Tom Falardeau
August 5th, 2007, 11:43 PM
Nine years ago, Marie and I started scuba diving, pretty much in the same way as everyone who has walked through the doors of Burton's Dive over the years. In those days, we dove single tank out of the trunk of a '91 Toyota Tercel, and a tour of Lock 21 in the sunshine made for a pretty good day. We did all the recreational depth wrecks in the river, traveled to the Caribbean and generally had a good time.
Then in 2003, we left the recreational path and started diving in caves, taking decompression and advanced nitrox training, followed by trimix. With the move to the "dark" side, the gear requirements made the old Tercel as obsolete as a Model T at the Grand Prix. Double steel tanks, stages, drysuits and spares, reels, spools and all the paraphernalia of the well-dressed tech diver took over our lives and forced us to move up to a minivan so we could haul everything - be it across Eastern Ontario or over the Interstate system to Florida caves. In the process of becoming cave rats, we lost the joy of simply diving open water around home, as every dive became the equivalent of a minor trek to Mount Everest. It culminated in the exchange of the minivan for a large pick-up truck last summer, so we could haul a dozen tanks, scooters and all sorts of gear to Florida. The gear part of the sport simply became overwhelming. And the fun became underwhelming for anything less than cave dives, which became our sole dive passion.
Last November, our vision of diving began to shift, when we made a conscious decision to abandon the world of gorilla-sized backmount doubles and multiple stages for the more sensible concept of sidemount. Almost immediately, the strain on the body dropped as we traded 100 pound or more double sets (and really, two sets per diver are a minimum, dontcha know) for sidemount tanks. The next trip to Florida featured less gear in the truck as we began to shed the massive mobile dive shop concept so common among the tech-set. As well, sidemount opened up worlds of cave diving that will keep us interested and excited for years to come. But the fun of diving around here, other than the occasional foray up the Ottawa valley for some caves, still shone by its absence. This summer, we've gone for weeks without diving, where 3-4 years ago, we'd be out every weekend.
Then, last Thursday, some complete moron didn't secure his load and caused a thick branch to do the old kinetic missile trick on the front end of my truck on the 174, causing $2,000 of damage and putting it out of action right before the long weekend. This left us with a diminutive Toyota Echo (the Tercel's successor) as sole set of wheels. After 4 weeks of not diving, and with the arrival of a new camera housing, we had a small urge to go out and get wet.
Yesterday morning, we contemplated our gear, the Echo and took a five year step into the past. We reconfigured our regulators for single, backmount tank diving (albeit with h-valve), whittled down our gear list to fit everything into what I affectionately call a bus suppository and headed out to the quarry. Funny, but it brought back memories of when we used to really enjoy going out on a weekend and dipping in local waters just for fun, like most people.
Today, we did the same thing, except we took the longer drive through Eastern Ontario's lush farmland to Lock 21. The only real difference from when we used to do the Lock in our early diving days was the use of our beloved X-Scooters, just to kick up the fun factor. And yes, we managed to fit a tank a diver, our scooters and the minimum gear in the Echo. Just like old times. And quite frankly, it was fun. Much more fun than the grim days when we used to haul double backmount tanks and stages to every dive "just to practice" for that big dive, or out of some exaggerated notion of having redundancy up the whazoo.
Zipping around Lock 21 for over an hour on a single 119 today was FUN, with the big F. Diving out of a small car instead of a he-man pick-up was fun too (not that I'd give up the truck, mind. It's too much of a blast to drive, and as was clear last Thursday when it saved our lives, it's safer around idiot drivers than a subcompact). I think we're getting our "up here" diving mojo back, coming full circle back to what got us started in 1998, after going through the tech/gearhead phase. We even decided to get rid of the h-valves on our dedicated singles... no need for 2 first stages for single tank recreational diving, and it means we can dedicate a set of regs for sidemount (you didn't really think we'd give up cave diving, did you? It's still the best diving in the world) as well as have all of our tanks available for sidemounting, without a pesky h-valve attachment sticking up the armpit.
So it's full circle in a sense, but not quite... full circle in a spiral sort of way - back to what was fun before we got too serious, kissing heavy backmount doubles good-bye forever, without giving up the fun of cave diving.
Funny thing is, our single, recreational setups and team diving philosophy is about as DIR as it gets without drinking purple kool-aid :D We met Jim and Alisa at Lock 21 as we got out of the water and they prepared to go in. I got a load of good-natured ribbing from Jim about my orthodox single tank rig of backplate, wing, long-hose, etc. Something about not being strokey enough.
