Category: Rebreather

Trip Report: 5 days of Cave Diving in Florida

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Florida Cave Diving for Thanksgiving I was starting to get the travel itch again so I figured an impromptu trip to cave country in Florida was on the agenda.  I guess it really wasn’t impromptu; a couple of my friends were driving down and it was really a question of if I could find a cheap flight and rental car. Luckily I was able to find a flight on JetBlue on Thanksgiving for under $300 from Boston to Jacksonville.  My friends Matt and Lea offered to mule down my rebreather…

Thompson’s Point Shore Dive in Lake Champlain

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Thompson's Point Lake Champlain

We decided to do something a little different this weekend.  Myself, Matt, Lea and Tom went up to Lake Champlain for some planned exploratory shore diving.  We also figured we would hit some of the restaurants and breweries in Burlington. Thompson’s Point There is an area in Lake Champlain called Thompson’s Point which is rumored to have some very cool topography (vertical wall) underwater.  It’s an area that is also one of the deepest points of the lake. We had no real ambitious plans to go “super” deep but we carried…

Trip Report: Wreck of the Baleen with Daybreaker

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Wreck of Baleen

I crewed on both the morning and afternoon charters this Saturday for Matt.  On the morning charter we went to Halfway Rock and Southeast Breakers with a group from East Coast Divers. On the afternoon charter we made it out to the wreck of the Baleen. In the morning we had a bit of an incoming swell but otherwise topside conditions were great. Divers reported approximately 10-20ft of visibility. They said it varied depending on depth.  We spotted harbor seals on the surface and a whale off in the distance.…

ScubaForce SF2 Rebreather Demo at Hathaway’s Pond

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Hathaway's Pond

SF2 Rebreather Demo I finally got the chance to do a nice demo on the ScubaForce SF2 rebreather with Alex Dulavitz of East Coast Divers.  My friend Luigi was also doing a demo on the unit as well.  Additionally, Aleksey joined us for a swim around on the pond on his Prism 2. I will admit I have been intrigued by the unit for quite a while.  A backmounted counterlung unit providing good flood tolerance with a clean profile, simple setup, and good engineering.  At least on initial appearance these…

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′…

Morning and afternoon charters aboard Daybreaker

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Daybreaker

I was scheduled to crew for both the morning and afternoon charters this Saturday aboard the Daybreaker with Matt.    The morning charter was scheduled to go to the Big Fantastic Wall (BFW) and Diver’s Choice and the afternoon charter was scheduled to go to Halfway Rock and then back to Big Fantastic Wall (BFW) again. On the morning charter we had a full boat combined with an advanced nitrox/deco procedures class being taught in sidemount. Knowing full well the amount of gear and tanks that typically ends up on…

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…

2 Hour 15 Minute Shore Dive at Old Garden Beach

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rEvo rebreathers at Old Garden Beach

Because the marine forecast called for high winds 20-25kts SW with gusts up to 30kts Matt decided to bag the charters for Saturday. Instead I met up with Brie and Scott on their rebreathers to do a nice long shore dive at Old Garden Beach.  Me and Matt were originally supposed to drive the Daybreaker down to Scituate to dive the Pinthis but that would have not been a fun ride in a 10kt boat in those conditions. In fact it would have been long and miserable. Anyway, not wanting to…