The Bones Family says hello

Shot taken today of the world famous Bones Family at the Divers Ramp - Lake Jocassee, Upstate South Carolina. Did a couple great Solo dives today with the Standard Gear, and Pony bottle.


Conducted thorough pre-dive check (since solo), and gave me an opportunity to practice running guideline, finning and bouyancy. Carried new Sartek light as blogged previously.

Only highlight of the day was when I was reeling in on Dive Number 1, noticed that I seemed to have something tugging on the other end of my guideline. I thought for a second that maybe I might have caught a fish, but you guessed it, some stroke was trying to pull himself along my line.

Remember the guideline rules of etiquitte:

1. If visibility is good, there is no need to ever touch a guideline.
2. You should never pull or tug on a guideline.
3. The guideline is meant as a directional reference, not a means of propulsion.
4. If visibility is bad, you should circle your index finger and thumb around the line, managing your bouyancy by touch contact on the line.
5. Finally, never remove or cut a guideline that you have not personally placed.

Over 3 dives, max depth was about 80', and bottom temperature 61 degrees F. The Bones Family was in full force today, and asked me to pass along the important message above to the diving community!


Until next time - Dive Safe.


Caribbean Blue.

Diving the "Haunted Forest" - Lake Jocassee

Training dive yesterday at the Divers Boat Ramp at Lake Jocassee.

Equipment for the dive as follows;

• Fred T SS Backplate with STA, Hog webbing
• 100 cuft Worthington HP Steel Tank (31% Nitrox)
• 30 cuft AL Pony (slung left side) - Bailout Bottle
• Mk 20/S600/R190 Long hose configuration
• 7mm Bare Fullsuit with Henderson 3mm Hood
• Salvo 400 foot Primary reel
• Brand New Sartek 10W HID Canister Light - more on this later!
• Scubapro Jet Fins
• Suunto Vyper Computer

Dive profile as follows:

• Depth: Max - 130 feet, Average - 68 feet
• Dive time: 33:40
• Temperature: 68 degrees surface, 52 degrees bottom
• SAC Rate: 0.7 SCFM (a little high)

Buddy and I did a training dive yesterday to practice some of the cavern skills from the NSS-CDS course earlier this year (see blog below for review). We started off in the water with a match check, bubble check, S Drill, then checked gas and calculated turn pressure. I was diving a 100 cuft tank, and buddy was diving a 130 cuft, so my turn pressure ruled. Objective was to do a deep dive into the "Haunted Forest" on the North side of the divers boat ramp, and I was going to practice tie-offs and running the guideline. The Divers Boat Ramp is located in Devil's Fork State Park on Lake Jocassee in the beautiful upstate of South Carolina.

First time diving with the new Sartek 10W Canister light with 2 Lithium Batteries (CBPS4.5LIH10MRFS - burn time 8 hours). The light has a high quality industrial feel to it, and all cords, connections, etc. look like they are made for the long run. I believe this light has the new Brightstar bulb, but have not been able to confirm this fact. A lot of discussion and Pro's and Con's about the Brightstar vs. Welch-Allyn bulbs can be found on the web. The light came with 2 110Volt wall chargers, 2 car chargers, and also a light clip and brass snap-link, but no handle. Instruction sheets are bare bones, and included with each of the components. Would be good if they included a little more instruction for the care and feeding of the Li-Ion batteries. Batteries as delivered were nearly full, so just topped them off and connected them for the dive.

I connected the light directly to my backplate with 2 SS links. The band spacing on the light matched the hole spacing on my backplate, so this worked well. I do not like the metal to metal connection in case I need to hand off or ditch the light, but I will eventually change the canister to belt mount when I get some time to reconfigure. Mounted the canister switch down, and was easily able to reach and turn the light on and off. This light has the newer rotating white on/off switch.

I ended up going with the Dive Rite elastic hand mount handle. It was substantially cheaper than Sartek Goodman handle which is made from milled aluminum (about $18 vs. $65). The clip from the handle to the light head light perfectly, if not just a little bit loose. One disappointment was that the dive Rite handle has two screws attaching the clip to the handle, and when I first attached the head to the handle and rotated the head, the exposed screws scratched the black anodized light head. Oh well - knew it would happen sooner or later.

So how does the light work? I bet you were wondering when I would get to this. The light beam at depth is very bright, with a slight bluish tint. The beam was able to penetrate a considerable distance, and it did not pick up much backscatter from the suspended silt particles. The light has a focusable head, and I tried various settings at depth in the woods, but really didn't see much of a substantial difference. I'm sure at night this would be more obvious.

I have read all the debates about Right hand vs. left for carrying the light head, but used the light head on my right hand for the majority of the dive. Even with deploying my Primary reel also in the right hand using my thumb to control line tension, no issue at all with controlling the reel and light together. As you can imagine, reeling the line in was a little more interesting since I was holding the reel in my left hand, and was reeling in with the right. However, since the Salvo reel is "ambidextrous", I may try reeling in with the left hand just for fun. As a side note, I also have an OMS Safety reel, and I find the reeling action of the Salvo reel substantially smoother.

Weighting - just a short comment about this critical topic. With the Pony on the left, and the canister on the right, weighting balance was about right side to side. I was concerned about this initially, and in the end decided against wearing any ballast to offset. If I am wearing the Pony alone, sometimes I will wear a 2 pound weight on the right side to offset. So, no additional weight on this dive.

After reeling in, I was at turn pressure, and Buddy and I turned the dive. Did a slow ascent, deep stop, and safety stop. Finished the dive with about 700 psi. SAC was a little high as noted above, but considering the task loading, depth, and temperature - was OK. Temperature was a brisk 52 degrees (buddy recorded 50 degrees) at depth, but I was fairly warm with the Bare 7mm Arctic Full suit. I have blogged about this before, but this is a great affordable suit with wrist and calf seals inside the suit to limit the water exchange. I was diving 31% Nitrox, so was limited to about 132 feet at 1.6 PPO2. Don't usually like to dive at 1.6, but as the dive profile indicates, was at this depth for a limited time. At depth, minimum NDL time from going into Decompression was 3 minutes, so didn't push it too close to the limit.

Duke Power formed Lake Jocassee in the early 1970’s as they were creating the nearby Oconee Nuclear Plant, and a considerable amount of land and forests were flooded to create this lake (along with Lake Keowee and Lake Hartwell). The tree trunks at depth are a stark contrast against the sepia colored water, and give the dive site an interesting composition where you would expect to see the "Headless Horseman" come riding through at any minute. The remaining tree trunks and branches give the site an eerie other world feeling. This interesting contrast is why I like to call this dive site the "Haunted Forest".

Until next time - Dive Safe.

Caribbean Blue.