A very spooky dive......a Halloween treat.

Yesterday, I dove the Larchmont. Located 3 miles Southeast of Watch Hill, this is the wreck of a paddle wheel steamer sunk in 1907.  The story of its sinking is very sad. On an extremely cold and stormy night in February, the Joy Line Steamer "Larchmont" left port in Providence en route to New York. The winds were strong and the seas very rough when the Schooner Harry Knowlton ran into its side.  The two ships collided with such force, they were momentarily stuck together until the rough seas tore them apart again. The gash in the Larchmont was so large that icy water began rushing into the lower decks immediately.  There were 150 passengers and 50 crew members taken by surprise when the ship started to sink.  Only 19 people were able to survive the freezing conditions. All of the survivors were treated with frostbite and pneumonia.
      The dive itself is also a bit spooky. One hundred and three years later, there are just skeletal remains of the paddle wheeler.  (No, thankfully nothing of the victims..) It is one of the darkest New England dives I've done. We started out with Atlantis Dive Charters on an absolutely perfect morning. After my dive buddy Pete and I did our giant strides, we started to follow the anchor line down.  Normally the light from the surface still lets you see down to the wreck site. On this dive, the surface light cuts out after about 70 feet, leaving you dependant on your dive light. Bob, our Divemaster set the descent line perfectly on the remnants of a paddle wheel. Pete and I set down briefly in the sand at 122 feet to get our bearings.  Gary, the captain of Atlantis had told us about the pieces of wood with brass nails that could be found. The site is so dark however, I wanted to keep the ascent line close at all times!! We swam around for a while, looking at the fantastic variety of marine life. The picture above, is the real view of where we ended the dive. After a long slow ascent, we surfaced and agreed that this had been an awesome dive.
Next week....the Grecian with www.atlantis.nu

Great expectations...

Once you achieve the status of "certified diver", there are a few things you need to do. In order to improve your skills and make diving easier, find a buddy with more experience or take an advanced diving course.  The only way to improve is to keep practicing.  Diving with someone with more experience will help you to avoid the common mistakes you could make as a new diver. Enrolling in an advanced diving course will allow you more training time with navigation, use of the dive flag, boat diving, night diving and other new experiences under the guidance of a PADI Instructor.
As a certified diver, you are now responsible for keeping up with your skills and physical conditioning.  We all know that diving can be strenuous on some occasions, so a good fitness regime is important. Keeping your dive skills refreshed means that if a problem does occur, you will be less likely to panic or make bad decisions.
After any dive, think about the different stages and if you could make any improvements. How could you make the entry and exit easier? How could you use less air and minimize the movements of your hands and fins? Are you a good dive buddy? How much weight do you really need? Just a few things to think about...