I'm even feeling the urge to book room on a dive charter for the first time in years, and just dive with the rest of the recreational types - like when it was fun, one tank at a time.
I guess the moral of the story is: if you've lost your mojo, go back to your roots - you'll remember why you started in the first place.
Then in 2003, we left the recreational path and started diving in caves, taking decompression and advanced nitrox training, followed by trimix. With the move to the "dark" side, the gear requirements made the old Tercel as obsolete as a Model T at the Grand Prix. Double steel tanks, stages, drysuits and spares, reels, spools and all the paraphernalia of the well-dressed tech diver took over our lives and forced us to move up to a minivan so we could haul everything - be it across Eastern Ontario or over the Interstate system to Florida caves. In the process of becoming cave rats, we lost the joy of simply diving open water around home, as every dive became the equivalent of a minor trek to Mount Everest. It culminated in the exchange of the minivan for a large pick-up truck last summer, so we could haul a dozen tanks, scooters and all sorts of gear to Florida. The gear part of the sport simply became overwhelming. And the fun became underwhelming for anything less than cave dives, which became our sole dive passion.
Last November, our vision of diving began to shift, when we made a conscious decision to abandon the world of gorilla-sized backmount doubles and multiple stages for the more sensible concept of sidemount. Almost immediately, the strain on the body dropped as we traded 100 pound or more double sets (and really, two sets per diver are a minimum, dontcha know) for sidemount tanks. The next trip to Florida featured less gear in the truck as we began to shed the massive mobile dive shop concept so common among the tech-set. As well, sidemount opened up worlds of cave diving that will keep us interested and excited for years to come. But the fun of diving around here, other than the occasional foray up the Ottawa valley for some caves, still shone by its absence. This summer, we've gone for weeks without diving, where 3-4 years ago, we'd be out every weekend.
Then, last Thursday, some complete moron didn't secure his load and caused a thick branch to do the old kinetic missile trick on the front end of my truck on the 174, causing $2,000 of damage and putting it out of action right before the long weekend. This left us with a diminutive Toyota Echo (the Tercel's successor) as sole set of wheels. After 4 weeks of not diving, and with the arrival of a new camera housing, we had a small urge to go out and get wet.
Yesterday morning, we contemplated our gear, the Echo and took a five year step into the past. We reconfigured our regulators for single, backmount tank diving (albeit with h-valve), whittled down our gear list to fit everything into what I affectionately call a bus suppository and headed out to the quarry. Funny, but it brought back memories of when we used to really enjoy going out on a weekend and dipping in local waters just for fun, like most people.
Today, we did the same thing, except we took the longer drive through Eastern Ontario's lush farmland to Lock 21. The only real difference from when we used to do the Lock in our early diving days was the use of our beloved X-Scooters, just to kick up the fun factor. And yes, we managed to fit a tank a diver, our scooters and the minimum gear in the Echo. Just like old times. And quite frankly, it was fun. Much more fun than the grim days when we used to haul double backmount tanks and stages to every dive "just to practice" for that big dive, or out of some exaggerated notion of having redundancy up the whazoo.
Zipping around Lock 21 for over an hour on a single 119 today was FUN, with the big F. Diving out of a small car instead of a he-man pick-up was fun too (not that I'd give up the truck, mind. It's too much of a blast to drive, and as was clear last Thursday when it saved our lives, it's safer around idiot drivers than a subcompact). I think we're getting our "up here" diving mojo back, coming full circle back to what got us started in 1998, after going through the tech/gearhead phase. We even decided to get rid of the h-valves on our dedicated singles... no need for 2 first stages for single tank recreational diving, and it means we can dedicate a set of regs for sidemount (you didn't really think we'd give up cave diving, did you? It's still the best diving in the world) as well as have all of our tanks available for sidemounting, without a pesky h-valve attachment sticking up the armpit.
So it's full circle in a sense, but not quite... full circle in a spiral sort of way - back to what was fun before we got too serious, kissing heavy backmount doubles good-bye forever, without giving up the fun of cave diving.
Funny thing is, our single, recreational setups and team diving philosophy is about as DIR as it gets without drinking purple kool-aid :D We met Jim and Alisa at Lock 21 as we got out of the water and they prepared to go in. I got a load of good-natured ribbing from Jim about my orthodox single tank rig of backplate, wing, long-hose, etc. Something about not being strokey enough.
I'm even feeling the urge to book room on a dive charter for the first time in years, and just dive with the rest of the recreational types - like when it was fun, one tank at a time.
I guess the moral of the story is: if you've lost your mojo, go back to your roots - you'll remember why you started in the first place.