My journey towards the three stars (3*)

[Germie]

Can you provide link for new standards? Nothing on CMAS site.

Two Star Diver Training Programme

1 This training programme aims to build on the skills learned during the one star fundamentals of SCUBA diving and advance the skills in recreational SCUBA diving such as deeper diving and night diving activities, whilst using air as a breathing gas, to a recommended maximum depth of PpO2=1,4 b + deep national regulation, meters in a safe and competent manner.

 

[admikar]

Thanks @Germie , somehow I totally skipped that first part.
But, nevertheless, with same level buddy you're limited to 40 m (yeah I know it is only recommended depth limit), no deco. Considering I got only 5 minutes of bottom time on my GFs before NDL at 56 m, practically you're limited to 40 m.

 

[Storker]

Back to the journey.

Another dive, this time just a single one. The instructors added another layer of task loading by making it a night dive.

At this time of the year, the sun sets at around 5:30, and dusk is over about one hour later, so we don't have to start very late to get a proper night dive. At least it's better than around new year, when the sun sets already at 2:30 and we have full night already before 4. The weather wasn't too bad, around freezing with just a very slight drizzle of snow. But the cloud layer of course made it necessary to use headlamps for kitting up already before dusk was properly over.

I've already mentioned that the dark added a little bit more task loading. We were told to team up in 3s, so a little more bandwidth went there. We were told that we were expected to keep good formation and would be evaluated on propulsion, buoyancy, trim, formation and light communication. Which put a little more pressure on us. Finally, we were told what should happen: after some paddling around, every student should demonstrate a mask drill, within expected standards. From some 20m, we should then ascend 10m/min to 12, where one of us should signal OOG. After handling that situation, we should shoot a dSMB and ascend in a controlled manner, with a proper stop before surfacing.

We agreed that we should switch leading the dive: the first to demonstrate the drill should lead from start, and when he had done the drills he should hand over the lead to the second guy. And so on. What we didn't think about was what that does to navigation: with three divers taking turns leading, we didn't think about electing a designated navigator. And on a sloping sand bottom, you really need to be a little aware to keep track of where you are.

The first buddy to lead ran the pre-dive check. Which was different from both the BWRAF I'd learned from PADI and the from-the-feet-up practiced in CMAS training here. I assumed it was based on his Fundies training. Whatever. We went systematically through the gear and were satisfied that everything looked good. I added an additional point to the check by specifically checking how one of my buddies' weights were released. Pet peeve of mine. The other team member didn't carry ditchable weight, so I just checked that I had my cutting tools in case I'd need to ditch his gear. At the debrief, the instructor used the difference between pre-dive checks to start a discussion on the different gear checks (BWRAF, GUE EDGE and feet-to-head) and we all agreed that they all were basically good as long as they were done properly and covered the important parts. Just agree on how to do it, do it properly, and you're probably good.

The dive went pretty well in the beginning, except the vis was pretty crap in the top 5 or so meters. My light looked like a car headlight in the fog, and I'd guess the vis was some 3-5m. Hard to tell in the dark, though. After some of the previous dives, I was a bit focussed on keeping formation and making sure the team leader was in the center, not out on one of the wings. Light communication really went well, we'd already had a few reminders about how to use your light to always make sure your buddy knows where you are, in an unobtrusive manner. I got a small reminder, though. On earlier dives, I'd been told that i had a tendency to drop my knees, and suddenly I felt a tap on my kneecap. I got the message and clenched my buttocks to straighten up, and was told during the debrief that I was decently good after that reminder. So good on me, I guess.

The drills went ok. The Fundies guy only messed up by twisting his mask strap when re-donning his mask, but chose to repeat the drill and got his mask on right on the second attempt. The other team member flailed a little in the beginning, but we agreed during the debrief that he'd probably only forgotten to take it slow and really stabilize his buoyancy and trim before starting the drill. He was rock steady during the mask removal, though. Pretty impressive. I like to believe I didn't do too bad either.

I was the last to take the lead, and because of that I led the return and the beginning of the ascent as well. Having become a mite concerned about navigation I lead us uphill. In retrospect, I'm rather certain that I'd noticed subconsciously that we were a bit off. I had tried to keep track of our bearing, but sometimes I was a little too preoccupied to notice which direction we were going in, and I definitely hadn't noticed the current we had. At least not consciously. So suddenly we were at some 10-12m, so we'd effectively torpedoed one of the exercises. We're told during the debrief that we'd get that one on the next dive, so don't worry about that, guys!

