51 replies to this topic

[Dive_Girl]

DAY 1
We dove two wrecks: the U-352 and the Spar, an intact Coast Guard Cutter.

We spotted a juvenile sand tiger on the Spar (my personal first...)

DAY 2
We dove the Papoose today and all I can say is...SHARKS SHARKS SHARKS - not the little ones either - holy momba!

The DAN reps are fabulous - one is a Divemaster from Texas and one an instructor from Brazil. Many of us have already signed up for their diver surveys for the trip.

Our Cochran rep, John is also super great going through his demo computers in detail and many of the divers who have been taking them diving. Tonight he is hosting a shrimp fest dockside for us!

Hello from NORTH CAROLINA!

full trip report to come...

[Terri]

MMMMMM...shrimpfest....oh, and the diving sounds fun too!!

Keep the reports coming...for those of us stuck doing menial errands this holiday weekend....

[Capn Jack]

Our Cochran rep, John is also super great going through his demo computers in detail and many of the divers who have been taking them diving. Tonight he is hosting a shrimp fest dockside for us!

Please tell the Cochran rep about the recall - all sample models must be sent to me for proper disposal.

[Desert_Diver]

Yeah, the Papoose was THE dive for Sand Tiger sharks, last year!

Impressive, aren't they? They see so many divers on a regular basis that they pretty much ignore you. Oh, they know you're there all right! You can see the beady little eye following you, but they'll swim right by/over/under you at close range! Startled the heck out of a couple of people (including *me*).

Billy makes a really wicked flounder. I sure hope someone has a speargun, 'cos it's deeeeelicious! Mmmmmmmm, flounder......

[Scubatooth]

capn jack

well i will pass it on, but you will have to get leftovers after i first choice.

Desert Diver

well there have been some fish speared today that will be sushi tonight. ironically a trigger fish that i was taking photos of decided that it was going to try and bite my finger (only got the glove), but soon after john quickly dispatched that one and is a snack for me.

Tooth

[Rocky_B]

Well lets see..I've mowed the yard, washed the vehicles, work on deck outside, went to Atlantic Station in Atlanta...would you believe there is not one dive shop? The only thing connected with diving this whole weekend is I put an innertube strap on my pony bottle. Guess I'll take it into the tub with me.

Glad you all are having a great time. Wish I could have made it with you. Single Divers is a great group of people. Hey everyone be on the lookout for ScubaDadMiami's missing parts. I think he needs to hot glue and bungee all of the loose fittings so they dont get misplaced.

Hope to meet some of you at Bill's happy hour July 22, maybe I can get wet then.

Be safe and have fun.

Rocky

[Rocky_B]

Oh yeah...Manny are you still chewing your food? How many times is it?

[Dive_Girl]

I'm in route home catching up at work via my laptop waiting for my plane here in NC. I can say that I miss the South desperately. What great people there are here.

I will write up a longer trip report when I have a chance and a traveler's/first time to NC "what to know list," like the have sea lice here too. Ugh, my hands got slammed on this trip. And fireworks on the beach are legal as long as they don't "go-up and blow-up..." Or if you can run really fast...yes 4th of July firework group you know who you are and the guilty wll remain nameless...

I can say for my first traveling SD trip - SD members, you feel like you know them instantly upon meeting them. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with everyone on this trip. I can easily draw upon a funny moment or saying from each and every person on the trip.

All my bunk mates were fabulous!! I couldn't have asked for a better grouping of people to share a room with. I haven't gut rolled that hard for that many days in a long time!!! ANd just remember...circle of trust!

I also had some minor gear incidents that led to my needing to borrow a reg set and my fellow SD members were right there for me, in particular Vinny (aka VADiver) who allowed me to stroke up his long hose - hey Vinny let me know what George says about destroking that reg set...

I also want to thank my absolutely fantastic dive buddy, Gary (aka Dock). What an INCREDIBLE diver. I lucked out that we dove similar set-ups have almost identical training experience recreational and technical and other people actually asked how long we'd been diving together because we dove so fluidly with one another - and that was after our first dive!! Thanks Gary, I'd dive with you anytime and especially if you go nose-to-nose with a shark again!

More to come - my flight's about to leave!!

[Scubatooth]

Hello from RDU's admirals club.

Im sitting here going through the pictures i took this trip and doing my preliminary edit and i have several good photos. I did make a opps and delete a couple of them accidently but those really werent good shots to start with. looking at my laptop i have a couple of real good keepers including one of the triggerfish that got sashemi'd after trying to bite me, and several diver shots that i will have to go back and edit.

