When do you need con ed?

[Colliam7]

I am making a dive trip next week where I hope to do some technical diving. In preparation, because I hadn't done much at home in the last few months, I went out last night and did a dive designed to brush up. What I discovered was that I was rusty -- very rusty on some things. The stuff I actually DO on a regular basis was fine -- bag shoots, gas switches, ascending on a schedule. What didn't go well was valve shutdowns in midwater with no reference, because honestly, I have yet to shut down a valve in anger. . . . How often do you test your emergency skills, and with whom, and under what conditions?

I actually thought this was a good topic; apparently not many other people did

I will disagree with the second post. It is a very good topic, because it has confronted me with the need to accept, and correct, a degree of insidious complacency that I think has crept into my diving, and skill set, over the past 3 years. Since 2008, I have spent more time teaching diving, than learning diving. That doesn't mean I have become pool-bound. I have been actively diving for 'fun'. Ironically, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to teach OW students more effectively, how to teach AOW students, and specialty students, and sidemount students, etc., more effectively, and practicing techniques to demonstrate skills. And, certain skills have remained sharp, and probably improved, as a result. But, I have been less demanding of myself in other areas, specifically certain emergency procedures. As I read your post, I began thinking - 'When was the last time I did valve shutdowns on my BM doubles?'. The answer is, 'well over a year ago', and that is just not acceptable. In part, I have moved from BM to SM and have allowed certain BM skills to sag. I do valve shutdowns in SM, in part to show SM students how easy it is. But, last month, I went off the NC coast in my BM 100s, and jumped off a boat in 150 feet of water, without a second thought. I probably could have done a valve shutdown if needed, but it wouldn't have been pretty, it certainly wouldn't have been quick, and may not have been safe.

The other thing I realized after that trip, which also relates to your question about practicing emergency skills, is that I was becoming slack in assembling my rig, specifically with regard to carrying my lift bag and safety sausage. While the last diver was still down on the wreck on the last dive, and the rest of us had surfaced, and were re-boarding, the anchor pulled loose (actually ripped a big chunk of metal off the wreck) and the boat drifted off the site a bit. We didn't realize that, and after a few minutes began to get worried because the diver hadn't surfaced, and we could no longer see the diver's bubbles, even though he had been on the wreck behind us, and indicated as we ascended that he would coming up in a few minutes. The captain finally asked me to gear up and jump in to find him. Right before I did, we spotted his lift bag about 200 yards off the bow, so my mission changed, to unhooking us from the wreck, so we could go retrieve him, presuming he had been carried off the wreck by current. I jumped in again, solo this time, and descended the line to find that we were no longer tied to a wreck, but instead were dragging a big hunk of metal across the ocean bottom. I had to position myself to unwrap the anchor from the metal, while it was being dragged, and manage to hold onto to anchor line at the same time (without being speared by the anchor tines), so I could ascend back to the boat. As I was doing that, the thought crossed my mind - 'if I lose contact with this anchor line, not only am I not on the known wreck site, unlike the other diver I can't float a bag or a marker' - BECAUSE I DIDN'T BRING MINE WHEN I JUMPED IN. Afterward, the other diver described his calm, controlled response to returning to the tie-in point on the wreck, only to see a line of stirred up silt/sand leading off away from the wreck, instead of the up line. I silently confessed to myself (but didn't really point out to everyone else on the boat) that I hadn't even bothered to take my lift bag with me when I jumped in to free the anchor. (OK, I did have my mirror, and whistle, and reel. But, no bag, no sausage, etc.)

So, thank you for the post. Combined with my recent experience, it is a much-needed, and welcome, wake up call.

 

[Ste Wart]

After a 5 month hiatus (I don't even want to talk about how much it drove me up the wall!) I finally managed to get away last week for some tech diving on Malta.

In this period I have basically gone over all my equipment with a fine tooth comb. This meant pulling the bladders out and examining for salt crystals; there were quite a lot! Stripping 3 out of 4 regs. Number 4 had been serviced less than a year ago, and guess which one wasn't dive ready when I did the bubble check, yep number 4. A job now I'm back home.

Anyway. The first dive was a shallow one just to check weighting; I didn't need any. The water was 26 and my 5mm was more than adequate. So off we went. The shop wanted to see a long hose donate. Fine take it, there we go no problems. But that was it??! So the rest of the warm-up I spent in the rear just drilling myself. I ran through an IANTD shutdown, and made sure I didn't break depth, no dramas. I did a back-up mask deployment. Not absolutely pretty, but no variation in depth, just a bit of tug-o-war removing it from my hip pocket. The end of the dive was an SMB deployment in 3 metres of water. Here I let myself down. Partly because my SMB is rather large and it is not suited for shallow inflation; ideally it should be shot from depth. The other reason is, normally I don't use it. All my tech has been from shore or coming up the shot-line. I've never been part of the so-called 'sausage brigade' who send theirs up on every dive. So have my skills deteriorated on the SMB deployment? Probably not, I'm prepared to admit it is a weakness in my skills arsenal.

Next dive was just a shallow wreck with stages, more for comfort than purpose. I've recently installed a sidemount d-ring on my crotch strap to allow my stages to ride lower, rather than stick up at the perpendicular. Which always makes me wonder why tech divers talk so much about streamlining and then will have the bottoms of their stages pointing skyward. Still, a little practice checking the d-ring was mounted low enough on my ass to allow firm connection and that I could move it forward to the right hip d-ring for deco. However I found that this wasn't necessary as I could manipulate the valve handle and reg comfortably in the tighter configuration. I did try and take some photos, but as it was only me holding out the camera, and snapping blindly it didn't come out right.

2 dives done and then a normoxic dive. A small wreck called the Drifter Eddy at 55m. Nice bottom time of 20 mins while decoing on a 20/85 GF. So my first deco in 5 months. Trim was good and ascent speeds were spot on. My switch to my 50% was OK, a little out and I could have been better, by this I mean faster. However I always do a 2 minute stop on switches to make sure they really go in (nothing to do with the Oxygen window, just something I do). The final 6m stop as always is agonisingly boring. Something that has never changed for me. As the minutes tick by I really have to focus on maintaining the stop as my interest levels had dropped to zero and I can see the boat tantalisingly close above me. I trully envy the guys who set up deco stations to sit on!

So overall. What can I say about my performance. Some stuff is there and will always be there. I didn't magically forget buoyancy,ascent and trim. I was pleased with my shutdowns, but I actually wanted to do a shutdown. I prepared myself to do a shutdown, there was no emergency, would the outcome have been the same if a problem had occurred? Who knows. Gas switching was a lot better the following day on a shallower wreck of only 40m. So I felt that I would have been capable/comfortable of doing hypoxic dives had time allowed. I think I can say that 5 months is a big gap in diving, even for me with 2000+ dives. But what I didn't feel is that I wasn't capable of doing deco dives anymore. I've taken the courses I've followed up with my own dives and I still learn from my diving. Not all of us have the ability to dive every weekend or everyday, but that does not mean we should hand in our trimix certs and dig out our jacket BCD's. It just means that you have to be prepared to put in the warm-up dives when you do want to attempt at your highest cert level.

 

[ucfdiver]

Bob, we try to keep things light! After all, if you can't laugh at yourself, who will?

JeffG