September 2024 – Page 2 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Indonesia: Part 2

By Mike Huber

It took about a week to get to Flores, Indonesia from Bali, as it is over 1,000 kilometers away. This was accomplished via three ferries and finally, a 4-day cruise. The cruise was a blast, but once aboard I realized it was a one-way cruise and I would have to find a ferry back (which could take up to 36 hours) or book a return flight to Bali. Normally this would alarm most people, but I had time to kill and quickly learned Flores was an Indonesian scuba diving mecca. Some of the most beautiful wildlife could be seen diving here. This was not a bad place to have a several-day layover.

It didn’t take long to find a scuba company. It had only been a few days since my prior dive and I was already itching to get back underwater. I chose a dive center based on its three-dives-in-one-day regimen. Most the other dive centers only offered two dives in one day. This would help rack up my dive numbers (and my experience, as I would soon learn).

Diving the Komodo Islands is just amazing on so many levels. The biggest draw is the wildlife. The second draw is the strength of the underwater currents. On an average dive we would float with the current for close to an hour and travel several kilometers during the dive. The current was a constant underwater river that was at times overwhelming, depending on the direction it was taking you.

If you got caught in a side current it would feel like you were on the Space Station and someone just cut your tether and you were floating off into nothingness. Feelings of anxiety emerged when this happened, and this caused me to go through more of my air and shorten my dive. It was always important to remain calm, move slowly, and not over-react. That’s easier said than done.

The cool part about these currents is when I was in a “controlled” area I could just watch the beautiful corals go by. The downside was if I saw a turtle or another cool species of wildlife, I really couldn’t get to it as I was swept along with the current. We were told, if possible, to get low to the ocean floor and grab a large rock as an anchor so we could enjoy the wildlife.

I took this rock grabbing suggestion as I happened upon three beautiful manta rays. They were huge, about 12 feet in width. While blowing by them in the current it was like they were in an underwater thermal hovering in place motionless unaffected by the strong currents. It was like watching a stealth fighter Jet hover. Meanwhile I was doing my best to slow down to try to remain close to them. As I descended to the ocean floor seeking refuge from the currents behind a large piece of coral, I grabbed a rock. I instantly felt something sharp on my fingers. I had accidently grabbed a sea urchin and the spines were in all my fingers to include deep under my fingernail. Almost instantly a large gushing of green fluid began pouring out of my fingers. This is when I learned you bleed green when you are deep under water.

Realizing there was nothing I could do about the bleeding until I surfaced, my focus was on watching the manta rays flying by as the current pulled me just underneath them. During this time, I religiously checked my air levels on my respirator. Once I hit 60 bar (25%) it would be time to slowly return to the surface.

We began our ascent to a 3-minute safety stop at 5 meters below the surface to allow our bodies to adjust to the pressure. At around 10 meters and still being abused by the strong currents I went to breathe in and there was nothing there. It was as though I was breathing through a straw and then suddenly someone put their finger over the end. I was out of air. This was a good time to see how much of the training I actually retained and how much of I ignored while being distracted by the beautiful scuba instructor in Australia.

More epic adventures are here!

A Garand Day At The Range

By Joe Berk

I had the Garand out a couple of weeks ago and I had a blast. I was on the range by 7:00 a.m., I had the place to myself, and the sun was at my back. In those early morning sessions with the sun directly behind me and low in the sky, the front sight is sharp and at just the right distance from my aging eyes. I can focus on it, and when you’re shooting any firearm with iron sights, that’s the only place you want to be focused.

My Garand is nothing fancy; in fact, it’s sort of a mutt. I bought it several years ago from a small shop in Corona, and it’s a kluge of parts. The receiver is from CAI (which is supposed to be one that’s not very good, but my rifle doesn’t know that), the trigger group is from Beretta (they made a Garand-based rifle years ago), and the rest of the parts are a “who knows?” collection. My Garand wouldn’t cycle reliably when I bought it, so I bought a new gas cylinder (new to me; it was a well used part but it met spec) from SARCO in Philadelphia and that fixed the problem.

