Skeletons, Scrubbers, and Skills
Heather and I were back at the Tioga Mine Pit on Monday. The weather was the sort of thing postcards brag about—sunny, seventies, gentle breeze— but only if you overlooked the dense curtain of Canadian wildfire smoke drifting in. Faced with the choice between inhaling that or recycling our own breath through rebreathers for three hours, we chose the latter.
We dropped in near the boat launch, following the southern wall again. It’s too good not to: an underwater cliff that drops into the deep blue. And then—something new: a skeleton sprawled at 120 feet, twisted sideways with a leg cocked backwards like it had lost a fight with gravity. From afar it was chillingly real. Up close, pure Halloween clearance bin.
Curiously, we didn’t see it last week. Which is strange, because we took nearly an identical route and with Tioga’s gin-clear water, you don’t just miss a skeleton. My theory is that someone visited the “original” lawn-chair skeleton (who supposedly resides here with a dog skeleton), managed to snag their line around his neck, and dragged him over the edge. Whether the dog remains faithfully waiting above, nobody knows. We may have to investigate.
Nothing says ‘relaxing dive’ like bumping into a skeleton lounging at 120 feet.
Oddities aside, it was a fine dive. I captured one of my favorite photos of the year: Heather suspended above the abyss with the wall stretching away like an underwater canyon. One of those scenes where you momentarily forget your PO2 and just stare.
Once my NDL buzzed me back to reality, we shallowed up and I spent the rest of the dive on drills: DSMB launches, dil flushes, simulated deco stops. They were functional but clunky. I’ve got an Air Diluent Deco course in October, and I’d prefer not to look like a man trying to wrestle a parachute in a windstorm. Which bring me to Thursdays dive in Lake Superior…
The wall drops into the dark like a bottomless bookshelf, and Heather, naturally, went to inspect every volume.
We jumped in at the break wall and followed the shoreline to the east. Heather was light on scrubber, so we capped the dive at an hour. Apart from a surprisingly strong southward current—as if Superior had momentarily mistaken itself for the Mississippi—there wasn’t much to see. Just before surfacing, I signaled a pause to run through a few drills I’d mentioned before the dive and Heather had gamely agreed to. Once underwater, however, she seemed perfectly content to hover like an amused spectator while I made a spectacle of myself. I picked the simplest drill of all, mask removal—diving’s equivalent of tying your shoelaces, only colder, wetter, and with far greater potential for embarrassment.
Superior current—another gentle reminder that you’re never really the one in charge.
Which is when Lake Superior reminded me who was really in charge. Mask clearing, so effortless in Whitefish’s cozy 70-degree water, unraveled instantly in Superior’s low-40s. The moment I pulled the mask off, my sinuses seized like rusted valves. Each attempt to exhale through my nose produced only pitiful little puffs. Half-cleared and thoroughly flustered, I bailed onto open circuit (rebreather code for “panic-lite”) and still couldn’t finish the job. After a few soggy, unsuccessful attempts, I surfaced in frustration, humbled and dripping.
I thought about going back down, but Heather was out of scrubber and the day’s schedule was against us. So I drove home sulking, mentally flogging myself for botching Scuba 101. I’ve now christened next Monday “Mask Day.” The plan: sit in Superior’s freezing shallows and clear until the fish grow bored or I finally get it right.