when the plane leaves. Our departure time is set for, roughly, some time after work tonight.

:::

Last night, while distractedly lobbing random articles of clothing into the suitcase, I had the honor of participating in Mr. Taoist Biker’s blog radio show. We talked about our family’s Christmas tradition. He talked about the Southern Christmas, and I talked about what I like to call “A Very Polish Christmas.” It was a lot of fun, and I’d like to thank my blog pal Taoist Biker, a.k.a. Bitch Taoista, for a good time last night.

In the mean time, I watch the clock and try to convince myself that it hasn’t just run backward.

A Spotted Fin Butterfly Fish

It happens every year. The Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean shifts. The warmer water migrates north, and with it come tropical fish. Normally the fish here in Rhode Island are a dowdy grey, and even brownish. But in September and October the fish glow yellow, orange, blue and green. Gossip spreads through the dive community about who caught what exotic fish for their aquarium. Last year a friend of ours caught a rare lion fish for his tank. Last weekend another friend of ours caught a sea horse for her tank. I’ve never seen a sea horse in the ocean, and my lucky friend caught one.

Here's a lion fish, like the one our friend caught, photo credit: www.taba-heights.co.uk/DivingSnorkeling.html



On Sunday Todd and I went diving at Fort Wetherhill, on the southern tip of Jamestown, Rhode Island. We saw the usual lobsters hiding in the rocks, and the dowdy looking fish. But this time I saw two spotted fin butterfly fish. Then the same friend who caught the sea horse before, also caught a spotted fin butterfly.

This picture is kind of like the fish I saw on Sunday, photo credit: piddlefish.com.


I am terrible with fish names. I can never seem to get them to stick in my mind. But a few years ago I saw two clown fish--you know, like the ones in Finding Nemo. The kicker is I saw these clown fish on a dive just off of Newport.

This, my friends, is why I dive.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Life has been hectic since we came back from Florida on Monday, sorry about not posting sooner. Here’s the rundown on the adventures we had on vacation.

On Monday we headed over to the boat, and just as we were about to leave the dock two of my co-workers were walking by. They walk every day at lunch time from our office, which is located just a few blocks away from the boat. I catcalled out to them and they hesitated a bit and kept walking. Who knew that they would respond when I yelled out “Hey! Hoochie?” We set sail for Newport and just puttered around town for a few days—no big whoop.

Thursday morning we woke up at 3AM and lamented having ever moved from our old house that was located 3 miles from the airport. Groggily, we boarded our plane then landed in sunny Ft. Lauderdale. We cruised around for the afternoon and then prepared for our two days of eight dives.

The two days turned into three hours. The eight dives turned into two dives. The ocean was choppy on Friday afternoon, and we had two lousy dives. The first dive was to 90 or so feet, and the divemaster on the boat buddied us up with a man who was on his own. Once we got onto the anchor line, I was experiencing some technical difficulties at 30 or so feet. My mask was flooding and I couldn’t fix it because the current was so strong. I was afraid that if I took both hands off the line I would get swept out of position. I struggled with my mask, and looked to Todd from behind my rapidly filling mask. He and our dive buddy were further down the line and eventually they escaped my line of sight. I fussed with the mask some more, and spotted the divemaster pulling himself down the line with one hand while holding his spear gun in the other. He blew right by me as I held onto the line, alone and out of sight from the rest of the divers on the boat. He didn’t turn and flash me the “Are you OK?” sign. Nothing. He made his way down the line, and I jerked against the line to capture his attention. No response from him as he slipped further down the line and out of my sight.

Then I started to get mad. I wasn’t just mad. I was furious. I was furious with Todd for ditching me and I was furious with the divemaster for blowing me off. I made it to the surface, climbed back into the boat and told the captain what had happened. I fixed my mask, jumped back in and made my way down the line. At approximately 50 feet I encountered Todd as he was on his way back, and at that point I didn't get the chance to communicate with him about what happened. At that point, for all I knew, he ditched me. He’s never done that before. Though sometimes on a shallower dive he’ll wait for me at the bottom as I slowly equalize my ears on descent—but in that instance he can see me. On this particular dive he slipped out of sight and I was left alone on the line.

“Are you OK?” he signed to me.

I flipped him one finger, and I’ll let you guess which one it was.

He held up both hands as if to question, “What?”

