One Boring Dive

Actually I should have titled one boring, freezing dive. The original plan of today’s dive was to complete our training courses – TDI’s Decompression Procedures and Advanced nitrox diving. We were to compete this by planning a dive with myself, Diane and Jim and lake crescent near Port Angeles. Lake Crescent is a very deep mountain lake carved by glaciers back in the day. We all decided to meet at Don and Diane’s house in Kingston at 830Am. That led to our first miscommunication of the dive. Jim told me it took 2.5 hours to get to D&D’s house from his house, meaning we needed to leave at 6 AM! Turns out he meant it takes that long to get to Lake Crescent from his house. We figured out this miscommunication at 6 am at Jim’s house. We probably could have got to Kingston quicker if we wore ice skates rather than drove Jim’s truck. Happened to be a very cold night/morning and once we crossed the Tacoma narrows we started to see wreck after wreck. Some cars were on their roofs and recent, others looked like they had slid into the ditch late the night before. Either way it was pretty dramatic. The ride was mostly un-noteworthy. One time Jim lost control of the back end of the truck but quickly recovered. A few minutes later a bus passed us.
Upon reaching the Petersons household we saw no sign of Judd the instructor’s car and decided to hit the nearby McDonalds. I ordered a couple breakfast burritos and Jim declined after seeing the line at the men’s’ bathroom. Back at the Petersons still no Judd, and as we knocked on the door we saw the generator running and put 2 and 3 together to figure out they had no power. Which means no water from the nearby electric driven pump, which means no water for the toilet, which means no use of the facilities here for Jim? Ha.
Shortly thereafter Judd showed up and we all got together and decided that we would bag the lake crescent trip all together due to the road conditions, probably too icy on the narrow windy roads up there. So instead we elect to head out on Don’s boat. That is after reviewing the deep dive plan that was “the main point of the dive.”
Don’s boat is a Boston Whaler, about 15 feet I think. Not a lot of room for five people and 4 divers deep diving gear – 2 twin 90’s, 1 twin 105s(?), 1 twin 80s, and 4 stage bottles. The boat was launched 15 minutes away and went smoothly, the nearby restrooms were locked.

THE DIVE
38 FEET FOR 40 MINUTES
The NW boat diving book we were referencing gave us a few spots that were not too far from the launch. Basically rock outcroppings. We pulled up on a one and saw a bald eagle amongst the flying rats. It majestically soared away, making me proud to be an American. A reasonable guess might be 45 minutes spend tooling around trying to find a good spot deep enough for Judd’s 18% O2 mix and suitable for our training requirements. There was a spot with a ton of harbor seals but we ended up diving a little ways away that seemed to be deeper.
It was very nice of Don to let us use his boat. However, it is not the perfect technical diving boat. Gearing up requires flexibility and the strength to stand whilst wearing 150 lbs. Fortune shined on me and my gear was positioned in a manner that meant I would be the last in the 40 degree water. After watching Jim perform a full backwards summersault into the water I helped don help Diane into her gear. Again, a chore while on the rocking boat. She hopped in with the grace of a former dance with bad knees. We all watched as the area around her looked like a Jacuzzi. Turns out the plastic tube on her inflator had split somehow. So she had to bag the dive, and we got to watch how to exit the water with no ladder. First you hand up your stage, buckle your BCD to the rope hanging out the boat and the captain pulls 150+ lbs of deadgearweight out of the water. Next is a giant kick up-grab the side of the boat and flop on to the bottom of the boat like a retarded fish.
Gearing up myself was not too bad, a little exhausting but warmed me up. I splashed, clipped on my stage and we dropped down the anchor line. A slight current at the bottom allowed us to kick around the rock and then float back towards it. Very relaxing, drifting on the bottom in freezing cold water. Judd picked up a large starfish and flipped it on its back. It flipped itself over. Aside from a few drills, that was the highlight of the dive. Jim and I blew bags at the end. Flopping into the boat I managed to bust my dry suit pocket’s knife sheath.
We then endured a long ride back to the launch. I had to pee and was on the front (bow?) of the boat bouncing along and trying not to wet myself. Jim was in the back freezing next to Diane. Naturally we had to stop and check out a few other dive sites. Actually the one looked interesting, a quick descent maybe 100 yards from a boat launch/dock. Still not the thing I wanted to do at that moment.
We got the boat back to Don’s house and they went out to dinner, but we wanted to catch the Seahawks game so we jetted.