All-Terrain Vehicle VS. Anti-Terrain Vehicle.

[DetectorGuy]

Todays dive was a good dive even though we didn't find anything cool... Two lures, two shoes (different sizes), quite a few bottles, more cans, a yellow modern plastic flashlight, a great big carp (looked like it was in the 30 pound range) and no anchors. The water temp was about 59 degrees and the visibility was excellent at between 15' and 20'. We used the inflatable boat to motor across the lake from the access to Buckhorns Resort. Jeff used my DUI suit. I told him to use my regulator too as I have an inflater hose on it. I would have used his regulator but he realized that he forgot it at home when we suited up. I used my Aqualung Conshelf SE2 reg that I normally use on my pony bottle. With the pony reg I had to orally inflate the BC to control buoyancy and it did not have an octo. It was a little spooky not knowing how much air I had left. I do have a mini gauge on the first stage and I had Jeff check that for me two times during the dive. I know from past dives with Jeff that I am more of an air hog than he is and that at the end of most of the dives we have done together I use approximately 200 PSI more than him an a 80 CF tank. We started to ascend when Jeff got down to 700 PSI. Jeff used My BC as I have the ability to have 35 pounds of weight on it easily and I wore his BC and weight belt as I was diving wet today. Normally he would use my Tusa IQ 700 Hunter wrist computer and I would use the Suunto Vyper computer in my console. Today with him using my Reg the Vyper was attached to that so I used the Tusa. It was a good day for a shallow dive with Air temps in the upper forty's and a driving rain, A motor on the boat that I had never had running while attached to the boat...

The day was supposed to be just a "kick-back" dive day and it turned out to be a lesson in task loading. Where possible, I would strongly recommend using your own gear so that you have the confidence of the past experience you have had with that gear, but on the other hand... To wear someone Else's gear once in a while does a couple things... First, it lets you know exactly what your buddy's gear does and doesn't do. Second, it gives you a strong appreciation for spending all that money to get gear and set it up exactly the way you want to.

In hind sight I should have aborted the dive and I know that I will get severely reprimanded in this site for not doing just that. Jeff was severely impressed with the dry suit and He is planning a budget to get one by springtime. I think it will really help him to extend the diving season (possible all year long)