Summersville Lake, WV

CMU members who went:  Josephine Palencia, Felix Duvalet, Erica Karapandi 

Only 1 shore dive (no Pontoon boat).

Where: Battle Creek endmost section beyond the dock
           Summersville Lake, WV

Depth: 30feet for submerged white boat

Lessons learned:

* Assemble & inspect your gear early so you're ready on the getgo.

* A well-planned dive with a designed lead makes for a safer dive. Impromptu assignment of a dive leader is not a good idea. You always have an option to back out of a dive if safety is an issue.

* Never bepressured to leada dive you are not comfortable leading.

* For shore diving, inspect the entry route that would be easier for divers to enter. For Battle Creek dock endmost beyond the gate, left side of the dock has less rocks and uneven surface.

* To learn navigation on freshwater dive, stay close to the surface. That way you can easily check your position/direction without difficulty. When you master relying only on your instrument for depth/direction, go below and work on your bouyancy. 

* For the dive flag rope, have a looping mechanism to prevent tangling.

-J. Palencia

Seneca Rocks, WV

Felix, Michael, and Erica went to Seneca for a weekend of multipitch trad climbing. We met up with other Pittsburgh climbers and split up into two teams. The weather looked threatening Saturday but cooperated in the end. Michael did Gunsight to South Peak (a classic!), the first pitch of Le Gourmet, and Front C. Felix and Erica tagged the summit twice, the first time climbing Skyline Traverse to West Pole, and the second time climbing the classic Soler.

It rained all Saturday night, and Sunday morning things were quite wet. A constant light drizzle prevented anything from drying, but we grouped back together and braved it anyways, figuring the Southern Pillar would provide an easier opportunity to bail if (when) the weather moved in. After going up Climbing Punishment, we were ready to set up topropes when the weather *really* kicked in, soaking us in a matter of minutes. A late lunch on the front porch finished off a great weekend of climbing.

-F. Duvallet

New River Gorge, WV

Memorial day weekend is always a good opportunity to climb at those far-away crags, but this time we decided to stick closer to home and spend some time at the New. We checked out new crags we hadn't been to before and climbed classic lines at ones we'd visited plenty of times before. Monday was spent climbing at Summersville lake, and when the weather *really* got hot we dipped in the lake to cool off.

-F. Duvallet

McConnell's Mill State Park, PA

Two of us went to McConnells Mill for rock climbing. In addition to having fun climbing in the cold, we practiced setting up top rope anchors, rappelling, and belaying from above the climb. All went well for us. The new locking biners made it easier to set up climbs. However, we did encounter some other climbers who lacked the equipment and skills to safely climb. Unfortunately, our attempts to convince them of this failed.

-M. Tschantz

Cozumel, Mexico

Explorers members who went: Josephine Palencia

Flew from Pittsburgh directly to Cozumel, Mexico and stayed at Suites Bahia. It is a popular hotel for divers- affordable and right in the middle of downtown Cozumel. My companions stayed at the all inclusive Wyndham. This time there were just 7 of us scuba divers (several dive masters, rescue divers, Advanced OW) We dove for 6 days doing from 2 to 4 dives/day going with Prodive shop located inside Allegro Cozumel resort.

Below are the (popular, beautiful) dive sites we went to (with comments/highlights): lots of lobsters, crabs, moray eels, school fishes.

Palancar Gardens (85ft, 55min):
- Face to face with a 2-meter barracuda 1 ft away
- Several 8ft nurse sharks 20ft away

Palancar bricks (85ft, 56min)
- Love this site, beautiful large coral structure; many dive throughs, large turtles, eels, lobsters.

Palancar Caves (100ft, 55min)
- I previously dove this site in 6.20.2009 where the colors were in full bloom and spectacular. During this time, there was lots of bleaching and white sand covering the corals. Must be the time of the year or previous storms?

Santa Rosa wall (100ft to Abyssal depths, 55ft)
- This was one my favorites dive during the trip. Wall-diving. Abyss on the right and a wall on the left. Beautiful with a lot of large barracudas, huge fishes swarming about.

Puntar Sur (120ft, 55min)
- A very deep dive, a favorite also; nurse sharks, large spotted stingrays, moray eels, lots of lobsters, barracudas

San Francisco Wall (60ft, 45min)

Yucab (80ft, 55min)

Cedral Wall (80ft, 55ft)

Cedral Reef (60ft, 50min)
- Lots of fishes here, saw 2 nurse sharks

Washington (65ft, 49min)
- Fun dive, lots of fishes, giant green eel, 3 nurse sharks

I dove with nitrox-enhanced air (36%) starting Wednesday all the way to Friday. And in between diving, basically just strolled around downtown Cozumel buying $3-4 cozumel tshirts, drove around the little island with a tiny, stick-shift car that didn't give me a problem :) A great vacation away from everything. Definitely going back there.

-J. Palencia