Sunday, June 2, 2013
Nick Whitten: SCUBA Boy!
Last Saturday, Kathy (mi esposa) and I travelled to Dallas to see family. They were gathering at my sister Connie's house. When we got there, the little ones were in the pool. Well it just so happened that I had picked up my newly serviced SCUBA tank and regulator on the way to Dallas so it was still in the trunk of the car. After swimming a bit, I had the idea of bringing it out to let the little ones see. No one wanted to use it except Nick. He took to it like a pro. I've seen grownups have more trouble with it. After only a couple of minutes, he was able to go face-down in the pool with no qualms. He didn't want to stop. We finally had to make him get out because he had been in the pool for literally hours and was shivering. I see a future diver in the making!
Saturday, May 25, 2013
OTTER Team 1: Mission update
Mission accomplished. Well...sort of...
Got out to the dive site ( a small spring-fed lake north of Palestine, Texas) and met up with the client, we'll call him Mr. B, and his crew. It turns out that the blockage was not a bunch of wood stuffed in by beavers. It was a dead beaver! He came shooting out of the pipe when its valve was opened up to its max. The water began to flow like three fire hoses. Mr. B still wanted me to locate and buoy the sluice pipe, as well as finding the contractor magnet he had lost trying to find the pipe.
I found the magnet fairly quickly and returned it to the shore party. Then came the fairly long search for the drain. There was ZERO visibility after the first 10 inches of water, so it was all "grope along in the dark" time. After several minutes of searching I felt something hit my arm. "Damn log!" I thought. Then the "log" started clutching at my arm with little hands. Now I was the one being groped...by a beaver! When I moved my hand toward him, he took off.
About halfway through the dive, I found that my vest (buoyancy compensator) was leaking. That meant that I coudn't stabilize my depth with air. Not too much of a problem as I was mostly on the bottom anyway, but made staying at the surface a pain. I was using a wedge-shaped search pattern with a line tied to the shore. I would grope my way back and forth taking up a loop each swing. I finally found the opening to the pipe. It was NOT "sticking up about a foot off the bottom" as they thought. Instead it was buried about 18 inches under the bottom in a hole. I had to reach deep into a hole in the darkness to find it. *cue scary music* Once found, I attached a home-made buoy to it with a metal clip and we're done. Everybody's happy, but no one took pictures. Too bad. Anyway I got paid and packed up and gone. All is right with the world.
OTTER Team 1 leader: out
Got out to the dive site ( a small spring-fed lake north of Palestine, Texas) and met up with the client, we'll call him Mr. B, and his crew. It turns out that the blockage was not a bunch of wood stuffed in by beavers. It was a dead beaver! He came shooting out of the pipe when its valve was opened up to its max. The water began to flow like three fire hoses. Mr. B still wanted me to locate and buoy the sluice pipe, as well as finding the contractor magnet he had lost trying to find the pipe.
I found the magnet fairly quickly and returned it to the shore party. Then came the fairly long search for the drain. There was ZERO visibility after the first 10 inches of water, so it was all "grope along in the dark" time. After several minutes of searching I felt something hit my arm. "Damn log!" I thought. Then the "log" started clutching at my arm with little hands. Now I was the one being groped...by a beaver! When I moved my hand toward him, he took off.
About halfway through the dive, I found that my vest (buoyancy compensator) was leaking. That meant that I coudn't stabilize my depth with air. Not too much of a problem as I was mostly on the bottom anyway, but made staying at the surface a pain. I was using a wedge-shaped search pattern with a line tied to the shore. I would grope my way back and forth taking up a loop each swing. I finally found the opening to the pipe. It was NOT "sticking up about a foot off the bottom" as they thought. Instead it was buried about 18 inches under the bottom in a hole. I had to reach deep into a hole in the darkness to find it. *cue scary music* Once found, I attached a home-made buoy to it with a metal clip and we're done. Everybody's happy, but no one took pictures. Too bad. Anyway I got paid and packed up and gone. All is right with the world.
OTTER Team 1 leader: out
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