My hats off to the 5thd-X team, wow. This is a class report for the Tech Diver course on Ohau from March 6 to March 10.
The get together dive.
5 Mar 2006
I met Joe Talavera and Chris Cali at the airport about 1230 and headed strait to Island divers to pick up 3 sets of doubles and confirm our 1600 departure from the Keohele Boat ramp. There was a slight delay getting into the room, so it was decided to go get some lunch. On the way back from lunch we had to stop and swap vehicles. All gear was loaded into the orange truck of shame and we headed directly into the lodge to drop gear. I went and picked my equipment and put gas in the vehicle. Picked up Joe and Chris from the lodge and headed directly to the boat ramp. We arrived promptly at 1620, oops. There we met up with Jo, loaded the boat and headed for Portlock. Once we arrived on site we all did back rolls one by one into the water. After entry we Ok’d the team and descended. I have never actually done a dive on this side of the island. The topography was exciting and doing a dive late in the afternoon provided some pretty cool lighting effects. We swam into a large swim through and saw a 6ft white tip shark that appeared to be pregnant. We exited the swim thru and headed to the right along the wall. Jo showed us a couple of holes in the wall that had some interesting sites. We reached 45 min and it was time to ascend. On the surface we waited for the boat to pick us up and headed back to the boat ramp. After the dive we went to The Shack for dinner and conversation.
Day 1
I picked up Joe and Chris, stopped by BK on the way and headed to the dive shop to meet Jo and Matt. Once there we unloaded the tanks from the previous days dive and headed up to the pool deck for our first lecture. After a short discussion on the finer techniques of using a reel, it was time to head for the boat. One more stop by BK and off we went. We rendezvoused at the Ko Olina boat harbor and loaded our gear. Joe laid out the rules of the game. We were all in double AL80’s carrying a slung AL40. These were to be shallow dives in 40 feet of water. We did the dives right off of Electric Beach. The 1st was to just shake out the team and be sure we were on the same page. Chris and I hit the water first. I was carrying the reel and while trying to clip it off to my butt ring I released the wrong end of the bolt snap and down the reel went, I told Chris that we would be performing a recovery shortly after descent. So down we went, I grabbed the reel and decided to attach it to my left d-ring instead of my butt. We then went in search of a suitable spot to attach the up line. Chris shot the bag tied off the line and we immediately started our S-drills and our Valve drills. We did a 6 minute ascent to the surface and then discussed the next dive with Joe. Chris was volunteered to lead the dive so he would be operating the reel 1st. We dropped down and he quickly tied the primary and secondary ties, we were off, my light was dead. I guess I was attached to it since I just decided to leave the light on my left hand and play with the switch while we went. Later it was suggested that I should have stowed it and pulled out one of my back-up lights….duh!!! Chris had a valve failure and we went through the process. Shortly there after it we reached our turn pressure and turned back. At this point it was time for me to have a post failure. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, I should have listened closer!! I immediately went to shut down my right post, no joy, isolator, no joy, Chris moves in to help, after some confusion I end up on a dead primary, damn…..Turn back on the right post, isolator is still off. I’m out of air, I signal Chris. We continue to wind the reel, (focus.) When we reach the ascent line we begin the agreed ascent and do our stops and get back on the boat. Next dive, it’s my turn to lead and handle the reel. My light is now working. We drop down and I start to tie in, but it’s just ain’t going that smooth. I become focused on getting that damn thing tied. Once I get it done I move on to the secondary and then I’m off. At one point Chris starts waving his light to get my attention and slow my butt down. Chris now has a left post failure, we determine it’s not fixable and turn the dive, this time leaving the reel in place. Chris goes OOA, shortly there after I lose my mask. Chris takes me back to the ascent line and we perform our ascent. We now go back to get the reel. On the ascent we learn the importance of a flow check since we created a self induced failure.
