Report CEDIP *** + Adv. Nitrox Class, Nov. 2008

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Imre

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Location
Brittany, France
# of dives
100 - 199
Report CEDIP *** + Adv. Nitrox Class, Nov. 2008

Greetings to all of you,

I hesitated about posting this class report on an american forum as probably none of you will follow these classes, but in the end I thought it provides an interesting peak into the diving cultures and habits of other countries. This might be in the wrong forum.

This report is an adaptation of a report I posted on the french forum Plongeur.com. It's adaptated for the public of scubaboard.

First, let me explain the background, us french having the tradition of detailing everything in laws (and it being a pain in the a**), the scuba diving activity in structures (clubs or shops, not private dives) is regulated by law, and those laws take your certification into account. The maximum freedom allowed by those laws without hassle for air dives (without the need of having a DM dive with you) corresponds to what we call "Autonomous Diver", which corresponds to CMAS / CEDIP *** diver, or level 3 diver, which lets you dive legally with 1 or 2 other divers of the same level from 0 to 200ft, on air. All the dive classes (non-PADI) here in France are deco dives. I decided to do this class along with an Advanced Nitrox class (use of nitrox (21-100% O2) on deco dives).

This report is aimed at giving an idea about how such a class happens, and to broaden your general diving culture about diving classes, as it's probably something not detailed often here.

To give a little background, I started diving about 1.5 years ago, and started from scratch to lvl 2 diver (autonomous to 80ft, with DM to 130ft) along with basic nitrox certification. The dive classes and the diving that followed all happened in my home region of Brittany, France, well known by everyone for it's tropical weather, calm sea conditions and incredible visibility (sarcasm). Following that I dived with various dive operators during the year, I sacrificed my piggy bank to the altar of dive gear, and I'm nearing this new training period with about 60 dives, more than half on wrecks in various conditions: visibility from 60 ft to not being able to see our own fins, depth from 0 to 130ft, current or not, day, night, and so on. Pretty much like every other diver in the region. The only common point is that the water temperature with 45°F to 65°F never really takes off.

Having decided for some time to take a break from work in november, I contact a local dive shop with which I had dived a few times before, Blue Live, located near the town of Lorient , a town where the germans had built their main U-Boot base during WW2 (the base still exists to this day, and is still in use). Today, the town is a classic Breton coast town : navy presence (naval commandos are located there), lots of sailors, fishermen and divers. I recontact the shop the week before I'm supposed to start training in order to check the weather conditions, this seem clear so the class is confirmed.

My pre-class "preparation" (appart from diving and exercising) consisted in reading what's available on the net in order to clarify the content of the CEDIP/CMAS *** course content (french version), I lurk forums, I play with MVPlan, Decoplanner and co, and I read a couple of Nitrox books.

So I arrive on Sat. Nov. 1st for the start of the class. The dive shop has 2 instructors, and a couple students here for various classes of all levels, each with his own schedule. I learn that I'll start by doing two nitrox dives, which will let me start gently, and I suppose will let the instructors decide how much work they'll have to do so that I don't drown in a puddle. I take my tank (15L steel of Nx32) and my stage deco tank (7L Nx 45 for today). Those things are heavy. My instructor starts the day and the class by surprising me when he tells me that it's nice and interesting to do the Advanced Nitrox class along with the *** class, but if the goal is to dive after the class with an additional stage tank, then I'm gonna be doing all the dives for both classes with said stage tank, after all the goal is to learn and get used to it. Welcome to full BC Jacket : this is my tank, there are many like it but this one is mine.

That said, I put on my semi-dry suit -more like semi-wet-, get on the boat and here we go. The wind is east->west so the temperatures are not high, but the sea is flat, which is always nice when you have boat rides. The goal of the dives of the day is to find a stage tank position that I'm confortable with, get used to said tank, spy on my during the dives, and prepare the dives of the next day that will be done on U-171 (WW2 german u-boot that blew up on a mine, located at about 130ft down) where the stage tank will be used in real conditions.

