I don't want to turn this into my smoking cessation blog, and I promise it will be the last one about it, but it's January. In 60 days, a whole new season of boating and diving adventure will start and plenty of new material will result. It still is a pretty good story.

I overcame a really big hurdle on Saturday. I went down to the beach to pick up my boat, which I had left down east at Scotty's trailer.

I came down on Friday to take care of some deed business with the county and check on the Swamphouse. Luckily, the only casualty at the house was a split pipe in the water line that runs to the fish cleaning station at the end of the pier. I decided that the Swamp house is really a boat that is anchored to the bottom with foundation piles. No, it doesn't float, but it does require the same amount of maintenance and care as a boat moored in a saltwater marina. It rests in a very harsh marine environment.

On Saturday morning, I took off for Harker's Island. It was cold and overcast, a light drizzle fell, just enough to require the intermittent windshield wipers. After visiting with Scotty and Susan for a while, I hooked the boat up to the truck and decided to put it in the water and run the engine, since it had been idle since October. It is only a couple of miles down the road to the boat ramp, that is just shy of the draw bridge between Straits and Harker's Island. Before I took off, I jumped up in Scotty's boat and retrieved the rain jacket that I left on it during that last dive trip in November.

I backed the trailer down the ramp until the engine was in the water so I could crank it up. I really had no intention of launching her, I just wanted to run it for a while. It was raining and in the low 40's, not great boating weather.

She was stubborn to start, but after emptying the fuel/water separator of water (H20 does not combust anywhere nearly as well as gas), I got it running fairly steady.

I decided just to launch her and run down the channel a little way, just to give the engine a work out. I put on the rain slicker that I had not worn in a while, jumped on the boat and backed her off the trailer.

About 3 miles down towards "Way Shores" (that is what the down east locals call Shackleford Banks), the engine just conked out. The current was running hard with the falling tide, so I tossed an anchor. The motor would start, run for about 20 seconds and then conk out. I unscrewed the separator cannister once more, emptied the mix of gas and water, but it didn't help.

The rain began to fall harder, and I was cold. I called Sea Tow, and informed them of my situation. I am a member, so they are required to assist me. The funny thing about it is that the Carteret County franchise owner is my new neighbor at the Swamphouse. I saw him in the driveway before I left and told him that I was on my way to pick up the boat and if the weather cleared up, I might dump it in the water and run her around a bit.

"She hasn't been cranked up since October, so I may be calling you to come get me!" I mused.

"Don't call me, it is my day off, Allen will have to come get you" Marti laughed.

The operator that answered the Sea Tow phone asked me a series of questions, all of them irritating me as I stood there, stranded in the sound in the freezing cold rain. I had told him that I had bad gas, that there was water in it and that is why the engine wouldn't run. But he still asked: "Does the boat have fuel? Is the battery dead? Will the ignition turn over? What happens when you try to start it?

"It will not run, I have water in my gas and I need a tow back to the Harker's Island ramp!" I yelled back at him, my frustration evident.

"Ok, let me find out how long it will be before we can have a boat there." he responded. "I will call you back."

A few minutes later, the phone rang; "This is Thorson Geddis with Sea Tow."

"Geez Thorson, do you know who you are talking to?" I asked, realizing that the Sea Tow operator was the son of the previous neighbors at the Swamphouse, the people who sold to Marti last June.

"Yea, I thought it was you" he responded.

Thorson said that they were helping a boat offshore that was taking on water, and it would be over an hour before a boat could come to my rescue.

"I called Marti and he said he was busy."

Recalling my conversation in the driveway, I stuck my frozen hands into the pockets of my slicker in frustration. To my utter surprise, what do you think I felt?

A half pack of Camel Lights and a Bic lighter.

I was overwhelmed with temptation, as if Satan had created this whole situation in some sort of diabolical way of tripping me up.

I pulled out a cigarette, and took a long smell of the tobacco inside the paper.

