I thought I would write about this dive, because it in many ways typifies things about DIR divers in our area, and in other ways, illustrates some misconceptions.
One of our local divers (LauraJ here) has taken it upon herself to organize a series of midweek dives, either for people who dive this way, or for people who are simply curious about it and want to take the frequently-given advice that the best way to learn about DIR diving is to dive with people who do it. After a somewhat slow start, they're starting to take off, and Laura and her friend Lamont had ten divers to try to help last week. So I prioritized getting there to lend a hand last night.
I arrived to an already dark parking lot with a steady drizzle, and I figured there probably wouldn't be many people there. But as it turned out, we had eight divers altogether, which is not bad for the hour and the weather -- we were essentially the only people there to dive. The extra canister lights I had brought to lend were distributed, to the pleasure of the recipients, and we sorted teams. I buddied up with a fellow who has begun but not completed his Essentials class, and we sat on the sea wall and developed a plan for what each of us wanted to practice, and how we were going to work a good fun dive into the process.
After finishing the plan and doing our gear checks, we surface swam out to the can buoy, because we were going to begin our dive with a descent to 20 feet, and do mask skills. However, the buoy was a popular destination, so we decamped to another one nearby, so we could spend time sitting in midwater without being a roadblock for anyone else. We descended into dark but delightfully clear water, and leveled out at 20 feet, and took turns with the drill. I was pleased at how well it went, especially since I can't remember the last time I did a mask flood and clear in cold water.
We went on down to the bottom and did a round of S-drills. My buddy was somewhat confused when I requested to do another drill as donor, but I wasn't at all happy with how it had gone, and quitting on a poor performance isn't improving anything. The second time, I was smoother, but I need to do more of these to get them to "Danny standard" again.
Once the drills were finished, we went diving! Off into the night, in search of critters, and the night delivered. One of the first things we found was a small red octopus busily swimming himself somewhere. We had not disturbed him -- he came from upslope of us -- so I don't know where he was headed or why, but when our lights hit him, he landed and curled his arms for a few seconds, before deciding that the underside of the nearby piling looked like a better bet for safety.
The next thing we found was the scattered portion of the jackstraw pilings, where we promptly encountered not one or two, but THREE decorated warbonnets on the same end of the same log! The first was tiny, and as I was pointing it out to Ross, he was wondering why I wasn't looking at the larger one just a few inches away (which I shortly spotted). Then, as Ross looked at those, I peered into the end of the piling and found yet a bigger one. Shaka signs were definitely exchanged.
We wandered about a bit, and found a few alabaster nudibranchs, including one large and very pretty one that was actively crawling somewhere. Then we found the Honey Bear debris, and checked those pilings, which didn't provide any more warbonnets, but did have two lovely middle-sized Red Irish Lords. I also found another sculpin that made me wish I'd had a camera, because I think it was a padded, but I would have loved a photo to compare to the book. There was no octopus under the Honey Bear, and it was obvious why -- the space was occupied by the largest ling cod I have EVER seen in Cove 2. Its toothy grin was positively scary!
We were at 35 minute dive time, out of an agreed-upon 45 total, so I headed homeward, finding my favorite Cove 2 feature, which is a group of pilings leaning toward one another, creating a small, triangular space one can carefully swim through (and I always do -- just try to keep a cave diver out of anything you can swim UNDER). I had only one small brush with a fin this time, so I was pleased.
Out in the open, we stopped for our final skill, which was SMB deployment. My buddy shot his, and I saw a few things that could be improved, so I signaled him to watch, and I shot mine. I was laughing at myself while I did it, because my PADI DM training kicked in, and I was "emphasizing critical attributes" during the process. But it worked, because my buddy understood exactly what I was trying to show him. So no training is without value
We did an ascent, and at the end of it, my buddy got a bit too much air in his feet, and eventually lost a fin. He had the excellent presence of mind to drop his spool immediately, to give us a very good reference for where the fin might have gone as it fell, so I handed him my bag and redescended, and did a nice circular search pattern, and FOUND the fin. I retrieved the spool and got to do yet another ascent while winding one up, which was good practice. As I was doing it, I was again chuckling, because this is a DIR mentoring dive, and what am I doing? Solo diving . . .
As it turned out, at the end of what I thought was a pretty short dive, we were the last ones out of the water. We were met in the parking lot by Laura, who had the cleverest little propane stove, and had boiled water for cocoa. A hot cup of chocolate, topped with marshmallows, was a welcome treat in the persistent rain, and was accompanied by homemade brownies with enough chocolate in them to ensure a restless, sleep-deprived night.
An evening of community and mentoring, skills reinforcement, and thorough enjoyment of the little jewels of our marine environment. This is what it's all about.