When we reached some 10, I got a tap on the head, and the instructor told me I was out of gas. The Fundies guy - carrying a double 12 - was closest, so I went to him and slashed my hand across my throat. He looked at me and then forward again. Which was when I hit his shoulder and slashed my throat again, this time rather forcefully. He finally got the message and gave me his reg. During the debrief, he told me he'd misunderstood my signal and initially thought I'd told him to hover at the current depth. Not sure if that was me being timid in my signal or him being obtuse. I choose to believe it was a bit of both.

After donating and ascertaining I had a good grip on the hose, he proceeded to untangle his hose from his canister and his light cord and we gave each other the ok. That was when I decided that the dive pretty much was over for me, and my only task from then on was to hold on to the hose with my right hand, use my donating buddy as a depth reference and use my left hand to operate my light and my inflator. That was basically what I was able to do at that point.

Remembering the pre-dive briefing, I turned to the third team member and signalled to him to shoot the buoy. I don't know if he saw my signal, if he saw the instructor's signal or if he remembered it himself, but anyway he did.

That's when it turned into a minor CF. The buoy guy figured that since were in a (simulated) OOG situation, we should ascend as quickly as possible and started a free water ascent. Which the instructor told us during the debrief was somewhat ambitious. We were on a shore dive, and we had a nice, sloping bottom leading to the nice surface with unlimited breathable gas, with a nice depth reference to boot. And when the guy donating gas didn't agree on that decision, that was when the minor CF started. Because despite the fact that dSMB guy had signalled that he was leading the ascent and was leading a free water ascent, gas donation guy tried to get us to follow the bottom up. To his defense, he had a couple of points. In free water, in the dark, we weren't as stable as we ought to be. We kinda bounced, from 6m to some 5m, to some 7m. And with a twin 12 and a starting pressure at some 235 bar, he could donate gas until we all would fall asleep or turn our drysuits into wetsuits, at least around the crotch area.

In any case, after some messing about which also involved removal of a dSMB line from a tank valve because we'd been bouncing a little up and down we arrived at our safety stop at 5m. Which was done neatly and properly, about half a meter above the bottom. While rocking back and forth, up and down because there were some waves at the surface.

Surfacing, we learned to our dismay (only thing which was hurt was our pride, but that's hard enough, for sure) that we had surfaced some 2-300m downcurrent from the site. Far enough to give us a noticeable surface swim back, close enough to be able to use our lights to signal to the dive leader that we were ok. The current was noticeable, in fact it was strong enough to make me suggest we drew closer to shore to get into lighter current. So we paddled back only a couple meters out from shore. We were nice enough to give the second team a heads-up on the current (ha ha) conditions, but I'm not quite sure if we should have, because why should they have it easier?

 

[Storker]

(Continued)

That was when we had another issue which I brought up during the debrief: buddy contact on the surface. The field stretched out, and being in the middle I started yelling to the lead guy to slow down. After that, it all went fine. We are all trained to stay close to our buddy. But it's just far too easy to relax after surfacing and forget about buddy contact during the surface swim. I've experienced that way too many times. And if you read the accident reports, way too many accidents happen after the diver has surfaced. Ive become a stickler for maintaining close buddy contact until everybody is on dry land. And the last time I forgot about that, I got a reminder, finding myself going up and down in the surf, fins in hand, no propulsion and no buddy close enough. That was a pretty good learning experience which only reinforced my opinion about buddy contact also after surfacing.

All in all, a good dive with a lot of learning. The debrief was great, both for the feedback it provided and for the discussions it initiated. We discussed different options, different ways to do things and basically reinforced my belief that there's definitely more than one way to skin a cat. Every way has its advantages and disadvantages, and it's up to the diver to decide on which advantages they prioritize and which disadvantages they're willing to live with. But it has to be an informed choice.

And I guess that the instructors' GUE background really was showing. While one definitely can discuss to which extent GUE (or similar) practices are necessary for simple rec - or light backgas deco - diving, I enjoyed the way they progressively increased our task load, step by step, all the time keeping it within what we were able to handle with only moderate loss of dignity and pride. And being repeatedly challenged on the underwater skill basics while adding more and more tasks to be handled by our CPU really has developed me as a diver. At least I really want to believe that...

 

[Storker]

Another day, another dive. This time the so-called exam dive.