Day 2
We headed back to Ko Olina and back on the ¾ Time for our 2nd day of training. Today we headed a little north of electric beach to a spot about 30 feet in depth. It was really flat and just little clumps of vegetation, it reminded me of a cow pasture. The day started with a warm-up dive. I once again paired off with Chris Cali. We did some more line laying drills and experienced manifold failures, out of gas drills. It was quite an experience to do a gas switch with one diver with out a mask. After helping Chris with his gas switch I failed to help him stow his long hose and it magically attached itself to my manifold. I noticed it at the 10ft mark on our ascent and it was too late. At one point Chris and I had an out of gas drill and that was it. Chris and I kept expecting more to happen and couldn’t believe how nothing happening could be as nerve racking as something going wrong. It was time to go back for more lecture and video review.
Day 3
An early start today. Again we loaded our gear on the ¾ Time and this time we were headed to the Mahi. The Mahi is an old navy cable layer. It is not suited to penetration, but it was a good spot to practice more skills and do a drifting ascent. Today I was paired up with Matt. Our 1st dive was a thirds dive and we started from the bow and started our way back to the stern. I looked into one of the hatches and it looked like a deep menacing hole. It was corroded and crumbling. On the 2nd dive Joe demonstrated his ninja skills and was able to stop my smb from reaching the surface. Something I failed to notice, even though I had knots tied every 10 ft on my line. All I could think is I don’t remember tying only 1 knot for 60 ft. about 1 minute and a half later my spool suddenly shot up and was gone. At this point Matt deployed his SMB and we were on the surface shortly there after. Once we were back in the boat it was time to head back and do the video review. The biggest problem of the day was my truck decided it no longer wanted to co-operate. It dies right as we start to leave the dive shop. So we have to transfer all the tanks (all the sets of doubles) loaded in my truck to another truck so we can make it to the boat on time. Matt, being the stand-up guy he is allows me to use his blazer for the remainder of the class, because I don’t have the time to fix it until the class is over. (Which I did!! Dang old fuel line!!)
Day 4
Our 1st Helium dive. It was decided we would do it on the Corsair. We did our plan for a 120 ft dive. Figured our rock bottom and calculated the required amount of deco gas.
We departed the Keohele Boat ramp on the Honey Ann, the same boat from Sunday. We had 25/25 for back gas and 50% in our deco bottles. Again the first dive was done in two teams and I was paired with Jo. We were the 2nd team to descend. Wow, so many fish!! As Jo and I were examining a large octopus, I had a manifold failure, a simple right post fixable. We continued the dive. I went out of gas a few minutes later. Jo and I executed a gas share and headed for the up line. The time for our gas switch and some how my deco bottle was gone!!! It took me a couple of times of reaching to figure it out. (Joe and his ninja skills) Jo and I adjusted our ascent then continued to the surface. Our second dive was to be a drifting ascent, all usable dive with the entire group. It was a chance to really take in the corsair and the field behind it. I learned that I need to practice a little more with the smb. Once back on the surface the boat was there to promptly pick us up, good thing since the surface was a little rough. It was time for more lecture and the video review.
Day 5
Our experience dive. The plan was set, a 150ft dive on 21/35 with 50% for our drifting deco. We headed to an area right out of the Ko Olina harbor that has been begging to be explored. Once again we were on the ¾ Time. Jo and Chris would be the team to lead the dive. Matt and I would run the deco. I was to be the deco captain. We dropped in a brief stop at 20 ft to ok the team and we were off. As we approached the 140 ft mark the ledge below us became apparent. What an awesome sight, I could hear the howling through the water. As we crept over the edge of the cliff the blue was almost surreal. It did remind me of Scripps Canyon, only the water was blue and the particulate floating in the water was smaller. Matt spotted a Galapagos shark as the rest of us were watching Joe in a swim through. All too soon it was time to begin our ascent. The team started up making our planned stops. We made our gas switch and continued our deco. We broke the surface right on time; as we did the boat was right there to pick us up. That was one great dive.
