Ever since the Dawnlight went out of commission two years ago, there was no convenient way to dive the wreck of the Northwind, which sits in about 115′ of water off Manitoulin Island. Last year, Steve Tiernan (Tobermory AquaSports) mentioned to me that he’s thinking about putting together an expedition to dive the Northwind the following fall. It was a no-brainer: in between nods, I was figuring out in my head how to get my husband Norbert excited about the trip and get something organized.

Last Friday, our little group of eight set out on our excellent adventure to dive a wreck we’ve never dove before. As mentioned in my previous post about the Northwind, the trip includes a drive to Tobermory, getting on the Chi-Cheemaun, and driving from the ferry dock on Manitoulin to Gore Bay, where Steve had tied up our favourite dive vessel, the Teak Isle.

We might be gung-ho for diving, but our little group liked to come back after a day’s diving to creature comforts! I booked us into Susan Mathia’s beautiful B&B, The Queen’s Inn. Make no mistake, however: the team was more excited about Susan’s delicious eggs benedict than about the comfortable beds and beautiful 19th century house right by the harbour in Gore Bay.

There’s not much more I can add to Vlada Dekina’s and Tom Wilson’s great reviews and photos of the wreck, which you can enjoy on their websites, WreckAndReefs.com and ScubaQ.ca respectively. This was my first local trip with my underwater camera system. It was a great challenge, and I’m glad I’d been training all spring and summer for deco dives: I needed all the time I could get underwater. I didn’t manage to produce any images I’m proud of, but I did include a couple shots that vaguely resembled passable photos.

What I can add is that on our two days of diving this past weekend, the water was calm and warm, so it was perhaps too much to ask for great visibility on top of that. Nevertheless, at just less than 300′ long, the Northwind was chock full of entertainment starting at 75′ and bottoming out at about 115′. Temperature at depth was a balmy 54F and 64F closer to the surface; the deco stops were almost unbearably warm!

Two amazing things that struck me about this wreck: after more than 80 years underwater, many of the portholes still had glass in them; and perhaps even more mysterious is the fact that the doors on the wreck still swing freely. Other noteworthy points that Vlada has already pointed out in her write-up of the Northwind is that the painted wood on the wreck is still visible after all this time. The metal hull, on the other hand, has mostly been colonized by the mussels, which I might add, haven’t done a great job last week filtering out the particulates in the water.

Next year’s expedition dates are already set: Oct 8 – 12, with the first and last days being travel days. Yes, it’s a longer trip because everyone on this year’s expedition wanted a third dive day. At this time, all eight of us are already on board for next year’s trip, so there’s room for four more divers.

Eight more sleeps to the Northwind Expedition! I’m so looking forward to diving a new wreck, especially one with so much to explore. Tom Wilson’s notes and pix on the dive are making me excited to test my diving skills.

Plus, I get to ride on the Chi-Cheemaun for the first time ever!

There’s still time and space to join the expedition: $300 for two days of all-you-can-dive. Call AquaSub at 905 883 3483.

Logistics

• Book passage on the Chi-Cheemaun
• Friday Sept 18: travel to Tobermory to catch the Chi-Cheemaun, check in at The Queen’s Inn Bed and Breakfast
• Saturday Sept 19: devour gourmet breakfast at Queen’s Inn and head out for a day of  diving!
• Sunday Sept 20: see Saturday
• Monday Sept 21: say goodbye and hope to come back again!

Two days ago, I got my chance to get in the water with the plumbing installed on both myself and the drysuit. It was  my big She-P day.

Glorious.

I can now drink as much water as I should to prepare for a dive.

I no longer fantasize about how I can shimmy out of the suit fast enough during surface intervals.

I no longer have to wonder if I should submit to Guiness my records for how long I can hold on before I have to break the seal.

I no longer have to do the ‘dance’ underwater during long dives.

Halleluja!

