So I am starting this dive club for Tech divers. I put together our first outing. A charter boat dive to one of the better deep walls in our area. Being BC Canada more specifically Howe Sound just out of Vancouver.
When they talk about how great the diving is in BC they are not including Howe Sound. But it is a local dive good to do if you just want to pull off a dive that day.
So for logistical, economical and experimental reasons. I chose our first get to know everybody dive as a local dive for three hours. Then dinner to follow.
The boat was to leave at three o'clock and back by 6:00 o'clock
So I emailed around for two weeks, gather up some divers.
The trip was limited to eight tech divers, six being preferred.
I was amazed at how many people were interested. One of the prerequisites for this particular dive was that you were Trimix certified.
So that bumped a few but there are still a lot of them out there wanting to do some diving.
OK the day;
It started with the fact that I had to get to the city to top of a tank with O2 because I ran out the night before
8:30 breakfast with the kids
9:30 head for Vancouver about a 2 hr drive
11:30 arrive at the dive shop. He is in the middle of a class so I have to wait, but finally start filling my tank
12:30 get a call from the boat Captain "the trip is canceled because of high winds and 6' seas"
12:45 start calling around to everybody. Many are out getting their gear organized.
1:30 four of us decide to do a beach dive anyways at 3:00
1:30 leave the dive shop, have some food
All this time I am talking to my buddy about gas problem he is having. We had planned a 320ft dive for 20 minutes. After analyzing his He and O2 it just didn't work out. So as to not dump it all and start over, we decided on a 250ft dive. Then his O2 came out high. So a 200ft dive was the final decision.
Now don't think this guy is an idiot it was just a bad day of blending
2:00 I arrive at the dive site
2:30 the other team arrives, they were going to do a 250ft dive
As I mentioned our dive plans had changed, they also decided to join us at 200
3:00 wheres my buddy
3:30 ???
4:00 he arrives, we are inpatient and cold, but at least the storm that had kept us off the boat had died down.
4:30 finished discussing hot chocolate or dive, were to dive, confirming dive profiles, meeting some new divers, etc, etc.
5:00 gearing up after driving to a new site that would be less effected by wind and waves etc
6:00 entering the water, the buddy of the other team member blows a high-pressure hose on his deco bottle in waist deep water. It might have been that he just had a bad feeling, but it is irrelevant
6:30 finished discussing should we dive as a threesome or not. This mostly evolved around the fact that the other team was GUE / DIR trained and we were not. Our deco profiles did not match etc.
She [gue girl] decided to do the dive and since I was originally running the Deco with my team, we decided that she could run it her way as long as it didn't violate our profile much and that she did the deep stops with us. We all agreed to stick together and see how it went. This whole discussion took place in waist deep water with three-foot wave having their way with us.
So has anybody reading this said why not call the dive yet.
We brought this up during each discussion and decided that even though there have been some variables nothing to prevent the dive. Had to be there
The dive;
Followed a sloping terrain down to the wall at about 100ft.
Dropped down the wall to 200
The current was moving so we swam against it.
I had never dove this dive site. It was supposed to be great. I was unimpressed.
The cool part of the dive...the whole time we were on the dive we were evidently stirring up fish in front of us. And two massive seals kept swooping down and grabbing them they were so close that we could touch them and one swam down and rubbed against us all as we were diving three abreast
The deco
Her way was different for sure, which I still havent figured out
We did a slow ascent along the wall and then into the bay. We never stopped to deco just moved through the zone slowly. Thanks to this board I sort of understood what she was doing
However when we got to the 15ft stop what was supposed to be a 57 minute run time turned into a 70 minute.
All the times were good and at 62 I asked her whats up. We always add about 5 minutes to the last stop but she stated that she had 4 more minutes required. Well we did agree to all stick together so we hung out, finally swimming towards shore at 70 minutes
7:45 pitch a** black outside and exiting with dble and stages in 3 ft waves.
Fortunately the guy we left behind stayed on the beach and then swam out to assist.
My buddy who is bionic just stood up with stages still on and just walked out.
The girl took off stages and crawled out
I took off stages and received assistance from the fourth non diver and walked out [barely]
Oh did I mention the beach was made up of 4 - 6" slippery little rocks.
Oh did I mention the 45 stairs we had to climb to get down to the dive site well the number of stairs doubled on the way back up.
We no longer noticed the pouring down rain. And we all camped out on the beach for about half an hour just breathing O2 before the big climb back up.
8:30 heading towards the cars
9:00 loaded up, jump in the cars with Drysuit on.
Head over to the public washrooms at Whyte Cliff Park to change in comfort
Oh did I mention that it was 3 degrees out
10:00 we all meet at the pub for some well-deserved food
We sat around and chatted for quite a while
12:00 left for home
12:05 find the highway is blanketed in snow, now snow plows anywhere :upset:
2:30am get home
3:30am have gear rinsed and sitting in my living room
Oh did I mention that I promised to take my daughter and her friend skiing today
9:00 skis on up the hill do a couple of runs luckily it was very cold a windy so we came back down. Now I am comfortably sitting here while her and her friend play Barbies
The best part of yesterdays dive was diving with some real GUE / DIR divers well maybe the seals were cooler
I will speak to this on another post as this one is getting to long
When they talk about how great the diving is in BC they are not including Howe Sound. But it is a local dive good to do if you just want to pull off a dive that day.