It was very good to meet several people from the board that i hadnt met in person (nicolle, Gary, ASDmike, vannessa, vulture(joe), manny). it was a pleasure diving with you all and hope to do so in the future.

over all i had a very good time. I will right up a complete trip report once i get home and have had time to decompress and clear the back log of todo's (including dealing with having flooded my nikonos rig i think, and getting back my primary c5050 from olympus, and going to the lab to get the film i did shoot processed).

Well its almost time for my flight so im gonna log off and head home.


Tooth out

[Diverbrian]

Finally got in the driveway and I am bushed. I would like to thank AriesNO1 for the thermos of coffee. It was a great help.

I would also like to thank Vinny for being an excellent dive buddy. The inside of that sub was cool and the other dives were icing on the cake. I hope that the Sea Urchin that found its way onto my manifold found its way back to the home that it had in the Aeolus .

I'll say more later. Right now, I need to catch up on some things and get a much needed nap.

[Dive_Girl]

Well I JUST got home - my flight in Raleigh was delayed and I spent the night in Atlanta. I left this morning and flew all day. So I too will ring in with more as soon as I get some real sleep. Hope everyone else made it home safely!

[Diverbrian]

Already, now that I am rested .

I drove in and saw some beautiful countryside on the way down and the way back. I picked up a passenger in the Northern VA area to carpool a bit and thus arrived at the Fisherman's Inn about 6:00am on the morning of 30Jul (Fri). We went to lunch and waited for the other arrivals. BTW, the couple that run the Fisherman's Inn did an outstanding job of making me feel like family for the five nights that I was down there. I can't say enough for the outstanding friendliness displayed by them.

Once we had nearly everyone, we went to the Mexican restaraunt next door for my only restraunt dinner of the trip. Intros were made. Food and drink were consumed.

The Cochran computer rep (John) joined us for the weekend as well as Heather and Juliana (Kamala, did you ever get that name right? ) from DAN. On the boat the next morning, we all received Cochran computers to use for our participation in a DAN study.

Day 1

Boy, does 5:30 seem early or what? We dragged our butts over to the boat so that we could leave about 6:30 am. Our target was the U-352. The submarine was sunk in WW2 and still lies on the bottom. Vinny and I wrote down our dive plans and splashed in. Yes, my double 130's will fit inside of a U-Boat. I went through a couple of restrictions and turned around to check out the rest of the U-Boat's interior. Interesting views and I would like to try this again something, but planned bottom time was running out and it was time to go. I recovered my deco bottle from just inside of the entrance and out we went. We did a quick external survey and I made a mental note to come back to this boat with my double 100's that could have fit through a few more restrictions.

The usual great SD BBQ was our dinner for this night. Enough said .

Day 2

Another great day on the water... We did two dives on the Papoose. This is a large merchant ship sunk by German U-Boat. It now entertains several sand tiger sharks and assorted sea life. Vinny and I swam around the outside of the ship on the first dive and watched the sharks and bait fish. The visibility was nice and this was an extremely relaxing dive.

The second dive Vinny and I explored the inside of the ship. Dinner was almost helped out by a friendly lobster but neither of us knew that this was a legal lobster. We saw an eel in another restriction along with another lobster hiding just out of our reach and knowing it. We ascended and called it a day. My VyTec was set on nitrox and called it a weekend as well. It didn't seem to want to agree with Vinny's GUE trained stops, my VR3 or the Cochran that I had on my other wrist for the study. It was now in gauge mode.

Dinner was served by John on the dock. It consisted of clams, wine and various seafoods. Thanks John!!!!

Day 3

This was a rough day on the water. The boat spray drenched yours truly to the bone on the way back. Can we say drenched rat? Anyways, I was diving dry, but riding back wet.

Our first dive was on the box wreck. This was more like a reef dive, but the Lion fish and other fish were nice to look at. We could hear the crackle of life in the ocean on this. The currents were moderate, but seemed heavier to me. I would adapt a little better to this on Day 4.

The second dive was on Hardy's Reef. This is a artifical reef that Vinny and I swam around on the inside of for a while. Descent wreck penetration practice here.

I opted for what turned into a potluck dinner. John had caught some triggerfish (ummm.... good...), flounder, and grouper. We all bought various things to help add to the meal and wound up with some high quality leftovers. No one went to bed hungry.

Day 4

The trip out was only marginally better than the day before. I wised up and sat on the upper deck, but with my drysuit on. I comfortable and psyched for our first wreck of the day. The Shurz was involved in a collision and sunk. It left artifacts behind for divers to pick up who are into those types of things. The gun turrets are still on either side of the ship. We saw a spotted moray guarding a swim through, but he left Vinny and I alone. Lots of fish and ship formation.

