My Flooded Digi-Cam is working again

I forgot to mention, but this past Memorial Day weekend water got into my Ikeline Canon SD880IS underwater housing and my digital camera was completely submerged in water for a good 20 minutes before realizing my underwater housing has flooded and the camera was not working. I took out the memory card and the battery and try to see if drying the camera for the whole week fixes the problem. Yesterday I tested the camera out and it works so it looks like I won't have to replace the camera :-) I still need to see where in the housing the leak is at. I'm suspecting where the lens is located there is a crack, but it could also be from the (obvious) O-ring seal that could have had some dirt. Anyhow, I have a working camera again even though it looks like water got into its LCD display. This camera is only 3 months old and already has some severe wear and tear!!!!

Rawlings (again) Memorial day weekend

I was back again at Rawlings for the second weekend in a row for some good diving. Even though we could only dive for two days (Saturday and Monday), since Rich and Christie had to be back in Northern Virginia on Sunday, we got some good dives in. I personally got 5 dives in with a total of 258 minutes (4.3 hrs) of bottom time. I also managed to break my bottom time record twice (60 minutes and 70 minutes). In the 70 minute dive Christie, Rich, and myself dived around the entire lake.

Also a first ever was to touch the deepest part of the lake (68ft / 20.7m), which I have not been able to locate until this trip. When all three of us saw the dip at the bottom we all raced to the bottom to put our computers as deep as we can in the mud to see who recorded the deepest. It was like a shark frenzy with all the silt everywhere to the point we could not see half an inch in front of us, but it was worth it. I still have not beaten my depth record of 90ft / 27.4m (I need to start diving in the ocean).

Another positive thing is that my last dive on this trip was my 13th dive so far in the year, my 14th dry suit dive, and my Surface Air Consumption (SAC) rate keeps going down steadily. The first dive of this year and also the first dive with my dry suit started with a SAC rate of 0.85 cu.ft per minute and steadily been dropping it down to 0.78, 0.74 ... 0.68, 0.67, 0.066 ... 0.58. Hopefully I can keep up this pattern and drop my rate even further. I'm sure the new gear configuration (back-plate, new hoses, and new fins) helped in addition to getting more experience diving with a dry suit.

Rawlings May 15 - 17, 2009

Took a three day trip to Rawlings, VA to do some scuba, but was interrupted by some bad weather. Nevertheless, we managed to get 134 minutes of diving when it was not raining, which is not too bad. I was very disappointed for not being able to get some night dives or for not diving on Sunday (May 17th). However, overall the trip was very good and I was happy that my entire three day weekend was not destroyed by the weather. Plus, I got to try out my new back-plate and new hose configuration, which is seen in the picture below with a can of Vienna sausages that were used to feed the fish.

Next weekend I'm also planning on returning to Rawlings with Christie, Ruth, and Rich since it's Memorial day weekend we are also celebrating Rich's birthday.