I put it back in the pack, put the pack back in my pocket and tried the engine once more. It started up after a couple of tries, sputtered and coughed and then started running smoothly. I quickly snatched the anchor up, slammed the throttle down and flew back to the ramp as fast as the little boat would run.

I threw the cigarettes and the lighter in the trash as I passed the can on the way to get the truck.

Whew.

Posted on Tuesday 29 of January, 2008 [12:55:59 UTC]

After the the summer dive season, I swam at the YMCA pretty steadily from October til December. On December 27th I had my physical with Dr. Evans. I passed with flying colors for a 49 year old smoker, at 205 pounds of lean mean fighting machine. (OK remember, I am 6'8").

I got my medical disclosure forms for Dive Master and OUPV Captain's ticket signed off and then ventured freely into the chocolate and fatty world of holiday fare.

THEN, I quit smoking at the last minute of 2007 and the New Year started.

Luckily, I was foolish enough to jump in Fantasy Lake on New Years Day for the NCDivers polar bear dive. After I got out of the 51 degree water, I ate some chili, chewed some nicotine gum and my cessation started uneventfully. But that only lasted one day. I suffered for the next 3 days, and I mean suffered. It was a terrible withdrawal. It made me almost called off a dive trip to the 18 Fathom Wreck on Saturday, January 5th. Fortunately I forced myself to go, made the dives and it somehow helped. I was home free.

On the 14th, I ran out of Nicorette. I never looked back, no problem.

On the 21st, I headed back for the pool. I swam strong, but was extremely buoyant. When I finished, I noticed the scale in the locker room was missing. So I took a long hot steam bath, showered and headed back to the office.

The next day, I swam again. My buoyancy was explained by the discovery of the missing scale. I weighed 218 pounds, 13 pounds heavier than a month earlier. I was heavier in air judged by gravity, but lighter in water judged by buoyancy.

I am not arrogant enough to say I will never smoke again, but I hope I have the power to resist, even if it is a $20 Cuban cigar.

But what I do know, is that I am committed to diving for the next 20 years, and smoking is just an obstacle to doing that.

It all becomes a "matter of priorities".

Posted on Wednesday 23 of January, 2008 [13:05:06 UTC]

I hovered quietly above the mass of the shipwreck as the thousands of baitfish darted past, followed by a group of marauding amberjacks. It was hard to believe that I was 120 feet below the surface of the ocean on this day in early January. The water temperature on the bottom was 62 degrees, the air 120 feet above a full ten degrees cooler.

I glanced down at my computer and noticed that I had only two minutes of bottom time remaining at this depth, then at my tank pressure gauge, showing that I still had ample gas to remain even longer. The bottom time calculation from my computer is based on an algorithm derived from dive tables developed by the Navy, taking several variables into consideration; time at any given depth, and oxygen content of the compressed gas being consumed. Based on these formulas, it makes constant calculations and projects how much nitrogen I have loaded into my blood stream, helping me to limit the risk of suffering any form of decompression illness. I still take the time to plan my deeper dives using the standard dive tables, but I certainly enjoy the convenience of using a computer. It is fairly idiot proof; it even turns on automatically when you hit the water. I just have to remember to strap it to my wrist.

Now that I have been diving for nearly 5 years, and logged close to 200 dives, 11 to depths exceeding 110 feet, I am feeling more and more comfortable underwater. The funny thing is that I still consider myself a new diver. But I am starting to understand the principles behind the hard and fast rules that I learned in my original Open Water class. Aside from the number one rule drilled into the heads of new divers; never hold your breath, the more daunting rule is Never exceed the No Decompression Limit!!

Both rules exist to minimize the chance that expanding gas and particularly nitrogen in your bloodstream and tissues does not cause damage, resulting in injury and sometimes death. Yes, I said DEATH. These rules are pounded into the heads of new divers working to achieve that first certification, the Open Water Scuba Diver. This particular level of certification suggests that you are qualified to safely dive to a maximum depth of 60 feet, although the established maximum depth for recreation divers is 130 feet. The Advanced Open Water certification is recommended for recreational divers who dive beyond 60 feet. My best explanation for those guidelines is that at 60 feet or less, you still have a pretty good chance of avoiding injury or death (yes, I said death again) if you had to make an emergency ascent to the surface.

