Just a Frickin l o n g Dive

After Saturday's adventure David and I headed out for another dive. This time the north was even worse, and we decided to give the Sugar Mill a try. We parked, got the gear on and walked 20 minutes to the water and it looked kind of brown near shore. Oh well, we walked all the way down so we are going!

The surface was flat, the wind was picking up a little, but it looked like nice conditions. The plan was to consider yesterday's northbound train-of-a-current and go south so we could do the rubble first and then come with the current north to do the pilings. We went down into murky water and then in the distance could see a layer of blue with murk above and below it - there was hope!

We dropped into about 40 feet of water so we could follow the slope down and not miss the rubble. Before you knew it we were at 60 feet in the rubble and then 87 looking up at the surface. No current. That's a little deep even though he is using the other regulator (not yesterday's disaster one). We came up and stayed in the 60-70 zone for quite a while and then headed to the pilings after seeing a mob of Spade Fish and loads of schools of other types. There were huge Puffers and eels and just about everything else.

We stayed around the pilings for quite a while looking for seahorses. We heard that someone has been taking them out to sell to the aquarium trade. Shame. They should take the lionfish I found (just call me the lionfish whisperer) - My 5th one. That at least is a non-native-we-should-remove-them -before they eat everything species that doesn't belong here. We spent quite a long time. We turned and the line up of squid we saw before were there again. This time they wanted to rumble and brought reinforcements. 14 in all. David had only 200 pounds of air left so we started coming in at around 20 feet. He wanted to surface (but I had air) until he saw an octopus. We went down to peek at it. It looked closer than it was. He was out of air and used my regulator again for what we thought would be a "quick peek" and a speedy rise to the surface. That was until my dive computer alarm sounded and told me that all of a sudden I needed to go a little deeper and stay there for 6 minutes! 6 minutes? What the hell for?

I have a very conservative computer that I follow because what will kill me is that I have air. I ALWAYS have air and I like to use it. My computer will tell me I owe 4 minutes of decompression time when my husband who goes deeper won't owe any time. I take my computer under advisement but usually figure it is fine to do what I want - I have enough air to do 20 minutes of decompression time!

So David and I breathed off of my tank for 6 minutes, came up, gave the customary Yoo Hoo and had our longest dive ever...2 hours and 13 minutes! If you are a diver you are thinking this is fake (nope)....they were at 30 feet the whole time (nope - 87 and 60 for a wad of it). This is unheard of! We were both on 80's, not 100s, not twin tanks, nope..just regular tanks. I found a couple perfect pair of sunglasses. We saw all kinds of cool stuff (except the lionfish that shouldn't be there). It was a really long and really pleasant dive. I can't wait until Jeff gets home so we can do it!

Diving Adventures Over the Last Month

No photos - but lots of adventures including today's and yesterday's..I'll start there.

YESTERDAY David and I (Jeff is in Arizona working) were going to go diving like we do every weekend (except when we are in caves). We have had some great dives lately but it looked like things were kind of changing. The Sahara Dust was knocked out of the sky and into the water and we thought visibility was dropping. Also it seems like wind and rain in the Central area were going to disturb things. I am just about to Rincon and David calls - "the north looks bad." No problem, I'll take the detour to Corseca in Rincon and check it out. Like mud. (Does it always rain in Rincon?) Where to now? We meet half way at the Aquadilla Court House Wall which can be spectacular or completely muddy. What a shock - it is crystal clear!!!! We descended at the usual place and since it was just David and I (we are the best on air - we don't breathe) we had 97 minutes underwater and saw the complete area! We went down and followed the wall to about 88 feet and went through thermoclines (layers of hot and cold water - 81 and then 82 but I swear it felt like a 3 or 4 degree difference). We kept the reef on our right and since it is kind of an oval we came up right where we descended after seeing oodles of stuff including the surface from 80 feet down!

ADVENTURE - The adventure started AFTER the dive. David has told us stories of diving the Sugar Mill. He hadn't gone there in 6 or so years and there was construction there now so he talked about getting a boat to take us there. The Sugar Mill is just South of Crash Boat. I pestered him into taking a big adventure and showing me where he USED to go down. I am always up for an adventure. There was some construction but an older guy (I love the old people here - they know everything) showed us where to get through the fence. David had us wandering on steep embankments and in thick brush looking for the old trail. We heard stories of needing 4 wheel drive pickups and then hiking boots to get down. There was no way we were doing this from shore....or could we? We saw another older guy in dress pants and I told David "I bet he knows how to get down." David asked, and the guy takes is an easy way down the bank to a beautiful little beach at the base of the pilings exactly where we want to be. This of course is after David gets into the dreaded pica pica and we both have scratches from wandering the brush without a machete! A nice swim after we found the route to the beach though made us forget all about the scratches and stings.

SUGAR MILL - David didn't even have to ask..."we are diving the Sugar Mill." Yes we are. So this morning we drove to the spot, suited up, and walked the 15 minutes past the no trespassing signs etc to get to the water. It is flat...sun is out...no waves...clear water...no people. Perfect! We swim on the surface to the end of the structure and decide to descend there, head south to around 60 feet to a debris pile and then back to the pilings. We drop down and it is a lot like Bonaire or St. Croix diving (very good). We are in caballo del mar country now - seahorses. Unfortunately we didn't see any but we saw more schools of fish than I have seen in one place. 30 or more Spade fish, large fish, small fish, all in huge schools around us. A line up of 10 squid that were in football formation. More eels than I have seen in one place - at least 6, turtles (I don't think it is really turtle time yet), nudibranches (I saw more today than I have in 100 dives here), god, what didn't we see? I used a 65 cubic foot tank and David used an 80 and we went to 78 feet and could still see the surface! We had 110 minutes underwater - wow! It was really wonderful. Lots of Tubastrea Coral that would be spectacular at night - unfortunately there is a guard in the evenings. We'll have to introduce ourselves! We then had to hike up the hill in our gear. My tank weighs 29 pounds and I carry 6 or 8 pounds of lead since I wear a 5mm suit (I know, most people are fine in a 3 mm). It didn't take much more than 20 minutes to come up but I was a little warm. We had a nice chat with the neighbors...nice people.

DESECHEO - a few weeks ago David, Raul and a friend of Raul's (forget his name) and I hired
a guy to take us in his boat to Desecheo. Jeff and I have always wanted to go there but the weather was never right...we didn't know any guys with boats...we didn't want to pay 85 bucks a person and be expected to have two back to back 30 minute dives. This was a friend of David's and for 40 bucks (then we all gave him an extra 10) he took us out and let us dive our way - which means David and I had 2 80 minute plus dives and he just tracked us with in the boat and came for us when we were ready.(Dive stores won't let you have long dives.) The trip out in the boat was great - maybe 40 minutes or so. It is about 14 miles off the Rincon coast and we left from Aguadilla near the Ice Rink. There was current, but the water was really really clear and there were really neat caverns lots of corals and fish and stuff (not like today's dive though - which was really packed with fish). We had long, wonderful dives and unfortunately for Jeff he was visiting his family in Wisconsin. The trip back in the boat was similar to any good Neah Bay trip - very very rough with lots of bottom slamming, being airborne and pounding. Coming back took over 1 1/2 hours. I am glad I took Bonine - I am shocked I didn't get seasick. Maybe the sun and being warm is just plain easier on the body? I got back to the truck and loaded up just about as Jeff's plane was landing in Mayaguez. He didn't have to wait long at all so it was pretty much perfect except that he didn't get to do the dives with us! Ah, another time..another adventure.