DIVE 1 - Nitrox - Wreck (Speerbraker-134, sunken by british plane during WW2)

I equip myself on the boat, slinging the deco tank at top and hip left d-ring.Back entry and down we go following the ancor line. The wreck is at about 85ft. After a few minutes of exploration, the first impression is that I'm heavy, and not very well balanced, despite having put my weight 1kg more to the right to counterbalance my stage tank. Anyway, I unhook, re-hook, and so on until I find a position I like. A bit more exploration and then we go back up on the anchor line, 3mins safety stop on the line and on the stage tank. Personnal note, my canister greeforce light is nice, but with an additional stage tank, I'm gonna have to find a goodman hangle. For the next dives I'll adjust my weight.

DIVE 2 - Nitrox - Coast of Groix Island

Same goal as the morning dive, get used to the gear. During the dive, which is shallower than the one before, I'll switch a few times between the main tank and the stage tank in order to get used to opening/closing the deco bottle, switching regs and so on.

DIVE 3 - Nitrox - Wreck (U-171)

On Sunday morning, we head towards the U-171, an U-Boot wreck I dived a couple of times. My buddy is also in a lvl 3 class, and an instructor will dive with us. I'm the only one on Nx so I won't really get the benefits of enriched air, but it's still a good exercise in real dive conditions. My buddy dives tables and not computer so we plan the dive precisely before going down. The boat launches us on a buoy that was put on the wreck for the dive (will be picked up when the dive is over), the boat will act as surface security around it while people are diving. The buoy has been anchored near the sub's kiosk. This is a nice dive despite today's visibility of around 15-20ft down at 130ft. A detail that we forgot during our surface planning is that since we were the last ones to dive, we'll have to detach the line that was put there for the dive, and it takes a good minute to do it. It's not that big a deal since the kiosk is at about 105ft, but it's still an element that will have to be taked into account for future dives (same thing is we have to put lift bags on boats anchors before ascending.) We ascend on the buoy's line, I switch on the stage tank when its MOD is cleared and finish the dive and deco stops on it.

DIVE 4 - Lvl 3 - Wreck (Speerbreaker-134)

Sunday afternoon, this dive starts the *** class. I'm still loaded like a pack mule with the canister light, the stage tank, etc. I'm diving on air and I try for the first time the new miflex hoses I put on my DS4 regs. This miflex stuff is funny. Anyway, we go down to the sand and start a first battery of exercises at about 80ft. I take my mask off, make funny faces, we do out of air exercices, the usual. We have fun like we can. I'm taken by surprise when I try my first assisted ascent (it's an excercise where the buddy signals a problem, I take control of him, start a controled ascent (speed, etc) manipulating both my and his gear, and either surface or stop at deco depth depending on the situation) on the instructor. The positionning of my stage tank wasn't really compatible with how I was used to doing those assisted ascents, so I move around a bit, grab him by the front and up we go. At the end of the dive, safety stop on the line switching on the deco tank at the ascent start.

DIVE 5 - Lvl 3 - Wreck (Speerbreaker-134)

Monday morning. The wind turned and now is west-east, so we're starting to have some swell (6ft). Same kind of exercices.

The weather and sea conditions deteriorating during the day, the afternoon will be classroom teaching, for adv. nitrox theory, equipment, gas filling, etc.

After a little break, the class starts again on wednesday afternoon.

DIVE 6 - Lvl 3 - Coast of Groix

Despite all the gear I'm still carrying, the afternoon's exercises will mostly consist in surface drills. After all, it's not over when you bring someone to the surface. I realise the boat is pretty high on the water... all the more when you have to get your unconscious buddy on it. The lesson is learned, it's the kind of stuff you think about before going in the water.

DIVE 7 - lvl 3

On thursday morning, we stop between Lorient and Groix, in an unnamed spot, the only goal being to have more than 100ft to do our exercices. Down at the bottom, there's a beautiful landscape of black silt, green silt, gray silt and brown silt. We're two divers doing the 3class, with an instructor. We'll therefore do 4 assisted ascents (2 each), with variable degrees of success. When we finish the dive, I'm elected to deploy an SMB so that we can do our deco stops. I launch the SMB from our last ascent stop of 40ft, we ascend and at 20ft I open my stage bottle, switch on the deco gas and of course, murphy's law happens and my air reg goes on free flow. I purge it, switch the venturi and it's holding. I was surprised a couple seconds, and still lost 10bar of gas, but it's a good exercise (unplanned!), all the more when one of your hands is taken by the spool. Despite the nasty looks my dive buddies are sending me when we begin the Suunto 3 minutes (tm), I stay firm and we finish our deco.