One of my all-time favourite creatures. In this video by Anna and Ned De Loach, one guy thought it was a good idea to sport an anemone on his back. As Anna narrates it, it rather defeated the purpose of camouflage when what should be anchored to the reef (the anemone), is running drunkenly at full tilt across it. LOL Is this guy a candidate for the Darwin Awards?

My brother and I found one on a night dive in Malaysia a few years back dressed in a bright red anemone. When he found himself in the spotlight, he tore across the bottom panick-stricken, tripping over and running into stuff.

We’re always a few breaths between having a great dive and lousy one.

Underwater, anything that gets your mind away from a state of calm yet alert risks ruining your dive: getting frustrated with a piece of equipment, struggling with buoyancy, feeling uncomfortable, etc.

Anytime I feel discombobulated underwater, I take the time to go back to the first thing I was taught: STOP, BREATHE, THINK, then ACT.

I focus on breathing instead of the problem I’m having. Regaining composure puts me in a better state of mind to manage that problem.

Works every time.

Yesterday, for instance, nearly 2 hours into a dive, I start feeling the call of nature. That set me off shivering. Using yoga breathing techniques, I re-focused my mind on my breath. It didn’t remove my urge to go, but it effectively put that call of nature on hold.

I’m so pleased that Scuba Diving magazine featured a cold-water diving destination on their website. And for that icing on top, the video features a woman diver, Lisa Trotter. She’s my kind of woman!!

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the gender stereotypes about diving: that hard core diving is only for men and that women only like warm, tropical diving.

The funny thing is, I’ve met men who are just a bit miffed about women who can make the tough dives and use the macho equipment. It almost seems that by doing so, these women are an affront to their manhoods.

Kinda sucks, I guess, for the He Man Woman Hater Club. Heeheehee!

Double 100's

On Monday, I test dove my new twins: a set of XS Scuba high pressure 100’s.

Norbert and I wanted to see if these slightly taller tanks (than my HP 80’s) would trim out better. And they did! I feel so grown up, what with these so-called real tanks, as if the HP 80’s were somehow tanks for weenies.

They’re an extra 6 lbs heavier than my twin 80’s. Not too much more, but I have to admit my legs felt the extra 6 lbs after a weekend of climbing up boat ladders!

The day I’ve been dreaming about has finally arrived: someone very clever by the name of Heleen Graauw developed an external female catheter for diving in a dry suit.

The product is called She-P and promises well-hydrated dives for girl divers everywhere!

There’s just one problem. It’s made to fit a Halcyon p-valve. Just my luck that I’m limited to an OMS p-valve.

So I’m still far from nirvana while the seemingly fruitless search for a suitably sized (3/16″) quick disconnect barbed tube connector.

SIGH

Some of us are depth junkies.

We just like the idea of going deep. Not me personally, but I’d say about 10% of those I meet want to go deeper for no other reason than to do it, or perhaps to be able to tell others that they’ve done it.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, except when you’re not actually prepared to go deep.

Being prepared to go deep means a number of things, but above all, going deep requires an independent alternate air source.

Here’s a real scenario that actually happened recently and which prompted me to write this post.

Two divers go on a 130′ dive in a cold-water lake. They’re fairly experienced with the diving conditions and are frequent divers. At their maximum depth, one of the divers’ regulator free flows. He connects with his buddy for immediate ascent to the surface. He doesn’t get far with the free flowing reg before it drains his 80 cubic foot tank and switches to his buddy’s octopus.

Nothing extraordinary here, except that during the ascent, the diver with the free flowing reg experiences a second issue: the air in his drysuit begins to expand rapidly. Being task loaded with managing the free flowing reg, the octopus, the ascent,and the speed of the event, our diver wasn’t able to get to the air in his drysuit fast enough. In most instances, this wouldn’t be an issue since the majority of dry suit dump valves will self-purge if the valve is kept open. Unfortunately in this incident, our diver’s dry suit featured a valve that must be manually depressed to release air from the suit.

