dive #917 & 918 June 29 2014

Dive #917 June 29 2014
Today was a banner summer day.
Hot, sunny, clear with a slight breeze. Everybody, or so it seemed, was out at the beach today.
Today was the St. Peter's festival event in downtown Gloucester so it was really busy on land and, in the water. The river was completely chock-o-block full of boats.
We had Fred and Chris in charge plus Pete, Andy, Jackie and Sandy out on the boat today.
 We headed over to Folly Cove to avoid the bridge and also because it was Sandy's first dive of the season. I was totally OK with that. I really like Folly Cove and for the most part, I "usually"don't get "lost" there.
 I brought my dry suit this time but as I was donning it I was regretting that I brought this instead of my wet suit. As I was ready to hit the water I noticed my tank was completely empty of air. Pete and I filled it last weekend after our dive. I am guessing maybe the valve got nudged and air leaked out. Chris, thankfully, had the her little yellow AL tank onboard that I could borrow.
Seriously, it was freakin' hot wearing this dry suit. I took a dunk to at least cool my head off. That is when the anchor started to move out of the sand. This is not a good thing because you didn't want to drift about with an anchor jumping about in the sand. I gave Chris a hand pulling up the anchor so we could re-anchor it down in a more secure spot. Let me tell you, pulling that sucker up  is a workout!
When I finally went in for my dive I was glad I wore the dry suit after all.
The water was bloody freezing! At about 25-30 feet I got a temp reading of 45F under the boat.
Under the boat I saw lots of sand dollars and some flounders. The viz was about 10feet.
Dive #918
We were going to move but there were so many boats out there that it was best to just stay put. I was happy with that.
 I wanted to go over by the wall since I just hung around under the boat for my first dive. I had enough air in my tank to do a second dive. I poked around the little UW caves and I saw big cunners, a tautog, a very large striper as well as some flounders and crabs.
Andy reported he saw a horse-shoe crab. Jackie reported she saw a lion's mane jelly fish as well as the half eaten jelly donut she partially ate float on by.
We all had a good laugh about the floating donut.
Another great day!

A non-theme park trip to Florida

We had just come back from Orlando Florida to visit my husband's family.
They are totally into the theme-park vacation. By judging how many theme parks that are located in Florida and the vast amounts of people traveling from all over the world to enjoy these ventures I could say with confidence that it is extremely popular.
I must be an old fart because it would be absolute torture for me to stand in hour long lines and crowds at 96F temps just to go on "rides" that make me vomit.Ugh..No thanks.
So my husband and I did the "non-disney" route and did things like go bird watching, visited a wild bird rehab,went antiquing, splashed around in a pool and snorkled at blue springs state park.
What a gem the blue springs state park was!
In the cooler climate manatees reside nearby. I didn't see any manatees but saw the sign posting for "warning: alligators!". And sure enough, I saw one swimming by outside the "safe swimming area".
It cost a mere $6.00 per carload to enter the park. They have bathrooms, a snack bar, hiking trails and a clean picnic area as well as the swimming hole.
The water temperture is suppose to be 72F year round but I think because of the cold winter it was remarkably colder. I would guess the temp closer to 69F-which is still warm for us New Englanders.
Most of the people at the ladder were taking forever to get in the water exclaiming, "oh my God! it is so cold!!!" I got a bit "impatient" and "nudged" one whiny dramatic teenager in the water saying, "oh for God's sake...get in!"
The water was remarkably clear and clean. It was cleaner than our hotel's tap water. This spring is "famous" also for it's underwater caves. We spotted a couple of scuba divers at the entrance of the cave. I snorkled down to about 15 feet or more to the entrance. People had carved their initials into the limestone. I was testing myself against one teen boy to see how deep I could free dive down. I did OK for an old scrot.
On the surface, lots of chubby tourists were floating around on tubes that you could rent. I noticed that a humongous horse fly landed on me. It was at least an inch long.
 It was the biggest one I've ever seen. I swished it away. I figured that the fly would lose interest in my leathery zomig stinky skin and my husband's skinny garlic infused skin when there was lots of white shiny soft plump flesh to chew on instead. And sure enough, the pudgy kids on the floats were screaming.
The fish were interesting here at the springs. There were gars everywhere as well as turtles and sunfish.
It was definitely a great place to spend a hot day!

the wild pigeons of Salisbury beach #105

Last month I noticed a lot of activity with the pigeons at the beach. Lots of males 'busting-a-move" in order to impress the females. There must have been some success because I saw many pigeons carrying straw and bits of debris for nest making. As a result I noticed two youngsters in a new nest above the pizza shop. Different characters come and go. One poor creature would wait for my arrival. He looked like he had a feather dangling but sadly it wasn't a feather but a rotted leg. I fear because of his rotted leg his chance for survival is slim. I would at least bring his morning food.
My cousin called me the other day in regard to an article in our local paper. I did not recieve the paper that day because I was away on vacation.
the article read as such, that for now on any one caught "feeding the birds at the beach will be fined $1000.00."
A $1000.00....! Can you F*&^ing beleive that?!?!
Needless to say, my heart sank.
People (including myself) have been feeding the pigeons and seagulls for years.
The article claimed it to be a 'health issue".
This makes me laugh (but not in a 'ha ha' way).
The pigeons are being used as a scape-goat in other issues that plague the beach.
 I find caca filled diapers all over the place as well syringes under the buildings. Pizza boxes are scattered everywhere even though there are many trash buckets all over the place. And of course, even there is (suppose to be) a leash law and a "no dogs on the beach" law after memorial day. I continue to see loose dogs running, peeing and crapping on the beach so matter-of-factly.(Mostly pit-bulls)
I stopped feeding the birds.
 Not just because of the big fine but I would not want this to initiate a war on the pigeons. I've already witnessed people's cruelity.
The pigeons follows us when we park our car for our morning run so we've had to park in a different spot to avoid them.
I am not too fond of our health department in town.
This is just another thing that is taken away from us :-(

June 22 2014 dive # 916

June 22 2014 #916
OMG..what a great day....
Today was my first day back on Easy Diver since last June.
Fred and Pete were still in recovery from their injuries that happened over the winter. Regardless,They were both in good spirits. Of course,being on a boat in the summer definitely cures what ails you.
Pete was "very happy" to have an "audience" in order to show off his scar that came down from his crotch down to his ankle. (um Pete, you need new underpants.....) The scar was pock marked with holes from the "staples". I called out to give Pete a jug of water to drink to see if his leg would turn into a sprinkler system. We never did find out though. HA!
We had a nice group of people aboard. Chris was at the helm, along with Fred and Pete. Linsley and Kevin M are always a pleasure to dive with. Alex, Andy and John (from Metrowest) were also onboard for a great day.
 Air temp was cool and sunny (about 72F). We stopped at the stone garage. I needed to do a 'check out dive". I wore my dry suit and needed to see if my weight belt was of the correct weight amount.
The water was surprisely comfortable. My guage read 50F but Andy's guage read in the high 50s. It certainly felt in the high 50s.
The water, however. was really really surgy with a current. I kept that in mind and stayed under the boat especially since I only had 1500psi in my tank.  I saw lots of pollack darting around but I was more concerned with making sure my equipment was working ok. My tank did slip out of it's holster and was banging on my ankles. I tried to position myself btween the rocks so I wouldn't get banged around by the surge to take my BCD off and to get the tank back in it's holster. Success!
I just did the one dive and enjoyed the rest of the time catching up on funny stories with everyone.
I can't wait for next week! :-)