Saturday

Saturday. Word.

Note: pictures are loading too slowly, I will load them up later when I have the time. Sowwy!

We got up a little later today than usual, there was nothing planned to do in the morning. We ended up meeting in a lab classroom in the marine lab to talk logistics. We were in this pretty awesome room with preserved stuff in jars and such. Dive safety procedure was discussed, as well as the details for the next dive: A SHIPWRECK!!!

I couldn’t believe it when I heard that. A shipwreck?! There is special training to be able to dive into a wreck, but we weren’t planning on going in any doors or holes, just look. We were told that the highest point on the boat was at 40 ft. and the deck at 60 ft. Our max. depth is 60 ft. so it worked out perfectly.

We also got sick dive bumper stickers. Oh, and while we were being lectured at, Flipper was sitting next to me fooling around on his computer. He had some application up that uses the camera in the computer to video record your face and insert it in a picture over another face. In other words, there was a picture of, for example, people on a roller coaster, and Flipper’s face was moving around in the middle of the picture. Casey (Pearl) was sitting a row behind us and she got in the picture a lot too because the computer was picking up her face in the camera. SOOOO funny. I wanted to watch but I couldn’t without laughing. Eventually David Ginsburg caught on and asked us to stop. I don’t care, so worth it.

We left the lab lecture hall quickly and got our stuff so that we could go to Kmart for some much needed personal items. This was also souvenir shopping time, and I got some awesome stuff. We ate some lunch at a “Little Caesars” conjoined to the Kmart. It was my first time, so yummy! The “crazy sticks” really are crazy -- crazy good! I also got myself a watch that shows the moon cycle and the rainbow zebra gum that I remember getting from Toys ‘R Us all the time.

We went to the same dock as every other dive and got all the gear out. My little friend Nicole was there (the daughter of the boat captain), which made me happy. Jerry came late with the rest of our dive gear, then we were ready to go.

The shipwreck was an intentional sinking. It was meant to build a breakwater. Going down, we used the buoy line so that we didn’t go too deep (the water was about 100 ft. if you go all the way down). I saw the boat appearing and got so excited. It. Was. Awesome!!! I felt like i was in Titanic, when the robot goes underwater to video record the ship. And in the movie, the rusted sunk ship suddenly transforms into what it was, then back to sunk ship, then the past again. I tried to image the ship with a crew running around on the deck and ropes lying around. It gave me the chills.

The portholes on the side of the ship were particularly cool, because of the conglomerate of sea life growing around the edges. It looked like something Disney would construct for a sunk ship ride at DisneyWorld. I used my flashlight to peer inside, but it was too deep and too dark... creepy!

We swam from the bow to the stern (front to back, I feel so smart!) and at the end I looked over the edge, suspended parallel to the ship/the ground, and I nearly had a stomach dropping sensation. It was very dark below me and I imagined what it would have been like to look over the edge of the boat when it was being used.

Swimming back towards the bow a bit, a big structure was nearby, where perhaps the captain spend his time. There was a ladder inside to a second level, and an American flag still hanging on the outside wall. This really gave me the creeps, idk why. I nudged my dive partner DanK and put my hang over my heart, as if saying the Pledge of Allegiance. He didn’t understand me at first, then he saluted the flag with his hand at his forehead.

Moving on, we were headed back to the bow to end the dive (so sad!). Jennah was taking lots of pictures, I hope they turn out clear! I shined my flashlight down a hole in the ship deck that has a ladder. I could not see the bottom of the ladder. I thought to myself: instead of stairway to Heaven, I’m looking at the ladder to Hell. I got a chill down my back.

We had to make a long safety stop to off gas the nitrogen. There was a bar suspended 15 ft. below our boat, connected to our boat with two regulators. It was convenient for holding onto during the safety stop, or in case of an emergency/no air. We posed with the bar a bit for pictures, then headed up.

After an hour surface interval time, we did our second dive of the day at the same site but closer to the brake wall. Our transect tape jammed up at about 30 meters. After some struggling, I wrapped the tape around the machine and we decided to use the 30 ft. level as a reference. I saw two spiky black sea cucumbers and a camo one.

We showered, dressed up a bit, then BBQ’d. We were hoping to go out and have fun, but we didn’t end up going out; our instructors didn’t want us to. Eh, we’ll survive. But that was definitely a fun night...

Peace, B