The get together dive.
5 Mar 2006
I met Joe Talavera and Chris Cali at the airport about 1230 and headed strait to Island divers to pick up 3 sets of doubles and confirm our 1600 departure from the Keohele Boat ramp. There was a slight delay getting into the room, so it was decided to go get some lunch. On the way back from lunch we had to stop and swap vehicles. All gear was loaded into the orange truck of shame and we headed directly into the lodge to drop gear. I went and picked my equipment and put gas in the vehicle. Picked up Joe and Chris from the lodge and headed directly to the boat ramp. We arrived promptly at 1620, oops. There we met up with Jo, loaded the boat and headed for Portlock. Once we arrived on site we all did back rolls one by one into the water. After entry we Ok’d the team and descended. I have never actually done a dive on this side of the island. The topography was exciting and doing a dive late in the afternoon provided some pretty cool lighting effects. We swam into a large swim through and saw a 6ft white tip shark that appeared to be pregnant. We exited the swim thru and headed to the right along the wall. Jo showed us a couple of holes in the wall that had some interesting sites. We reached 45 min and it was time to ascend. On the surface we waited for the boat to pick us up and headed back to the boat ramp. After the dive we went to The Shack for dinner and conversation.
Day 1
I picked up Joe and Chris, stopped by BK on the way and headed to the dive shop to meet Jo and Matt. Once there we unloaded the tanks from the previous days dive and headed up to the pool deck for our first lecture. After a short discussion on the finer techniques of using a reel, it was time to head for the boat. One more stop by BK and off we went. We rendezvoused at the Ko Olina boat harbor and loaded our gear. Joe laid out the rules of the game. We were all in double AL80’s carrying a slung AL40. These were to be shallow dives in 40 feet of water. We did the dives right off of Electric Beach. The 1st was to just shake out the team and be sure we were on the same page. Chris and I hit the water first. I was carrying the reel and while trying to clip it off to my butt ring I released the wrong end of the bolt snap and down the reel went, I told Chris that we would be performing a recovery shortly after descent. So down we went, I grabbed the reel and decided to attach it to my left d-ring instead of my butt. We then went in search of a suitable spot to attach the up line. Chris shot the bag tied off the line and we immediately started our S-drills and our Valve drills. We did a 6 minute ascent to the surface and then discussed the next dive with Joe. Chris was volunteered to lead the dive so he would be operating the reel 1st. We dropped down and he quickly tied the primary and secondary ties, we were off, my light was dead. I guess I was attached to it since I just decided to leave the light on my left hand and play with the switch while we went. Later it was suggested that I should have stowed it and pulled out one of my back-up lights….duh!!! Chris had a valve failure and we went through the process. Shortly there after it we reached our turn pressure and turned back. At this point it was time for me to have a post failure. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, I should have listened closer!! I immediately went to shut down my right post, no joy, isolator, no joy, Chris moves in to help, after some confusion I end up on a dead primary, damn…..Turn back on the right post, isolator is still off. I’m out of air, I signal Chris. We continue to wind the reel, (focus.) When we reach the ascent line we begin the agreed ascent and do our stops and get back on the boat. Next dive, it’s my turn to lead and handle the reel. My light is now working. We drop down and I start to tie in, but it’s just ain’t going that smooth. I become focused on getting that damn thing tied. Once I get it done I move on to the secondary and then I’m off. At one point Chris starts waving his light to get my attention and slow my butt down. Chris now has a left post failure, we determine it’s not fixable and turn the dive, this time leaving the reel in place. Chris goes OOA, shortly there after I lose my mask. Chris takes me back to the ascent line and we perform our ascent. We now go back to get the reel. On the ascent we learn the importance of a flow check since we created a self induced failure.