The second dive was on the Aeolus. This is an old cable layer that you will find better references to on this site in other reports. Vinny and I went inside (Is that how I got that rust on my wing and drysuit? ) and I somehow tried to bring one of the ship's occupants up with me. Heather (one of our DAN reps) stopped me on the line and pulled the critter off of my manifolds. I am certainly glad that I never moved my head back.

Goodbyes were said to those leaving and we had pizza, wine, and champagne for dinner. We also watched raw video from the trip during dinner. We watched dueling fireworks from Morehead City and Beaufort, SC and went out to the beach to light off some that one of our newer members had located.

In the morning, we met for breakfast at the Four Corners diner. Hugs and handshakes were exhanged along with a few business cards for those that had other reasons for staying in touch. I started the long drive home and Doris filled my thermos with nice, strong coffee for the rest of the drive home. Following the word that I gave to at least three females, I wound up taking a short nap in Ohio prior to finishing the drive home at about 7:20 this morning.

I would hope to see everybody again that I met on this trip.

[ASDmike]

Hey Folks!

Had the pleasure of sharing the flight with Kamala and Gary home yesterday. Bad weather hit the Dallas area after we left and DFW was closed for a bit. Our plane did not have enough fuel to circle waiting for the airport to re-open, so they diverted to Shreveport to refuel and to wait for a go-ahead to finish the flight.

This was very bad news with Kamala working to connect in DFW to a Houston flight and catch the boat to the Flower Gardens that night (Since when does Dallas get heavy rain in July?). Well, our fearless leader worked through the AA reservations hotline and got protected on two other flights to Hobby & IAH. Kamala's southern charms worked and the (male) agent probably got her original flight held too. So we took off again for DFW and finally pulled into a gate there around 7:15 (instead of 5PM). I grabbed her bag with souvenirs from the box wreck and we ran over to her connection gate just as they opened to start boarding her original flight to Hobby. BTW, the Flower Gardens boat didn't sound very sympathetic, so WW had a 10PM hard deadline to get to the boat. I see that she has not posted recently, so it looks like she made it and is now enjoying great dives with the Carl, Karen, Sandy and the rest of the gang. I look forward to hearing the rest of the story, hopefully things got easier and these waves of challenges stopped coming.

Thanks for all the great memories and time spent with the group. I really enjoyed my first SD trip even though I was wiped from a couple of very rough months of work and really took it easy this weekend. It was great to have lots of time to relax, have some fun dives and meet great folks too! Overall, I was very impressed by the skill level of the divers on this trip and would love to have an opportunity to dive with any one of you folks again.

Thanks for welcoming this newbie to a trip and I look forward to many more SD trips!

-Mike

[OTWdiver]

Hi everyone. I had a blast. New friends, Great wrecks, Food, and Fireworks.
Thanks to all on the trip for making me feel like family. I missed saying goodbye to everyone but another dive was calling to me.
This was my second trip with SD and I am hooked for sure. I can't tell what went on in the bunkhouse but being a cabana boy has its privileges, what do you say Joe
The wrecks were great and my students were awesome. There is a lot to be said for them and there diving skills. Thanks for your help Nicole with my missing paperwork. I enjoyed meeting you on the Bahamas trip but am glad we finally got to dive together. I got to keep my SD shirt this trip. No bar decorating for me.
I trust everyone made there flights and boats? There is some insanity amongst the masses. I thought I had it bad for diving. I know I belong to this crowd, I don’t feel different. Four days of wreck diving, five hours of sleep 2 hour drive to catch another boat, followed by another day of diving (day Five), followed by an 8 hour drive home. I fit right in at SD.
Thanks for the sanity check everyone. There is nothing wrong with us

[ScubaDadMiami]

I certainly have a lot to say about this trip. So, I am just going to come out and say all of it like it happened. This might not make me popular. However, in the future, if I ever give a glowing recommendation about something, you will know that it comes from the heart. So, here is my rendition of this trip.

Motel: Simple, clean and the owners were as friendly and nice as you will ever find. I’d stay there again without question. This was the best part of the trip.

Day one: If the captain did a boat briefing, I would never have known unless, by the chance of luck, I was inside the cabin, having a chance to overhear OTWDiver reviewing emergency protocols with his students. Apparently, someone did do a boat briefing before many of us arrived on the boat, and that is how the student knew that the boat had life jackets and emergency equipment aboard.

A boat captain should not conduct the boat briefing until all passengers are aboard in order to assure that everyone is familiar with the location of safety equipment and procedures to follow in the event of an emergency. Apparently, the captain opted to conduct the briefing, if one was ever done, before many of us arrived.

Once we departed for the dive sites, the boat captain (and crew) never gave a single briefing on any of the dive sites. Not even the name of the sites.

