After my usual extra effort to get out of town for the weekend’s diving activity, I was finally on my way out of town around 4PM.
On the way up there, I picked up steaks and corn on the cobb at a local farm stand, then off to the cabins that were rented for us for the weekend. After arriving, at around 7PM, I met up with a couple of divers I’d dove with already, and a bunch of divers I had not had the pleasure of meeting yet.
There were 16 divers total, and 24 people at the dinner on Saturday night that was thrown by Waterfront Diving Center.
After unpacking my stuff into my cabin, I went off to the only place that served both food and beer near by, a total hole in the wall about 2 miles up the road. We headed up there, for some quality food. The place is called Robin’s Roost (www.Robins-Roost.com), and it wasn’t a bad place to hang out.
After a few drinks and an egg roll, we are all ready to go back to the cabins for a few more beers. After hanging out until around 00:30 Saturday morning, we all crashed.
Waking up around 7:30AM on Saturday, we hung out, some ate breakfast, then we had our dive briefing from Joe and Jonathan.
When the briefing was finished, Marcus and I decided that we would dive the boulders for 2 tanks. We packed up my trailblazer and went up the road. The boulders are on 5A in the town of Westmore, south of the waterfalls. There is a parking lot there that will hold around 5 vehicles. Once there, we put our gear together, donned our wet suits, boots, hood, mask, then the BCD, then started the climb down the hill.
The climb down is around 80 feet to the water surface. Once down, there is a very easy entry. Steve and Rob were at this dive site as well as Marcus and I. We did our last check of each other’s gear, then in we went. We were going to follow Steve and Rob, but separated almost immediately. Marcus and I went in, then got to around 80 feet deep. While there, Marcus gave the hand signal to go deeper, so we went around a boulder, and a little deeper. Marcus ended up with a max depth of 112 feet and I with 116 feet deep.
We kicked around for 2 tanks looking at the many boulders and rocks. It was neat diving with Marcus, because of his geology background. He was able to tell us a lot about the background of the different rocks and such.
On the second dive, Steve and Rob were warming up, so Marcus and I went down to the water. As we were ready to go down to the water, Matt and Gordon joined us.
The water temperature at 116 was 43 degrees. I dove the first 2 dives with around 14 pounds of lead in my BCD. Each dive lasted around 34 minutes.
We left the boulders to go back to camp. From there, we hung out and did over a 2 hour surface interval, then we went out on Marcus’ boat, to the west side of the lake. On the boat with us was Matt, Gordon, Marcus and I. We anchored the boat in around 64 feet of water. Matt and I went down and made sure the anchor was hooked on the bottom. Matt and I came up, the other two divers splashed, then we began our dive.
At around 60 feet of water, the temperature was around 55 degrees. We swam on the surface around 250 yards from the boat, then went under. From there, we swam and checked out the fish (there were plenty), the rocks and the fallen trees and logs. We kicked for a while underwater, then found the boat’s anchor. We did our 15 foot safety stop and came up. For this dive, I started with around 3000PSI and ended with 800PSI, including going down and pulling the anchor out of the rocks. I had also dropped 4 pounds of lead from my BCD, bringing me down to 10 pounds of weights.
From there, we went back to camp, and hung out. Divemaster Joe cooked dinner, including Misty Knolls Chicken, Ribs, and corn on the cobb. After dinner, there was a night dive planned.
Marcus and I suited up, and went in. During this dive, after walking out on the beach for quite a while, we finally got underwater. We looked around, saw a bunch of fish and crawfish. During this dive we were out for somewhere near 45 minutes. I left with 2800PSI and came back in with right around 1100.
After that, we had a bonfire and drank some beers, told some stories and hung out.
The next day, I woke up around 8A, and looked around, trying to get the diving started. I ended up paired with Gordon, as Matt couldn’t come up to Willoughby Lake that day, and Marcus’ back started to hurt. Gordon and I went to the Waterfalls to dive for the first dive of the day (number 5 for the weekend). We geared up on the road then did the climb down. The climb was much rougher down than at the boulders, and given the choice, I will not go to the waterfalls again.
We went diving, saw a lot of dirt and silt on the bottom. Not a great dive site. We made it in around 70 feet, and the temperature was around 58 degrees.
The next dive was off from the boat on the west side of the lake. We went in, hung out for around 48 minutes, then got back on the boat. There weren’t many fish, and the dive was OK. On this dive was Gordon, Eric and I.
From there, we picked up the camp, and then everyone started to depart.
I managed to get one last dive in with Joe and Pat up at the boulders. We went up around 5, then finally splashed around 17:20 or so. We went in, made it down to around 90 feet, then came out after around 29 minutes. Fun times. The water was around 43 degrees again. The two of them were wearing a dry suit, and I was in my 7MM wet suit. I was way colder then the two of them. I started the dive with around 2900PSI and came out with 1100PSI.
I was trying to get 8 dives in over the weekend, however I ended up getting only 7 dives in. All in all, a great weekend.
One of the things I enjoy the most about diving is the community. Everyone together, all diving, the stories, beer, and just good times.
To view some of the dive sites at Willoughby Lake, please visit my Dive Sites page for Willoughby Lake.