I mastered the use of dive tables during my initial Open Water training, but quickly pushed them aside when I started diving the inshore artificial reefs and wrecks off the coast of North Carolina. Why you ask, when almost sure injury or death could result from violating the rules of No Decompression Diving? We were diving Aluminum 80 cubic foot tanks at a maximum depth of 60 feet, and it seemed that I could never get more than about 30 minutes on the bottom before I had to head up because I was running low on air. The NDL (No Decompression Limit) for 60 feet is 55 minutes. It always took at least 30 minutes between dives to change out tanks, eat a sandwich and get back in the water. That was plenty of time for a surface interval. It just didn’t make sense to worry about all that stuff, we just watched our pressure gauges and made sure we didn’t run out of air. Drowning because of an out of air emergency was a much greater risk than decompression illness when diving those profiles. I never even considered the idea of getting a dive computer; I was not even using my dive tables.

When I began diving the deeper wrecks offshore, I started paying attention again to bottom time, depth and NDL’s. My Advanced Open Water training consisted of “deep” and “wreck” dives, both conducted on the U-352 at 110 feet. The tables indicated that I had 16 minutes on the first dive, and then 12 minutes on the second dive after a 2 hour surface interval. I was not nitrox certified, so I had to dive air. With an 80 cubic foot tank, my dive time was still limited by air supply, even at those depths. Nitrox is simply enriched air, displacing nitrogen with pure oxygen, increasing bottom time by limiting your uptake of nitrogen while diving.

I now dive 120 cubic foot tanks and became Nitrox certified. I bought a computer. I have to pay attention to my nitrogen loading. A few months back, a good friend and scuba instructor asked me if I had ever gone into “deco”. “Heavens no” I answered. She suggested that I should, that it would be a good experience and confidence builder. I still had trouble embracing the idea, still programmed to believe that recreational divers never intentionally passed the NDL and chalked up a mandatory decompression stop. I was stilled convinced that it would result in sure injury or death. Only “technical” divers were allowed to do that, and only after years of painstaking and complicated training.

Heading down the jon line towards the anchor line leading to the 18 Fathom wreck, I remembered what I had forgotten to do. I had neglected to tell my computer that I was breathing an enriched air mix with 28% oxygen. It thought I was breathing air, which has 21% oxygen. I tried to make the adjustment to the computer at 30 feet, but for a reason that is most likely a good design, it did not allow me to make the change with the dive underway. No worries, I had planned the dive using tables and knew that my bottom time at 120 feet was 18 minutes on the Nitrox mix. The computer would call my dive at 13 minutes, the NDL for air at that depth. Today was the first time that I was going to push my computer, if not myself beyond the No Decompression limit. Even with the knowledge that I knew something my computer did not, surprisingly, it still made me nervous. The belief that exceeding NDL’s would result in certain death still lingered from 5 years and many dives earlier.

The audible alarm and flashing red LED on my computer still startled me when NDL was exceeded, even though I knew it was coming. I hesitated, looked at it again and then at my hand. The computer had not blown up and separated my hand at the wrist, and the alarm only last a few seconds. It then just told me, in a calm digital sort of way, that I needed to satisfy a required 3 minute stop at 15 feet. I stayed down the additional 5 minutes that I had calculated from the tables and the computer alarm sounded and calmly informed me that I needed to hang for 5 minutes at 15 feet. I did a painfully slow ascent up the anchor line, watching the huge schools of amberjack swirling around me, and when I reached the hang line at 15 feet, the computer informed me that I had eliminated enough nitrogen on my ascent that I was only required to stay there for 3 minutes. I continued to play this little game with my computer, and it cleared my deco obligation at 3 minutes. I still had plenty of gas remaining, so I stayed for 2 more minutes before ascending slowly the 15 remaining feet to the dive boat ladder.