I pointed to myself, then to him, and then pressed my hands together as if to say “You and me are supposed to be buddied up.” Then I held my hands as if to question him, then propped my fists onto my hips as if to say “What the hell happened to you?”I scowled at him as well as I could have with a regulator in my mouth. We descended to 90-ish, explored the wreck for a few minutes and then slowly made our way back up the line and climbed into the boat.

He asked me what was wrong, and I told him that I was furious with him and didn’t want to get into it just then as I didn’t want to be that couple on the dive boat that fought in front of everyone else. Then on the second dive we were so disconnected from each other and had a lousy time of it. We hauled ourselves back into the boat, and barely said two words to each other all the way back to the dock.

In the car we talked about what had happened on the first dive. Our dive buddy took off down the line and didn’t wait for us, you know, like a dive buddy is supposed to do. Todd, worried for the man’s safety, followed him down to the bottom. He found another buddy pair and told our buddy to go with them. Once he was sure that he was safe at the deeper depth, he started to climb up the rope to find me. His logic was that I was at a safer depth and less of a worry, while our dive buddy was going to be deeper and more of a risk at that depth. My logic was “How on earth could you abandon your wife and chase a stranger down without knowing that I was OK?” We quickly resolved the problem, and resumed our vacation. In hindsight I know he was right. Though in the heat of the moment I was pissed. We said our apologies, and salvaged the rest of the trip.

The weather cancelled the last of our dives. The wind roared and the ocean boiled. We made the best of it by exploring the land instead of the reefs and wrecks. We rented a power boat and explored the Intracoastal Waterway, which is something we’ve always wanted to do. We ate at Dairy Queen so many times that we began to call it “Daily Queen.”

All in all a good vacation, even though we don’t have any photographic evidence. I think I took only three pictures while we were in Newport. I didn’t take my camera to Florida because we hauled the video camera and the underwater housing there, hoping to record our dives. But the dives were cancelled. It doesn’t quite feel like vacation without having the pictures to prove it.

Oh well, we’ll just have to go again.

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Program

Let’s take a break from all discussion of life changing decisions for a moment and talk about our fabulous weekend. This blog’s title isn’t called “A Life of Adventure” for nothing, right?

Last weekend Todd and I had a whirlwind of fun and adventure. But let’s back up to the weekend before for a moment. There was a robin’s nest in the pretty flowery bush just outside of our workshop. The hen only laid one egg, and we’ve been keeping an eye on it for the last few weeks. Last weekend the egg finally hatched, and my nieces and nephews admired the baby bird that sat under its mother’s body to keep warm. Then this last Saturday I noticed that Nemo was sniffing around under the bush. I didn’t think much of it at the time, as he’s a beagle and can basically be considered a nose with legs. Later that morning Todd and I were outside and I learned what Nemo was sniffing at, the baby robin had fallen out of its nest, and the mama robin was nowhere to be found.

Todd scooped up the robin and put it back into the nest. We left for the afternoon, as I had my workplace’s company picnic down the road, and then we went out to run some errands. When we came home in the evening we saw that the mama robin hadn’t returned to warm her young’s body and to feed it. Concerned, we called a wildlife rescue hotline and learned that we should prepare a shoebox with a heating pad, an old T-shirt and see if we could warm and then feed the baby. We brought the baby in and tried to warm it. Then we mashed up some blueberries and tried to feed it. I am sad to say that the baby bird died around midnight on Saturday night.

On Sunday morning we woke up, still a bit sad about our failed attempt at rescuing this poor baby bird. To ease our sadness we packed up our dive gear and headed to Fort Wetherhill, in Jamestown, RI for our first dive of the season. I am trying hard not to pay attention to the fact that it’s the middle of August and I’ve just gone on my first dive. The dive was wonderful. We only went to a maximum of 28 or so feet. But these 5 white fish with vertical black bars followed us around for the entire dive. They swam circles around us, and we just kneeled on the bottom and watched them for awhile.

Now I can’t wait to go on vacation next week, so we can dive some more.

Labor Day Weekend Sailing and Diving Adventure

Saturday Sean and Heidi met us at the marina, and we loaded the obnoxious number of bags of food, clothing and gear onto the boat, over at least a half dozen trips from the dock to the mooring.

Around 1 we set sail for Tiverton, RI. Tiverton is a small town on the east side of Narragansett Bay, separated from Newport by the Sakonnet River. There isn’t a heck of a lot to do in Tiverton, but the moorings are cheap and it’s a relaxing spot to spend the evening with friends on the boat.

