Mermet Dive Report April 21-22

[theskull]

Finally got a weekend with perfect weather, making surface intervals comfortable and enjoyable, and warming us up in time for the next dive of the day.

Visibility has improved to 10-15 ft. in the shallow water, and as much as 25 ft. in places in the deep water. The shallow water has not warmed enough for me to notice, but the bluegill have begun to come out of hiding, so it must be up a few degrees anyway. We spotted spoonbill on a couple dives.

The weekend was devoted to fun dives, but as usual we pracitced some skills during the dives as well. Had some trimix that was getting old that I used on the first deep dive of the weekend, with enough bottom time to require some deco, so I carried a stage bottle with EAN 45 for the deco. In addition to practice with deco, computers, and stage bottles, we shot some lift bags from depth, broke in some new harnesses, lights, and reels, and worked on precision buoyancy and various kicks.

And of course a night dive, after which some very generous dive buddies provided huge crab legs, shrimp, baked potatoes and salad—yum!!

Hope to see some more of you out when I’m at Mermet again in 2 weeks.

theskull

[do it easy]

Sounds like fun! The weather seemed ideal this weekend. I'm glad someone got to enjoy it.

[DeepDiverBob]

Good times this weekend indeed. I got in 4 dives Saturday with Buddy Chris, also working on skills. Valve shut downs, lift bags etc. Then when Chris left, Bill and Scuba Sally showed up, and I got in a semi-night dive in with them. Enjoyed the seafood dinner afterwords as well.

Sunday, I did another training dive foe my tec rec class. Still a skill or two I would like to fine tune. One more weekend at Table Rock, and I should be able to complete this class.

The only bad thing is that its getting to warm outside again. I like diving the dry suit, but I may have to put it away after this weekends Great Lakes trip. Bummer.

[theskull]

Updated conditions report:
Weekend of May 4-6 had remarkably poor visibility in the shallow water, of 1-5 ft. The deeper water was much better, with 10-20 ft. visibility once you were down past 40 ft. depth.

Water temps have warmed up only slightly at the surface.

The mornings were cool and cloudy, but the afternoons were warm and sunny, and we had good times and good company, with a great many divers earning certifications from every level from Open Water through Assistant Instructor.

theskull