June 27th, 2010

Youghiogheny River, PA

Explorers Members who went: Josephine Palencia

Dove a portion of the Yough River this last Sunday. I went with 3 other dive veterans (3 dive masters) from a local scuba club and and we entered the water at 10:30am and got out around 12:30pm. As the current was relatively strong, the current carried us at different speeds down the lake.

It was basically a drift dive and all 4 divers didn't get to see other till the end of the dive. The day was perfect for lake diving with about 6ft vis. I drifted down the lake pushing against any rock I encountered. We used 7-5-3mm suit (no hood, no gloves).

There were a lot of 1-2ft fishes (bass, catfishes) following us around (they get really curious and come as close as 5inches from your dive mask looking at you face to face and opening their mouths wide to show territorial instinct.

I dove close to 2 hours using 2500psi air (I don't breathe :). It was pretty shallow with max depth of 20ft. I overshot the landing area by about 200ft so had to swim the lake upstream against the current. Final departure site was Hazelbakers on Layton road.

All in all, a nice dive to practice bouyancy, presence of mind (essentially you're on your own) and navigational skills.

August 17th - 18th, 2009

Calaguas, Philippines

Explorers Members who went: Josephine Palencia

Scouted 3 dive sites (50ft), saw a 1.5meter long sea snake (Sea snakes are the most poisonous snakes.. they belong to the cobra family). The snake was colored blue with black stripes. They can last 5 hours underwater and just come up the surface to breath. Other cited organisms were huge lion fishes, family of clown fish, cauliflower corals as big as 2meters, huge fish schools, (flying fish, sardines), stingrays, tanguigue (King Mackerels). Stayed on the safer side of the islands. The place is swarming with tiger sharks and sea snakes fortunately those can be found at deeper depths (i.e. the tiger sharks).

-J. Palencia

July 10th - 12th, 2009

Summersville, WV

Explorers Members who went: Josephine Palencia, Carla Costa

Left for Summersville Camp late Friday and arrived 4 hours later. Set up out tent, dive gear (loaded compressed air). Dove at wreck with 2 platforms (60ft), the wall (50ft), near shore (40ft) and did my first lead dive with Carla (40ft) from the dock. Also experience buddy breathing for an entire dive :) (er.. ran out of air). We rented 2 pontoon boats and dove for 2 days. Weather cooperated.

-J. Palencia

June 14th - 21st, 2009

Cancun/Cozumel, Mexico

Explorers Members who went: Josephine Palencia

Flew from Pittsburgh to Cancun, Mexico and stayed at Blue Bay club (bluebayclub.com). There were 22 of us, 15 total divers.

We dove for 4 days doing 2 dives/day going with with mantadivers.com.

In Cancun, we dove Black tip (Punta Negra)-60ft), Garampin (50ft), C-58 (80ft), Santo Remegio (night dive0-saw the most beautiful 2ft octopus, lots of bluefishes, 1meter wide turtles (caught a ride), lots of lobster, stingrays.

Then went to Cenote to do cave/rn diving at Chac-Mool. I did 2 dives with Nitrox (enhanced air). Proceeded to Cozumel (one of the top dive spots in Mexico/world for coral wall diving) and had spectacular dives of Palancar caves (90-100ft). Probably one of the best dive sites I've seen. Definitely going back to Cozumel. Then proceeded to dive last at Chankanah (50ft).

Too bad I didn't have a camera to take photos during cave/rn scuba diving so adding one that would give an idea of Cenote's chacmool.

-J. Palencia

June 16th - 18th, 2008

Summersville Lake, WV

Explorers Members who went: Mahin and Josephine

We drove down to Summersville Lake, WV to join about a dozen scuba divers do night diving, 2 days of boat diving (cool Pontoon boats). We had barbecue, slept in camping tents and trailers. Freshwater scuba diving is harder to do than saltwater diving. Good place to do navigational and peak-bouyancy dives. So if you can dive freshwater, you can dive anything.

-J. Palencia

March 10th - 17th, 2008

Pompano Beach, FL

Explorers Member who went: Josephine

There were 14 of us divers: (12 men, 2 women). We mostly dove wrecks and drift dives. I did about 4 dives/day (2 morning dives, 2 afternoon dives) for the span of 6-7days.

Highlights of the florida dive:

3 sharks (10 ft, 6 ft, 6 ft) hammerhead, nurse shark, and another hammerhead. 2 giant turtles (around 150-years old) - 4 ft diameter, 3 ft diameter. I swam/hitched a ride with the 2 ft diameter turtle. 2 giant eels (cute photos eh?). 2 huge barracudas (1.5 m and 2.5 m long). The dive master said it's the biggest barracuda he's seen in his 20 years of diving. The huge barracuda occupied the entire hull length of the ship wreck. 2 giant jude fishes as big as bookcases (5 ft x 3 ft) swimming with with 5 ft diameter eel. The boat dive master put some fish bait so there was a meeting of the big creatures on the wreck.

-J. Palencia