This Saturday morning dawned bright and early to the routine sight of me packing my car with my dive gear. However, instead of my regular cargo of 2 piece 7mm wetsuit, weightbelt and gloves, I was packing a space blanket, sleeping bag, hot water bottles and a thermos full of body temperature hot chocolate.
You see, today I was diving NEKKID! :mooner:
That's right. Today I finally did my 100th dive ... in 15C (~59F) water!!!
Me and my hand picked, crack squad of highly motivated support divers ... and by this I mean every one of my diving buddies who were convinced that I was going to chicken out and didn't want to miss the opportunity to rag me about it ... met at 7:30 at our club to pick up cylinders and organise lifts.
I initially decided to expose this ugly carcass of mine to the elements at a dive site called the Clan Stuart. I chose this wreck, sunk in about 6m of water, because it has an easy beach entry and exit. I was worried about getting me out of the water if the faecal matter hit the atmospheric agitator. However this was not to be as when we arrived the breakers on the beach were almost taller than I was!
Abandoning that idea we moved on to a more sheltered site called Windmill. Whilst the swell (there were no breakers because of the nature of the site) was more tolerable here there was a nasty current! I was starting to think that this dive was not to be and that I would have to wait yet another week to air (water?) my bits and pieces.
The third dive site we checked, A-Frame, proved to be diveable and, after I had given everyone a briefing on emergency procedures (I had done my research and knew that even if the water was as cold as 10C that I still had a large amount of time in the water before my core temperature started to drop dangerously but nevertheless made emergency plans in case things went wrong), we set to kitting up in a quiet, focused and serious manner... and by this I mean that jokes were made, pranks played and much laughter generated all around!
Needless to say that I was kitted up and ready well before everyone else. All I had to do was set up my rig and put on my booties ...
Since my backplate is SS I would be overweighted even without a weightbelt so I decided to use an aluminium cylinder instead of a steel one.
Finally, when the big moment arrived I made sure that everyone else was in the water before me. That way I wouldn't have to wait around in the water waiting for them and losing precious body heat. Unfortunately it also meant that everyone was watching me as I disrobed and made my way into the water.
Let me stop and say at this point that the MVP of this dive was my crotch strap. It did an amazing job of providing cover for strategic bits of my anatomy.
Let me also say that the LVP of this dive was my crotch strap. This was one time that I really did not want it stopping my rig from riding up. Not if it meant the crotch strap getting up close and personal with parts of me best not mentioned. On the bright side: at least I didn't have a 1 inch crotch strap :11:
The viz was absolutely terrible! Although we are used to crappy viz down here (6m [20 ft] on average) today was particularly bad at about 1m (3 ft). But then again I'm sure that my buddies were very glad to be spared a clear view of my crotch strap chafe marks when I was frog kicking underwater
There was also a lot of surge so we couldn't safely get close to the rocks comprising the dive site to look at all of the gorgeous nudis. Well, at least the nudi doing his 100th dive couldn't because if I got slammed into the rock I would have no protection in the form of neoprene! We ended up just swimming back and forth, having a fun time playing with SMBs (wait till you see the pictures, even dive gear can be used to compensate for something ... especially when that something has been shrunk by cold water
) and doing mask clearing and valve drills.
In the end the dive lasted 35 mins. I spent about 50 mins total in the water with the surface swim and only started feeling uncomfortably cold during the last 5 or so mins. Thats right ... not a shiver! I was shocked, I thought that I would be shivering after 20 mins and hypothermic soon after!
The exit was quite amusing ... and by this I mean not amusing in the slightest ... consisting, as it did, of me being rolled around in my birthday suit across 6 or metres of rocks while my buddies bobbed about in the water laughing the bits of anatomy which got flossed by my crotch strap off!
Eventually I got out of the water, back into clothes, with some warm hot chocolate in my tummy and none the worse for wear ... apart from a scratch on my knee and some uncomfortable feelings of violation courtesy of my crotch strap.
Today was an absolutely amazing dive and I enjoyed every single minute of it. I didn't feel intimidated at all getting naked, surrounded as I was by my friends, and when I got down underwater I found that it was very different diving without 12 or so mm of neoprene around me. I only wish I could dive this way more often.
I can only hope that each dive from now on is as enjoyable (or even more so) as today was and that I will have many many more to come.
