0315 rise time in order to make 0600 roll call at The Scuba Shack in
Pensacola. Took about 50 minutes to drive there, doing the speed limit.
Checked in and paid. Boat (the Wet Dream) was right out back of the shop,
huge dock access. Big wheel barrow cart thing--the shop had a couple--made
hauling gear from car to dock total cake. Set my 120 air tank up, stashed my
120 Nitrox tank and watched the masses arrive. Pretty good crowd, I'm
guessing 20-25 divers? Plus one deck hand (anchor/tank slave--probably a
poor dive master candidate...), a couple "dive assistants" I think is what
they called their DMs, and a videographer. VERY nice setup on the boat, big
covered deck space, tables, benches and TWO heads, one for each sex. Dive
deck had two double-backed benches, rear dive deck, two rear ladders, and
two side exits (one right near my tank, uh huh...) Captain gave a quick,
humorous dive brief--of note was no wreck penetration, just do the "swim
throughs" if you want to. That's wreck penetration to me, but no worries,
not on my agenda today. Departed at 0700 SHARP, sunny skies, calm winds and
flatness pervading.

25 minutes later, dolphin sighted! A pod of 6-7 were riding in the boat's
formidable wake. A couple really big ones leaping like 5 feet from the boat.
Cool. Plus a couple little ones.

2 1/2 hour boat ride out to the site, no land in sight. This was one of
those, "make sure you're on the boat before it heads back" routines. Compass
recommended, for a couple reasons. Got to the site and one small boat there,
a doc and his partner. That was the only boat out there all day. Awesome,
had the damn aircraft carrier all to ourselves! I guess on previous days
there've been other boats out there tied up, so the Wet Dream had a sign
with an arrow pointing up their down line. Novel idea. Didn't work for the
two dummies who, a day earlier, drifted off the wreck and got picked up by
another boat...there's dweebs in every crowd, I guess.

First in the water and greeted by green chunkiness. Huh? I figgered this'd
be top to bottom vis? At about 20 feet, vis cleared, the wreck was in sight,
and I was freefalling like a stone. I had tables for planned deco, traveling
22 minutes to 130 feet, before ascending for stops. Fortunately, I didn't
put both computers in gauge mode... Wow, this thing's huge, I thought. So,
I'm descending, trying to take pictures (most crappy, as usual...), watching
my gauges, and seeing if the current kicks in. Must have really been sucking
air, as my SAC was .56 SCFM at the end of the dive, pretty sure an all-time
high (downloaded by my Cobra dive computer). Oh well, it was a goll durn
aircraft carrier, fercryinoutloud! Hit the deck at 138 and took several
pictures of my computer for posterity...one turned out good--did I mention I
suck at taking pictures? Oh, 138 feet, tables now busted and worthless, so
had to dive the computers--so much for diving my plan (I still did the stops
on my slate on the way up, though). Gesh--shudda ran tables for 140'. Water
temp at depth really wasn't that bad--79 at depth, and 81 up top (little did
I know...) Current was barely blowing, and it was coming right down the
flight deck, perfect for flight ops! Slowly made my way up the bridge,
noticing other divers appearing from above, taking crappy pictures until,
fortunately, my camera batteries died. Good, clip off the camera and enjoy
the dive! Could not see to the end of the flight deck on the bow, and vis
was pretty good. What was startling was how wide that damn thing was--could
not even see off the other edge. Swam around the outer bridge and, man, was
it a long way down to the bottom of the ship--yowsie! Might have to plan a
bounce dive down to the sand sometime...or maybe not The relief on this
thing was awesome--just as good as a wall dive. A huge school of bait fish
was swirling around the bridge and a couple med/lg 'cuda hanging out, but
that was it for the big fish. Kinda surprised, I figgered there'd be a lot
more, but I guess after winter (when the big fish come in) this place'll be
rockin' Then it'll start collecting nets... Cobra hit deco 11 minutes into
the dive at 112 feet. Slowly cruised around the bridge and made my way up,
never incurring more than 4 minutes of mandatory decompression, making my
planned stops at 60/50/40/30/20 & 10 feet. Wow, awesome. Dive # 1138, 138'
max, 66' avg, 48 minutes, 990 left in tank.

After a nice 1:43 surface interval, during which we--well most of us
anyway--took turns churning ice cream--I was back rolling into the blue
again. Greeted this time by waters that were a bit chillier--79 on top and
73 at depth! Weird how it changed like that, but that's the way the Gulf of
Mexico is. Current and seas picked up a little bit too, but no big deal.
Another really cool dive, didn't have to worry about dumb camera. Despite 31
Nitrox, ran out of bottom time fairly quickly, so made my way up sooner than
I'd have preferred--didn't feel like doing a lot of mandatory deco on my
second dive. Highlight was on the down line, when a couple of Remoras
expressed a LOT of interest in me and especially the guy above me doing our
safety stops. At about 15' they finally latched onto him--it was kinda cool
watching how they would extend their head/back sucker plates when trying to
latch on. Really cool. He probably enjoyed it also, as they insisted on
clinging to the inside of his thighs... After we got back on the boat, we
all moved up on the bow, so's when one guy got back on the boat, he'd see
nobody up there. It was his 100th dive and his daughter had bought him a big
cookie to celebrate, which he cut up and shared with us. Pretty cool. Us old
farts reminisced about when we did our 100th dives... Dive # 1139, 112', 67'
avg, 46 minutes, .43 SAC rate, 1250 psi getting back on boat.

Well, I've earned the T-shirt, though I haven't bought one yet... Might have
to contact the dive shop and see how much they charge for the video DVD.
Also going next Saturday on a different boat, so more to come. I'd recommend
this operation without hesitation--they DID do a roll call after the dives.
They pretty much let folks do what they wanted, treating them like
responsible adults. Fortunately, on this boat, we had a pretty good bunch of
folks, so we didn't have any Stupid Diver Tricks to talk about. Good mix of
nitrox and air tanks on board, their rental gear was quality stuff, but
oddly I was the only person with 120s. My mix selection sucked--next time I
do this dive I'll probably do 28 and 36 respectively, as there's lots to see
from 65-90 some-odd feet for the second dive. Getting back on the boat with
1250 in my Nitrox tank was silly, but when it's time to get out, it's time
to get out.

Here's where the suck-a.s pictures are located:

http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=nsgwg1y.x2d26li&x=0&y=-vv5ve8