Hello, I'm new here...

[howardmarshall]

Hi,

My name is Howard. I have returned to scuba diving following 10 years of inactivity. My last dive was while on vacation in the Bahamas, but I have a lot of diving under my belt (huh!) here in New England dating back to 1978 when I was PADI vertified. Although it doesn't compare to the tropics, I still enjoy diving New England waters. I have dove at Plum Cove, Follies Cove, Cathedral Rocks, Pebble Beach, Atlantic Ave (Gloucester), Magnolia, Gun Rocks (Cohasset), Brant Rock (Marshfield), King's Beach / Castle Hill (New port, RI), the wreck of the De La Sal and Fish Motel, Paradise Island, Bahamas. Since all my gear was 31 years old, I was forced to replace all of it with the exception of the regulator and dive knife. I was stymied to learn that my (2) Aqua-Lung ALU80s were condemned, so I traded them in for (2) Catalina ALU63s. At my age, less is more. A group of four people have formed a dive club where I work and we're already diving. This sunday three of us are doing Pebble Beach but I hope to dive Cathedral Rocks on 9/19/09. This is by far my favorite dive site in New England. This looks like a great website to be a part of, lots of useful information. Bye for now.

Best Regards from Under the Sea,
Howard.

[acelockco]

Welcome to our forum. It is so nice to see so many new "faces" recently. Now, join right in our conversations, we always like new opinions and ideas. :cool:

[The Publisher]

Great intro Howard!

There's nothing like diving with good friends, hanging out, shooting the breeze, grabbing food together and telling tall tales!

[lottie]

Hi Howard,
Welcome to the boards. Pull up a comfy chair and feel free to dive right in. Good Luck with your weekend dive at Pebble beach - any chance you can post up a report? It'd be great to hear what the diving is like up there.

[howardmarshall]

Hi Lottie, Here is my dive report. When we got to the dive site it was totally packed - wall-to-wall divers. I've never seen anything like it! I had to wait about 45 minutes just to get a parking space near the vehicles of the other 2 divers in my group. The seas were rough, surf was 1-3 feet. Every diver we saw got trashed and bashed by the waves breaking along the shore line entering and exiting the water. This was my 1st time diving with this group of 3 so we really didn't have things planned very well. In addition we were focused on the difficult parking and distracted by the many divers either setting up or tearing down their gear. Entering the water a big wave crashed me and I went down, struggled to get back up. We all got our fins on and tried to get comfortable. I had difficulty breathing out of the snorkel in the rough water and could not catch my breath until I switched to the regulator. It felt a little panicky. Jeff signaled me to lead the way so I swam out ahead and gradually descended. Unbeknownst to me, Alison overheated and also could not catch her breath so she signaled to Jeff that she was heading back in. After swimming about 2 minutes I turned to check on my buddies and they were gone. I was alone. I surfaced 2 or 3 times and spun around each time, but could not see my dive buddies. Visibility was poor, only around 2-3 feet. So it was easy to lose them. I thought "what a disaster. All this work and I'm all alone out here". I figured I'm here, might as well make something of it. I dove back down and continued swimming until I reached a depth of 20', the water was 62 degrees.
The bottom was all sandy, I saw 2 crabs sitting in a hole they had dug, and a hermit crab nearby. There was a rocky reef but it was about 250 feet from shore and I never made it out that far. After about 10 minutes I decided to head in figuring my dive buddies were wondering what happended to me. When I surfaced it looked like I was about 150' from shore and I headed in. As I got closer I could see Alison standing on the beach but Jeff was not to be found. The waves bashed me again but I let them carry me up the shore as much as possible. The beach is all smooth rocks making it difficult to gain footing and stand up. Alison took my mask and took my fins off so I could stand up. Then I learned that Jeff was still out there. He was one of 5 dive flags we could see at least 250 feet from shore. He was at the rocky reef taking pictures. We watched the divers surface trying to figure out which flag belonged to Jeff. After nearly an hour Jeff finally returned to the shore with his tank almost completely drained. He took some really nice pictures though but the resolution is very high and I'm not sure If this website will take them. I'll give it a try. Next time we're going to have a plan in case we get separated. What a concept. Doh! We're going to try the cliff dive at Cathedral Rocks, Rockport on Sept. 20th if the seas are not too rough. Otherwise we'll choose an alternate site. Not a great dive but at least I got in 23 minutes with a maximum depth of 20'. It's hard diving with new buddies, all new gear, and a new dive site, but we'll get there. Things will get better with practice.
Regards, Howard.

[howardmarshall]

Lottie, the group,

I posted a great picture that Jeff took of a New England lobster at the Rocky Reef, about 250' from the shore at Pebble Beach, Rockport, Massachusetts. It is in the "howardmarshall" gallery. Rockport is a beatiful coastal New England town on Cape Ann; on the north shore of Massachusetts.

Regards,
Howard.