Throughout my years of diving (since 1985) I have on occasion been buddied with people whose skills have been questionable and perhaps more of a liability than an aid as a buddy, therefore my main reason for solo diving, although having an inexperienced instabuddy kicking up silt (mis-spelt ) everywhere is another valid reason.
I still prefer to dive with a buddy, especially somebody that I know well and who knows me well as they can be a good spotter for my addiction of underwater photography. I have a symbiotic relationship with such a person, however that is another story.
PADI's Self Reliant Diver course had some appeal to me, as frequently locally I am on a boat and usually end up diving solo, and although I am equipped for such a venture, occasionally there are comments!
I discussed the course with Paul Sant of Divers Down, UAE. Paul is an ex-marine (Royal Navy), a Tec diver and has a good sense of humour. Having observed him teach, I felt he was probably the best local ex-pat instructor to ask about the course, as he has known me for more than 10 years as an underwater photographer.
In short I signed up to do the course over the Eid Holiday (Local holiday after the month of Ramadan here in the Middle East) along with one of my other photographer buddies Ged.
With a bit of theory and three dives, I did learn quite a few points as well as reminders of some things I had forgotten including dive planning and gas management as a buddy team. Normally when an instabuddy runs low on air I point at him / her, give a thumb up and Ok sign and carry on diving.
After reviewing the PADI position on self-reliant diving, and advantages of the buddy system for practicality, convenience, safety and enjoyment, we then discussed how self-reliant diving could be done responsibly given the correct training and correct use of their equipment.
We went through some theory of gas usage at depth, which involved some maths of course, (never my strong point and given that I had driven for 2 hours from Dubai to the east coast for an 0800 start, my brain was not ready for this), in order to calculate our SAC rates and determine how much gas we would require, not only for the dives, but also to determine how long our pony bottles would last at depth and if they were large enough for the planned dives.
So after all of the theoretical section was complete and a couple of cups of tea provided by Pauls wife Karin, it was time to put our kit together for the inspection, and our first dive.
Dive Number 1
After the dive briefing we boarded the boat for the 5 minute ride out to Inchcape 1, a wreck sunk in 30M of water as a dive site. Plan was for a 20-minute dive on air. This was also my first dive without a camera in my hands in over 500 dives, so I felt a bit strange, but not to worry, we had plenty to do.
On reaching the bottom we had to establish neutral buoyancy in a horizontal position less than meter from the bottom for more than 2 minutes, after which Paul then tapped our second stage to indicate free flow and we had to change to our redundant air source within 30 seconds and breath from that air source for 2 minutes before changing back to our main air source.
We then went for a bimble around the wreck whilst noting our pressure every 50 bar at that depth in order to calculate our SAC rates, as well as a specific 5-minute swim noting start and finish pressures. At the end of the dive we then deployed our SMBs from 30M, then surfaced.
Back on land we transferred the data from our slates to paper in order to make some calculations later.
Dive Number 2
Paul had chosen Hole in the Wall for this dive with a maximum depth of 13M. We started with a surface swim for 200M in full equipment, then descended into the murk, visibility was barely a few meters. I had a slight issue equalizing my right ear and had to surface, cleared it and descended in an area where I noted bubbles on the surface only to find another group of divers. I could hear Pauls rattle but could not determine direction. After about 30 secs of looking around I began to ascend however Paul found me and we were all together again.
On this dive we were recording our depth and main cylinder pressure every 10 minutes of the dive. We also had to swim without a mask for 2 minutes underwater covering a minimum distance of 18 meters.
Once again we were given a signal for Out of Air (OOA) and change from main tank to redundant air source, and used that source for 5 minutes, taking note of start and finish pressures for more calculations later on.
The next exercise was navigation, blimey this took me back, although I frequently use my compass on Car Cemetery. We took it in turns to swim in a square with one person navigating with compass and the other counting fin kicks.
