Wow what a difference a year makes. This time last year Tina and I did our last wetsuit dive with the CHUM club at the Blue Lagoon Dive Lake in Huntsville TX. It was memorable because we had already ordered our drysuits but were just waiting for them to arrive. The water temp last year was 49° F and we were really cold. CHUM does a dive a month challenge called DAM Chummer and the objective is to dive at least 1 time per month for the year. You get cool little awards for completing the challenge. This was really some of the motivation for us going dry in the first place. We are glad we did. The CHUM members awarded us with our DAM 12 patches and took our pictures for the website. We aren’t normally able to attend the club meetings because it’s downtown Houston on Thursday evenings. Traffic is a nightmare. So we normally just get shirts and patches when we meet them all for dive outings.
Blue Lagoon like you’ve never seen it before
This year Tina and I dove with CHUM on the 6th of February and it was a great time. At least 10 people showed up to brave the cold water. Divers from all background converged on the lagoon and we all dove in one big group just having a blast. The water temperature this year was 53-55°. The visibility was amazing for Blue Lagoon and total dive time for us was about 55 minutes. We hung with the group until they slowly all made their way back to the shore as the cold set in. After about 45 minutes, we found ourselves alone and decided to just play in the shallows. This was the first time we had dove with doubles and the thicker undergarments so the balance was just slightly off. I could have maybe used a bit of extra lead but I didn’t have any problem with buoyancy. Both of us messed around with adding air, dumping, reaching our valves and just general position holding. It was really fun. 
Tina was wearing her BZ400 and I wore a BZ200 with the thick santi wool base. She was warm and it was nice to see that Tina was diving in cold water and not shivering. We also had dry gloves and hoods. We have both been trying to find a nice hood and I’ve probably ordered at least half a dozen and sent them back. Some would just be uncomfortable, others were just not very good quality. What we used this weekend was the the Waterproof H1 hood and it’s awesome. It has a little vent on top that vents air out and the overall quality is great. We didn’t have to trim the hood at all and it seals the water around our heads wonderfully. I could even feel the warm water moving around as I moved my head. This dive was the first dive that I can remember not actually feeling the cold water on my face. It was awesome.
Anyway the diving was great and I filmed a little using the go pro.