My instructor friend was correct. Although I can’t say for sure that my body exceeded the NDL on that dive, my computer sure thought it did. Strangely enough, it was a milestone in the evolution of my diving, and I am more confident in my abilities because of it. I am not suggesting that I am going to purposely exceed NDL on every dive, or any for that matter, but what I do realize is that if it does happen, and I have enough gas to make my required stop, then there is a good chance that injury or death will not happen

Posted on Sunday 13 of January, 2008 [18:35:48 UTC]

I attended the funeral of my wife’s Uncle Joe yesterday. He was her father’s older brother. Sadly, he was diagnosed with lymphoma in late October and failed quickly, he died late last week. I didn’t have the pleasure to know Uncle Joe all that well, but I did know he was an avid boater, fisherman and diver. He left behind four grown children, two daughters and two sons, and a second wife of 25 years.

My father in law and his wife are devout Catholics, and live their lives based upon their deep faith in God and the belief that God’s grace is the deciding influence in the lives of the living. It became apparent to me at the funeral and the gathering afterwards, that Uncle Joe had not lived his life that way. An engineer by trade and adventurer by nature, Joe had lived his life in a hard charging manner, always challenging him to achieve in business, and to challenge himself in his recreational pursuits, often to the neglect of family and relationships. It was this self centric pursuit of adventure that left Joe’s survivors feeling a loss, not from his death, but from what he didn’t give them during his life.

In the brief conversations that I had with Joe over the course of the last ten years, we shared a kinship in the love of the sea. I admired him for the gusto he displayed in the way he lived his life. Joe moved to Big Pine Key after retiring from his career as an engineer and later executive in the telecommunications industry. His days were filled with fishing, diving and boating, his wife by his side. When the weather kept him in port, he loved to tinker with his boats, reveling in his ability to fix problems and make improvements in existing ship’s systems. At sunset when the day was over, Joe never missed his evening libation. Joe was my kind of man, a real man’s man.

The alter was adorned with Joe’s ashes, a folded American flag and a picture of him at the helm of his boat. As the Priest performed the ceremony, I listened with close attention, his words beginning to sound as if he was giving my eulogy. Joe loved his family, but he also loved his own life, sometimes to the point of neglecting their needs. Joe, the engineer, had very high expectations, “exact standards” if you will, for the way things should be done, holding the ones he loved to those standards. Joe’s self reliance led him away from his faith, believing he was responsible for his own destiny. It wasn’t until Joe met cancer, that he was faced with a challenge he could not overcome.

Whether it is reality, or contrived for the sake of the surviving family and friends, the Priest asserted that in Joe’s final hours, he opened his heart to the God he had once forsaken, was forgiven for his shortcomings, and was accepted into everlasting life in the company of his maker. Joe was off to his “Next Big Adventure”.

Funerals, as a ritual, are designed to mourn those who have passed, to celebrate the life that they lived and the people that they touched. As with every life, it is not all good; there are just differing ratios of positive to negative in each person’s life. In Joe’s case, I choose to believe the scale tipped positive. Even though he may have neglected his family in the pursuit of his own endeavors, he also taught them through example, that life as an adventure is worth living, and there is no problem that cannot be solved.

Another positive effect of a funeral is it forces the attendee to take a moment to reflect on their own life in the same way that a wedding will force a couple to reflect on their own vows.

I admire the way Joe lived his life, it is the way I see myself, always looking for the next adventure that will pump adrenaline into my veins. But as a result of this reflection, I am also going to make more of an attempt to insure the pursuit of those adventures doesn’t have an adverse effect on those I love, or somehow inhibit them from finding their own adventures. Because in the end, when everything is said and done, life is really just about the relationships you build along the way and the ones you leave behind.

