" Deep Flooded Mine" dive on 11/23/14
Beautiful fall day at the mine, we experienced fifty degree weather topside, no wind and sun on the platform. At depth, the water was forty two from 40' down, at the surface it was a balmy 50 degrees. I dropped down the new shot line, spent 20 minutes at 300'+ while running a reel to attempt to find another side tunnel. No joy, I did run the reel around the eastern wall, ran out well over 100' of line searching back and forth, lots of boulders, some debris that we will have to analyze the GoPro footage to figure out what it might have been. TRT 2:10. The DUI "Blue Heat" saved the day, with heated booties, gloves and of course torso. The Hammerhead Extreme worked flawlessly as usual, set point rock solid. Excellent support topside and UW, thank you all! My fourth dive to over 300' at the mine this season since 6/29/14. It's been quite a run! Both DUI and Juergensen Marine did a remarkable turnaround in my gear, I was impressed at the speed of service and of course attention to details and my time frame needs. We are running out of good weather to dive this mine, as certainly the specter of air temps in the thirties after spending hours in 42 degree water doesn't sound attractive. The new DUI heated glove liners work great, nice and snug fitting without being too bulky. I was impressed that the back of the hand only heat pads kept my hands warm overall. My feet, for the first time, were warm in the heated booties! I did have success in bungeeing the controller to my right forearm. I could quickly see the settings and power reserve left. I did have to play a bit to keep the battery life going. After one straight hour at 50% heat to torso, back, hands and feet, the controller indicated just one light (out of four) on the power reserve gauge. Since I had just over an hour of deco to go, I switched off the torso and back heater, leaving on the hands and feet at 50%. The gauge then jumped to two lights. At twenty minutes left in deco, still with two lights, I switched off the hands and feet and went with torso and back, but after ten minutes I was down to one red light, so back to hands and feet again, and the power gauge popped up to two lights. With ten minutes of deco left, I just fired up the torso/back heater and let it ride. The battery never did die, I suspect the gauge leans toward the conservative side,thus there is more power left than it indicates, a good thing!