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Author Topic: Damn I love this sport...  (Read 1456 times)

Doof

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Damn I love this sport...
« on: July 23, 2002, 05:15:53 am »

On Sunday, Amber and I drove to Portsmouth, NH where we boared the Lady Patricia and headed on out, along with several other memebers of our dive club, to the Isle of Shoals. There I had probably one of my best dives ever. More experienced scuba divers have much better stories than this, I'm sure, but for her and I, it was simply amazing.

The Isle of Shoals is a collection of small islands. When I say small, I mean really small as far as islands go. If the waters dropped low enough, you'd probably have a decent sized, but still small, island with a lot of low trenches. Each of the peaks forms one of these rocky mounds that sticks above the surface of the water, and a lot of birds and seals congregate on these rocks.

Amber and I headed out, not really following any set direction, just kind of wandering around like we normally do. The visibility was very poor in some areas and the water was really cold, but the plant life was abundant and rather colorful for New England waters. Amber tugged on one of fins at one point and pointed off ahead of us. When I turned to see what she was pointing at, I saw a seal swimming away from us. I couldn't get too clear a look at it since the visibility was so poor, but it was really cool to see a seal swimming around that close to us, even if it was for only a brief moment.

We pressed on, and, in all honesty, the rest of the dive was rather ho-hum. There was just more plants, more crabs, more lobster. It's stuff that's kind of neat to look at, and once in a while you'll see something rather odd, but for the most part, it's nothing that we don't see in abundance when we dive right off the shore. The only real difference was that the colors seemed to be richer. So that part at least was nice.

We had just started making our way down this one rather wide trench, and I was looking at all of the life on both sides of me that I happened to look straight forward and saw another seal. Rather than swim away immediately, though, this one actually approached me and got within 10 feet of me, looking directly into my eyes. I froze completely, not in fear or anything like that, but in an attempt to not scare him away in hopes that he would come even closer. Unfortunately he didn't. He turned and swam away, demonstrating to me just how clumsy I actually am in the water in comparison to the graceful way in which they can propel themselves effortlessly through the water.

Needless to say, I was rather excited at this point and so I pressed onwards, hoping to have yet another seal encounter. I turned to Amber to see if she had seen the whole thing and I noticed that she had a pair of seals behind her circling around and checking us out. I pointed them out to her and when she turned to look they both swam away. She turns back to me and I can see, even through her mask and her regulator, that she's got a huge grin on her face. It was right about then that I realized how big MY grin was.

So, eagerly we continued on, always on the lookout for more seals, oblivious to everything else around us. We didn't have to wait long. I saw a seal swim into view and duck down behind a rock, with nothing but his eyes showing. I approached as carefully as I could, hoping not to spook him, and ducked down behind the same rock. So there we were, both of us peaking up over the top of this rock at each other, not 4 feet from each other. Simply incredible. He finally got bored and left and when I turned to see if Amber had witnessed this encounter as well, I saw her making peek-a-boo faces at me. Apparently she had.

It was right about this time that we decided we had to turn the dive and head back to the boat. Or, more accurately, our air supply decided it for us. If we had had enough air, we probably would have stayed there all day. Well, the water WAS really really cold, but the excitement of seeing the seals seemed to make us forget about that. So we turned around and headed on back with me once again leading.

There's a maneuver you can do while diving that makes it really easy to check behind you. You kind of just duck down behind your legs and look. It's a lot easier to do underwater than turning around, and it makes for a good way to check up on your partner and make sure they're still with you. I use this method all the time while leading a dive. And this time was no exception. I checked on Amber a couple of times. One time I ducked down and checked and I saw four seals right behind her, obviously interested in her fins, maybe also wondering where their new-found friends were going. I pointed them out to her and when she turned to look they all scattered. After she turned back and started following me, they would all return. She told me later that at one point, one of the seals had tugged on her fin.

The seals followed us all the way back to the boat. I was heading on up the anchor line to the surface and I could still see one of them circling around me, almost as if he was reluctant to see us go. At least I'd like to think that's what he was thinking. When I finally climbed on board the boat, I saw Amber sitting there, with the biggest grin on her face I'd ever seen. We both agreed that this had been, by far, the best dive of our lives.

So anyway, I just thought I'd share a little bit of what I've been up to this summer.
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zevele1

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2002, 05:36:15 am »

Doof

WELCOME BACK!!!!!

Many worried about you here

But to get you here again with such a  story was worth  the waiting
thank you
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JimH

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2002, 05:58:18 am »

Beautiful, doof!  Thanks for taking the trouble to share it!

Big grin,

Jim
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Jim Hillegass
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Mysticeti

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2002, 06:22:29 am »

What a treat!!

My wife and I did our certification dives at Isle of Shoals.  We saw a couple seals on the surface before entering the water but we were not fortunate enough to encounter them below.

Alas, that was the first and last time we dove in New England (too cold! low visibility).

Caution: too much grinning or smiling underwater can (unexpectedly) lead to a flooded mask. :-)  (Been there, done that)
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"And the men who hold high places. Must be the ones who start... to mold a new reality. Closer to the Heart."

Harry The Hipster

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2002, 07:07:34 am »

Great story Doof - thanks for telling us about it.

Portsmouth is about 40 minutes from our house. Pretty old seaport, lots of tourists in the summer. Maybe you live nearby, but if not, hope you got a chance to look around. When you're there again, drop in at the Press Room - nice old-timey bar with a  good selection of drafts, OK food, good music upstairs (mixture of jazz, blues and acoustic rock).

