After Ri
ck and his wife Erins horses got their hooves trimmed, Rick and I headed to Brownstone Quarry. Rick decided this was a good place for us to start as it would be my first day diving in my drysuit. Rick’s good friend Ed Hayes, who is co-owner of Brownstone Quarry and Adventure Park kindly let us come and dive for the day. This place was so cool! There were zip-lines, inner-tubes, a beach, and a ton other things that made it resemble a water park. We were tucked in a cove that was reserved for diving. Back at Rick’s house I had analyzed our nitrox tanks and labeled them as I learned to do in the classroom portion of getting nitrox certified. We brought all our heavy equipment down to a picnic table near the water, and suited up halfway by the car. Even walking down to the water I started to sweat, which is a good thing as it will keep me super warm at depth. I borrowed a hood from Rick as I didn’t have one, and got all suited up. As I put on my gloves, I realized they had a big hole down the seam as the string had slowly been unraveling from previous dives. It’s alright though because the water isn’t crazy cold today.
Before putting our scuba gear on, we hopped in the water in just our drysuits to feel the difference compared to a wetsuit. I could feel the compression, and practiced adding and dumping air from the suit. I also flipped on my belly with my feet up and then would try to get my feet back down, and it was much harder than usual as all the air gets trapped at the feet when they are the highest part of the body. We got our scuba gear on and descended and swam around a little so I could get comfortable with the suit and the more limited visibility. I don’t have experience diving in New England, so the visibility is something I need to get comfortable with and understand the added measures in order to stay safe. One of those is a reel. It is basically like the part of a fishing pole you hold, but the line is rope. I started by tying off the rope to a mooring line and then continued in a direction until I came across a car. Yes, there were two sunken cars in the part of the quarry we were diving in! I then wrapped the line around a piece of the car so that the line was taught, and continued on. This is so that in limited visibility we can always find our way back to the anchor line (the anchor line would be the mooring line in this situation). We will be doing this on our deep dive on a wreck on Thursday. We also practiced what to do if the air in my drysuit goes to my feet and I start floating up feet first. I simulated that, and then continued to do a full 360 making sure I ended with my feet down so that the air could come back up to my shoulder and be released. We practiced tying and releasing a surface marker buoy, as well as holding myself in one spot and keeping good buoyancy. I was not so great at staying in one spot and tended to move my fins to try to keep myself in the same spot, which just moved me more. I am going to try to get better at controlling my buoyancy throughout the week. We did two dives in the quarry, and I am super grateful to Ed Hayes for letting us dive for the day.
On the way home, Rick and I stopped at Divers Cove and saw their drysuit repair facility and spoke with Ed and Chris, the owners of the shop. I was in need of a few extra dive gear pieces as I have an upcoming internship opportunity in cold water. Rick got me a new 5/7 hood, semi dry gloves, a knife, and a light. I am so grateful to Rick for getting these items for me, and I am excited to use them tomorrow and on my future dives. I end this day feeling more confident that I will know how to react in a situation. I can deploy a surface marker buoy, and by thoroughly planning my dives ahead of time I know how long I can stay at our targeted maximum depth (without just relying on my dive computer), and I know the maximum operating depth of the specific gas blend I am on. I had a great day, and I am looking forward to learning even more tomorrow! 