Once these exercises were complete, we went for a casual swim around continuing to monitor and record our air supply every 10 minutes before deploying our SMBs for ascent.
Before climbing back onto the boat we did some buoyancy check on the surface, which was supposed to have been done on dive 1, both Ged and I were overweight.
Back on shore we once again transferred data to paper from slate for later calculations.
Dive Number 3
On this dive we were recording depth and time every 20 bar of pressure used. The dive was at Three Rocks, visibility was really poor, barely two meters, and we had to navigate using natural references back to the boat, with a time limit based on the rule of thirds for our gas consumption.
We also continued with an OOA scenario at the end of the dive and whilst breathing from our redundant air source, deployed our SMBs and surfaced with a 3-minute safety stop whilst still using the redundant air source.
Back at the dive center, we rinsed our gear and returned to the classroom to do the sums!
What became rather obvious even during the dives was that my pony bottle was rather small for some dive scenarios. A 13 cubic foot bottle equals 1.84L and while fine for shallow dives is unsuitable for dives to 30M. I do have a 30 cubic foot bottle (4.2L) that I will now rig up for side mount, and additionally one of my 50 cubic foot (7L) bottles will be used for deeper dives on sidemount.
On the whole a good course, my buoyancy is reasonably good anyway, as well as SMB deployment skills due to frequent practice / usage. Paul's advice on reconfiguring my gear was very useful and I am going to look at buying a wing to make mounting the bailout bottles a lot easier than with my current BC.
Oh and the SAC rates, well on dive 1, overall 19, on the other dives between my back gas and on redundant gas it varied between 7.69 to 15.4.
Today I made two dives on Car Cemetery with adjusted weight and with camera (thankfully), no skills to perform except record air consumption and take photographs, SAC rate 10.26 on a square profile dive to 16.8M.
I thoroughly enjoyed the course, but as I have mentioned in other threads, this has more to do with the instructor, after all we are doing this for fun even though on a serious side our lives depend on these skills that we acquire during any training.
Also I believe Ged and I are the first people to take the course in UAE and Paul is the first instructor to teach it here.
Another PADI instructor (UAE local) that I met today was not even aware that the course existed!
I still prefer to dive with a buddy, especially somebody that I know well and who knows me well as they can be a good spotter for my addiction of underwater photography. I have a symbiotic relationship with such a person, however that is another story.
PADI's Self Reliant Diver course had some appeal to me, as frequently locally I am on a boat and usually end up diving solo, and although I am equipped for such a venture, occasionally there are comments!
I discussed the course with Paul Sant of Divers Down, UAE. Paul is an ex-marine (Royal Navy), a Tec diver and has a good sense of humour. Having observed him teach, I felt he was probably the best local ex-pat instructor to ask about the course, as he has known me for more than 10 years as an underwater photographer.
In short I signed up to do the course over the Eid Holiday (Local holiday after the month of Ramadan here in the Middle East) along with one of my other photographer buddies Ged.
With a bit of theory and three dives, I did learn quite a few points as well as reminders of some things I had forgotten including dive planning and gas management as a buddy team. Normally when an instabuddy runs low on air I point at him / her, give a thumb up and Ok sign and carry on diving.
After reviewing the PADI position on self-reliant diving, and advantages of the buddy system for practicality, convenience, safety and enjoyment, we then discussed how self-reliant diving could be done responsibly given the correct training and correct use of their equipment.
We went through some theory of gas usage at depth, which involved some maths of course, (never my strong point and given that I had driven for 2 hours from Dubai to the east coast for an 0800 start, my brain was not ready for this), in order to calculate our SAC rates and determine how much gas we would require, not only for the dives, but also to determine how long our pony bottles would last at depth and if they were large enough for the planned dives.
So after all of the theoretical section was complete and a couple of cups of tea provided by Pauls wife Karin, it was time to put our kit together for the inspection, and our first dive.
