Treasure Hunt Dive, Navy Bay, Kingston ON			N 44° 13.7', W 76° 27.8'
Dive Number 74		Buddy Kevin	Surface temp 20°C	Starting pressure 3000psi
Depth 25ft	Visibility fair	Time 41m	Water temp 12°C	Ending pressure 1500psi
Notes:	The yearly opening event of the club diving season is the Treasure Hunt Dive, which last year took place at Nicholson's point, and involved divers searching for numbered golf balls in order to win prizes. The skies opened up and provided torrential dounpour during the hour prior to our scheduled 10am start time, and only eight of us made the trip out to Nicholson's point. In the end, the organizers wisely rescheduled the event for Navy Bay off the jetty at RMC, which started about an hour later and where Kevin and I took a pleasant dive with a handful of other participants. It was a disorienting one, though - My recorded dive time includes two surfaces for reorientation. I ought to bone up on my compass skills!

The King Horn, Rockport ON			N 44° 22.6', W 75° 55.9'
Dive Number 73		Buddy Jean-Olivier	Surface temp 16°C	Starting pressure 3100psi
Depth 92ft	Visibility good	Time 24m	Water temp 11°C	Ending pressure 1350psi
Notes:	The Lyn Lee was under repair, so we had a last minute change to our planned dive, and ten divers became six when two opted out and two could not be reached. I paired up with Jean-Olivier for the dive, but he lost about 600psi from his steel tank during a free-flow while swimming to the top of the buoy line. The dive itself was pretty good. Fewer divers meant a shorter excursion, and J-O and I had a leisurely swim to the front of the wreck, coming back through the hull. I think J-O was frustrated to end the dive early because of his low air, but we had a good tour. Dive manuals usually recommend that if a diver feels something's not right prior to a dive, that he abandon the dive instead of going under with a bad feeling. One of our divers got such a sense, and called his dive at the last moment, leaving the remaining three to dive as a group. I know we have good divers in our club, and my opinion of the experienced diver in question rose even higher to see how he handled this situation. Next dive will be the annual treasure hunt dive on Saturday!

Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, Kingston ON			N 44° 12.9', W 76° 31.3'
Dive Number 72		Buddy Rob	Surface temp 18°C	Starting pressure 3000psi
Depth 49ft	Visibility excellent	Time 25m	Water temp 9°C	Ending pressure 1500psi
Notes:	Today sees a new category in my dive log: Dry. Adam organized a demo of the new Fusion drysuits from Whites. It's my first time wearing a drysuit, so while I'm unqualified to compare the Fusion to other drysuits, everyone else thought it was pretty good. As for me, I need to get a longer belt (maybe the next one I get will be a colour other than hot pink), and will need fins capable of holding bigger boots if I want to dive dry. I needed last minute adjustments to my weight, and ultimately felt a little bunchy inside my suit, but I think I just need to work on my dry technique. Becuase who's kidding who? Eventually I'll want one of these...

The Comet, Kingston ON			N 44° 08.35', W 76° 35.1'
Dive Number 71		Buddies Jim, Kevin	Surface temp 10°C	Starting pressure 2950psi
Depth 81ft	Visibility excellent	Time 32m	Water temp 7°C	Ending pressure 950psi
Notes:	Today's dive was our club's first chartered dive of the year, and also my first dive of 2008. Of the five divers on the boat, I was the only one diving wet, but managed to stay warm enough to keep up with Kevin Leblanc and Jim Dunfield (Jim was down from Ottawa visiting friends). The excellent visibility was unparalleled, the Comet remains an great wreck. An American eel which has been said to frequent this wreck eluded all of us today. No sign of it was seen. The dive was followed with the traditional Tim Horton's outing, followed for me by a nap.

Playa Coral, Cuba			N 23° 5.4', W 81° 25.5'
Dive Number 70		Buddy Paul	Surface temp 25°C	Starting pressure 200 bar
Depth 37ft	Visibility excellent	Time 38m	Water temp 27°C	Ending pressure 100 bar
Notes:	The second dive went much better, with no major catastrophes, and with the highlight being a small overhead environment which was thick with a few hundred fish or so. The coral on the north shore of Cuba in fact is not the best in the world, but diving in warm water is always a fun and welcome change.

Playa Coral, Cuba			N 23° 5.4', W 81° 25.5'
Dive Number 69		Buddy Paul	Surface temp 25°C	Starting pressure 210 bar
Depth 37ft	Visibility excellent	Time 36m	Water temp 27°C	Ending pressure 120 bar
Notes:	The dive itself was pretty good, but my buddy (a German tourist from the same resort as me) was abominable. He ignored the divemaster's instructions to swim along the bottom of a channel leading out past the deep of the coral, and got tossed about in the waves. He lagged behind, and twice lost sight with us (to be fair, the divemaster didn't look back often). Worst, at one point, he surfaced and got tossed in the waves over the shallow coral, to the detriment of the coral, at his own peril.

