mobster75
Contributor
....100 ft down, 48f, 15 ft viz, AL80, 15 mins tbt.... In a nutshell... a bit scary...
Heh. I haven't hoovered like that since my first OW dive 3 years ago. Had no problems following the chain down or going back up and doing the safety stop with my buddy, but wow.. I was really surprised to see how nervous I got once down there... Obviously it was all psychological, and when I was trying to perform a task, I was just fine since I had something to focus on besides "crap im down 100 ft and if things go bad, I'm dead." It annoyed me that I was thinking "relax, you're fine, breathe nice and relaxed." but my body wasn't feeling like cooperating. It was also the coldest I've dove yet and things just seemed to feel different down that far. It almost felt like I was diving in a light syrup.. Don't know if that was the 4 atm or just in my head.. Otherwise I would say that I wasn't narc'd because I had no problem re-sorting 15 numbers that were out of order.
After the dive, back on the boat, the fun continued as waves tossed us around a bit and just before the second dive I was bright green and ended up tossing my cookies over the side (literally.. the charter folks had given me a couple ginger snaps to eat to settle my stomach). So... feeling kinda crappy, I skipped the 2nd dive.
I know now that I was nervous because the thought of being stuck at depth without air scares the bejeezus out of me. Being not in the best shape and only having 20 dives so far my SAC is also high (I avg .70 if im comfortable and doing minor taskloading). And knowing that I'm consuming air 4 times faster at 100 ft made me really worry that I'd suck the thing dry overly fast. When I noticed I was at our turn pressure of 1500 psi, I signaled the instructor who was next to me that I wanted to ascend because I hit turn and he signaled the DM to bring me back up the line. Once the DM came over and pointed at me and then the anchor line, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. I was worried I wouldn't have enough air w/ my hoovering to perform the 2 min safety stop at 15ft.. It really was unfounded though as the DM and the instructors both had pony rigs in case something like that happened.
Got back on the boat with 750psi which surprised me as I thought it would have taken more air. SAC rate for this dive: .90!
Tagged along for lunch w/ the DM and instructor and went with them to their afternoon shore dives for a bunch of OW checkouts since I had my 2nd tank unused and just tagged along, helping to keep an eye on the newbies since it was just 4'-5' viz, @ 20 ft. Ended that dive with my all time lowest SAC rate: .34!
Be fun when later in the future I can go down to 100 ft in New England waters and think how silly I was my first time
Heh. I haven't hoovered like that since my first OW dive 3 years ago. Had no problems following the chain down or going back up and doing the safety stop with my buddy, but wow.. I was really surprised to see how nervous I got once down there... Obviously it was all psychological, and when I was trying to perform a task, I was just fine since I had something to focus on besides "crap im down 100 ft and if things go bad, I'm dead." It annoyed me that I was thinking "relax, you're fine, breathe nice and relaxed." but my body wasn't feeling like cooperating. It was also the coldest I've dove yet and things just seemed to feel different down that far. It almost felt like I was diving in a light syrup.. Don't know if that was the 4 atm or just in my head.. Otherwise I would say that I wasn't narc'd because I had no problem re-sorting 15 numbers that were out of order.
After the dive, back on the boat, the fun continued as waves tossed us around a bit and just before the second dive I was bright green and ended up tossing my cookies over the side (literally.. the charter folks had given me a couple ginger snaps to eat to settle my stomach). So... feeling kinda crappy, I skipped the 2nd dive.
I know now that I was nervous because the thought of being stuck at depth without air scares the bejeezus out of me. Being not in the best shape and only having 20 dives so far my SAC is also high (I avg .70 if im comfortable and doing minor taskloading). And knowing that I'm consuming air 4 times faster at 100 ft made me really worry that I'd suck the thing dry overly fast. When I noticed I was at our turn pressure of 1500 psi, I signaled the instructor who was next to me that I wanted to ascend because I hit turn and he signaled the DM to bring me back up the line. Once the DM came over and pointed at me and then the anchor line, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders. I was worried I wouldn't have enough air w/ my hoovering to perform the 2 min safety stop at 15ft.. It really was unfounded though as the DM and the instructors both had pony rigs in case something like that happened.
Got back on the boat with 750psi which surprised me as I thought it would have taken more air. SAC rate for this dive: .90!
Tagged along for lunch w/ the DM and instructor and went with them to their afternoon shore dives for a bunch of OW checkouts since I had my 2nd tank unused and just tagged along, helping to keep an eye on the newbies since it was just 4'-5' viz, @ 20 ft. Ended that dive with my all time lowest SAC rate: .34!
Be fun when later in the future I can go down to 100 ft in New England waters and think how silly I was my first time