This is Tiverton, RI from the boat

The bridge we went under to get to Tiverton. At high tide we probably would not make it under this bridge with our 55' mast.

We picked up the mooring and headed ashore. We walked up to the tower in General Barton Park, and looked out over the Sakonnet River. The view from up there is gorgeous, and the graffiti on the tower is fun to read. Now we know which couples will be “2-getha 4-eva” and that is always a good thing to know.

This is the view from the tower, you can see the Mt. Hope Bridge in the background, the Sakonnet River and Portsmouth, RI.

This is Todd lounging on the dinghy on the beach in Tiverton.

We walked down the main street of town to look for the shop where a woman sold homemade salsa. The shop was replaced by a dance studio, where I suspect they dance the salsa rather than make the salsa. We decided to explore the waters around Tiverton in the dinghy, and came upon a snack shop/seafood dive on a small cove off of the river that we’ll be sure to check out the next time we’re in town.

The rest of the night was spent with beer, burgers on the grill and Sean’s homemade salsa. We went to bed early to prepare for the dive on the next day.

We woke up with the sun and Todd took Griffen for a swim. We tossed away the mooring lines and set off for Hope Island. Sean, Heidi and I went ashore with the dogs, while Todd scoped out potential dive sites with the handheld depth sounder. We donned our gear and got into the dinghy to head for the rocks on the southeast side of the island.

We’ve never been diving on this site, nor had we heard of anyone diving on this site. Todd scoped it out on the charts and carefully plotted the dive according to the tide schedule and wind direction.

It’s a maximum of 39 feet by this group of rocks. There are interesting rock formations to see underwater, and we saw huge tautog, conches and quahogs all over the bottom. Sean got my attention and got me to help him collect a few quahogs until his catch bag was too heavy to carry anymore. We swam around and explored around the rocks, until we got too tired. We all met on the surface where Heidi and I clipped ourselves into the side of the dinghy while Todd and Sean went down again to collect some more quahogs. They ended up with maybe 20-30 pounds.

Todd towed the three of us behind the dinghy back to the boat. By then the wind had picked up and made the water a bit too choppy for the second dive we’d planned on doing on a submerged tug boat on the southernmost tip of the island. We set sail for East Greenwich and called it a day.
We said goodbye to Sean and Heidi after unloading the ridiculous amount of gear that we’d brought for an overnight. Now I mourn the unofficial end of summer, and want another month to spend on the boat sailing and diving. Oh well, there’s always fall sailing and fall diving.

Already Pining for the Long Weekend

I just got back from vacation 2 weeks ago, and I am ready to go on another trip. We were trying to set up a dive trip in Florida for the long weekend, but waited a bit too long and didn’t get a good price on the fare. So we decided we’d do something locally, involving both sailing and diving.

It’s Thursday, and I am itching for the 3-day weekend. It is also the last week that I can use flex time at work. In the summer they let the employees work 9 hour days Monday – Thursday, and then you can leave early on Friday. I am hoping that my workload won’t be too heavy that I can still leave early on Friday.

On Friday afternoon we’re going to pack up our dive gear and food for the weekend. Todd will be inviting some dive friends to go with us, and we’ll sail on Saturday morning for Bristol, RI. We’ll do Bristol for Saturday, and then on Sunday morning we’ll set sail for Hope Island, in the middle of Narragansett Bay. This island is the one that Maggie and Krys explored on the last day of our vacation. There is a sunken tug boat on the south shore of the island that we will hopefully dive on Sunday as well.

I’ll let you know on Monday or Tuesday how the trip went.

Happy Labor Day, Internet.

I Totally Feel like a Navy Seal

Saturday Todd and I went for a dive off of Gould Island in the middle of Narragansett Bay. Gould Island was a hot spot for torpedo development and testing before and during World War II. Todd and I have recently developed a bit of an obsession with the island, and often speculate about the goings on at Gould Island as we sail by it on the way to Newport and other ports in the southern part of the Bay.

