Ziray Studio Labs

The diver in the photo below just cracked me up when I saw him. At first I only noticed his backup regulator hanging down and for the fact that he was almost literally walking on the sea floor. So, I took this snap shot and only later noticed that his tank strap is not secured either.

The first thing you will notice about really bad scuba divers is loose gear flopping about. Not only does it look ridiculous, it’s also dangerous when they need to reach for their backup regulator and realize it’s floating behind them somewhere. Also, the back up regulator is suppose to be attached somewhere on the divers chest, so that if the dive buddy requires help, they can find and grab the other diver’s backup, unless of course it’s floating behind your dive buddy somewhere. In other words, don’t be this guy’s dive buddy.

Finally, don’t walk on the ocean floor. Not only is it bad style, it’s destructive and just plain stupid.

After we dived at the river that morning I then headed to a day on the lake. The water was cold but I still had my wetsuit so I made good use of it there as well.

April Trip to Claytor Lake

It may look innocent, but it was freezing cold water

 

Gabor up on the wake board

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gabor is in a bit of pain after one of his falls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I figured it was time for the Scuba Club at Virginia Tech to do some scuba diving and luckily I wasn’t the only one who thought the idea wasn’t crazy. With 54F (13C) degree water, but low 70s in the sun, we jumped in.

The first dive lasted for only 12 minutes as we quickly lost the other two divers in the murky water. We came back up to look for them and got caught in the current that carried us under the bridge. In 53F water, it really wears you out. We continued that dive to about 45 feet for 24 more minutes before surfacing. The only thing to note on this dive was that I found two bottles of Vitamin Water at the bottom of the river, unopened. Visibility was only a meter or two, if you had a light.

The second dive was a lot better as we stayed down for 41 minutes to a max depth of 46 feet. It might as well have been a night dive since it was almost pitch black. There was an eery green glow from above as the sun shown through the water, but I lost my dive buddy several times since he only had to swim 2 meters away for me to lose him. However we quickly found each other by shining our lights like a light house until we saw each other’s lights.

We ran into at least three catfish of varying sizes. One was a about 150cm (~5ft) in length and that’s not exaggerating. He literally scared me as he came right at me appearing within arms length from my face out of the darkness after my dive buddy flushed him out from the other side of a large entanglement of tree roots on the bottom. He swam right by me until I tried to grab him and then he disappeared faster than I knew he was gone. We saw two other smaller, but at least a meter long, cat fish who we stumbled upon. If you want to catch those catfish, I hope you have a lurer that glows in the dark, because otherwise, they’d never see it.

Near the end of this dive I was starting to get cold from fatigue, but that 7mm wet suit from K2 Scuba was definitely worth the investment.

Everyone definitely had a lot of fun, despite the cold, but we all love diving so no one complained about the cold. We’re putting together classes for the summer in Blacksburg if anyone is interested in learning to dive. More details will follow as we hash out those details, but if you’re interested, let me know so I know how many people to expect. You know how to find me.

New River Dive

Scott setting up his side mounts.

Scott in his dry suit walking on our clean tarp.

Kevin also stepping on our tarp.

We weren't the only crazy ones. This team was practicing with their open face masks with coms.

 

Believe it or not, it actually gets as deep as 60 feet in the middle.