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Parry Sound Wreck Diving

On the last day of my vacation I was able to join the Parry Sound dive operator: Diver’s Nook. Tony was taking 5 Scuba divers out for a day of two wreck dives and he was more than happy to bring a freediver (me) along.

We all met 8:30 at the Diver’s Nook and the Scuba guys rented their tanks and gear. After a short drive to the Marina we loaded our gear in the 22 foot aluminum dive boat.

The sail to the boat was a beautiful, but cold 30 minutes. We anchored at a small rock sticking up in the middle of the bay and started to suit up to dive on the S. S. Atlantic.

Entering the water there was only 3 meters to the memorial plate mounted at the front end of the ship. Diving to the stern sitting on the bottom at 12 meters and gong a bit further past the end I saw the snow mobile placed closed to the wreck by Tony and some other divers in the 80’s. The wreck is a nice and easy dive with a boiler there can be penetrated at about 6-7 meters of water. After a little over an hour of great diving we sailed on to a nearby docking site for some lunch on the rocks.

The Jane McLeod was only 5 minutes sail from lunch closed to a cottage on a rocky windy shore. The dive was fairly easy at only 7 meters depth and almost no current. The visibility was better, most likely because of it being shallower, so I shot more video and enjoyed watching the curious bass swimming very close to my mask when I was still on the bottom.

On the way back we took the scenic route and I enjoyed talking to my fellow divers.

I would like to thank Diver’s Nook, and my fellow divers for a great day on these wrecks.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6zXDiUZtF0]

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Toronto Wreck Diving

Three of us went for a very nice dive on a wreck just outside Toronto Harbour. Information about the wreck can be found here: http://www.scubatoronto.com/divesites.asp?siteID=9
The top of The Southern Trail is in 6 meters of water and the bottom is at 10 meters, so this is a great dive for everyone. The wreck is sitting just like the dive site pictures and it is possible to swim under the overhang shown on the drawing and penetrate the ship.

We had a great night with no waves, no wind and fairly warm water for Lake Ontario.

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Freediving at Tobermory, June 25-27, 2010

Saturday started with dark grey sky and heavy rain, which stopped only at around 9 am. First 2 dives were from the shore. Temp varied from “almost balmy” 18C on the surface to not so hot 12-14C at depth. My 5 mil Elios did very well and it was more the enough to stay in water for a long time.  Feet would need some extra protection though. We checked Little Tub in the morning and Lighthouse point mid day where fog was setting pretty heavy at times, so we were not sure if boat trip was indeed happening, but at ~3pm Francois got a call from boat operator and we headed out off shore to check on 2 wrecks at 4 pm. First one was JAMES C. KING at Depth: 7 to 30 m and second – HILO SCOVILLE Depth: 7 to 30 m. Both are listed as “recommended for advanced divers only”. Visibility was pretty good, at least 10-12 m, and when sun showed up it became even better. Skies cleared up completely by the end of our boat excursion with picture perfect sunset to enjoy.
I was not diving on Sunday, but pretty sure everybody had a great time at Grotto. Looking forward to do this again (and again, and again!)

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Freedive visitors from Montreal

It was 4pm when I left the office for the first boat dive of the season, with the added bonus of Francois and Marie-Odile joining me from from Montreal. I wasn’t sure what to expect, with G20 and all the police and safety zones, but it turned out that most people had left the city, so I had the fastest drive ever.

Doug had picked up our guests at the Island airport and dropped them off at the ferry to the island marina, where we met amongst all the police officers.

The short ferry ride to the island is a nice reminder for the body to shed the busy city/work life and get ready to dive.

The boat is in the water and there is very little prep to get ready to go out. We emptied some water from the covers, loaded the bags and started the engines and were ready to go. Sorry about the thumb in the video below, which is caused by me being a new iPhone owner.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rp_r61z1Kc]

I am trying an application from my new iPhone called Motion GPS, so I can show you where we dove. It will also show the top speed of 37.7 mph for now top tuned dive boat.

Google Maps Link

At the dive location we had 58.7 meters and 22 degrees at the surface, which is nice and warm if you are wearing a wet-suit. The reason I say this is because I for the first (and last) time had forgotten the top part of my suit at home. I decided to try diving anyway and thought about Eric Fattah who had told me that they had tested diving in the winter without a suit to get the dive reflex to kick in faster. I was ok in the surface, but when I started pulling down and hit the thermocline at 7 meters I really had to try to calm down and tell myself that it was “just” cold. A few more pulls and my bald head started pounding and I felt out of breath. I had to turn and raced for the surface at 14m, which would be my deepest dive of the day. My hats of to Eric and the vancouvers boys, who must have bigger ….. than me. I think I will try a no suit dive again some day, because it always frustrats me when I can’t override my emotions and tell my brain that I will be ok.

Francois and Marie-Odile had several dives, but had never dove in waves before, so they joined me in the boat after about 30 minutes, so they wouldn’t get seasick. One of the ways to avoid motion issues when there are waves is to bring a snorkel and just lie in the surface breathing and just slowly go up and down with the waves.

We had a very nice boat ride back, because the wind had died down and the waves were almost gone.

We had a beer at the bar which always make any dive better and I am convinced it improves my breath holds.

The last image was taken on the ferry back to Toronto which sums up, why these dive trips are so nice.

I want to thank Francois and Marie-Odile for flying down from Montreal to join us here in Toronto and for going straight from the plane to the boat, you made a great night even better.

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Go Team Canada

Tonight at practice the group decided they wanted to let Team Canada know that cheering for them. Team Canada is currently in Greece to compete in the Freedive World Cup.

Hope you guys are watching.

GO TEAM CANADA

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji1wp7yB8os]

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Start of the Freedive Season

The first 2010 open water freedive trip was scheduled for May 8-9th to Tobermory Ontario. The air temperature reached a high of 3 Deg. C. The water temperature was closer to 2 Deg. C. That would not normally be enough to put us off diving but the wind were gusting to 100 Km/hour and it was snowing. So we decided that it was time to move on and focus on the next scheduled trip.

So as a reminder for June:

June 5th – Big Bay Point, Lake Simco (BBQ on the point after the dive)
June 26-27th – Tobermory (Camping and Freediving)

To wet your appetite for Tobermory with the help of Chris Kanavos we put together a quick video of a previous Tobermory trip. Enjoy!

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb0MONlaJZg]