On the northern half of this small island there is a pier and a building from which the Navy used to fire and observe the torpedoes while testing them. They put buoys in the water to mark off the torpedo testing range, though I don’t know that I’ve seen them test anything there recently. (But then, most of my sailing is done on the weekends and at night, when torpedo testing is less likely to occur.) The island has a bit of an eerie feeling to it. Kind of like it’s been abandoned, but you’re not sure if it’s actually been abandoned. Has it been abandoned, or does it just appear to have been abandoned? There are still a few other buildings on the island, along with a large smoke stack. The buildings are vacant now, as far as we know. However the building at the firing pier on the north tip of the island has a security light on 24x7 (Even in the daytime. Waste of energy and tax dollars, anyone?)

When we anchored the dinghy by the firing building, and we could hear a loud hum coming from the building. I am assuming the loud hum is an HVAC unit in the building. The loud hum has launched a fantasy about how the inside of the dilapidated building is really super high-tech, with the most sophisticated computers and surveillance equipment the world has to offer. Why else would the US Navy need to run an HVAC unit on a dilapidated building on a seemingly abandoned island in the middle of Narragansett Bay just a short boat ride away from the Naval Underwater War College in Newport? I am reminded of that scene in the movie “Spies Like Us” where the missile defense station is located in a seemingly abandoned drive in movie theatre. I know that this totally exists on Gould Island. (And if it doesn’t, then I’ll just fantasize about crazy espionage things going on at Gould Island, and it’ll be fun.)

We did the dive, and I actually had a bad gear dive. I couldn’t stay down for some reason, my mask wouldn’t seal. Once I got over my gear hiccups, I actually had a good time. The viz was crap, there weren’t any fish at all. But whatever, I don’t care what I see, so long as I am underwater.

We ended our dive and got back into the boat. We decided that we’d check out the Island while we were there. I had visions of looking in windows of the abandoned buildings on the south side, and discovering some of the crazy espionage-y things that surely are going on there.

We didn’t have any clothes on us, just our wetsuits. We beached the dinghy and hopped out onto the shore, with a loud “squish” of the water trapped in my wetsuit boots.

“It’s like we’re Navy seals! Check us out! We’re infiltrating an island by sea!” Todd exclaimed, laughing.

“Yeah, but Navy seals don’t make this slurpy sound when they walk around in wetsuits,” I laughed.

We walked up from the beach and onto a concrete pad. There was a ramp leading into the water from the concrete pad. Images of helicopters once landing there filled my head. Secret helicopters, containing people carrying briefcases handcuffed to their wrists. Images of people exchanging code words necessary for passage filled my mind, and knowing nods, glances, and secret handshakes of officers departing the choppers. Now there are roughly 463605497 seagulls that have made the island home. Though I suspect even the gulls were squawking in secret code “The squawk squawks at midnight…” or something like that. They were flying around us overhead, circling and circling—making me feel like I was inside some crazy seagull tornado.

“I wonder if the gulls are waiting for us to die here, so they can peck at our carcasses,” I said as I looked up at the gulls, circling like vultures over prey in the desert. We walked onto a path that led into thick bush. Then we heard what sounded like a motorcycle.

“WOW, did they send someone over here on a 4-wheeler to make us leave?” Todd asked. We walked back out to the concrete pad, to see if there was anyone there. Of course there was nobody there; we were on an abandoned island, for crying out loud. The noise was coming from a jet ski that was traveling by the island.

We went back onto the trail, and crawled under the brush to continue on the trail. There were briars, thorns, etc. The brush was way too thick to get to the buildings on the island, which led us to wonder if the briars were actually planted there to keep intruders out of the buildings. You know, to keep the secret goings-on there a secret. We declared the brush impassable, and made our way back to the dinghy on the beach.

I read up on the island later on and discovered that the southern half of the island, where we were, is actually a bird sanctuary, and has nothing to do with the Navy. So, there’s a nice little buzz kill for my little Gould Island fantasy. However what is up with that torpedo firing building on the north tip of the island? What’s up with the loud hum coming from the building, and the always-on security lights? In that building the fantasy lives on.

This is what Gould Island looked like back then. The concrete pad we walked on was actually for seaplanes that were launched from the island. The buildings just behind and to the left of the hangar still stand, the hangar does not exist anymore. The brush is now so thick and it began at the backside of the foundation of the hangar. We could not get through the bush to the buildings that are still there. It is not a far distance to walk, if the brush was not there, it would probably have taken only a few minutes to walk from the hangar to the buildings on the left. The building on the left with the smoke stack is entirely unaccessible from the beach, as it is surrounded by thick brush as well. The buildings are all slightly visible through the trees and prickers. I do not know if the buildings on the right were there or not.

