Thought you guys might get a kick out of this dive report I wrote yesterday for another site. If you have any questions by all means ask........The HB is a wreck called the Honeybear that was once a sailboat testing a new hull design for the Americas Coup regatta that got away from it's home in a storm and ended up wrecked in what is now a popular dive site near Seattle's Alki beach....

Ok, so many of you know my story. I got excited about diving, worked through some issues during OW training(ear issues, a broken hand, and then things got tough) a few dives at Cove 3 then one dive in at Cove 2 on October 7th where I saw a HUGE Octopus before a foot surgery that has kept me out of the water since. UNTIL TODAY....

My buddy Sean and I made the plan, I did the SCUBA math, we knew our turn pressure, we knew our rock bottom and we knew the plan. Entry, surface swim out to the can buoy, drop down to approx 50fsw and let the compass take us to the Honeybear. We had a plan to get back, we discussed what to do in case we were separated, we clarified some hand signals, we did gear checks and all, we discussed some skills we would like to spend a bit of time on even.....the one thing we did not do was read the signs. Sometimes there are signs that tell you you shouldn't be doing what you are doing, omens that warn us that we are headed down the wrong path (for some I imagine they tell them they are headed down the right path, but I wouldn't know anything about that).  First sign: As I am laying out gear and trying to get sort of organized on the tailgate of my buddies Tundra, an evil Seagull flies by and drops a bomb that is a direct hit. Marcoux's HP130, my fin, and my leg are all casualties to the high tech smart poo. Second sign: I dive wet, and this is my 6th dive so none of it feels natural yet, and I am not even talking about trim and buoyancy skills I am talking about how many times today I panicked that I had forgotten something. Hell even as I am gearing up I am having mini-hissy fits. By the time we are all geared up and about ready I realize that my hood is nowhere to be found. Obviously, I am not diving without it BUT I am not all too happy about putting on a wetsuit, weight harness, bp/w and the whole deal only to have to "thumb" the dive before we even make it to the stares down to cove 2. We look everywhere, through ever gear bin, bucket, backpack, etc. We look at the bulkhead and it's not there, just fins and such, not in the truck cab, not on the ground, and right as we are about to start doffing dry gear, I see that my hood has somehow become velcro'ed to the weight pockets on Seans belt and is hanging off his tush like a neoprene beavertail. I thought he was playing a joke on me it was so perfect. We waddle on, get in the water and it's cold, I almost cried as the cold water made it's way down my spine but I was determined..... Sign three (Three strikes and you are out right??): I dunk my head under water and my backup reg starts freeflowing. No biggie, I know to turn it over, only that doesn't solve it, I play with the venturi dealy bobber and no go. I am losing gas fast so we shut down the bottle, and try it again. Freeflow. Shut down the bottle and try again. You guessed it, freeflow.  I am not coming this far to thumb it without getting my face wet. Seems like a great time for an Out Of Air dril. So as Sean is circling me in 5 feet of water I drop down without a reg in my mouth and start blowing bubbles at him while slashing at my throat to let him know I have no gas, he shoves his backup reg in my mouth and I  breath off his octo for a while  just so when I have to leave I can at least have been under water. As we start packing it in, we decide to give it one last try and this time my reg cooperates. I am down 1000psi and so clearly the dive plan has changed, we are not going to attempt the HB and with a secondary that is clearly not behaving we decide to keep it shallow and simple. We stay in near touch contact and are super alert to our gas reserve. I try some frog kicking, which I kind of pulled off, I am bouncing off the floor like a Spaulding in an NBA game so it is clear that one can do all the cyber diving in the world but it's going to take real diving to get good. We tried really hard to be aware of silting and to do our best not to make a mess of the cove but we failed miserably of course. In the end we spent 19 minutes in (according to my BT) and had a lot of fun, we were safe and are already planning the next dive. Sincethis is the Report section I should share some info, vis was better than I expected it to be, I would guess about 10 feet or so, saw the normal stuff.....crabs, starfish, Giant Plumose Anemone's and such which I know are old hat for many of you but this is all very new and very exciting for me and I can't stop grinning like a kid on Christmas morning. Even saw a couple nudi's which was very cool. Aside from that it was cold, REALLY cold, like my hands barely worked when I was trying to get out of my wetsuit cold.  Sean was on air, I was breathing Nitrox so we had to spend more time on the surface for him to offgas excess nitrogen than I would have had to, and since it is so cold in Seattle right now that we woke up to 3 inches of snow we decided to skip a second dive and go have some hot clam chowder and beer.