- Weather and visibility turned out EXCELLENT for our May 31st - June 1st diving days. Depending on the partly cloudy light, we could see 50-100 feet. And swimming along the underwater cliffs at 60 feet depth, you could see down to the bottom another 120 feet away.
High Points...
- First it was great to see SwimJim with Phil and Judy. Jim wasn't sure he'd be able to dive but he wanted to come along and bring his world famous Chili for a gourmet lunch at the Dive Site. Happily, Jim was able to suit up and dive AND... serve up that great Chili!
- Second we made a new friend in a young fellow named Jeff and his friend Mitch. Jeff had re-built a rare USD OverPressure regulator into perfect working order and dove it with us as deep as 80 feet. He took it apart and showed us the hose-within-a-hose system and the mouthpiece one-way valve he reconstructed. Very interesting and admirable restoration job. Jeff is pictured in the middle between me on the left and Ron on the right.
- Third, my new Elios suit has a jacket that is large enough to fit my too large stomach... So I wasn't squeezing my body like a corset/girdle. And that solved a problem I was having last year with shortness of breath... It was the too small wetsuit I was squeezing myself into last year!
- We did 3 dives a day... Total 6 dives for the trip.
- Taking the UV-26 to the Limit... On one of the dives, I took the new guy Jeff on a tandem DPV scooter ride. That's two guys, approximately 300 lbs each, half way around Fortune Pond and back. I had it in full speed setting number 3 and it was definitely slowing down by the time we got back. But after I dropped Jeff off, it seemed to leap forward with renewed speed. So the next dive I took it out for another ride around the lake. But at about 1/3 of the way around, it kicked out of high speed setting #3 down to slow speed setting #1. I tried kicking it back to fast but it wouldn''t do it. That's when I realized it was down to its last bit of charge and only giving me enough speed to get me back home. Which it did. Yes it is one heavy bugger to carry into the water with it's two lead cell car batteries (weighs nearly 100 lbs). But it doesn't go dead all at once like Lithium batteries. It got me home!
- Ron brought along his famous Turkey Hash casserole for the other days lunch. Needless to say we weren't starving!
- Evenings we had cheese and crackers with favorite beverages. With lots of good visiting and exchanging of ideas. Pizza at Kermit's was excellent one night. And the last night we celebrated by having dinner at Alices Italian restaurant... Which was excellent as always.
Come and Dive with us... Next Fortune trip is June 21-22.