One of our local divers (LauraJ here) has taken it upon herself to organize a series of midweek dives, either for people who dive this way, or for people who are simply curious about it and want to take the frequently-given advice that the best way to learn about DIR diving is to dive with people who do it. After a somewhat slow start, they're starting to take off, and Laura and her friend Lamont had ten divers to try to help last week. So I prioritized getting there to lend a hand last night.
I arrived to an already dark parking lot with a steady drizzle, and I figured there probably wouldn't be many people there. But as it turned out, we had eight divers altogether, which is not bad for the hour and the weather -- we were essentially the only people there to dive. The extra canister lights I had brought to lend were distributed, to the pleasure of the recipients, and we sorted teams. I buddied up with a fellow who has begun but not completed his Essentials class, and we sat on the sea wall and developed a plan for what each of us wanted to practice, and how we were going to work a good fun dive into the process.
After finishing the plan and doing our gear checks, we surface swam out to the can buoy, because we were going to begin our dive with a descent to 20 feet, and do mask skills. However, the buoy was a popular destination, so we decamped to another one nearby, so we could spend time sitting in midwater without being a roadblock for anyone else. We descended into dark but delightfully clear water, and leveled out at 20 feet, and took turns with the drill. I was pleased at how well it went, especially since I can't remember the last time I did a mask flood and clear in cold water.
We went on down to the bottom and did a round of S-drills. My buddy was somewhat confused when I requested to do another drill as donor, but I wasn't at all happy with how it had gone, and quitting on a poor performance isn't improving anything. The second time, I was smoother, but I need to do more of these to get them to "Danny standard" again.
Once the drills were finished, we went diving! Off into the night, in search of critters, and the night delivered. One of the first things we found was a small red octopus busily swimming himself somewhere. We had not disturbed him -- he came from upslope of us -- so I don't know where he was headed or why, but when our lights hit him, he landed and curled his arms for a few seconds, before deciding that the underside of the nearby piling looked like a better bet for safety.
The next thing we found was the scattered portion of the jackstraw pilings, where we promptly encountered not one or two, but THREE decorated warbonnets on the same end of the same log! The first was tiny, and as I was pointing it out to Ross, he was wondering why I wasn't looking at the larger one just a few inches away (which I shortly spotted). Then, as Ross looked at those, I peered into the end of the piling and found yet a bigger one. Shaka signs were definitely exchanged.
We wandered about a bit, and found a few alabaster nudibranchs, including one large and very pretty one that was actively crawling somewhere. Then we found the Honey Bear debris, and checked those pilings, which didn't provide any more warbonnets, but did have two lovely middle-sized Red Irish Lords. I also found another sculpin that made me wish I'd had a camera, because I think it was a padded, but I would have loved a photo to compare to the book. There was no octopus under the Honey Bear, and it was obvious why -- the space was occupied by the largest ling cod I have EVER seen in Cove 2. Its toothy grin was positively scary!
We were at 35 minute dive time, out of an agreed-upon 45 total, so I headed homeward, finding my favorite Cove 2 feature, which is a group of pilings leaning toward one another, creating a small, triangular space one can carefully swim through (and I always do -- just try to keep a cave diver out of anything you can swim UNDER). I had only one small brush with a fin this time, so I was pleased.
Out in the open, we stopped for our final skill, which was SMB deployment. My buddy shot his, and I saw a few things that could be improved, so I signaled him to watch, and I shot mine. I was laughing at myself while I did it, because my PADI DM training kicked in, and I was "emphasizing critical attributes" during the process. But it worked, because my buddy understood exactly what I was trying to show him. So no training is without value
We did an ascent, and at the end of it, my buddy got a bit too much air in his feet, and eventually lost a fin. He had the excellent presence of mind to drop his spool immediately, to give us a very good reference for where the fin might have gone as it fell, so I handed him my bag and redescended, and did a nice circular search pattern, and FOUND the fin. I retrieved the spool and got to do yet another ascent while winding one up, which was good practice. As I was doing it, I was again chuckling, because this is a DIR mentoring dive, and what am I doing? Solo diving . . .
As it turned out, at the end of what I thought was a pretty short dive, we were the last ones out of the water. We were met in the parking lot by Laura, who had the cleverest little propane stove, and had boiled water for cocoa. A hot cup of chocolate, topped with marshmallows, was a welcome treat in the persistent rain, and was accompanied by homemade brownies with enough chocolate in them to ensure a restless, sleep-deprived night.
An evening of community and mentoring, skills reinforcement, and thorough enjoyment of the little jewels of our marine environment. This is what it's all about.