Compounding the issue of the manual dry suit dump valve is the integrated hood on the suit. In a dry suit course, one of the emergency procedures in the event of a dry suit valve malfunction is to open the neck or wrist seals to release the air from the suit. Our diver’s suit featured an integrated hood that makes it just about impossible to open the neck seal with hands that are encased in thick gloves. In addition, the wrist seals are also hidden under the gloves and an overflap, rendering quick access to the inner dry seal impossible.

So, with the air in his dry suit quickly expanding, our diver is rapidly ascending…while still attached to his buddy’s octopus and taking his buddy with him on a dangerously fast ride to the surface.

There are lots of issues in this incident, but in the context of deep diving, the most critical one centres on what qualifies as an appropriate alternate air source for a deep dive. On a deep dive, your buddy’s tank does not qualify as an alternate source of air, especially if the tank’s capacity is 80 cubic feet or less. If our divers each carried a pony bottle with a capacity of at least 20 cubic feet, there would have only been one diver going on a rapid ascent, not two. Our diver with the free flow would have had an independent alternate air source that he can access. With an independent alternate air source, our diver wouldn’t have had to involve his buddy in a rapid ascent, creating a DCS risk to both of them.

It’s true: an independent alternate air source wouldn’t have prevented our diver with the free flow from a rapid ascent. What it would’ve prevented, however, is the second diver going on the rapid ascent because the diver with the free flow would’nt have had to physically tie himself to his buddy. He wouldn’t have had to raise his buddy’s DCS risk.

I happened to catch an episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive on Discovery Channel last night. This particular episode was about a pair of research divers who survived more than 12 hours adrift in the South Pacific near The Solomon Islands. A whole hour of irresponsible fear mongering.

The non-diving public loves stories that trade on their fears, and sharks, of course, feature very high on our list of fears. So the whole show is all about how fearful they were of the sharks while they drifted and how lucky they were not to have been eaten. No proof of whether the sharks would actually even be interested in human flesh. Just good ol’ fashioned hysteria and irrationalism. This from the self-styled marine researcher who was one of the two divers.

While I appreciate that the theme of the program is surviving against all odds, in fact, this particular episode is really about surviving in spite of all the mistakes these divers made. The true lesson of these divers’ experience goes right back to basic open water diver training.

Fact: two divers surface from a dive in strong currents in open ocean, far from land

Fact: the divers carried no surface signalling devices

Fact: one of the divers, the less experienced one, did not even bother to pay attention to the dive plans and the pickup plans

When the divers surfaced from their dive, the dive boat was in sight but out of their reach due to the strong currents. Also due to the strong currents and due to the dive site being in open ocean, there was no mooring to keep the boat in place, so the boat engine was running and consuming gas while the divers were underwater. The divers yelled, but of course, even if the engines were quiet, it’s no guarantee the handlers could have heard them. Meanwhile, the boat was running low on gas; it hangs around as long as it could but had to return to shore while gas supplies lasted in order to get help locating the missing divers. And so, the divers drifted.

The irony of this situation is that these divers did not make a series of mistakes. In fact, they made only one: diving in strong currents in the open ocean far from assistance, the divers carried no surface marker buoy (SMB) nor air horns. An air horn would surely have given them a better chance of being heard over the din of the boat engine than their own feeble voices. A high visibility (orange or yellow) 9- or 10-foot SMB would have given them a much better chance of being sighted in the middle of a featureless stretch of open ocean.

It’s so disappointing that a channel such as Discovery that promotes itself as a friend of science should find it necessary to broadcast programs such as these. On the US Discovery website, the organization promotes itself as being committed to education. I Shouldn’t Be Alive is pure sensationalism and presents no other value unless the viewer herself approaches it as a learning opportunity and extrapolates an educational angle from it. More likely than not, it will simply contribute to the tradition of fear mongering about a precious member of Earth’s ecosystem, a tradition of which Jaws is a popular example.

And so Discovery has contributed to the disastrous dis-information about sharks and how they relate to human beings in Earth’s ecological system.