I ran into another issue, and that was the first shot always going significantly low left (about 10 inches at 100 yards). I couldn’t find what was causing that problem, and then one day I took the rear sight apart when it felt a little loose. I greased everything, adjusted it to where I wanted it to be, and then tightened the elevation adjustment screw to remove any play. That did it: The low left first round issue went away.

I’ve experimented with a few different loads, and I found what everyone else has found: The secret sauce is 47.0 grains of IMR 4064 and either the Sierra 168-grain jacketed hollowpoint boattail Matchking bullet, or its clone from Speer. My rifle is more accurate with the Sierra bullets, but their price is nearly twice what Speer gets for their bullets. The ammo you see here used the last of my Speer bullets; my next loads will be with Sierra Matchkings.

Reloaded Garand ammo on the bench at the range.

I’m not scaring any National Match competitors, but for an old dude with weak eyesight, I can still do okay. “Okay” is a relative term, I know. Here’s what 20 shots at 100 yards look like from that day on the range.

20 shots at 100 yards. Speer 168 gr FMJBT, 47.0 gr IMR 4064, a cartridge overall length of 3.295 inches, and Winchester primers at 100 yards. Close enough for government work, as our soldiers found out in World War II and Korea. I used mixed brass from PMC and PPU; the group would have been better had I used only one brand.

Here’s the Garmin chronograph data for the above 20 shots:

The Garmin is well worth the money. I am enjoying mine.

I love military rifles, and I love shooting the Garand. I shoot mine regularly. My daughter once got a shot of me on the range and she caught the brass case in midair (it’s the photo you see at the top of this blog). We have other stories on the Garand as well as other military surplus rifles (see our Tales of the Gun page). If you have a Garand (or any military surplus rifle you enjoy shooting), we’d love to hear about it. Please leave a comment below.

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Indonesia: Part 1

Mike Huber

My visa was nearing expiration in Australia (I had 90 days left), and my speeding tickets were exceeding $1700 Australian. The speeding tickets were from cameras. In the United States, the Constitution protects us (you can fight and win those tickets 100% of the time in the USA, but not in Australia). It was time to choose a new country to visit, at least for a short while. To me it made sense to leave my beloved Oceania and head north. Looking at the map, Southeast Asia beckoned.

Indonesia, in particular, seemed to be the best choice, and it would be my next destination. Bali, to be exact. This would provide a less westernized culture than the previous countries I had visited. Another advantage was it appealed to my new interest. I kept hearing how magnificent the scuba diving was there. So that would be incorporated into my adventures.

After the whirlwind trip through Australia, the first three days in Bali (except for some morning surfing) were spent resting in my hotel room. I needed the time to recharge and just sit back and pretend I was on vacation. Yes, I know I am sort of always on vacation, but even with this laid-back lifestyle the constant moving becomes a fulltime job.

Once rested it was time to book several ferries and boats out to Komodo National Park (it isn’t easy to get to). Visiting this epic National Park would provide me with the chance to see Komodo dragons, the largest lizard on Earth, as well as plenty of opportunities to hone my new skills as a diver. This was an experience that I could not miss while visiting Indonesia.

The day trip to Komodo Island was fantastic. What made it most memorable was actually seeing a few of these giant reptiles in the wild, as up close and personal as I was comfortable with. That distance happened to be about 6 feet for me I soon learned. Even though being in a tour group of 20 people when the Komodo dragon chose a path, our group was instructed to let it through. The crowd parted like the Red Sea and the giant reptile chose the direction it wanted, and it moved with a purpose!

These giants can move up to 12 miles per hour. Some weigh as much as 150 pounds. They can take down local deer and they have no natural enemies. This meant we were guests on their island and without a stick or other type of weapon we were not on the top of the food chain. It’s always a humbling moment when you realize this.