Arriving at the site, I looked down at the beach and thought "hmmmm". Low tide, rocky shore (nice round ones, about the size of a human head, with plenty of seaweed on them), some 1m waves which were breaking already before they reached shore. When all three cars had arrived, the instructor took us all down to get a closer look at the conditions. After everybody had had a good look and mulled it over a bit, he asked about our thoughts. Now, the rest of the students are in their 20s, and as we all know an average twenty-something is in better shape than an average fifty-something. And some of the twenty-somethings are still immortal, while we old farts have had several occasions to taste our mortality. Sure enough, one of the other students grinned and meant that a little surf was fun. I chose to be the party-pooper (that's one of the good things about being a fifty-something, you usually care less about peer pressure than many of the whippersnappers do) and said that for me, the conditions were marginal at best. Which meant that the site was canned, and we got back into our cars to check on the next option.

The next option was our regular training site. Pretty well sheltered entry and exit, unless the wind blows from NNE. It was blowing from NE to ENE, with the forecast saying it would turn even more easterly during the afternoon. So definitely better than the original site and very small risk for the conditions deteriorating. We inspected also this site from down by the water, and agreed that everyone was ok. I suspect that that the alternative was to get back into our cars and continue driving had some influence on the decision.

Then came the standard routine: Assemble the O2 kit and find a suitable location, decide on where the dive leader should be located and also the location of the bucket line for the rescue swimmer. That led to some discussion, because since there were no fishermen on the wharf, both teams wanted to swim out from the bay which was on the east side of the wharf, and then turn westward. And on the west side of the wharf, the shore was rather steep, made up from blasted rock (is that a word? Basically 1-3m boulders made by blasting solid rock). So while the only good landing site for a distressed diver was in the bay on the east side, it was more than likely that any diver in distress would be spotted on the west side. We found a decent compromise, taking into account that there would be some four guys topside, already suited up.

The weather was on the crappy side, with northernly wind and more than a little snow in the air. One or two degrees above freezing. If i hadn't been out diving, I'd probably say that it was nice weather outdoors for staying indoors. It was a mite nippy to stand out on the wharf keeping watch, so we took turns. Two to look out and two to warm up, switching whenever those at the outlook post were getting just a little uncomfortable. It kinda sucks to be thoroughly chilly before splashing in 5C water. Good thing is, when you're in a drysuit, with good undergarments and perhaps even with your drygloves on, you can take quite a bit of crappy weather before things start to become seriously uncomfortable.

The first team surfaced, and it was our turn. Now, this dive was going to be a simulated decompression dive. Go down to whatever depth we chose as long as it was deeper than 25m. Bottom time, min gas, and saturation group should of course be known. Then, after a suitable bottom time, an ascent at 10 m/min (which is what the tables are based on, so if we lingered at depth or took our good time to ascend we'd ongas more and wouldn't really know our deco obligation) to some 9-12m. From there on, a controlled ascent with proper - albeit only 3 min - stops at 6m and at 3m. And if we felt for it and were up to it, shoot a dSMB from 6m. We decided on who should lead the dive until we should ascend (yours truly), who should lead the ascent (buddy #1) and who should shoot the sausage (buddy #2).

Already before we descended, the first portion of manure hit the ventilation device. We hadn't properly talked through our entry. I like to take my time. At the edge of the water, I rinse the spit out of my mask, make sure I've put it on well with the skirt beneath my hood, and make sure i have my reg in my mouth. Just a few minutes later I got a pretty good demonstration of why that may be a pretty good idea. Bad thing, the other two didn't notice, or didn't think about, that I spent a minute or so before wading in. So they were some meters further out when I slipped on a piece of seaweed and fell over in about half a meter of water. In noticeable surf and with between 30 and 40 kg of gear on me. Have I mentioned that I'm middle-aged and probably not in better shape than my average peer? In any case, there really was no emergency because I had my mask on, I had a working reg in my mouth and my wing was inflated. But my backup is tuned rather loose, so it naturally chose that moment to freeflow. And while the rest of the situation wasn't that stressful even though I was thrown around a little bit, a freeflowing reg just below my chin was a bit distracting. After a little time, I got help to get back on my feet, but neither putting the reg in my mouth and trying to hold against the flow, nor sticking my finger in the mouthpiece stopped the freeflow. So I got help to turn off my tank valve. The reg had free-flowed for a little while and gotten rather cold, so it didn't behave properly the first time my gas was turned on again. That was when we decided to wade out a little more so I could dip my backup in the water so it could thaw up properly. On the second attempt, it behaved again and we could proceed. With some 80 bar less in my tank. Oh well. Just remember min gas pressure and cut down on actual bottom time, and we'll be ok. That's one of the few times I've wanted a twinset instead of my single.

We were of course properly chastised for that miss during the feedback session. Well deserved.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

Another day, another dive. This time the so-called exam dive.

