Aug 30-31 Wreck Cert @ Superior

[Al]

I know I had a great time up on the Madeira., thanks to everyone who made it possible. It was only a 3+ hour drive from the cities on Saturday morning for our 1st dive. My buddy DanG had the bad luck of a free flow which was safely handled by the most excellent Darin.

The 2nd dive we swam around the wreck and had to remove our reels, I have a little finger spool that I dropped! Then as I sucked my tank down I became too buoyant...but a little weight cured that problem. We went on to camp, eat, drink, stargaze (having a terrific time) was back at the wreck at 11 on Sunday for dive 3.

We followed the divemasters out on their reels to find the pilothouse. We didn't want to leave the pilothouse but the rule is if your are running the reel you're suppose to be first out and last back! The dive plan was to tie off to the wreck, go out 20 kicks and then reel backup. I tied off ok but it was hard not to become all tangled up reeling in.

On our last dive we had to tie off on the wreck twice, do a penetration into the wreck and tie off again inside and then come out. My turn was last and boy did it get cold waiting! (38 degrees?) I went in and out of the wreck ok and then we had to swim back but ran out of air.

We surfaced and saw Jean soaking up the sun on the rocks next to the beach like she was in Cozumel!

Swimming out to the wreck was hardest part for me. We tried surface swimming but it was too rough so we got to the wreck by pulling along the rocks off the bottom at 15 ft. This seemed to be easier and I sure built up my frog kick muscles!

On the way home I stopped at the Split Rock river Superior hiking trail and did the loop. There were lots of falls, vistas, hills and other cool stuff but I had to run part of the way because it was getting dark (and all my lights were with my dive gear.)