Pumpkin Experiment Dive, Nicholson Point, Amherstview ON			N 44° 12.3', W 76° 40.9'
Dive Number 68		Buddies Steve Chew, Jean-Olivier	Surface temp 2°C	Starting pressure 3000psi
Depth 100ft	Visibility good	Time 28m	Water temp 12°C	Ending pressure 700psi
Notes:	After the recent Pumpkin dive, some speculation started about whether a pumpkin would "implode" or otherwise get structurally compromised by the rigors of depth and pressure. After a healthy pool of opinion was established within the club, Steve, Jean-Olivier and I got to testing this morning at Nicholson's Point. We towed pumpkins on the surface in nets that Steve built for about 10 minutes from shore, far enough that we hoped to have 100 feet depth to test. At this point, we dropped a line to the bottom, and started our descent. I brought "Jill", the larger of the two pumpkins, and noticed a dent and a crack at about 60 feet. Jean-Olivier saw bubbles emerging from near the stem of "Jack" at about the same depth. Also significantly, both pumpkins were significantly less buoyant than before the dive. After surfacing and swimming back to shore, visible cracks could be seen in both pumpkins, and a post mortem style exam revealed that both had filled more than half full of water during the dive. We warmed up in Jean-Olivier's camper/van with freshly brewed tea. Today, I tried a triple layer - my surfshirt between my shorty and 7mm suit, with double gloves, fine gloves tucked in wetsuit and gauntlets on the outside. I may yet get neoprene socks like Sylvain, but overall I wasn't too cold. Until I got out and changed.

Pumpkin Dive, Winter Dock, Wolfe Island ON			N 44° 12.9', W 76° 25.5'
Dive Number 67		Buddy Sylvain	Surface temp 14°C	Starting pressure 2850psi
Depth 14ft	Visibility fair	Time 23m	Water temp 15°C	Ending pressure 2200psi
Notes:	This was the first year that Sylvain or I participated in the club's annual pumpkin dive. Expecting that we would make foolish mistakes anyway, we tempted fate by choosing the largest pumpkin available, but finessed our experience (or cheated, depending on your point of view) by puncturing two small holes to drain the air from it before descent. We timed our dive between dockings of the ferry, took down ten extra pounds of lead to weigh ourselves and the pumpkin down, and brought a pumpkin carving tool and a bag (to bring up bits). Sadly, we lost the lid to our underwater lantern when our bag everted and the bits floated away. Nevertheless, we managed to carve a striking pumpkin with a menacing smile, and a dive flag etched into the back of it. We assume that we won lots of prizes, but had to leave the reception to catch a 1:15 ferry back to Kingston, so will have to find out later. This may have been my last cold water dive of the year. There's Cuba at the end of next month, though...

Maple Glen, Kingston ON			N 44° 8.7' W 76° 37.2'
Dive Number 66		Buddies Sheila, Steve C	Surface temp 15°C	Starting pressure 3000psi
Depth 67ft	Visibility good	Time 41m	Water temp 12°C	Ending pressure 1300psi
Notes	With eleven divers on our weekly club charter, Steve and Sheila and I were the only unmatched divers, and elected to dive together as a threesome. Since Sheila is legendary in our club for her conservative air consumption, I had been eager to dive with her to see how I measured up. Since the mooring had been removed from the wreck called the Queen Mary, we were diverted to another nearby wreck, which I was told at the time was the Titanic, but the club website now indicates was the Maple Glen. The wreck was interesting, and although we descended by daylight, we all required our lights and ascended by night. As I said, it's a good thing we all made a tour by twilight, since you should never dive a site by night that you haven't seen by day. After getting home, I went through my dive profile and worked out an average depth of between 50 and 52 feet. Using an online Surface Air Consumption (SAC) calculator, I worked out my own SAC at just less than .5 cubic feet (about 12 litres) per minute.

Dead Man's Bay, Kingston ON			N 44° 14.0', W 76° 26.9'
Dive Number 65		Buddy Jason	Surface temp 13°C	Starting pressure 2500psi
Depth 15ft	Visibility fair	Time 37m	Water temp 18°C	Ending pressure 1700psi
Notes:	Today was my third dive day in a row - this may be a record for me! Jason and went down to Dead Man's Bay for a clam and shallow dive. There was no visible buoy on the wreck, but we left by compass heading to the place where I thought we'd find it. I steered us far off course, so when we were confident we'd gone too far, we took a look up and found ourselves across the bay. We returned, and navigated under the breakwater to the ramp up to the parking lot, but not before I spied a small mottled fish that I think was a small muskellunge. The dive was not exciting, but was relaxing, and Jason and I both did fine.