Category: Technical Diving

Trip Report: St. Lawrence River with Blue Foot Diving

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EDIT: This blog post is about a month after the trip. I finally got around to posting a trip report so it’s missing a bunch of details. I decided to head up to the St. Lawrence River for a long weekend of “warm” fresh water diving with a group of friends.    For those who aren’t in the know, diving in the St Lawrence River is often called the “Caribbean of the North.”  The warm top layer of water from Lake Ontario feeds into the St Lawrence River Seaway, combined…

Great Lakes Diving: A week of diving in Presque Isle & Whitefish Point

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SS Comet

I wanted to do a quick recap of my Great Lakes diving trip to Presque Isle (Lake Huron) and Whitefish Point (Lake Superior).  This was my 2nd time diving up in this area. I went last year in July for the first time with my friend Shawn and was blown away by the diving up here.  This year we planned to do 4 days in Presque Isle, MI (Lake Huron) and 3 days in Whitefish Point (Lake Superior). What can I say? First of all, it was truly awesome diving with…

Wreck of the Northern Voyager

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Mooring on Northern Voyager

The weather looked much better on Saturday but the winds were “predicted” to be a little dicey on Saturday morning so instead of motoring out to the wreck of the Coyote we opted to dive the wreck of Northern Voyager which sits behind Thatcher Island and is a much closer run. Thankfully the weather and the marine forecast were completely wrong. There was not a ripple in Lake Atlantic this morning.   It was an absolutely fantastic morning. The Northern Voyager was 144ft factory fishing ship that sunk in 180′…

Fantastic visibility on wreck of Pinthis

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Tied into the Pinthis, seas were glass

I had nothing on my schedule for Sunday and no definitive dive plans. This is one of those rare times when it pays off to keep your last minute options open. I was talking to Heather about something unrelated and she mentioned she had a last minute cancellation on her Sunday trip to the Pinthis.   Of course I immediately jumped on the spot. The Pinthis is one of my favorite New England wreck dives. The Pinthis was a steel coastal oil tanker that that collided with the steamer Fairfax…

Gear Review: Light Monkey Bailout Attachment System (BAS)

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When I was at Beneath The Sea (BTS) I stopped by the Light Monkey booth to look at some new products. Consequently, I purchased the Light Monkey Bailout Attachment System (BAS) for use with my rebreather.  Now I’m finally getting around to writing a quick review. I know it’s ultimately just a bunch of bungee, webbing and large rings but I think it’s a pretty slick setup.   All things considered, it’s compact, unobtrusive and the large rings are easy to find and manipulate with thick dry gloves. You can…

Wreck of the Herbert with NADE

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I was originally scheduled to dive the Coyote (~175ft) with Northern Atlantic Dive Expeditions (Gauntlet) but the offshore forecast wasn’t looking so hot with 3-4ft swells and heavy fog predicted so Heather opted to run to the wreck of the Herbert instead (~100ft) . Not a huge deal. At least with rebreathers you have nobody wasting a 150 dollar trimix fill on a 100ft dive. I was just happy to be on a boat and not blown out for a change. Since I had already packed my car for the…

My CCR Cave Diving Course with Paul Heinerth

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A little background information first.  It was a while ago that I started my “full cave” journey.  In March 2012 I took Cavern/Intro/Apprentice with German Yanez in Cozumel, Mexico.   He was a great instructor and I really enjoyed class with him but this was all on open circuit and to be perfectly honest I haven’t dove doubles frequently enough in the last two years to want to complete my full cave on open circuit.  I still dive OC but I just prefer to be on a rebreather for most dives…

Trip report: World-class wreck diving in Presque Isle, MI with Shipwreck Explorers

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Molly V

I will just start by saying it’s been a really busy summer and I haven’t updated this blog as much as I had hoped but I wanted to write a trip report as I just got back from 4 days of diving in Presque Isle, Michigan.  It was some of the best and well preserved wreck diving that I’ve ever done. Seriously the diving up in Presque Isle, MI and in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary is so worth the trip that I’m already thinking of skipping a warm water vacation…

New York Central 14-II & Chester Poling with Daybreaker

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Matt on Chester Poling

I had two nice dives today on the Daybreaker.  We dove the Pug and the Chester Poling since Matt was doing a helitrox class with Sang and Eric on their rebreathers.  I think John may have been tagging along for Advanced Nitrox/Deco Procedures training as well. We had surprisingly decent visibility on the New York Central 14-II which tends to have crappier visibility in the summer.   The good thing about the New York Central 14-II aka Pug wreck is that the hull is largely intact so it’s an extremely…

Rebreather surgery completed, kitten even tried helping..

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Because my rEvodream (secondary redundant ppO2 monitor) had died on me during my last dive I decided I would do the right thing and install a new one.  When I was in Florida in March I actually bought a brand new “used” rEvodream from AddHelium because I knew my current rEvodream was acting up.  It was basically brand new because someone had removed it to install a Shearwater NERD on their rEvo. It didn’t take very long to install. Hardest part was fishing cables through. Maybe 1 hour or hour…