Dive profile attached with photos to come shortly!
P.S. Don't worry, they'll be censored.
P.P.S. 15C ... FOR 35 MINUTES! :dropmouth
You see, today I was diving NEKKID! :mooner:
That's right. Today I finally did my 100th dive ... in 15C (~59F) water!!!
Me and my hand picked, crack squad of highly motivated support divers ... and by this I mean every one of my diving buddies who were convinced that I was going to chicken out and didn't want to miss the opportunity to rag me about it ... met at 7:30 at our club to pick up cylinders and organise lifts.
I initially decided to expose this ugly carcass of mine to the elements at a dive site called the Clan Stuart. I chose this wreck, sunk in about 6m of water, because it has an easy beach entry and exit. I was worried about getting me out of the water if the faecal matter hit the atmospheric agitator. However this was not to be as when we arrived the breakers on the beach were almost taller than I was!
Abandoning that idea we moved on to a more sheltered site called Windmill. Whilst the swell (there were no breakers because of the nature of the site) was more tolerable here there was a nasty current! I was starting to think that this dive was not to be and that I would have to wait yet another week to air (water?) my bits and pieces.
The third dive site we checked, A-Frame, proved to be diveable and, after I had given everyone a briefing on emergency procedures (I had done my research and knew that even if the water was as cold as 10C that I still had a large amount of time in the water before my core temperature started to drop dangerously but nevertheless made emergency plans in case things went wrong), we set to kitting up in a quiet, focused and serious manner... and by this I mean that jokes were made, pranks played and much laughter generated all around!
Needless to say that I was kitted up and ready well before everyone else. All I had to do was set up my rig and put on my booties ...
Since my backplate is SS I would be overweighted even without a weightbelt so I decided to use an aluminium cylinder instead of a steel one.
Finally, when the big moment arrived I made sure that everyone else was in the water before me. That way I wouldn't have to wait around in the water waiting for them and losing precious body heat. Unfortunately it also meant that everyone was watching me as I disrobed and made my way into the water.
Let me stop and say at this point that the MVP of this dive was my crotch strap. It did an amazing job of providing cover for strategic bits of my anatomy.
Let me also say that the LVP of this dive was my crotch strap. This was one time that I really did not want it stopping my rig from riding up. Not if it meant the crotch strap getting up close and personal with parts of me best not mentioned. On the bright side: at least I didn't have a 1 inch crotch strap :11:
The viz was absolutely terrible! Although we are used to crappy viz down here (6m [20 ft] on average) today was particularly bad at about 1m (3 ft). But then again I'm sure that my buddies were very glad to be spared a clear view of my crotch strap chafe marks when I was frog kicking underwater
There was also a lot of surge so we couldn't safely get close to the rocks comprising the dive site to look at all of the gorgeous nudis. Well, at least the nudi doing his 100th dive couldn't because if I got slammed into the rock I would have no protection in the form of neoprene! We ended up just swimming back and forth, having a fun time playing with SMBs (wait till you see the pictures, even dive gear can be used to compensate for something ... especially when that something has been shrunk by cold water
) and doing mask clearing and valve drills.In the end the dive lasted 35 mins. I spent about 50 mins total in the water with the surface swim and only started feeling uncomfortably cold during the last 5 or so mins. Thats right ... not a shiver! I was shocked, I thought that I would be shivering after 20 mins and hypothermic soon after!
The exit was quite amusing ... and by this I mean not amusing in the slightest ... consisting, as it did, of me being rolled around in my birthday suit across 6 or metres of rocks while my buddies bobbed about in the water laughing the bits of anatomy which got flossed by my crotch strap off!
Eventually I got out of the water, back into clothes, with some warm hot chocolate in my tummy and none the worse for wear ... apart from a scratch on my knee and some uncomfortable feelings of violation courtesy of my crotch strap.
Today was an absolutely amazing dive and I enjoyed every single minute of it. I didn't feel intimidated at all getting naked, surrounded as I was by my friends, and when I got down underwater I found that it was very different diving without 12 or so mm of neoprene around me. I only wish I could dive this way more often.
I can only hope that each dive from now on is as enjoyable (or even more so) as today was and that I will have many many more to come.
Dive profile attached with photos to come shortly!
P.S. Don't worry, they'll be censored.
P.P.S. 15C ... FOR 35 MINUTES! :dropmouth
