Spent Sunday poking around the estuary tidal waters of Whalen Island with Kris and Scot, along with The Usual Suspects. While not exciting, it's easy access to approx 30 ft of water. Not much to see, but there's more than in my hot tub, which is my measuring stick for whether something is worth diving or not. Crab, little flounder, sculpin, rock fish, greenling (?) and a small ling cod.
As a new diver, many of these things and more are in the water with you; just unnoticed due to a focus on the process of diving, or a lack of eyes attuned to finding things that tend to camouflage themselves. It's very exciting to see (recognize, ID, remember) even the most mundane of things.
My unexpected (and at the time unexplained) discomfort at Les Davis was gone, not a lick of nervousness or anxiety. Talking with others, sounds like you never fully retrain the reptile brain that hates descending in poor viz. That was reassuring, as I thought myself somehow deficient for not having "gotten over it" yet. Talking to Norm, I noted ascents in crappy viz didn't bother me at all, for I was focused on my 'puter for depth and ascent rate. "So focus on it when you go down."
Um... oh yeah. Duh. What a brilliant, and simple, suggestion. While the dive only allowed me to test this to 30 ft, it worked like a charm. With tide coming in bringing a lot of silt all the same distractors were there.
Despite great attention paid to the neck and wrist seals, which were seated perfectly even on my neck-less neck, the dive was not dry; my shirt was soaked through on the first dive. I've got to find the culprit. First a complete visual of the seams and seals, then the body of the suit tonight. If the culprit isn't found, then the first task the next time in the water is to anchor me down to something, fill up the suit and with help try to find where the air is coming out.
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