Posted on Tuesday 11 of December, 2007 [15:28:43 UTC]

As a diver, I learned an awful lot in 2007. I logged over 60 dives, 7 to depths exceeding 100 feet. I found new spots, suffered through personal challenges that I was faced with underwater, and helped others resolve theirs. I learned a lot about the art of skippering a boat used to dive from. Sure, I have tons of "on the water" experience, but diving adds a whole new dimension to safe boating. I completed and passed the PADI Rescue Diver class and become certified, also taking the required CPR/First Aid course. My plan is to get my OUPV Coast Gaurd Captain's license this winter and complete my Divemaster training by late spring. It is all for the sake of continuing to make sure that our private dive trips are safe, especially as we expand out circle of divers.

Last Saturday was the grand finale of my 2007 inshore diving in North Carolina. I may try a winter trip to the gulfstream where the water temperature never dips below the mid 60's, but open boat inshore diving is done.

There was frost still on the grass when we pulled the boat out of the driveway. Scotty's fins, which had been on the boat, had ice on them when he pulled them out.

It was 60 degrees on the bottom, with 10 feet of visibility. After 25 minutes, I had to exit the water because I was beginning to get chilled. When I got back to the boat, Scotty was already out of his gear and in his clothes, shaking like a leaf in the wind. I said, "I guess we aren't doing another dive." He just shook his head no.

I didn't see anything that even remotely resembled a flounder, and when I ran into Scotty half way through the dive, I noticed his stringer was empty, and I knew it wasn't just me. I have never seen Scotty get skunked. At the end of the dive, I had the foresight to adjust the anchor so it would be easy to pull up from the boat before heading up the line. While I was doing that, a 4# Tautog swam up to see what I was doing and I invited him to dinner as the guest of honor. It was good.

After getting out of my wet suit(s) I put on a long sleeve T-shirt, a turtle neck, a pull over sweatshirt, a fleece jacket and my leather jacket.

I was still cold on the ride back in the open boat. I am done small boat inshore diving for this year.

With winter on the way, I plan to start writing again. I started my second book, but got busy and stopped writing. I would say I was about half way through the first cut, with only a quick proofing from me.

Stay tuned.

Posted on Tuesday 20 of November, 2007 [12:16:15 UTC]

This past Sunday, we made it out to the area near The Indra in Scotty's boat, it was still pretty bumpy but ok. We dove on the concrete pipes west of the yellow buoy. It is hard to find on the bottom reader in 4 foot swells because most of the relief from the pipes is only 4'. My GPS numbers are pretty good, but after a couple of failed attempts to hang the anchor from the boat, we sent a Scotty down to set it manually.

Holding the anchor and chain, Scotty rolled backwards off the bow when I gave him the signal, nailing the spot by watching the GPS and depthfinder. He came back to the boat and said he stuck the anchor flukes in the lip of a piece of pipe, but he wasn't satisfied that it would hold with the boat popping up and down in all those swells. I suggested to him that we take some line down to tie it in better (he didn't have any chain). When we got back to the anchor, I could see it rocking up and down with the movement of the boat. Scotty fed the line through the 8' section of pipe and I grabbed it and we both tied our ends to the anchor chain.

During the surface interval, we both laughed about whose knot would not hold.

On the second dive, nobody found their way back to the anchor and we all did a free ascent away from the line. On the boat, Scotty turned to me and said: "When I got down to the anchor, it was free of the pipe, and was just hanging on by the rope. Man, I sure am glad you thought of putting that rope on there"

I geared back up to go down to untie the line. The first clue that something was wrong came while I was still on the boat. As I was about to roll off the side of the boat, Susan said "Be careful, the safety line is right behind you."

Normally at anchor, the safety line floats directly behind with the float ring attached. I should have realized that the boat was moving at that point. I splashed in and worked my way alongside the boat to the anchor line and started pulling myself down the line, but instead of pulling myself down, I was pulling the anchor up. Apparently, the anchor dislodged from the pipe and the rope eventually chafed until it broke.

I continued my descent as the anchor went by and landed in the bare sand, not a piece of pipe in sight. I began to ascend slowly at an about a 20 degree angle, heading north since I knew the boat would be drifting that way.

