Scooter diving no lights!

There are certain plankton that react to being disturbed by giving off light. This phenomenon is called bioluminescence. Every diver plays with this phenomenon on their first couple of night dives.

Last night I was scooter diving at Edmonds Underwater Park. Edmonds is a very big place so swimming there is not fun...but Edmonds on scooters, that's like crack for divers. My buddy and I met a couple of friends there. They didn't have scooters, so we offered them a tow out to the wreck of the Triumph. My buddy towed one diver while I towed two. My scooter tows like a tractor! Out at the Triumph my buddy takes pictures I just enjoy looking at the little critters. I love having the opportunity to do nothing but float in mid water. When we got back near shore I signaled to surface so that we could figure out where the entrance was. My buddy then asks me, "Do you want to scooter back with our lights off?" 

We turned off our lights and let our eyes adjust to the total darkness. 

Green sparks were flying off the nose cone of the scooter. The tailcone trailed a green ribbon. I could clearly make out the outline of my buddy and his scooter in the form of green bioluminescence and the ribbon of green trailing his tailcone. I could even make out the ripples on the sand with the light cast by these creatures. I have to figure out how to get this on video!

Salmon

Around October the salmon begin their final migration to complete their life's journey. The death of these creatures is the beginning of a new generation. I started to think about putting a HiDef camera in some of the local rivers and diving with the salmon. There are many possibilities to do something important for the salmon using the skills and passion that I have.  After having these thoughts the longing feeling hit me as hard as I have ever felt it. This longing feeling forces me to place my attention on the things I need to do and connect with the people I need to know. Could it be that my true life journey is beginning with the end of the salmon's life journey?

Dinosaur

Every once in a while I get the question on the beach with my doubles on my back after a dive, “ is there anything to see down there?” I usually just answer with a simple “no”. Every once in a while the emerald sea shows me something infinitely interesting. Today was one of those days.

The first thing I saw were the ribs. The bonny structures had pierced the rotting carcass. The carcass of this dinosaur was more than a hundred feet long. The flesh had not yet been picked clean by the scavengers or worms. What a magnificent specimen! It is hard to imagine that this was once an old wooden barge.

Waiting for the Darkness

After my gas fill I drove to the Tully's on Alki Avenue. I set up my laptop on a table along the window so that I can look across to the Sound. I feel a low level longing sitting here. It is a pleasant longing, not the type that breaks my heart. Can't wait to be in the cold embrace of the emerald sea again. Can't wait for the darkness to set in. I love diving at night.

Lake Mowich

Today my wife and I went on a quick hike up and down Fay Peak. This hike starts and finishes at Lake Mowich in Mt Rainier National Park. At the end of the hike I walked to the lake's edge to wash the perspiration from my face. I was struck by how clear and blue the water was. I could see at least 100ft into the lake. The longing feeling began and I started wondering if I would be able to find a buddy crazy enough to dive this lake with me. 

Chimaera!

We were scootering back from our night dive when we started seeing chimaera; aka rat fish. First it was just a few, then more. After a while I swear there must have been thousands of them. A river of rat fish was descending down the slope while we were going up. When they started jumping at my light and hitting my scooter my shoulders and arms I started to get a little worried. Visions of the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds flashed through my mind! I was expecting a chimaera to jump up and knock my mask off any minute.

Here in the Darkness

I think this one came out a little better.

The Fingers from Raul Alvarez on Vimeo

Alki - September 1, 2008

This was my first successful attempt at underwater video and my first attempt at video editing.

Alki September 1, 2008 from Raul Alvarez on Vimeo

I learned a couple of things. My hand was a little shakier than I thought. I point the camera slightly down. I need to focus longer on each subject than I normally do while diving. I found that video of just critters is not very interesting, they need to be framed around divers. Another interesting discovery about video it that I pay a lot more attention to my dive buddies.

Embrace

As I drove into the parking lot at Cove 2, the longing feeling welled up in my chest. It happened right at the moment when I finished pulling into a parking space and my attention shifted towards the water. The cold embrace of the emerald sea squeezing my drysuit as I go deep into the darkness filled my thoughts. 

I should have walked to the beach and let the longing consume me. Instead I foolishly walked across the street to get a cup of coffee. By the time I got back, it (the longing) was gone. 

It's All Good

I have had only two bad days diving and this was not one of them. The day ended in the most fitting manner with me putting a one inch gash on my head.

Our plan was to meet at the Alki Boat Launch at 11:00am to dive Waterman's Wall during the slack opportunity which presented itself. At 9:00am both of my dive buddies called me to tell me that the road to the boat launch was going to be closed starting at 10:00am. We diverted Shilshole Marina. This would only increase the boat ride by a few minutes so it was not a big deal.