Arriving at the site, I looked down at the beach and thought "hmmmm". Low tide, rocky shore (nice round ones, about the size of a human head, with plenty of seaweed on them), some 1m waves which were breaking already before they reached shore. When all three cars had arrived, the instructor took us all down to get a closer look at the conditions. After everybody had had a good look and mulled it over a bit, he asked about our thoughts. Now, the rest of the students are in their 20s, and as we all know and average twenty-something is in better shape than an average fifty-something. And some of the twenty-somethings are still immortal, while we old farts have had several occasions to taste our mortality. Sure enough, one of the other students grinned and meant that a little surf was fun. I chose to be the party-pooper (that's one of the good things about being a fifty-something, you usually care less about peer pressure than many of the whippersnappers do) and said that for me, the conditions were marginal at best. Which meant that the site was canned, and we got back into our cars to check on the next option.

The next option was our regular training site. Pretty well sheltered entry and exit, unless the wind blows from NNE. It was blowing from NE to ENE, with the forecast saying it would turn even more easterly during the afternoon. So definitely better than the original site and very small risk for the conditions deteriorating. We inspected also this site from down by the water, and agreed that everyone was ok. I suspect that that the alternative was to get back into our cars and continue driving had some influence on the decision.

Then came the standard routine: Assemble the O2 kit and find a suitable location, decide on where the dive leader should be located and also the location of the bucket line for the rescue swimmer. That led to some discussion, because since there were no fishermen on the wharf, both teams wanted to swim out from the bay which was on the east side of the wharf, and then turn westward. And on the west side of the wharf, the shore was rather steep, made up from blasted rock (is that a word? Basically 1-3m boulders made by blasting solid rock). So while the only good landing site for a distressed diver was in the bay on the east side, it was more than likely that any diver in distress would be spotted on the west side. We found a decent compromise, taking into account that there would be some four guys topside, already suited up.

The weather was on the crappy side, with northernly wind and more than a little snow in the air. One or two degrees above freezing. If i hadn't been out diving, I'd probably say that it was nice weather outdoors to be indoors. It was a mite nippy to stand out on the wharf keeping watch, so we took turns. Two to look out and two to warm up, switching whenever those at the outlook post were getting just a little uncomfortable. It kinda sucks to be thoroughly chilly before splashing in 5C water. Good thing is, when you're in a drysuit, with good undergarments and perhaps even with your drygloves on, you can take quite a bit of crappy weather before things start to become seriously uncomfortable.

The first team surfaced, and it was our turn. Now, this dive was going to be a simulated decompression dive. Go down to whatever depth we chose as long as it was deeper than 25m. Bottom time, min gas, and saturation group should of course be known. Then, after a suitable bottom time, an ascent at 10 m/min (which is what the tables are based on, so if we lingered at depth or took our good time to ascend we'd ongas more and wouldn't really know our deco obligation) to some 9-12m. From there on, a controlled ascent with proper - albeit only 3 min - stops at 6m and at 3m. And if we felt for it and were up to it, shoot a dSMB from 6m. We decided on who should lead the dive until we should ascend (yours truly), who should lead the ascent (buddy #1) and who should shoot the sausage (buddy #2).

Already before we descended, the first portion of manure hit the ventilation device. We hadn't properly talked through our entry. I like to take my time. At the edge of the water, I rinse the spit out of my mask, make sure I've put it on well with the skirt beneath my hood, and make sure i have my reg in my mouth. Just a few minutes later I got a pretty good demonstration of why that may be a pretty good idea. Bad thing, the other two didn't notice, or didn't think about, that I spent a minute or so before wading in. So they were some meters further out when I slipped on a piece of seaweed and fell over in about half a meter of water. In noticeable surf and with between 30 and 40 kg of gear on me. Have I mentioned that I'm middle-aged and probably not in better shape than my average peer? In any case, there really was no emergency because I had my mask on, I had a working reg in my mouth and my wing was inflated. But my backup is tuned rather loose, so it naturally chose that moment to freeflow. And while the rest of the situation wasn't that stressful even though I was thrown around a little bit, a freeflowing reg just below my chin was a bit distracting. After a little time, I got help to get back on my feet, but neither putting the valve in my mouth and trying to hold against the flow, nor sticking my finger in the mouthpiece stopped the freeflow. So I got help to turn off my tank valve. The reg had free-flowed for a little while and gotten rather cold, so it didn't behave properly the first time my gas was turned on again. That was when we decided to wade out a little more so I could dip my backup in the water so it could thaw up properly. On the second attempt, it behaved again and we could proceed. With some 80 bar less in my tank. Oh well. Just remember min gas pressure and cut down on actual bottom time, and we'll be ok. That's one of the few times I've wanted a twinset instead of my single.

