Deal Me In
Registered
ok, now for the second installment in journey to becoming a tech diver.
after spending a couple of hours in the pool i finally got my harness squared away and was feeling more comfortable in the water.
get to the boat and it is packed again. i hate this but i suppose i have to deal with it during spring break. i manage to get in the water without attaching my crotch strap. not a good start. conditions are good, 60' vis, 77 degrees. get to the bottom, only 60' this time, and get started with the drills. ditch deco bottle, swim around with no change in bouyancy, come back to my bottle and pick it up but have trouble getting hooked back up. instructor makes me do it again and this time i manage with no trouble.
second -- valve drills. i hate these. i struggled with these in the pool and the ocean was no different. after about five minutes of struggling we give up and move on. i would manage to get my hands on the valves and then not be able to move my hands. i just couldn't get any leverage.
do the OOA drill with nothing exciting happening other then to say that 50' is farther then it looks. then up we go.
i have to do a 200 yard surface swim that i manage to do with no trouble.
second dive, we go right to the bottom to do valve drills again. this time i do it on the first attempt with no trouble. you get 60 seconds and i took 54. i don't know if it was simply that i was getting more comfortable with the gear or what but i just couldn't do it the first dive. spend the rest of the dive establishing a SAC rate, .86, for those of you that are curious. i also managed to deploy a lift bag twice without incident. although i have to wonder how many times people have dropped their reels.
overall, as the dives went on i got more and more comfortable with the whole set-up. my instructor commented that on the second dive i looked like i could actually handle everything and solve any problems that came up. i'm still banging my head against the manifold so i have to mess with the set-up some but other than that it's all starting to make sense.
well in two weeks i will do the first mandatory decompression dive so i will let you all know how that goes.
thanks for your time.
after spending a couple of hours in the pool i finally got my harness squared away and was feeling more comfortable in the water.
get to the boat and it is packed again. i hate this but i suppose i have to deal with it during spring break. i manage to get in the water without attaching my crotch strap. not a good start. conditions are good, 60' vis, 77 degrees. get to the bottom, only 60' this time, and get started with the drills. ditch deco bottle, swim around with no change in bouyancy, come back to my bottle and pick it up but have trouble getting hooked back up. instructor makes me do it again and this time i manage with no trouble.
second -- valve drills. i hate these. i struggled with these in the pool and the ocean was no different. after about five minutes of struggling we give up and move on. i would manage to get my hands on the valves and then not be able to move my hands. i just couldn't get any leverage.
do the OOA drill with nothing exciting happening other then to say that 50' is farther then it looks. then up we go.
i have to do a 200 yard surface swim that i manage to do with no trouble.
second dive, we go right to the bottom to do valve drills again. this time i do it on the first attempt with no trouble. you get 60 seconds and i took 54. i don't know if it was simply that i was getting more comfortable with the gear or what but i just couldn't do it the first dive. spend the rest of the dive establishing a SAC rate, .86, for those of you that are curious. i also managed to deploy a lift bag twice without incident. although i have to wonder how many times people have dropped their reels.
overall, as the dives went on i got more and more comfortable with the whole set-up. my instructor commented that on the second dive i looked like i could actually handle everything and solve any problems that came up. i'm still banging my head against the manifold so i have to mess with the set-up some but other than that it's all starting to make sense.
well in two weeks i will do the first mandatory decompression dive so i will let you all know how that goes.
thanks for your time.
