Underwater Pumpkin Carving Contest 2007

Our dive shop, the Waterfront Diving Center of Burlington, Vermont, sponsors an annual underwater pumpkin carving contest in Lake Champlain. Since Carole only got certified last year and Jay this year, we couldn't take part until this year. Some folks have taken part every year and know all the tricks, but we haven't and we didn't. Little things like "put a weight inside your pumpkin so you're not fighting for dear life to keep it from floating away while you carve it" didn't occur to us. Nor did the idea of leaving the lid on shore and reattaching it once we got done. Despite a strip of duct tape meant to keep the lid attached, it came free and floated to the surface and Jay had to go up and search for it at one point before it floated off to the far side of the lake. We took some video and pictures of our struggles. The video can be seen here.

Lots of people did incredibly exotic designs, including the winning pumpkin which was carved to resemble an old-fashioned rigid metal diving helmet ... but with an actual live fish swimming around inside. Ours wasn't so much to look at but wait 'til next year!

A competent diver with professional-quality equipment took some very nice photos underwater. We weren't in any of them, but they're still nice to look at. (Okay, technically, we are in one of the shots, taken after the event was over but shown first on the page. In the photo showing all the participants and their pumpkins back at the shop, we're at the far left. Carole's right at the base of the big dive flag and Jay's the bearded guy in the white t-shirt directly in front of her.)

Lest we forget, there was a $20 per person entry fee. With 28 contestants and a few other divers observing, a decent chunk of change was raised. The proceeds went to benefit the Divers Alert Network (DAN). The shop was trying to build awareness of DAN as well as raise some funds to help DAN in its mission. We're already members -- note our DAN tags attached to our BCs (for example, to the left of the pumpkin in the picture, above) and wouldn't go diving without our DAN insurance. DAN also donated door prizes -- Carole wound up winning a one-year individual membership to DAN and Jay won three DAN luggage/dive bag tags.