So for logistical, economical and experimental reasons. I chose our first get to know everybody dive as a local dive for three hours. Then dinner to follow.
The boat was to leave at three o'clock and back by 6:00 o'clock
So I emailed around for two weeks, gather up some divers.
The trip was limited to eight tech divers, six being preferred.
I was amazed at how many people were interested. One of the prerequisites for this particular dive was that you were Trimix certified.
So that bumped a few but there are still a lot of them out there wanting to do some diving.
OK the day;
It started with the fact that I had to get to the city to top of a tank with O2 because I ran out the night before
8:30 breakfast with the kids
9:30 head for Vancouver about a 2 hr drive
11:30 arrive at the dive shop. He is in the middle of a class so I have to wait, but finally start filling my tank
12:30 get a call from the boat Captain "the trip is canceled because of high winds and 6' seas"
12:45 start calling around to everybody. Many are out getting their gear organized.
1:30 four of us decide to do a beach dive anyways at 3:00
1:30 leave the dive shop, have some food
All this time I am talking to my buddy about gas problem he is having. We had planned a 320ft dive for 20 minutes. After analyzing his He and O2 it just didn't work out. So as to not dump it all and start over, we decided on a 250ft dive. Then his O2 came out high. So a 200ft dive was the final decision.
Now don't think this guy is an idiot it was just a bad day of blending
2:00 I arrive at the dive site
2:30 the other team arrives, they were going to do a 250ft dive
As I mentioned our dive plans had changed, they also decided to join us at 200
3:00 wheres my buddy
3:30 ???
4:00 he arrives, we are inpatient and cold, but at least the storm that had kept us off the boat had died down.
4:30 finished discussing hot chocolate or dive, were to dive, confirming dive profiles, meeting some new divers, etc, etc.
5:00 gearing up after driving to a new site that would be less effected by wind and waves etc
6:00 entering the water, the buddy of the other team member blows a high-pressure hose on his deco bottle in waist deep water. It might have been that he just had a bad feeling, but it is irrelevant
6:30 finished discussing should we dive as a threesome or not. This mostly evolved around the fact that the other team was GUE / DIR trained and we were not. Our deco profiles did not match etc.
She [gue girl] decided to do the dive and since I was originally running the Deco with my team, we decided that she could run it her way as long as it didn't violate our profile much and that she did the deep stops with us. We all agreed to stick together and see how it went. This whole discussion took place in waist deep water with three-foot wave having their way with us.
So has anybody reading this said why not call the dive yet.
We brought this up during each discussion and decided that even though there have been some variables nothing to prevent the dive. Had to be there
The dive;
Followed a sloping terrain down to the wall at about 100ft.
Dropped down the wall to 200
The current was moving so we swam against it.
I had never dove this dive site. It was supposed to be great. I was unimpressed.
The cool part of the dive...the whole time we were on the dive we were evidently stirring up fish in front of us. And two massive seals kept swooping down and grabbing them they were so close that we could touch them and one swam down and rubbed against us all as we were diving three abreast
The deco
Her way was different for sure, which I still havent figured out
We did a slow ascent along the wall and then into the bay. We never stopped to deco just moved through the zone slowly. Thanks to this board I sort of understood what she was doing
However when we got to the 15ft stop what was supposed to be a 57 minute run time turned into a 70 minute.
All the times were good and at 62 I asked her whats up. We always add about 5 minutes to the last stop but she stated that she had 4 more minutes required. Well we did agree to all stick together so we hung out, finally swimming towards shore at 70 minutes
7:45 pitch a** black outside and exiting with dble and stages in 3 ft waves.
Fortunately the guy we left behind stayed on the beach and then swam out to assist.
My buddy who is bionic just stood up with stages still on and just walked out.
The girl took off stages and crawled out
I took off stages and received assistance from the fourth non diver and walked out [barely]
Oh did I mention the beach was made up of 4 - 6" slippery little rocks.
Oh did I mention the 45 stairs we had to climb to get down to the dive site well the number of stairs doubled on the way back up.
We no longer noticed the pouring down rain. And we all camped out on the beach for about half an hour just breathing O2 before the big climb back up.
8:30 heading towards the cars
9:00 loaded up, jump in the cars with Drysuit on.
Head over to the public washrooms at Whyte Cliff Park to change in comfort
Oh did I mention that it was 3 degrees out
10:00 we all meet at the pub for some well-deserved food
We sat around and chatted for quite a while
12:00 left for home
12:05 find the highway is blanketed in snow, now snow plows anywhere :upset:
2:30am get home
3:30am have gear rinsed and sitting in my living room
Oh did I mention that I promised to take my daughter and her friend skiing today
9:00 skis on up the hill do a couple of runs luckily it was very cold a windy so we came back down. Now I am comfortably sitting here while her and her friend play Barbies
The best part of yesterdays dive was diving with some real GUE / DIR divers well maybe the seals were cooler
I will speak to this on another post as this one is getting to long