DIVE 8 - lvl 3 - Coast of Groix

In the afternoon, we do surface gear drills again, with a couple additional elements. The dive buddy suddenly (what a traitor!) goes unconscious at about 50ft depth, and loses his reg. The goal is to take control of him, ascend to the surface and then get him on the boat. When it's my turn to get saved, it blocks a little getting me on the boat. My brilliant idea of using the knife to slash the inflattable part of the boat so that it's easier to haul me in doesn't make me particularly popular so my pansy buddy just deflates the part where he's gonna haul me in. I still maintain a knife rescue sounds so much more heroic. That said, my commando buddy (true story) demonstrates his experience in hauling unconscious people aboard ships and soon I'm sleeping at the feet of the pilot.

DIVE 9 - lvl 3 - Wreck (Guido Morhing "cannon wreck", another german ww2 wreck)

On Friday, we get a little break from the usual drills. The weather forecast is pretty bad (it's the WE the vendee globe race starts), with a forecast of bad winds and big swells over the next 4 days (30+knot regular winds and 5m+ swells), so it'll be the last day of dives of the week. On this dive (about 90-100ft), the goal is to work on managing the dive itself, planification, directing the dive, check the anchor when we go down, clear it when we ascend, etc.. SMB deployment, then deco stop on the stage tank.

DIVE 10 - lvl 3 - Coast of Groix

The second dive is a bit of a mix of everything, with a little compass nav, following a path specified at the surface before the dive. I love compass navigation, it's pretty fun. After a little underwater travel, with a few bonuses along the way (electrical ray, called torpedo ray here and a Zeus Faber fish), I go into siesta mode in order to reste, and I let my buddy, also in the same *** class take me up, tract me back to the boat and haul me on it. It's a cool non-tiring way to end a dive. But if you mess on the compass, you're not gonna make any friends.

After the bad weather is over (well, mostly), we start work again, and what's better for a refreshing course than a bit of silt!

DIVE 11 - lvl 3 - More Silt

From the nasty pea soup color of the water when we board the boat, the visibility reveals (or not) itself to be indeed more than limited. So all 3 people that make the dive group take on strobes and down we go. After about 110ft of descending in the brown, we stop. Visibility is about 7 ft. We can see our fins, but not very much past that, and past 80ft it was almost night anyway.
What fun! Anyway, my first assisted ascent is pretty much a failure, mostly due to me being surprised by the volume that my new buddy's wing has, along with the pretty big displacement of the water column during the ascent.

DIVE 12 - lvl 3 - Revenge of the Silt

On the next day, we go to the same place, but having slept on it and not being surprised by my buddy's gear (it was good to train on all types of gear, bc jackets, wings, dry suits, wetsuits, etc), the ascent speed and stop are pretty well controled and we stop just like planned. Having done more than a dozen dives by now with it, I'm getting confortable with managing the stage tank, even if I have to manage the SMB.

DIVE 13 - lvl 3 Coast of Groix

Knowing the dive site, I take care of the safety briefing, I manage the anchor stuff (launching/checking it/clearing/hauling it up), and so on.

DIVE 14 - Nitrox - Wreck (Speerbreaker 134)

For this last dive of the class, I'm grouped with an Open Water lvl diver and an instructor. I'm supposed to lead the dive, and the primary directive is to respect depths limit to the milimeter. After a quarter hour under 66.0000 ft, I get a 7 ft bonus and we go down a bit more to look at some critters. I test the bulk of my gear by going through the pins of a giant wheel that is at the front of the wreck (it was used to support a cannon, in order to point it in any direction). It was just a test, not for fun at all, no no no. In any case, the dive's soon over when the OW diver gets low on gas and it's time to hang up my fins for the week.

All along the course of the class, the advice/references/stories of my instructors were related to the main goal of the *** class, which is autonomy, all the chosen examples being always the worst possible (dive group of 2, no one on the boat, etc...) So I end up my 2 weeks having learned quite a bit, but more importantly being aware that every dive is different and that I still have a lot to learn. But I'll learn by practicing and when practicing is this fun, what is there to complain about :)

I hope this class report was fun to read and provided you with a different outlook on diving, by showing the type of classes we are taught.
 