When I arrived at the boat with my first load of gear I thought the boat didn't look right sitting in the water. I asked if the plug was in but was assured everything was all right. When I got back with my second load of gear I realized something was not right. One of my buddies was hanging from his thighs over the back of the boat while another buddy was frantically donning his dry suit. The boat was sitting much deeper in the water and listing to one side. The plug was not on the boat and the only thing that was going to save it from sinking was a finger in the drain plug hole. We managed to wrestle a boat full of water with three sets of doubles back on the trailer.

Once on dry land we went to West Marine 1/2 a mile down the road to get some plugs. The boat drained for almost an hour. We lost the opportunity to dive Waterman's Wall. But this is the Puget Sound, we had a boat and there were lots of other diving opportunities. We headed to Blakley Harbor to dive Fingers.

After our dive at Fingers we headed off to the West Point Barges. The first problem was the we did not have coordinates. One of my buddies called his wife and was trying to instruct her over the phone on how to get GPS coordinates off their boat's GPS. The GPS unit on the boat we were on showed some form of obstruction right where the West Point Barges should have been. We made several passes over the area with the depth sounder and were pretty certain we were right on them.

We dropped anchor in 100ft of water with 200ft of line. The wind was too strong for the amount of scope on the anchor and we dragged. We pulled the anchor, attached another 200ft of line, redropped over where we thought the barges were and waited for the line to get taught. We were still dragging and had to pull the anchor up a second time.

We were determined to get the dive in so we decided to run the dive as a live boat instead of anchored. We took out the extra 200ft of line and attached a couple of fenders to the end of the 200ft anchor line. We dropped again and hoped we were close enough.

The dive on the West Point Barges went smoothly. The anchor landed about 30ft from the deepest barge and the visibility was good enough that we could see a line of plumose anemones along the gunwale of the barge from the anchor.

At 6:00pm we were safely back ashore, or so we thought. We unloaded the boat and left all our double tanks on the dock. I sat on the ground to put my tanks on my back. I managed to sit the tanks on my back while on my hands and knees. I was about to stand up when I lost my balance forward, the tanks slipped of my back and the backplate put a one inch gash on the back of my head, but my dive gear was still OK.

Furtunately one of my buddies is an ER doctor and she knew exactly how to fix me. We went to the local 7/11 to get some Crazy Glue and she glued head back together. I will not be able to dive for 48 to 72 hours :-(

So you may be wondering why this was not a bad day diving. It is really very simple, no one died.

I Met a Dive Junkie

I was at the DUI DOG Rally today working the registration booth. I met a couple of people I would consider possible dive junkies like me. I can often tell they are dive junkies by their choice of words regarding not diving; carving, anxiety, depression, etc. One of these dive junkies left an impression on me. 

I registered a 15 year old girl and didn't really think much of it. She was newly certified and seemed relatively enthusiastic, then I talked to her mother. This young girl has been working at a dive shop all summer to buy all her own gear. Dive gear is expensive. She dove 4 times last week. She dove Monday evening. The School year started Tuesday. She wanted to dive Thursday evening but her mother told her she should not dive on a school night. This young girl became very anxious and even a little depressed at the thought of not being able to dive. I describe the affliction which some of us suffer and could see the recognition in her mother's eyes.

I have mixed thoughts regarding this young girl being a dive junkie. I was 42 years old and had been diving for 7 years before I felt these longing feelings. These longing feelings are the most powerful things I have ever felt. I am glad this young girl did not have to wait as long as I did to experience these things. On the other hand, despite my 42 years of emotional experience I have had a hard time coming to grips with what I feel. How is a 15 year old girl going to cope with these feelings?

Deco

We live in an extraordinary time and place. We can connect with our environment in ways our ancestors could never have imagined. 

Mid water deco is meditation for me. I am probably one of the few people who appreciates just breathing and floating in mid water. When I relax into deco I have complete connection with my breathing yet I still have this awareness telling me to keep track of my buddies. This connection and this awareness have a rhythm. The connection and awareness are very much like breathing itself; they work in opposition to each other much like breathing in fills the lungs and breathing out empties the lungs.

Dream

I woke up from a dream this morning. A great flood had come over the land. The hills were scraped clean. I walked down to the valley to see if there was anyone I could help.

Seasons

Some people do not like to dive in the same spot repeatedly. They believe that once they have seen a dive site, they know what that dive site is like.

It is the end of summer and the iridescent green seaweed known as sea lettuce (ulvaria) is beginning to dye off. I have done this dive at Alki hundreds of times. Diving in the same place over and over makes me aware that there are seasons underwater.