Madeira Dive:was- New gun thread... Home defense

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 08:20:23 -0500, OmManiPadmeOmelet
<Omelet@brokeneggs.com> wrote in misc.fitness.weights:

>In article <84v3c29qfvn8o3njf1aire1d40vm7jc18u@4ax.com>,
> John Hanson <jhanson@northernlinks.com> wrote:
>
>> >Have a great weekend old chap - you know I will! ;o)
>>
>> I'm diving Lake Superior in a couple of hours. We're diving the
>> Madeira and the Hesper for sure. We might even do a night dive.
>> http://www.mnhs.org/places/nationalr...cks/index.html
>
>Have fun and report back???

Not much to say. I got up to Split Rock Lighthouse at about 10:30
Saturday morning at the same time as my LDS owner did. I registered
with my C-card and bought a state park sticker. The weather was
perfect. It was about 78 degrees and sunny at 10:30 AM.

So, we get the combo for the lock, head over to the parking lot and
haul all of our shit down to the "beach". It's pretty fucking rocky
on the North Shore. Anywho, there were three divers with our group
all ready on the wreck. We sat around until they got back,
bullshitted for a while more and then suited up.

The first dive we did a surface swim out to the bow section, which was
about 200 yards. I was fucking dying about half way there but I got
my second wind and things weren't so bad. I had squatted on Wednesday
and deadlifted and benched on Friday so my legs and back were in
recovery mode even though I wasn't in the least sore.

We get there, descend down the buoy line attached to the bow and drop
down onto the lower deck which was in about 50 feet of water. We were
going to go from there and drop down to the pilot house which is in
about 80 feet of water but I think my dive buddy was too cold so we
never went there. We swam around the wreck on the south side of Gold
rock, checking out the little fish and the wreck. We then headed back
to shore under water. I ended up with 52 minutes of bottom time.

We then chowed on hotdogs and chips, shot the shit some more and then
did our 2nd dive. This time we went around the corner of Gold Rock
and saw the whole upper deck. It was just an awesome experience to
see shinny steel that has been underwater for over 100 years like the
Madeira. I even found a shard of china on the wreck. Plus, I seen a
nice sized lake trout.

I met some more cool divers. There were about 13-14 people in our
group with all but 3 of them diving. One of the "experienced"
gentlemen has been diving forever. He's even dove the Gunilda 3 times
(http://www.sea-viewdiving.com/shipwr...or/gunilda.htm
http://www.tekdiv.com/the_gunilda.htm). We also had a great deal of
fun at the campground later that evening. The only disappointment was
the fact that we called off the Hesper dive Sunday morning. The
weather had changed and every one said it was too rough and that the
wind was blowing "out to sea". I think everyone just wussed out when
they seen what it would take to get our gear down to the water I
was ready willing and able even with the bad knee...and the fog from
the brandy the night before.

>I've got relatives that live up north near the great lakes.

Which one? They only cover the whole eastern half of the US and
Canada.

>
>What's the water temperature?

The 51 foot dive says that the coldest it got was 42 degrees and the
second dive with a maximum of 45 feet was 46 degrees. The thermocline
was around 25-30 feet with the temps above that in the mid 60s.