vladodessit
Contributor
Dives 8-10
Just thought I'd share my story. Second time on Sundiver Express on Catalina daytrip. This time with Kaya (sp?) at the helm and Nicole as DM, super-duper helpful gals, really resort style diving. They got steel tanks for everyone that didn't have his own, helped everyone with the gear, especially when I started overheating from gearing up my son, etc. Weather was amazing, simply perfect day. Flat seas, warm (hot at times), 60 or so water with pool like viz. From the deck you could see anchor hitting the sand and raising silt at roughly 75'. Easy and fun sites, a bit of surge at Red Lava (if I got site name correctly), otherwise pure fun. Just perfect for me and my 10 yo son. Plenty of marine life, nobody left disappointed. It was funny when one guy came up from first dive and said "oh, viz dropped to about 20 or so" and I was like "where?", you could see boat from at least full length of boat away at 40FSW) but kept quite (besides OW students we were, obviously, the least experienced divers there). On second dive I ended up diving with that guy in a small group and figured why viz dropped on him. He just kept plowing through the bottom lifting sand and silting everything around. Made me feel a little bit proud for my, however poor, buoyancy control
At least I manage to stay off the bottom most of the time and might need maybe a finger or two to support myself when staying in one place. Adjusting when changing depth is another matter, need much more practice until it will become more natural... But cannot complain on the guy, he retrieved my lost fin. it was after my third dive, lost a fin next to ladder, less then 800PSI in the tank, didn't pursue it. DM (somewhat reluctantly, questioning my profile and asking to keep it short) offered another tank and spare fins, even had reg attached. But I just realized I felt uncomfortable dropping to 75-80 FSW, especially after third dive, with 3-4 min SI (even though profile was conservative, 55 for 5-7 minutes, rest at 40 or so, computer in the green), solo. Above my training level. Low and behold, the guy and his buddy show up with my fin and brand new spring strap in hands They found it sticking out of the kelp at 75FSW under the boat.
On negative note, I learned that descending head first, trying to catch up to my son (he had few too many pounds on his first dive of the day and dropped fast) make my sinuses unhappy. My own fault, forced equilizing a bit, felt some pain in frontal sinuses and turned out I had some blood in my mask. No big deal, learned a lesson, no problems on other dives. Interesting, I wonder if steel HP 63 was a bit too dense for my son. On his second dive we reduced his weights, he was more neutral but that caused another problem. He fllipped on his back couple of times, even thumbed the dive when I still had a bit of air left. Said that he felt too unstable, too "top heavy". I guess couple of extra pounds in his pockets, while making him too heavy, kept him more balanced. Will have to experiment some more to figure out what's wrong. Looking back, maybe BCD was a little too loose and kept shifting to the side. Overall, just s perfect day for diving. Hope I didn't bore anyone.
Just thought I'd share my story. Second time on Sundiver Express on Catalina daytrip. This time with Kaya (sp?) at the helm and Nicole as DM, super-duper helpful gals, really resort style diving. They got steel tanks for everyone that didn't have his own, helped everyone with the gear, especially when I started overheating from gearing up my son, etc. Weather was amazing, simply perfect day. Flat seas, warm (hot at times), 60 or so water with pool like viz. From the deck you could see anchor hitting the sand and raising silt at roughly 75'. Easy and fun sites, a bit of surge at Red Lava (if I got site name correctly), otherwise pure fun. Just perfect for me and my 10 yo son. Plenty of marine life, nobody left disappointed. It was funny when one guy came up from first dive and said "oh, viz dropped to about 20 or so" and I was like "where?", you could see boat from at least full length of boat away at 40FSW) but kept quite (besides OW students we were, obviously, the least experienced divers there). On second dive I ended up diving with that guy in a small group and figured why viz dropped on him. He just kept plowing through the bottom lifting sand and silting everything around. Made me feel a little bit proud for my, however poor, buoyancy control
At least I manage to stay off the bottom most of the time and might need maybe a finger or two to support myself when staying in one place. Adjusting when changing depth is another matter, need much more practice until it will become more natural... But cannot complain on the guy, he retrieved my lost fin. it was after my third dive, lost a fin next to ladder, less then 800PSI in the tank, didn't pursue it. DM (somewhat reluctantly, questioning my profile and asking to keep it short) offered another tank and spare fins, even had reg attached. But I just realized I felt uncomfortable dropping to 75-80 FSW, especially after third dive, with 3-4 min SI (even though profile was conservative, 55 for 5-7 minutes, rest at 40 or so, computer in the green), solo. Above my training level. Low and behold, the guy and his buddy show up with my fin and brand new spring strap in hands They found it sticking out of the kelp at 75FSW under the boat.On negative note, I learned that descending head first, trying to catch up to my son (he had few too many pounds on his first dive of the day and dropped fast) make my sinuses unhappy. My own fault, forced equilizing a bit, felt some pain in frontal sinuses and turned out I had some blood in my mask. No big deal, learned a lesson, no problems on other dives. Interesting, I wonder if steel HP 63 was a bit too dense for my son. On his second dive we reduced his weights, he was more neutral but that caused another problem. He fllipped on his back couple of times, even thumbed the dive when I still had a bit of air left. Said that he felt too unstable, too "top heavy". I guess couple of extra pounds in his pockets, while making him too heavy, kept him more balanced. Will have to experiment some more to figure out what's wrong. Looking back, maybe BCD was a little too loose and kept shifting to the side. Overall, just s perfect day for diving. Hope I didn't bore anyone.