Dive Number 1
After the dive briefing we boarded the boat for the 5 minute ride out to Inchcape 1, a wreck sunk in 30M of water as a dive site. Plan was for a 20-minute dive on air. This was also my first dive without a camera in my hands in over 500 dives, so I felt a bit strange, but not to worry, we had plenty to do.
On reaching the bottom we had to establish neutral buoyancy in a horizontal position less than meter from the bottom for more than 2 minutes, after which Paul then tapped our second stage to indicate free flow and we had to change to our redundant air source within 30 seconds and breath from that air source for 2 minutes before changing back to our main air source.
We then went for a bimble around the wreck whilst noting our pressure every 50 bar at that depth in order to calculate our SAC rates, as well as a specific 5-minute swim noting start and finish pressures. At the end of the dive we then deployed our SMBs from 30M, then surfaced.
Back on land we transferred the data from our slates to paper in order to make some calculations later.
Dive Number 2
Paul had chosen Hole in the Wall for this dive with a maximum depth of 13M. We started with a surface swim for 200M in full equipment, then descended into the murk, visibility was barely a few meters. I had a slight issue equalizing my right ear and had to surface, cleared it and descended in an area where I noted bubbles on the surface only to find another group of divers. I could hear Pauls rattle but could not determine direction. After about 30 secs of looking around I began to ascend however Paul found me and we were all together again.
On this dive we were recording our depth and main cylinder pressure every 10 minutes of the dive. We also had to swim without a mask for 2 minutes underwater covering a minimum distance of 18 meters.
Once again we were given a signal for Out of Air (OOA) and change from main tank to redundant air source, and used that source for 5 minutes, taking note of start and finish pressures for more calculations later on.
The next exercise was navigation, blimey this took me back, although I frequently use my compass on Car Cemetery. We took it in turns to swim in a square with one person navigating with compass and the other counting fin kicks.
Once these exercises were complete, we went for a casual swim around continuing to monitor and record our air supply every 10 minutes before deploying our SMBs for ascent.
Before climbing back onto the boat we did some buoyancy check on the surface, which was supposed to have been done on dive 1, both Ged and I were overweight.
Back on shore we once again transferred data to paper from slate for later calculations.
Dive Number 3
On this dive we were recording depth and time every 20 bar of pressure used. The dive was at Three Rocks, visibility was really poor, barely two meters, and we had to navigate using natural references back to the boat, with a time limit based on the rule of thirds for our gas consumption.
We also continued with an OOA scenario at the end of the dive and whilst breathing from our redundant air source, deployed our SMBs and surfaced with a 3-minute safety stop whilst still using the redundant air source.
Back at the dive center, we rinsed our gear and returned to the classroom to do the sums!
What became rather obvious even during the dives was that my pony bottle was rather small for some dive scenarios. A 13 cubic foot bottle equals 1.84L and while fine for shallow dives is unsuitable for dives to 30M. I do have a 30 cubic foot bottle (4.2L) that I will now rig up for side mount, and additionally one of my 50 cubic foot (7L) bottles will be used for deeper dives on sidemount.
On the whole a good course, my buoyancy is reasonably good anyway, as well as SMB deployment skills due to frequent practice / usage. Paul's advice on reconfiguring my gear was very useful and I am going to look at buying a wing to make mounting the bailout bottles a lot easier than with my current BC.
Oh and the SAC rates, well on dive 1, overall 19, on the other dives between my back gas and on redundant gas it varied between 7.69 to 15.4.
Today I made two dives on Car Cemetery with adjusted weight and with camera (thankfully), no skills to perform except record air consumption and take photographs, SAC rate 10.26 on a square profile dive to 16.8M.
I thoroughly enjoyed the course, but as I have mentioned in other threads, this has more to do with the instructor, after all we are doing this for fun even though on a serious side our lives depend on these skills that we acquire during any training.
Also I believe Ged and I are the first people to take the course in UAE and Paul is the first instructor to teach it here.
Another PADI instructor (UAE local) that I met today was not even aware that the course existed!