When I got to the surface, the boat was nearly a quarter mile away and only from wind drift, Scotty had never engaged the engine. I yelled and waved my arms to get their attention, and Scotty finally saw me and turned the boat to come pick me up, just as I was getting ready ro inflate my orange surface marker buoy.

Back on the boat, we began to discuss how things could have gone totally wrong and that was a message from the universe to stop doing what we know we should not be doing, diving with a boat that is unattended!!

If that line had broken 5 minutes into the second dive, the boat would have drifted for a half hour before we knew about it. When the line broke, the anchor would have been above the bottom and maybe never had a chance to get down to the sand to even slow the drift.

Today, I am thanking my lucky stars that Murphy was taking a day off on Sunday.

Posted on Tuesday 21 of August, 2007 [19:32:59 UTC]

Recently, I reported that I had started the AARP project.(Artificial Artifact Restoration Project). Scotty and I signed one dollar bills with our phone numbers and placed them in a plastic zip lock bag, and ask the person who found it to give us a call. Then I placed the zip lock bag inside a Crown Royal bottle and placed it in a ship's vent on the Indra, an intentionally sunk ship 12 miles south of the Beaufort inlet.

On a recent trip to the Indra, I noted that the bottle was gone, but I never recieved a phone call. Maybe the zip lock bag cannot withstand the pressure of 2 1/2 atmospheres and the ink got wet and faded. The vent was on the middle deck at a depth of 45 feet.

Stay tuned for the next Artificial Artifact to be placed on the Indra in the next coming weeks. This one will be water proof!

Posted on Monday 13 of August, 2007 [13:14:29 UTC]

For all you readers of "Hiding on the Bottom" here is an interesting story.

My wife and I went diving with Scotty on Sunday, and when we got back to his trailer, we were getting all the dive gear off the boat in the back yard. Two women appeared, a mother and daughter. The mother was short, plump and round faced, the daughter is her early 20's, cute in a Down East sort of way.

Scotty introduced the older woman as the Shrimp Lady, and I immediately knew who she was, her husband was a commercial shrimper, and she sold the shrimp from a collection of old beat up coolers a few doors down from Scotty's house.

She turned to me and asked "So you are the writer fellow?"

"I guess you could call me that" I replied.

"I sure did enjoy that book." she said in a thick high tider accent.

I thanked her, careful not to show my surprise that she had read it and not wanting to be condescending.

Scotty pointed to the trailer next door, the site of the burning sofa, and said "Yea, her daughter called me a few weeks back to complain about his book, saying it didn't tell the whole story, but I just said that I didn't write the book and Ken was just reporting what he saw."

I never imagined that anyone east of Beaufort would ever even know about "Hiding on the Bottom", much less bother to read it.

It is just a big reminder to me that when recounting humorous events (funny from my view of the situation) I need to be more careful. What is funny to me and others who read it, might sting those being written about.

I might better be careful in my wanderings east of Beaufort.

Posted on Monday 02 of July, 2007 [12:03:38 UTC]

Available now as a free download, complete with pictures. Just click on the Swampfest 2007 link to the left of this page.

Posted on Tuesday 19 of June, 2007 [00:27:08 UTC]

Well, I am still working on the Swampfest write-up, it should be done soon.

I did dive again this past weekend with Scotty, his son Brantley and my son Ryan. We dove the Suloide first and the visibility was poor, then moved over to the Indra for the second dive. It was much better there.

To make things interesting, I put a couple of dollar bills in a zip lock bag inside a Crown Royal bottle and placed it strategically in a ship's vent on the Indra. It is plainly visible if you look in the correct place. One bill has my signature and phone number, the other has Scotty's.

I would never put an "artificial artifact" anywhere but on an "artificial reef". It would be wrong to do so on a wreck of historical significance with real artifacts and a hallowed place where sailors have died.

This is just for fun and is an underwater geocache sort of game. If you find the bottle, keep the bills, but give me a call and let me know that you have it. I will be placing more out there in the AARP program.

Safe diving and hunting.

Posted on Wednesday 30 of May, 2007 [16:56:53 UTC]