As we are about to hit the water, it is suddenly announced that we would have to limit our total run time (not just time on the bottom but total time underwater) to 30 minutes. Some heard it, some didn’t. When we were told not to worry about it, a half dozen or so of us on the boat didn’t (worry about it). At role call after returning from the dive, in front of everyone in the boat, it is announced that we will not be allowed back in the water for the rest of the day. We lost one eighth of our trip right there. There was no getting it back.

A group of us opt to seek a refund for the remainder of the trip. The captain refuses. He has our money already, and it is his boat. There is nothing we can do. We decide to see if some kind of compromise on the dive limitations can be worked out. We make very little progress in that regard.

Day two: I pull up to the boat seeing people running off with panicked looks in their eyes. I find out that the captain has announced that we got off ten minutes late the day before, and he is pulling off from the dock at 6:30 sharp whether people are aboard and ready or not. This is why everyone is running around with a look of terror in their eyes. If they can’t get their gas checked (for content) and equipment on board, the boat will leave without them. I am thinking: “We chartered this entire boat for our group. We should have some control over where we go and when. It is wrong for us to be treated this way.” I start boarding.

A new announcement comes out from the captain: No decompression optimization gas allowed on the boat. It was fine to carry it yesterday. Today, he suddenly decides that, in addition to forcing us to shorten our bottom time, everyone has to lower our safety margins by doing safety stops on back gas, which is highly inefficient and less conservative from a safety standpoint. (Since I have a rebreather, this will not affect me. However, I refuse to dive without open circuit bailout gas. Kamala gets the captain to allow me to carry emergency bailout gas.) Many of us are furious and begin to openly complain that the captain is compromising safety by creating these arbitrary restrictions. I support this complaint fully though it does not affect me directly, and I let this be known at the time.

Despite leaving early because that is supposed to get us to the good dive spots first, we arrive after an arduous journey of over two hours, most of which I spend sitting on the deck due to lack of space for seating (because the captain makes everyone put gear in space that is supposed to be designated for passengers to sit). We pull up to find that two boats are already at anchor. Our ungodly early start was without purpose (as were most of the rules set out by the captain).

Then, the captain runs over the anchorline while attempting to tie up to the site. We end out waiting and wasting time while the crew attempts to unwrangle the line from the propellor without success. Finally, OTWDiver straps on his tanks and jumps over to assist. The captain almost backs over him with the boat after OTW requests that the engine be placed in neutral gear before he will go under to try to free the line.

Due to the lost time, we now end up diving the same wreck twice instead of two different spots. At least it was a good wreck. However, had we known that this would be the plan, many of us would have opted to conduct one long dive and then an efficient, single ascent rather than subjecting ourselves to multiple ascents. We ride back over two hours with no room and survive another day.

Day three: Seas are building. It isn’t that rough at all. It’s just that everyone is getting thrown all about since they are sitting on top of each other as it is. We do two more dives with hampered and limited bottom times, and then spend time making the long, arduous ride back to port.

MannyDib and I have had enough. We decide that we are going home whether or not the captain will give us our money back. The sites themselves were great. However, spending these agonizing rides back and forth to spend no more than 20 minutes on the bottom in order to meet the captain's arbitrary rules is not worth it.

I came on vacation to have a vacation, not to be so tired when it is over that I need another one. I do not want to spend every day waking up at 5:15 a.m. and making sure that I am in bed before 9:00 so that I can stand up for over two hours each way only to have another rule announced at the last minute. We could have departed each day at 9:00, arrived at the first site at 11:00, done a dive until noon, rested until 2:00, done the second dive until 3:00 and been back in port at 5 or 5:30. Then, we could have had dinner at a reasonable hour, socialized for a bit and gotten into bed when normal people do. Everything had to be carried out at a rushed pace, which is not what I want to do when I am not being paid to do it. It is even worse when I am the one paying for it!

Kamala did her best to intervene with the captain. But, he would have none of it. He had our money, and it was his boat. That's how it went down. There was nothing she could do about it.

Most of you know that I am pretty even-tempered about most things. That is my nature. I have never, ever left a dive trip early in my life before. So, if I make such a drastic move, you can bet that there is a good reason behind it. I am down right angry, and I have good reason to be. This captain made the customers serve him instead of him worrying about our needs and desires. I will never go on another trip like this again, and I surely would stay away from this captain if you ever go to North Carolina.

For me and Manny, the highlight of our trip was the stop off at the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida during the 14 hour drive back home. While the diving locations themselves were great, we never got enough time to see them. So, we can’t say much more about what North Carolina diving is like other than what we have experienced.