Okay, so, BP/W is awesome.
I dove Saturday at BW for my NorCal reorientation. While I was away I managed to order sort of a lot of stuff to play with, including a 36lb Halcyon courtesy of ScubaBoard and a longhose. Also new: spring straps and SMB/Spool. Four of us dove in two buddy groups.
First dive we went along to the pipe to avoid the OW students. Before we dropped down, I realized that my webbing was significantly looser than I anticipated it being. When I adjusted it, i was dry and standing up, so gravity was helping to keep the straps tight. Swimming, not so much. We dropped down and played with buoyancy for a bit. Even with the loose straps it was much tigher than the BCs I've used. I asked my buddy for a "trim report" and corrected myself to match. I then attempted to backkick which to my amazement resulted in me moving somewhat backwards. Then we practiced some airsharing drills with the 7ft hose. On one attempt I got a kink in it (quickly resolved), but otherwise it was great. It wasn't in my way and deployed really easily. Visibility was easily 25' and we just did some more drills for a bit, then we followed the pipe to the end and returned. We floated upside down to watch a flock of chrysaura above us, amazing.
Since everything was going well, at 25' one of my buddies helped me shoot the SMB. It went fairly well, except that I had some trouble remembering how to work with 5mm gloves on. Stupid vacation in Florida. I was also terrified of getting dragged up to the surface and put nowhere near enough air in, however I felt okay for my first attempt. I did sort of give up with buoyancy and put my fin tips down to stabilize myself though.
For the second dive, the other buddy pair skipped out. I was awfully cold, but I labeled it as "too used to Florida" and sucked it up. My buddy later told me it was 48F on his gauge (I tend to be fairly cold <50F). We swam out to the 6 marker on the BW, dropped down and went along the wall for a fair ways. I considered calling the dive a couple times (cold), and in the end gave in and called turnaround before pressure dictated. A friendly sea lion was following us around and eventually came and played with us. He dove behind my buddy and floated there, blowing bubbles along with my buddy. Totally cute. A little under a half tank, my buddy and I each realized that the other one of us was desperately cold so I took another shot at the SMB and we surfaced. I was determined to do this without touching the bottom this time, but managed to drift 10' deeper along the wall while I was attempting to connect it to the reel. Not noticing my depth change, I naturally hadn't compensated for the buoyancy change and hit my knee on a rock. Also, I didn't fully inflate the bag again, and it sat impotent at the surface awaiting our arrival. More practice needed
Ran into one of my regular buddies who was TAing his dad's OW class, and I think I saw Mike (or someone who looks exactly like his SB pictures) in his class. Also, while following the pipe I passed by a guy with double Fabers who looked like someone I'd seen in pictures.
Long story short, yay BP/W! (although I still need a lot of practice)
I dove Saturday at BW for my NorCal reorientation. While I was away I managed to order sort of a lot of stuff to play with, including a 36lb Halcyon courtesy of ScubaBoard and a longhose. Also new: spring straps and SMB/Spool. Four of us dove in two buddy groups.
First dive we went along to the pipe to avoid the OW students. Before we dropped down, I realized that my webbing was significantly looser than I anticipated it being. When I adjusted it, i was dry and standing up, so gravity was helping to keep the straps tight. Swimming, not so much. We dropped down and played with buoyancy for a bit. Even with the loose straps it was much tigher than the BCs I've used. I asked my buddy for a "trim report" and corrected myself to match. I then attempted to backkick which to my amazement resulted in me moving somewhat backwards. Then we practiced some airsharing drills with the 7ft hose. On one attempt I got a kink in it (quickly resolved), but otherwise it was great. It wasn't in my way and deployed really easily. Visibility was easily 25' and we just did some more drills for a bit, then we followed the pipe to the end and returned. We floated upside down to watch a flock of chrysaura above us, amazing.
Since everything was going well, at 25' one of my buddies helped me shoot the SMB. It went fairly well, except that I had some trouble remembering how to work with 5mm gloves on. Stupid vacation in Florida. I was also terrified of getting dragged up to the surface and put nowhere near enough air in, however I felt okay for my first attempt. I did sort of give up with buoyancy and put my fin tips down to stabilize myself though.
For the second dive, the other buddy pair skipped out. I was awfully cold, but I labeled it as "too used to Florida" and sucked it up. My buddy later told me it was 48F on his gauge (I tend to be fairly cold <50F). We swam out to the 6 marker on the BW, dropped down and went along the wall for a fair ways. I considered calling the dive a couple times (cold), and in the end gave in and called turnaround before pressure dictated. A friendly sea lion was following us around and eventually came and played with us. He dove behind my buddy and floated there, blowing bubbles along with my buddy. Totally cute. A little under a half tank, my buddy and I each realized that the other one of us was desperately cold so I took another shot at the SMB and we surfaced. I was determined to do this without touching the bottom this time, but managed to drift 10' deeper along the wall while I was attempting to connect it to the reel. Not noticing my depth change, I naturally hadn't compensated for the buoyancy change and hit my knee on a rock. Also, I didn't fully inflate the bag again, and it sat impotent at the surface awaiting our arrival. More practice needed
Ran into one of my regular buddies who was TAing his dad's OW class, and I think I saw Mike (or someone who looks exactly like his SB pictures) in his class. Also, while following the pipe I passed by a guy with double Fabers who looked like someone I'd seen in pictures.
Long story short, yay BP/W! (although I still need a lot of practice)
