Saturday April 15, 2006 Tax day

Dive 85 feet, 37 minutes. When gearing up in the pouring rain, I noticed Jim not putting on his fleece, I assumed it was because he had replaced it with some other stuff, which will come up later. Original plan was to head out to the Cape bretton and do a long exploratory dive, then the 2nd dive we would focus on an area which was interesting. Once we passed the corner of the protective island the seas became pretty rough – predicted 30 mph(Ks?) this afternoon, which are gale force I guess. The captain of our little, maybe 18 foot, boat turned around and we ended up diving the Rivtow lion. The rivtow lion was sunk about a year ago and the last time we were in Nanamio they had it moored nearby and we were able to look at it before they sunk it. Captain briefed us and jim & I geared up first and hopped in. Dropped down the anchor line which was tied to one of those thingies on the back of the boat. We dropped to the ground and checked out the rudder and propeller. The propeller is about 10 feet and pretty cool looking, it is covered with life. We swam along the port side about half way to the wheel house then ascended up to a cutout to the engine room. Swam through the engine room and continued towards the front of the boat (or is it a ship?) along what used to be the edge on the starboard side. We got to the front end end I took a long look at it, I love the look of being below the pointy end of the boat surrounded by nothingness. Enjoying the sensation of floating in front of something that normally a view one can see in the dry world. We cruised around again towards the wheelhouse and swam into the engine room again, this time dropping down into it. Not much depth to it but it is a bit imposing because of the steps, the bars and other items that could catch on gear. Went out on the starboard side, my inflator hose had popped off and I could not reattach it. Annoying, but not really a problem. Might have something to do with the new hose hat I have. Also I was using new 5 mm gloves. We circled the wheel house back to the port side at which point jim wrote something on his slate. It said “ I forgot to put my fleece on”. If possible I would be laughing hysterically. So we went to the anchor line and ascended. Did the safety stop on o2, which always seems cold to me. This was also my first dive on argon, which i didn’t notice much effect. It seems like nothing happens when I inflate my dry suit, I guess from the tiny CF tank of argon it doesn’t have the pressure. Overall an enjoyable dive. I had an extra 10 lbs or so as testing a new weight spot on my back plate, but it makes the whole kit very heavy. Weather was crappy still when we all were back on the boat. Our options for the 2nd dive were nature dive or same wreck again – the seas out in the penniusla (is that what it is?) where getting worse. We bagged it, one of the other guys, there were 3 from Spokane, also bagged but 2 of them did. Went back to the hotel and ate.