Mike

Had a great weekend at Loch Low-Minn. For those who don’t know about this great dive spot, it is located near Athens, Tennessee a couple of miles down the road from the Dairy. The Dairy has a visitors center where you can stop and get free ice cream samples…but I digress.

We got in late Friday night (the 16th) and checked in to the Hampton Inn at I-85 and Decatur Pike. The next morning we back tracked down I85 a bit and met some old friends for breakfast in Ootewah and then went back to the hotel and got ready for some diving. Driving the twisting country road back to the Loch Low-Minn Quarry was fun and I even found it the first time (ya’ll need a bigger sign!) We checked in and got Susan’s two-80 CF aluminum tanks filled. In the office as we were checking in we met Reta Reynolds who was there solo and looking for a dive partner. Susan and I said sure, so we all drove down to table 14 and offloaded our gear, then parked the vehicles up at the top of the hill.

Susan hadn’t dove since last year in Cozumel and she had a panic attack (she was water phobic so she is prone to this once in a while) so I was lucky Reta had needed a partner or I would have been diving solo! Anyway it was a great weekend!

On the first dive I was a bit over weighted and I ended up pogoing into the weed beds, so we cut it a little short and I took out several pounds of weight. The second dive was much better and we got to see one of the latest additions to the divers attractions at the Quarry, the life size fiberglass Great White shark!

On the third dive Reta saw one of the other great attractions for this quarry, one of the resident paddle fish. I include one of my old images from last year here since I didn’t get to see it as it had sailed off into the haze by the time I realized what was happening.

On the last dive we went over and hung out at the shark hoping to see some paddle fish, but they had other things they wanted to do I guess because while we saw some bass and blue gills that I would have loved to have for dinner none of the denizens of the deep showed up.

All in all a great weekend.

Well, no oil in sight yet. Hopefully the currents will keep it off the western Florida beaches at least for a while. The sudden increase in temperature seems to have killed of some of the algae, resulting in a brown/green muck covering the bottom and making it difficult to find things. Visibility was maybe 2-3 feet at the bone yard and less than 18 inches back toward shore.

After 2 one hour dives I came up with no usable shark teeth. I did find some nice Dugong rib sections I am looking to turn into cabochons and practice some scrimshaw with.

I hope to get some quarry diving in during July and August to stay in good practice for St. Thomas in September. Anyway, even a bad day diving beats a good day at the office!

Mike

On June 12, 2010 I plan to dive my butt off in Venice Beach, Florida at the annual sharks tooth dive with my Scubaboard dive buddies. As I prepare for this great experience I can’t help but wonder, will this be the last time for a long time I will be able to enjoy this?

I suppose you know why I am asking this. The Deepwater oil leak, now the worst in history, is dumping anywhere up to 40,000 BPD of oil into the gulf and the currents are pulling it towards Florida. Now, if God is not feeling vengeful, it will get caught by the circular current and just go round and round until BP gets their act together and sucks it up into a tanker. However, if God is feeling vengeful and wants to teach us all a lesson (after all he isn’t very much with finesse, remember the flood? Sodom and Gomorrah?) even a tropical depression, not even a state 1 hurricanes worth, could blow the oil right onto the entire western coast of Florida, and then it would be good bye Venice beach for diving at least in the foreseeable future.

So I am praying that God will be kind and hold that oil in the current until the idiots that caused it can get it cleaned up. Meanwhile I plan on trying to dive Venice Beach as often as I can in the time remaining.

Here it is Memorial day weekend and I haven’t done any diving since the DOG days dive at Alabama Blue Water. I hope to get out at least one day this weekend and do some diving in lake Lanier. I wold rather be diving in some nice warm, clear water location but hey, you do what ya can!

I will probably be diving several times over the next few months in tune up to diving in St. Thomas in September. I am planning on being at Venice Beach, Florida for the annual Scubaboard sharks tooth bash June 12th. And I home to dive at Blue Water, Loch Low-Minn and Dive Haven quarries as well as lake Joacassee.

Anyway, hope to see you!

As you all may know I have been happily married to my wife Susan for 36 years. Due in no small part to the love and support from her mother and father. Her father was actually my Doctor before I knew her…buts that is another story! Anyway, Doctor Hamilton, Susans father spent 47 years as a country doctor in Georgia and the surrounding area. Doc wrote a book about his experiences about 10 years ago. After a few attempts to get it published it languished in a cardboard box for the last 10 years.

