It’s been a while since I’ve been in the salt water (ok I just realized that’s a lie..it’s been a while since my rebreather has seen salt water) and had a few things I needed to test. Most importantly, my aqualung/tear aid repair job on my exhale counterlung. I also wanted to test my repaired battery on my Suex Xjoy2 scooter and my new Light Monkey bailout system. What better place than Old Garden Beach in Rockport, MA on a Sunday morning.
Me and Mike W. met up at Old Garden Beach about an hour before high tide. Matt/Lea also met us for some more tweaking and diving on their new JJs. There was a little bit of a swell but otherwise conditions looked good. Truthfully I was not expecting good conditions at all. The winds had been blowing steadily all week and there was gale warning earlier in the week. Surprisingly the visibility was about 10-15ft; much better than expected but not nearly as good as the 30-40ft of winter visibility you can sometimes get there.
Everything went relatively well. My counterlungs remained dry and my scooter did not flood. Unfortunately the battery life is pretty shot. I only was able to get about 28 minutes before it completely died. Still in 39f water that’s not too bad for a recreational scooter on the throttle for the entire time I guess. It may be time for a battery upgrade sooner rather than later.
Me and Mike W. scootered until we hit about 72ft at Old Garden Beach. Mike’s scooter is way faster than mine so I was playing catch up for most of the dive. We scootered for about 25 minutes until we turned around while picking up a small bag of scallops along the way. Unfortunately about 3 minutes back my battery finally gave out. Not a huge deal because we were both on rebreathers but slightly annoying if I had to swim all the way back. Thankfully Mike was able to tow me back most of the way.
Max depth: 72ft
Runtime: 63 minutes.
Visibility: 10-15ft
Scooter Battery 28 minutes. 
🙁
Water temp: 39f
Notes: Dry counterlungs are even better.
