Well here it is October already and the pumpkins are popping up everywhere, even underwater these days.

            My dive shop, and notice I call them MY dive shop, and not the local Dive Shop. A local dive shop is someplace you go on occasion to browse dive equipment. My dive shop is where I go to get great gear from close friends that know what you need and like, and give ya a good ribbing while you’re there too. But to be fair, I do deserve it I am a ball buster and love a good joke (My wife is still laughing at Tim’s Prank). So no harm no foul I guess, right?  

            Well Kalipso decided to start a new annual event. An underwater pumpkin carving contest where you can only use your dive knife to do the carving. Not only was this a fantastic idea, but sounded fun as heck to do with the wife and kids, who as you know from past articles are my dive buddies.

            We all met at Kalipso Dive shop on Sunday 10-26-08 to “gut” our pumpkins. We did this so as not to offend anyone but just “gutting” the pumpkins in the ocean and letting the waste material pollute our view and waters. A good idea, but my wife was hoping to find some cute little pumpkin loving fish and stuff him so full of food he would survive a famine. I told her that I am not familiar with any fish that eat vegetables from shore, but she was hopeful anyway. She is an animal lover, and especially loves animals that eat good. For some reason she treasures this natural act with such high regard, that any animal that eats good and needs a home, has one waiting for them at my house, yea no stopping her, I once had a 50 Lb Sulcata tortoise walking around my home for a year or so while she fattened him up to donate to a Reptile zoo. Yea he was 30 Lbs when we got him mal-nourished, fattened to 50lb off some of the best eats money can buy, and yes he would have loved the pumpkin “guts”, he ate a ton of it when he was with us.

            To be honest with you I thought it was a joke at first, I mean pumpkins are full of Air, just one big cavity waiting to be squeezed. I mean if we didn’t “gut” them on land, they would of just imploded on the way to the Ocean Floor. So when they said we were gutting them before heading down to Fort Adams, I knew it was a real contest and not another Joke by Tim. So we gutted our pumpkins, headed down to Fort Adams as seen in the picture below. The red highlighted area is where we parked and conducted our dive. I didn’t carve any pumpkins myself, I brought my camera and was going to take pictures of the contestants, but with visibility well below 10’ and particulate in the water column, it made pictures impossible, darn near.

            What I did notice while I was swimming around down below, was that a lot of lobsters seemed to be just hanging around waiting for a nice butter bath. Soooooooo I figured “hey I can help them with that” and started to round some up for dinner while the others carved their pumpkins. Every nook and crannie I looked into had a lobster of a relative size to them. Now for the hard part, reaching into their hole and grabbing them before they grab me. I tried to catch a lobster for month’s with no success, then one day while at MY dive shop, I mentioned my fear to Tim, who obviously called me a few names and after some more goofing on me, he gave me some of the best advice I ever got to date for catching lobsters. He simply said quit being a wuss and just grab the darn things. I was like yea ok, he is getting me pinched. Well he is an expert, and I always listen to expert advice, especially when I don’t want to. I mean I was zero for 100 so obviously I had no freaking clue what I was doing. So next time I went down, I found my favorite lobster grounds, and just started to quickly make a grab for them. The first one I tried at, bam, I had him by the claws and after shaking him a little, he lost his grip, and came right into my game bag. I though wow, that was easy, I guess Tim was right. So again I try this new tactic and again a lobster in the pot. Works every time (Thanks Tim, the next 20 Lbs I put on I am blaming on you!!!). Well now I am quite adept at catching these bugs of the deep. In addition to the lobster in almost every hole I peered into, there were tons of Stone Crabs, yum I love stone crabs. So I rounded up a mess of these little treats while I was swimming around pumpkin carvers and divers.

