It must be dive season.
Last Monday and Tuesday was the opening of the South East Alaska Sea Cucumber season, or as some of us divers refer to them... Gold!
It is money laying on the bottom of the ocean. All one has to do is swim past and pick it up.... Simple enough... Yeah, right.
Mike and I met at the store next door at 5:00 am for coffee and doughnuts. After eating, we headed to the boat and off to our local dive area.
I have not really been excited for this dive season. The cold water, stormy weather, and last year's rock crash episode has tainted me a bit.
We made the half hour run to our dive area and began getting the boat ready. All the dive gear was stowed and packed from last year, and we had been running the mountains for the past week deer hunting instead of getting the boat ready.
I wriggled my way into my woollies and dry suit as Mike scrambled to get the boat set up. Surprisingly enough, we were both ready at 8:05, just five minutes past the opening time.
I slid off the back of the boat and into the biting cold water. Yes, I have forgotten how cold this water is from last year. My forehead felt like eating ice cream too quickly, my lips burned, and my hands numbed almost instantly. Oh the sweet feeling of diving for cucumber gold in Alaska.
I found cucumbers instantly and began filling my bag, as I worked I could feel the cold trickle of water on my right arm. My thought goes to dry suit diving.
Dry suit. Ha! Only those who have not worked under water in a dry suit could believe that a dry suit keeps you dry. Wearing a dry suit sure helps with keeping cold water away from your body, but throughout a day of hard diving and picking cucumbers you move your hands and flex your wrist enough the little burps of air escape and at the same time, burps of ice water enter your wrist. As you unroll a float to the surface when the bag is filled with cucumbers you will have a burst of cold water enter your neck seal as well. Over the course of an 8 hour day you will come up with your arms soaked and your chest wet with ice cold pacific ocean water.
The cold water I was feeling on my arm was not coming in through my wrist seal, but rather from my zipper area.... it felt like.
I had had the same soaking last season and sent my dry suit to a dive shop in another town in South East Alaska with the instructions that I was getting soaked down my right side. "It might be the zipper, or some where else," I told the lady over the phone. "Please check it out and get it repaired."
"No problem, I'll have it right back to you," was her reply.
Three months later I got the dive suit back and hung it in the closet for this dive year.
Ah... the wonderful feeling of a flooding dry suit.
I dove for a couple hours and could feel the water sloshing in my right arm. Cold was creeping into my whole body.
I made my way to the surface and handed Mike a bag of cucumber "Gold".
"Man, I'm freezing I told him. I've got to warm up a bit.."
"If your too cold let's just call the dive day and head back to town," Mike said making sure he was not pressuring me to earn him more money and in doing so endanger myself.
"Thanks, but I think I'm good for one more dive," I told him.
After a brief warm up I headed back to the bottom. I was working at a depth of 30 to 50 feet. The deeper I would dive the more water would squeeze into my suit.
It only took a few minutes down this time and both of my legs cramped tight with charlie horses.
I dragged myself along on the bottom with my arms, my useless legs locked tight in throbbing cramps. After some time the cramps subsided enough to allow me to use my swim fins, and I carefully finned my way along the bottom.
A half hour and I was back to the surface. "No can do!" I shouted over the roar of the hookah and the hauler motors. "I'm soaked into my right leg and cramping like crazy."
Mike shut down the machines as I wriggled out of my dry suit. Water poured out of my sopping wet sleeves and my right leg. Great repair job on my suit, dive shop!
I did get into my back up suit and made another hour dive before freezing completely out.
Mike and I were the first boat at the tender. He asked if I timed out on my decompression time. Nope. Going back out after you sell? Nope.
"I'm old, wore out, and freezing cold," I told the guy. "We are selling our catch and heading home."
I grabbed the check out of the envelope from the processor and could only stare at the numbers. Gold. For sure these cucumbers are like picking gold.
Now I'm sitting here watching this 60 knot storm blow through and thinking of my dive day tomorrow. No one in their right mind would go out in storm force winds to jump into freezing cold water... unless there was the glitter of gold!
Oh, I did air up my dry suit and find a dime size ware spot under my right arm. It was not the zipper at all, just a tad bit of fix it glue and no more leak. Oh well, only a few hundred dollars to some dive shop for nothing.... What is a few hundred to a gold harvester?
Mike working a bag of Cucumbers... "Gold!"
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