The planes dropped the torpedos in the torpedo testing range at the time. In its heyday, 65,000 torpedo firings have been conducted on this island. In the month of December 1944 alone, some 2,575 torpedos were fired from the island.*

*Source "A Gould Island Chronology" Captain Frank Snyder

Scuba and Chocolate: Together at Last

When two of my favorite things, scuba and chocolate, collide; life is good. Last night I met up with Todd and our friend Dave to go for a dive. Dave is a chocolatier, and an amazing one at that. If you evern find yourself in Rhode Island, Dave's shop is on Main Street in East Greenwich. You cannot leave the state without stopping in, it's SO worth it.

Diving with Dave is always great, not only for the company underwater, but for the chocolate afterward. Dave never shows up to a site empty handed, and he's been known to bring chocolate covered cherries for Todd, and either turtles or chocolate covered strawberries for me.

Todd and Dave met at the site earlier than when I could get off of work. They were already in the water when I arrived, so I hung out and waited for them. Then they got out, I geared up and they swapped to fresh tanks and we all went in again.

Dave and I are both not so great at navigating underwater. Though I think I am worse at it than Dave is, because I am simply unable to swim in a straight line. I watch my compass like a hawk, and still end up pulling to the left or the right. Todd had stayed behind because he had a cramp in his leg, so I went with Dave. My excitement got the better of me, because apparently I was swimming very fast. (Must be all that jogging strengthening my legs!) I was leading, and took us on a heading that was dead south, while Dave was trying to catch me and turn us west. Then I turned us dead west (where we had originally wanted to go, but I kept pulling us to the south due to my inability to swim a straight line.) Todd was watching our dive flag wander all over the surface, and laughed at our goofy navigating.

Then I got cold. I think the water temp was somewhere in the 60's. By then we were headed north, which was kind of on our way back to the start. Even though my navigation was all over the place, and I got cold, it still was a fun dive. We saw a ray, loads of little bitty fish, I saw a lobster, and 2 blue crabs.

Then we got out, and ate more chocolate. We went down to about 35 feet, and stayed in the water for maybe 30-40 minutes. I am hoping that we can make this a weekly Thursday night dive date.

This weekend we'll hopefully be moving aboard the boat for the summer. I will also run a 5K on Saturday morning that will benefit the Rhode Island Food Bank. Hopefully we'll get out for a sail some time over the weekend as well.

Under the Sea....

Todd and I went diving at Ft. Wetherill State Park in Jamestown, RI on Saturday. This time of year is great for diving in the southern parts of RI, and in Narragansett Bay, as the Gulf Stream shifts and carries with it warmer water, and the pretty fish that live in the warmer water.

On Saturday we took our newly acquired from eBay underwater camera. In the car on the way over Todd was loading the film and saying "I don't think we'll actually take 36 exposures. I think I would use up 12 at most...." Well, the excitement got the better of us, especially when I was carrying the camera. Me? Trigger happy? Yes, yes I am trigger happy with a camera and darn proud of it so cram it!

Anyway, here are the pictures that Todd has brilliantly photoshopped, to take out some of the siltiness of the water, so you can see us more clearly. We saw a lobster in its hole, a flounder floundering around on the bottom, some trigger fish, and loads of starfish. I love the starfish the best!


This is me, and man do my lips look huge around my reg.


This is a fish trying to escape my trigger happy ways. Yeah, keep trying, buddy!

Looks like there was a lobster fight and someone lost an arm. So, does that mean that in some restaurant somewhere in RI there may be a one-armed lobster on somebody's plate?

This is a lobster in its home. I spotted this one, and got Todd's attention. I pointed to the hole, and made a motion with my hand, not unlike the motion you make when somebody is talking to much. This apparently is our little signal for "Look! Lobster! Wow!"

I love me some starfish. I love how this picture is artistically off-center, too. We meant to do it that way, really!


More starfish. I wonder what the deal was with them, there were loads of starfish piled up together in different places on the dive. I've also been noticing them more and more when I look into the water from the docks at the marina. These guys were big, though. I'd say they were about 7" in diameter, though underwater things do look 33% bigger than they do on the land--much like they do in my rear view mirror on my Jeep as well.


This is Todd with a starfish. I love the kilroy affect of this picture, again, it was all very artisitic, and purely intentional.


A school of trigger fish.

So, that was our adventure. Stay tuned for more pictures soon!