HTH
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Doof

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2002, 07:41:18 am »

I actually live about 2 hours west of Portsmouth (Keene, NH). Spent many a fine summer day at Hamptom Beach, hitting the arcades and such as a kid. One night, when I was in college, some friends and I went to Friendly's and decided we were going to go to Hampton Beach. Our waitress overheard our conversation and expressed some envy about our plans, so we decided to kidnap her and take her with us. We didn't even leave Keene until midnight, and didn't get there until after 2AM. It was a fun night. The Waitress (that's the only name any of us remember her by) brought along her guitar and we all spent the night on the beach listening to her play. It was really an awesome night. But it still wasn't as cool as playing with the seals.
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Harry The Hipster

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #6 on: July 23, 2002, 08:13:35 am »

Way off topic, Doof - Funny coincidence. I'm going to be in Walpole and Keene on Friday. Do a lot over there and in the Upper Valley (Hanover NH for you flatlanders)even though I'm in Manchester.

Hampton Beach is still the Platonic ideal of a summer beach hangout for high-school and college kids. Crazy scene, lots of music at the Hampton Casino.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/calendar/5_4coverstory.htm

Can't be too many seals in Keene though.

HTH

Listening to: 'In Memory of His Father Harry L. Evans' from 'Bill Evans At Town Hall' by 'Bill Evans' on Media Jukebox
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Doof

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #7 on: July 23, 2002, 08:22:31 am »

Hey, that's cool. I'm closer to a fellow MJ fan than I thought. :)

No, there aren't any seals here in Keene. I have to put up with the relatively boring lakes and ponds in the area to get the majority of my diving goodness. The rest is all a 2|PLS| hour drive away. It's generally worth the trip, though. I haven't been to Hampton since that night in college. I should go back and check it out one of these days. Actually, Amber and I have been tossing around the idea of going to Water Country (water slide park) before the end of the summer. I haven't been there in a really long time. :)
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Holden

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #8 on: July 23, 2002, 08:24:44 am »

Doof:

Very interesting story and I imagine you and Amber do have great times when you go on dives such as this.

So glad to see you back as we all missed you for so long. You help brighten up our time on this board.

Holden
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Doof

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #9 on: July 23, 2002, 11:34:05 am »

Thanks for the compliment. :)

I'd like to say that I'll be around more often, but I'm not sure if that's true. It is summer, after all. Once winter hits and I find myself secluded away dreaming of warmer days, I'll probably have a lot more time to hang out around here. I just can't stand to sit in front of my computer most days knowing that I have so few days of warm weather.
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zevele1

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #10 on: July 23, 2002, 01:01:18 pm »

Try to set an automatic post .Kind of'hello MJ is great,outdoor even more'

Once a week until the first rain
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lise

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #11 on: July 23, 2002, 08:04:10 pm »

Hey Doof, nice to have you back.  

You make diving seem like so much fun.  I'm sure that Jonathan & I would love to explore the world of Poseidon.  But there is only time to discover one world at a time.  While you have been playing hide & seek with seals, we've been playing it with the Milky Way.  I gave Jonathan a telescope for our anniversary (8" Orion SkyQuest Dobsonian) and it's been keeping us up way too late!  Of course, the first thing we did was look at the moon.  Ok, so it was the only thing we could find!  

I don't know if this is the expeirence of other newby star gazers, but the great thing about a telescope is that you don't use it  as much as you thought you would.  Just having it there, next to you, is an excuse to study the sky.  You spend most of your time discovering things with the naked eye.

On our second night out, we studied the sky and with the help of charts and a nifty computer program, we found Vega and right next to it, the milky way.  It was so neat looking from the charts to the sky, and seeing the structure of it all.  Heck, even the arguments about which star was which were fun!

On that same night, based on charts and basically just mapping the sky,  I figured out where Neptune was supposed to be (just between two tree tops off the balcony).  I spent about one hour trying to determine exactly which thing it was, and while I couldn't see much in the telescope (we need a bigger eyepiece) I was just bubbling over at having found it with the naked eye.  Nothing beat being able to say, the next night, "Oh, is it 1am?  In that case, Neptune is just under those three stars there between the trees--see it?".  Lise the expert!

So now we face the big dilemna;  should be remain tree huggers, or should we chop the tops off them?  Jonathan, even more the gadget type than I am, now wants to build a platform on the balcony that can be raised about 15 feet.  Yes, I can just see us up there on this tiny platform, glass of wine and chart in one hand, telescope in the other, bending over to see Venus just on the horizon, a little more, just a little mor.......!
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Doof

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RE:Damn I love this sport...
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2002, 05:32:03 am »

hehe, that's awesome. I've often thought it would be really cool to buy a nice telescope. We have such a wide open view of the sky at my house, and a lot of nights when I get home and the sky is just so clear and full of stars I like to just lie down in the driveway and just stare at them. It really helps clear the head. It's nights like that that I wish I could live forever. So I could be around when we're finally able to explore the stars and planets. Just imagine being the first person to scuba dive on a new planet! hehe

Actually, I've often said that scuba diving is the closest thing to being an astronaut there is. So maybe my interest in the underwater world is a reflection of my love of the stars. I've never really studied them to learn what was what or anything, I was always just content to look at them. Still, having star charts hanging on my walls would be a neat addition to the maps of some of the dive sites I've been to.
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