Location: Ol’ Salty II, The Algol
By: AJ
The beeping started around 4am. Constantly one, then another, eventually 4 different devices screaming, sounding off to AJ that it’s time to go. At 4:47am I finally jumped out of bed, pushing off the empty liquor bottles and stale pizza from the night before. ‘Oh my god, I was supposed to leave 40 minutes ago!’ I thanked myself for packing the car the night before, anticipating the late start, I probably shouldn’t have had that last bottle of tequila…
As I jumped into the car, I couldn’t help but imagine what the day was going to be like, probably because I was falling asleep while driving, but none the less, I was off to the Ol’ Salty II, on another A-1 adventure.
I made haste, making it to the boat at 5:59, we were set to depart at 6:15. Immediately I met trent, the newest recruit to the A-1 dive team, then Margarett , Vince, where’s Jen and Alan, oh they’re always coming up the rear. I took my gear on board, first my dry bag and then my wet stuff, and then… my YBOD. Eyes focused on me, people started to whisper… “I didn’t know this was going to be THAT kind of dive,” “Jesus, who invited the fancy pants Evolution divers,” “Whats that, two more? Jen and Alan… Psh, I’ll stick with my doubles,” these are just some of the comments that were passed around. Jen and Alan, finally making it from the secret lair (A-1 Scuba in Trevose, PA) hurried to get on the boat. We were all set to leave, trying to get to the site before the blue fish hunters got there, but wait, whose left, oh, here comes Leon at the early time of… 7:00am… Count off, who’s missing, Andrew! Where is he? What do you mean he’s asleep!?! Oh well… looks like Trents diving alone!
As quickly as we came, we were off! The seas, how strange, they were flat as glass… The skies, though cloudy, held their bladders. “I’m going to bed!,” I exclaimed, and promptly went underneath to the luxurious cabins and took a nap, Alan joining me shortly for some ‘Just Dive Buddy Cuddling.’ Suddenly I’m awoken by the engines winding down. “Alan Wake up, it’s time to blow our YBODS!” As I slowly regained my sight, I come up to the top deck to hear Alan screaming profanities. “Gosh Darn, Gee Golly, Oh my goodness,” and worst of all “HOLY MONKEY!”
Jen and I ran over to find out what was wrong. “They got me,” proclaimed Alan, as he pointed us to a screw missing on his Evo+, “13,000 dollars and I can’t dive because of a 50 cent piece of metal!” “Oh man… well at least I can dive!” said Jen.
I got suited up, Trent followed, as well as Jen. “This is gonna be a short dive guys, only an hour, no deco!” I said. Ha Ha! Short for us, the open circuit divers flashed us a look of distain. We went down and started exploring, 10ft of viz, great for NJ! After swimming a bit it was time for Trent to go up, he forgot to set his computer back to Nitrox… Whoops! “Jen, what shall we do? Feed fish? I love it!” I slowly began prying open muscles, trying not to stab through my own hand. Finally I stopped and asked myself, what would Richie Kohler do? I then spun my knife around and smash the shell open with the butt of the knife. Not more than a second later I was surrounded by fish all waiting for their free meal. Time to go up! It was quite the trip from 100fsw to the surface, after 48 minutes we had… wait a minute, oh yea we had no deco :-D
Waiting on the hang line for our, quite optional 3 minute safety stop, I saw something fall, it was, wait what is it… an IMAX camera, plummeting to the ocean floor (a hardy 140 to 160fsw). Off I took, like a speeding bullet, or a monkey on a catapult, off to capture the camera. I intercepted it at 40fsw and proceeded back up the line. Once on the surface I could hear through my thick hood “We’re going to have to send a deep diver for that,” “Oh man what am I going to do…” I shouted to the crew, what’s going on? “We lost a camera!” I looked up, and said “Do you mean, THIS CAMERA!!!!!!” Let me tell you folks, the sigh of relief was so strong is almost blew me into open water!
“Jen did you feel that thermocline @ 100ft?” “No???” “Oh, that’s because it was in my wetsuit!”
I got back on the boat, and called to Alan, “Are you going in?” “YES!” Alan responded, already in the process of stealing Jens bolt to replace his. 20 minute surface interval… sounds good to me! (I love my YBOD). Alan and I proceeded to go to a max depth of 130fsw, searching for something, but what, the meaning of life? The answers to our biggest questions? Or just the elusive guide to normoxic rebreather diving… Suddenly the reel stopped. “What?! We’re out of line? We must been, 500 feet down the wreck, my go… hey a deep dark hole, lets go in there!” Fish darted out, swimming right into our masks, surely trying to eat our eyeballs. Then… suddenly a fish bigger then my ego! Do we follow it? No, I’m already in 8 minutes of deco… Then, a shiver… 2 hours in 40 degree water is chilling, lets go up.
I rose to my deco ceiling… no wait, I chased it, for every foot I went up, the ceiling raised exponentially. By the time I made it to my 40 ft stop, the ceiling was at 20 ft, by 20 ft the ceiling was at 0.2ft! I love my YBOD..
Eventually we floundered onto the deck, a successful trip!
*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP* The alarm sounded, I turned to Alan and looked. At the same time we pronounced.. LOW ALCOHOL!
We got out of our gear, grabbed a cold one, and watched people just now going in for their second dives. We relaxed and eventually Alex brought out his famous cheese, topped with some equally famous chili (I believe I got that right).
A quick nap on the bow on the way back and then it’s time to unpack the boat. After 40 minutes of off loading and cleaning, a bolt of lightning hit the ocean. “HOLY MONKEY!”
Then it rained, like the biblical storms that Noah sailed on, it rain down, left, right, and up. We huddled in the cabin and grabbed another cold one, hey might as well. Once it died down we said our goodbyes. As I floated my car down the highway, I was amazed by the excellent day we had. I got home and cleaned my gear, and promptly fell asleep at 7pm.
Until next time, live well and dive deep. -AJ