We were of course properly chastised for that miss during the feedback session. Well deserved.

Hi Storker. I really enjoy following your CMAS training updates. Where in Norway are your training dives as I'd like to see the location on Google maps?

 

[Storker]

(Continued)

Finally with a few meters of water below us, we agreed to descend. That went pretty well, except that we didn't ascend totally in parallel. I followed my own practice, which is getting down to some 2-3m and then going horizontal and neutral. Buddy #1 lingered a little before coming down to us, and this was also pointed out during the feedback session. Down at some 3-4m, we did the bubble check, since the surf would make it difficult to do a proper bubble check on the surface. I positioned myself in the middle, made sure I had my buddies out on each wing, took out the bearing, used my light to signal the chosen direction and started downwards. That was when I realised we didn't keep a good enough formation. Both buddies were a little behind me, even after I'd stopped totally and tried to wave them forward. The low light might have been a complicating factor, because already at moderate depth it was so dark that it was more of a night dive than a day dive. I didn't think well enough about that and didn't stop to ascertain that my buddies were actually seeing that I waved them forward. And I'm still not sure how I could have done that properly, with my light on a soft Goodman, so it was somewhat demanding to shine my light on my left hand where my light is sitting. Oh well, another thing to think about when I'm having a slow time at the office. Again, we were chastised during the feedback session, but fortunately (for my dignity), we got more moderate flak this time. And it was more of the "think about..." "how should we solve this?" type feedback, which is a great form of feedback.

At nearly 30m, I turned 90 degrees portside and continued along the minor wall we'd reached. That was when I kinda messed up being the team leader: I kept too close to the wall, not allowing enough space for buddy #2 to take proper station. That was, of course, pointed out during the feedback session. Being pretty aware that I'd started the dive with only some 200 bar in a 10L tank, I checked my pressure rather often. So, when my gut feeling told me we'd gone far enough and that I had about half as much gas left before min gas as I had when we levelled out, I signalled that we should turn around. I used the "index finger up, circles" I'd learned during a dive with a proper cave diver, and fortunately both buddies got it. It they hadn't, I'd complement by pointing my thumb at 180 degrees from the direction we were swimming.

At my min gas pressure, I stopped and signalled to gather in a circle. Which was slightly complicated by the fact that I needed both hands to give that signal, but it was pitch dark at that depth, so I missed one hand to shine my light on the two hands giving the signal. But we managed. I pointed at buddy #1 and gave him the pinky (deco, or you're leading the ascent). After having the signal repeated with an ok, I turned to buddy #2 and told him the same. After that, I was a passenger, and my only task was to follow buddy #1's lead and otherwise be alert.

We were at 25m. Buddy #1 was checking his computer for the rollover from one minute to the next, but his computer's backlight kept turning off just before the rollover. I tried to help by shining my light on his computer while not shining it into his eyes. Then he took off uphill, and I and buddy #2 just followed on. We reached 9m not too much later than we should have and took a breath. A controlled ascent to 6m, and buddy #2 was reminded to shoot his sausage. Not that he needed the reminder, though. That took about 3 minutes, so when the sausage was up it was time for a controlled ascent to 3m. We chose to follow the bottom, which is a lot easier than doing the ascent in free water. At 3m, we really could feel the waves. Up, down, forth, back, up, down etc. Another 3 minutes, and it was time to surface. Not too bad, no corking at all, and a really slow ascent the last half meter. I was pretty satisfied with myself.

It turned out that ascending from 6m to 3m, we'd paddled ourselves underneath the wharf. Which made the situation a mite complicated for the dive leader. So we paddled out and gave them the big ok. Then it was time to get back on dry land. Again, we made the mistake of not keeping proper buddy contact on the surface, and we got proper flak for that during the debrief.

When I got the message that we were going to do the exam dive, I started thinking I was done with the class. No way, Jose. There's going to be at least one more dive before the instructors are happy with our performance. While it was a bit of a disappointment to hear that, I really appreciate that they aren't letting us go before they think that we're at the level they think we should be.

 

[Storker]

Hi Storker. I really enjoy following your CMAS training updates. Where in Norway are your training dives as I'd like to see the location on Google maps?

I've messaged you.

 

[Edward3c]

What signal are you using to change leaders. I use three fingers to the left arm to simulate 3 Sargents strips, it’s so different from other signals, people remember it from the briefing.

 

[Storker]

What signal are you using to change leaders.

It looks like PADI's "shark" signal. So, "Shark", *point at the new leader*. I don't know if it's common up here, or if it's used only by those who have had those instructors.