So…I published Doc’s book, a collection or anecdotes from his 47 years as a country doctor. It started as a roughly printed manuscript that lingered for 10 years in the back of a closet. I scanned it in to my computer and used OCR (optical character recognition) software to recover as much of the text as I could then spent several nights correcting, editing and typing in hand written changes and additions that didn’t make it in to a final printing the first time. Doc also painted, scenes for his life, scenes for day to day living. I then added pictures of Doc’s paintings where I could find some that were at least tangential to the story being told.

2 years ago Doc was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Luckily it isn’t a severe form…yet. He still recognizes us but his memory stops short of his second great-grandchild, Hannah Marie, my grand daughter. Anyway, to try and do my bit for helping to eliminate this brain stealing disease, half the royalties will be donated to Alzheimer’s research and the other half to help cover Doc’s future medical and care costs in the future.

Doc wasn’t aware (neither was Mary) that I was doing this, Susan, Marie (my oldest daughter) and I did a real good job of keeping it secret. We gave a proof copy to Doc on Valentines day. At first he didn’t know what it was, until he recognized his drawing on the cover and saw his name as author! His eyes lit up and he spent then next several minutes paging through, reading here and there and remembering. Mary (his wife of over 50 years) got wide eyed and I think she was about to cry, if you could know Mary you know how much that is saying. Anyway, they both gave their support to making it publicly available.

Here is the books website, have a look!

A Kick in Your Caduceus

Mike

I’ve been doing some writing. I have a work in progress with the working title:
“Mystery at Rock Lake”
which I have been thinking of calling:
“Winnebozo Blues: Mystery at Rock Lake”

Anyway, I have a sample of the work posted at Amazon, here is the link:

Winnebozo Blues: Mystery at Rock Lake

Have a look! Now, why am I posting this in my scuba blog? Well, because the story revolves around scuba diving of course! So look at it and answer the questions I have posted. Also, let me know if the details on the scuba diving are accurate, too much or not enough!

Thanks Ya’ll! Safe Diving!

Mike

What a pain! The weather has been absolutely horrible every time I want to go diving, or, the viz at the dive site is such I could put the mask and reg on with a bag over my head and get the same experience. I hope after this next spurt of bad weather it will clear up for a while and let me get wet (other than rain.)

I am on FaceBook now, so if anyone wants to connect there, send me a friend request! Of course, like I need anymore time wasters…

Hope you all are having better luck diving than I am. Maybe I will break loose and head down to Florida for some spring dives and some shark tooth diving. Anything is better than here right now!

Catch you all on the next surface interval…

Mike

Well I tried to go diving last friday, but Mother Nature had other ideas and the dive site was zero viz with heavy rain possible. Oh well, maybe next week! Instead I proofed my paperback versions of my books and did their final approvals. Anyway, for your next surface interval pick up a copy of one (or all) of my books!

I have self published a collection of short stories (several were previously published in anthologies and magazines) titled “Seeds of Wonder” and two novels, one an epic fantasy titled “Quesy of the Rune Sword” and one an action adventure titled “Ransome of the Phoenix” just the thing to pass the time!

The links to both the Kindle and paperback vervions are below.

Quest of the Rune Sword:
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0033WSZH2
Book: https://www.createspace.com/3424929

Ransom of the Phoenix:
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00347AIE4
Book: https://www.createspace.com/3425526

Seeds of Wonder:
Kindle:http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0033WSW7U
Book: https://www.createspace.com/3424266

Enjoy!

Over all I have been very pleased with the Salvo 10 watt HID I bought a while ago (when Salvo was still in business). However, after returning from my Cozumel vacation I rinsed the gear and put it away, then a month or two later I pull it out only to find one of the spring latches has completely failed and the other is showing signs of corrosion!

Of course a quick check of the internet showed Salvo was long gone so naturally I was afraid I was out of luck as to getting the light repaired. Then I remembered, I had purchased some Ikelite spring latches for my scooter project, and I wondered if they would fit.

Sure enough, they were almost an exact match! Happily I removed the offending parts and replaced them with the (hopefully!) higher quality Ikelite latches.

As you can see, the Ikelite latches work like a champ! I can’t wait to try them out on a dive soon! Of course I have to wait for the below freezing temperatures to warm up… guess I am getting old.

Well, back from a restful week in Cozumel. I got to do 6 dives, I realize that isn’t many by some folks standards, but I did go there to rest and dive, not just dive. In addition I wanted to spend time with the wife. We visited Tulum, did some shopping and did the island tour (including the tequila factory of course!)
I guess it is back into the traces now. I leave for San Francisco at the end of the week, going to do a 2-tank kelp dive in Monterey before I go to my conference and I hope to do a better job with the photography this time!
Once I get back from California I am going to start the dive park initiative again. I hope to generate some interest at local Dive shops and dive groups. Anyone have any good ideas for it, let me know!