            A rare treat on this dive was My Dive shop’s Lisa diving with us. She is a skilled diver, but dislikes the cold water of New England greatly and almost never dives here. It was a pleasure and an honor to have her dive with the likes of us riff raff divers. I seen her for a brief few minutes while below, she actually can dive in cold water, I knew she could do it. Ha-ha but I did notice her making a bee line for the exit point when her pumpkin was done. Me I love the cold water, in fact I can not wait for the winter to roll around so I can get some below 40 degree F dives under the belt again. I have several cold water dive in my log book. And yes I do it all in a 7 MM Scubapro Everflex Steamer Wetsuit. That’s right. As low as 35 Degree F and I did a full tank without freezing to death, as a matter fact, I was shocked at how well that Scubapro wetsuit handled the cold water, no problem and highly recommended. I guess Scubapro doesn’t call it the Steamer series for nothing now do they. Well for you new divers out there, don’t listen to anyone who says you can not dive in cold water in a wetsuit. Those that say that probably have a 7mm wetsuit at home that they paid 50$ for, and for good reason. No one with a Scubapro wetsuit Everflex Steamer has ever told me it can not be done. All I can say is try it, you never know. On this note let me explain my first time in cold water.

            In March here in New England, the water temp is 35 degrees. I had talked to a firemen who did water training for his department. He stated that when they did their broken ice drill he used a 5mm wetsuit and thought it wasn’t so bad at all. So I thought, hey I got 7mm so why am I pineing away on shore waiting for spring thaws? So I drove to Fort Wetherill, suited up and… was quickly goofed on by no less than 10 Dry Suit divers, or as I now call them, wussies. The first group of Dry divers came over to me laughing, looked over my gear, and walked away saying “not me man”. Well this was concerning to me, but not as much as the next group of dry divers. This was a group of Asian Divers from New York.  2 of them were top level instructors, and the rest were certified to levels far beyond my Open Water cert. Well they came over, asked a few questions then walked away. Then they came back, asked a few more questions, then went into a group discussion with the instructors. After 5 minutes they came over and asked, you go in water in that wetsuit? “yes” was my reply, they quickly yelled out “you gonna die” and told my wife that I was gonna die and that they would recover the body. Well I found this to be not only shocking, but I started to second guess my decision. I told them “hey, look I just drove 40 miles to get here and I am damn well gonna at least try it.” So I continued to set up my gear, and strapped in and headed for the water. I went and floated on the surface waiting for this massively painful wave of cold to hit me. It didn’t. so I grabbed my regulator and went down, waiting for this cold to come and smite me instantly. Well yea a little cold on the lips for the first 5 minutes, but then I enjoyed a 45 minute dive at 40+ feet deep. When I came back to my vehicle, the dry suit divers who went in after I did, and came out well before me, came out cause they were..what…cold yes that’s right cold. They said after ½ hour in 35 degree water, they were to cold to stay in any longer. Yea $3000.00 DUI dry suits and they were cold. Meanwhile my less than $400.00 Scubapro Everflex steamer kept me in the game for the full dive. So after laughing at them, and goofing on them, and asking if they all made it back or if they need help with body recovery, I packed up and went home happy as a clam. My wife though I was a little crazy, but wait, she just got her brand new Scubapro Everflex Steamer in Women’s, and she will be down there with me in the winter. Also I use a Mares Abyss. A regulator that is Famous for coldwater diving.

Well anyway, the pumpkin carvers did a great job. Heck I was surprised to not see 15 pumpkins floating away on the surface, let alone to see some funny pumpkins actually come back to the surface.

Here are a few pics.

1^st Place.     Hairy is the winner. They won some beautiful new dive knives.

2^nd Place. They won a Gift Certificate to the best Dive shop around.

3^rd place.  The joker pumpkin by my very own Goobs and little Greg (I just wanted in the picture). You can’t really tell by the picture, but that pumpkin has the stitches up the sides of his mouth like the joker. They also won a gift certificate to the best dive shop around.

Now doesn’t she look fantastic in that brand New Scubapro Women’s Everflex Steamer. Thanks to Kalipso for special ordering it just for her. Thank you Lisa we appreciate every thing you do for all of us! Tim don’t deserve you, he deserve a lump of coal in his stocking at best. (yes I seen the bunny ears in that picture)

Well we had a fantastic time with some great friends on a very nice dive day here in New England. Even though my truck left me stranded on the way home full of scuba gear with ½ a dozen lobsters and a few dozen stone crabs, 40 miles from home, it was worth every minute of it. I am still in a fantastic mood from having such a great dive day. I could careless that I will be truck-less for 2 weeks while mine is repaired. And with all the free seafood in the back, finding a ride home was as easy as carving a pumpkin!!!

So in closing let me just say have a great dive day, and may your dive shop be the source of fun and pleasure mine is. Good luck and dive safely.