We had our Specialty of the Month dive last Saturday out at Seabase. I hadn’t been out there in about a year so it was time to go see the nurse sharks again. I know they get worried when I don’t visit.

We had about 8 divers out with us for the Underwater Navigation Specialty/Fun Dives. We got out there about 9am. I have to apologize to Joe who for some reason thought we were meeting at 7am!! When you consider he lives past Park City, that meant he was up at 5:30 to get there in time. At least he got to know the staff out there really well. I was surprised to see a semi-full parking lot all ready. That usually means not so great vis. A group from Wyoming was there working on certification and a group of scouts had camped out there the night before. We decided to dive the “Abyss” first since there was no one in there and the vis is usually a bit better.

Not so much on this morning! As soon as you dropped down about 5 feet, it got really dark and by 10 feet, it was almost black. I saw a light below me that made it look like the whole thing got more clear but it was just the light on the side. You could barely see someone next to it. I ran into Courtney there and we signalled to head up. Within 5 minutes we all surfaced and determined that we were done with the Abyss. Interesting, slightly scary note-Dave (another instructor) and his buddy got tangled in some wire right out in the middle of the thing that would not allow them to go up or down. Imagine having to deal with that in no vis.

So we headed to the main pool, “White Rocks Bay”. The other group had wrapped up so we had it to ourselves. The vis was a little better, maybe 3 feet but it was colder. The Abyss was in the 70’s, this was in the 60’s. I had loaned my hood out but happily borrowed another. Our main point on this dive was playing Blackjack. Courtney has some waterproof, non-floating playing cards so we dealt some 21. After we had each taken a turn dealing through the deck, Dustin was our big winner.

After that we headed around to show everyone the “sights.” We checked out the boat (still there) and then headed through the tunnel to look for fish. The enclosed bay wasn’t much better. We saw a few fish swimming around but no sharks. After 30 minutes, we were ready to head home and get ready for BYU-Utah that afternoon.

I’m a little bummed I didn’t get my yearly dose of Seabase-Nurse Shark. I probably won’t be back for another year, I hope they don’t too worried until then!!

Join us next month for Search and Recovery at Blue Lake at December 13!