After a day exploring Komodo National Park with large sticks in hand, I found myself in Flores, Indonesia. It’s a small island about an hour’s boat ride from Komodo National Park. Little did I realize how much of a scuba diving mecca this was (see any of my previous articles about my lack of planning). There were literally dive shops and tours every three to four buildings. It was that densely populated with the scuba community. It was perfect. This would be a great home base for a week or so to dive and continue catching up on rest from the Australia travels. It now was time to book a scuba adventure in Bali, Indonesia.

More epic adventures are here!

Scuba: Part 2

By Mike Huber

It was 0700 and the location was a pier in Cairns Australia as 30 of us were boarding a live-aboard boat to perform 9 scuba dives over the next 3 days and 2 nights. There were only 3 of us that had never performed an open water scuba dive before, and I was one of them. It would take 5 dives while completing our drills for us to obtain our PADI open water certification. We were ready.

It took the boat about 3 hours to get out to the reef for our first dive. 27 of the others were seasoned divers, so as the newbies we felt privileged they’d help us gear up and make jokes about our fumbling around prior to getting into the water.

Others may disagree with me and that is fine, but I have sky dived and to me, nothing felt closer to jumping out of an airplane as a paratrooper than scuba diving. You suit up, perform checks on your gear and your scuba buddy’s gear, shuffle to the edge of the boat, give an OK to the dive master who checks your air is on (I always stuck my hand out and yelled “ALL OK JUMPMASTER!” just to get into the moment a bit more), and jump off the boat into the water. I understand the two experiences are almost polar opposites, but what isn’t is the comradery and the procedures prior to diving (or jumping out of an airplane).

As soon as I hit the ocean waters of the Great Barrier Reef in full scuba gear I felt two things: A brief moment of anxiety, just as I felt in the pool during onshore training, and when we signaled to go down. This was a moment of bliss and freedom as you leave the world you know and enter a realm of tranquility beneath the ocean. It was so similar to exiting an aircraft as you leave the chaos and perform the 4-second count prior to your parachute opening. Both are moments when you have a quick chat with the big guy upstairs and are alone in the world. There are few experiences in life that compare to these. I was instantly hooked on scuba diving.

Our first five dives were work. They encompassed the same drills over and over that we performed in the pool. The objective was to review the same emergency procedures for a multitude of issues that you can face while underwater, and how to calmly overcome them. This was another similarity to being a paratrooper. The only big difference is there was less yelling for your mistakes, but the instructor did have a whiteboard to correct any errors you were making while on the dive. Another reason I knew my instructor was great was when she wrote my mistakes on her whiteboard for, I literally could hear her stern voice in my head just as clear and loud as if we were above water.

Upon all three of us successfully meeting the criteria we were now PADI Certified Open Water Scuba Divers. Now it was time to begin having fun and enjoying the benefits of diving. We were on The Great Barrier Reef after all and the coral and wildlife we saw over the next 3 days was magical. We were literally in God’s aquarium. Each of the dive sites we experienced had something unique to offer, from schools of colorful fish, to sea turtles, to even a couple nurse and reef sharks. If I wasn’t hooked before on this new hobby, I surely was now.

The remainder of the days were passed with dives, delicious food, and wonderful new friends. The beauty of this live aboard boat were absolutely the people I was surrounded by. We each had different experience levels in diving, and were from countries all around the World, yet we all bonded over this one passion, scuba diving. Once the evening festivities died down instead of returning to the tight quarters below deck a few of us decided to sleep on the open upper deck of the vessel. This was the perfect way to wind down. We would tell a few jokes while staring at the Southern Cross as it slowly made its way across the sky until we fell asleep, and in the morning awaking to the sunrise hitting this spectacular part of the World and lighting up the Australian Flag as the sun rose. A feeling of accomplishment washed across me each day and evening of this trip. It may have been the most rewarding time along my travels to this day, and for good reason. I had found a new way to add even further adventure to my travels.