Day 2
We headed back to Ko Olina and back on the ¾ Time for our 2nd day of training. Today we headed a little north of electric beach to a spot about 30 feet in depth. It was really flat and just little clumps of vegetation, it reminded me of a cow pasture. The day started with a warm-up dive. I once again paired off with Chris Cali. We did some more line laying drills and experienced manifold failures, out of gas drills. It was quite an experience to do a gas switch with one diver with out a mask. After helping Chris with his gas switch I failed to help him stow his long hose and it magically attached itself to my manifold. I noticed it at the 10ft mark on our ascent and it was too late. At one point Chris and I had an out of gas drill and that was it. Chris and I kept expecting more to happen and couldn’t believe how nothing happening could be as nerve racking as something going wrong. It was time to go back for more lecture and video review.
Day 3
An early start today. Again we loaded our gear on the ¾ Time and this time we were headed to the Mahi. The Mahi is an old navy cable layer. It is not suited to penetration, but it was a good spot to practice more skills and do a drifting ascent. Today I was paired up with Matt. Our 1st dive was a thirds dive and we started from the bow and started our way back to the stern. I looked into one of the hatches and it looked like a deep menacing hole. It was corroded and crumbling. On the 2nd dive Joe demonstrated his ninja skills and was able to stop my smb from reaching the surface. Something I failed to notice, even though I had knots tied every 10 ft on my line. All I could think is I don’t remember tying only 1 knot for 60 ft. about 1 minute and a half later my spool suddenly shot up and was gone. At this point Matt deployed his SMB and we were on the surface shortly there after. Once we were back in the boat it was time to head back and do the video review. The biggest problem of the day was my truck decided it no longer wanted to co-operate. It dies right as we start to leave the dive shop. So we have to transfer all the tanks (all the sets of doubles) loaded in my truck to another truck so we can make it to the boat on time. Matt, being the stand-up guy he is allows me to use his blazer for the remainder of the class, because I don’t have the time to fix it until the class is over. (Which I did!! Dang old fuel line!!)
Day 4
Our 1st Helium dive. It was decided we would do it on the Corsair. We did our plan for a 120 ft dive. Figured our rock bottom and calculated the required amount of deco gas.
We departed the Keohele Boat ramp on the Honey Ann, the same boat from Sunday. We had 25/25 for back gas and 50% in our deco bottles. Again the first dive was done in two teams and I was paired with Jo. We were the 2nd team to descend. Wow, so many fish!! As Jo and I were examining a large octopus, I had a manifold failure, a simple right post fixable. We continued the dive. I went out of gas a few minutes later. Jo and I executed a gas share and headed for the up line. The time for our gas switch and some how my deco bottle was gone!!! It took me a couple of times of reaching to figure it out. (Joe and his ninja skills) Jo and I adjusted our ascent then continued to the surface. Our second dive was to be a drifting ascent, all usable dive with the entire group. It was a chance to really take in the corsair and the field behind it. I learned that I need to practice a little more with the smb. Once back on the surface the boat was there to promptly pick us up, good thing since the surface was a little rough. It was time for more lecture and the video review.
Day 5
Our experience dive. The plan was set, a 150ft dive on 21/35 with 50% for our drifting deco. We headed to an area right out of the Ko Olina harbor that has been begging to be explored. Once again we were on the ¾ Time. Jo and Chris would be the team to lead the dive. Matt and I would run the deco. I was to be the deco captain. We dropped in a brief stop at 20 ft to ok the team and we were off. As we approached the 140 ft mark the ledge below us became apparent. What an awesome sight, I could hear the howling through the water. As we crept over the edge of the cliff the blue was almost surreal. It did remind me of Scripps Canyon, only the water was blue and the particulate floating in the water was smaller. Matt spotted a Galapagos shark as the rest of us were watching Joe in a swim through. All too soon it was time to begin our ascent. The team started up making our planned stops. We made our gas switch and continued our deco. We broke the surface right on time; as we did the boat was right there to pick us up. That was one great dive.