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Very interesting read. Thanks for posting.

Though I do imagine the legal restrictions can be a pain in the butt, I really appreciate HOW your classes are structured.

Oh, and aluminum stages are the way to go :p
 
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Thanks, Imre, that was interesting.
 
The main Q I have is; you are now certified to dive to 200' (on air), yet you have only trained with a single tank and small slung stage to 130' (on EANx)?

The related Q's are; what is the rock bottom for a dive to 200' (air), how do you handle the narcosis of 200' (air), is 130' max depth the norm for this level of training on your side of the pond???
 
The main Q I have is; you are now certified to dive to 200' (on air), yet you have only trained with a single tank and small slung stage to 130' (on EANx)?

That's not a question, that's a statement (albeit one that you put a question mark at the end of)

:p
 
I'll try to answer your questions:
The main Q I have is; you are now certified to dive to 200' (on air), yet you have only trained with a single tank and small slung stage to 130' (on EANx)?

Wrong. I'm not certified to dive to 200 on air. Nothing on the card says so. I now have a certification, that by law enables me to dive legally, should I want it down to 200'. Just because I have the legal right to do it, doesn't mean I'm gonna jump ahead and do it the next dive. You'd have to be a retard to do so. The training isn't nitrox specific btw, most of the dives around the 130ft are done on air.

The classes are different here, it's a cultural thing. The goal is to give divers the necessary tools to be able to:
- select the dives they can or cannot do, plan those dives
- select the appropriate equipment (this obviously means gas management)
- have a minimal technical panel to manage most situations
The approach to diving in France is NOT to have trained every single possible scenario in every single condition at the every depth. Basically you trust the diver.

You can do whatever formation you wish, if the diver is a retard, one day he will not come back.
You're right that the depth advised for the technical drills is 100-130 ft, on air.

The related Q's are; what is the rock bottom for a dive to 200' (air), how do you handle the narcosis of 200' (air),

I do not understand the rock bottom question. The 200 depth limit for air dives is also fixed by law. About the narcosis, you get used to it, SHOULD you want to go to these depths on air.... People usually do many dives between 130-160 first, then try 160-200, then go trimix because it's so much better. Most trimix instructors here will ask prospective students to have a serious experience in air dives at 150+ ft.

is 130' max depth the norm for this level of training on your side of the pond???
[/QUOTE]
Yes. For air diving that is.

Now if you train trimix it's gonna be different.
 
I do not understand the rock bottom question. The 200 depth limit for air dives is also fixed by law.

"Rock Bottom" is a term used to describe gas reserves. Most often, it is used to refer to the amount of gas necessary to surface while donating from the worst-case portion of the dive ('deepest' if you aren't penetrating).

So he was asking you how much gas you would reserve on a 200 foot dive to complete decompression while donating.

The answer is: not enough information was given :p

About the narcosis, you get used to it

I think most studies have found that not to be the case.
 
"Rock Bottom" is a term used to describe gas reserves. Most often, it is used to refer to the amount of gas necessary to surface while donating from the worst-case portion of the dive ('deepest' if you aren't penetrating).

So he was asking you how much gas you would reserve on a 200 foot dive to complete decompression while donating gas.

Well I have no idea, that depends on so many parameters. Who I'm diving with, the conditions, the dive plan, etc. Besides on dives these deep we'd deco on high Nx or O2 anyway, no? No one sane would go that deep on single tank, if your question is gear related.

I think most studies have found that not to be the case.
People who don't feel safe with narcosis either stop going that deep, or train trimix.

But I don't think you'll find many trimix trained divers here that haven't logged a significant number of air dives past 150 ft. It's a learning process.
 
Well I have no idea, that depends on so many parameters. Who I'm diving with, the conditions, the dive plan, etc. Besides on dives these deep we'd deco on high Nx or O2 anyway, no? No one sane would go that deep on single tank, if your question is gear related.

His question was gear independent. However, I don't assume he meant for you to answer it since he didn't provide enough information (time at depth, gases, deco algorithm, etc.). Rather, I think he was asking if you know HOW to calculate it. Many of us believe that adequate gas planning is a prerequisite for these types of dives.
 
Well this brings us back to dive planning then, doesn't it? I mean, we could discuss that for hours.
 

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