OkiMike(Offline)

DAY 1

I arrived at the breakfast table by about 6:30, thirty minutes before our scheduled meeting time for the morning meal. I was taking some shots of the morning scenery with my trusty video camera I’d brought along when Gideon came out to the table. Eventually everyone assembled and we discussed the morning’s events which included meeting back at the fill station out back and going over our gear together as a group with Gideon acting as Inspector Gadget.

When all our gear was assembled and modifications were made, we went over the morning’s dives, practiced basic reel work on some posts inside the hotel near the dining area and talked about valve failures while looking at a kitted set of doubles out by the fill station out back. We were running behind and by the time we finished the dry-run skills it was already time for lunch.

After the lunch break, we each made our way to the fill station to don our gear and proceed towards the water. We finally entered the ocean at about 1:00 pm.

(Dive 1) – 1:14 pm

Gideon and Mike Taylor dropped down to 9 meters and then shot an SMB to the surface which was to be our signal to drop down together to the tie-off point. From there we were supposed to ascend to 6 meters, do our individual valve drills and then do out-of-gas (OOG) drills with each other while maintaining a constant 6-meter depth. Then we were supposed to ascend as a group to the surface in 3-meter increments in what should have resembled a group of talented men diving together. What actually ended up happening, however, was something a whole lot more disgraceful—a sort of testosterone-laden series of events which must have surely made our guardian angels fly ashore to the bar and down enormous quantities of alcohol in an attempt to lessen the pain inflicted upon their retinas (they do have retinas, don’t they?).

After we’d surfaced and Mike Taylor glued up the cracks in the camera lens, Gideon asked us to try again, suggesting that we nix the triangle formation favored by skydivers and, instead, pursue a more appropriate team position in the water due to the strength of the current, as in “side-by-side”. After a little deliberation, we agreed that this might be a worthy strategy and proceeded once again to 9 meters in an attempt to keep Gideon from revoking our Fundamentals cards and sending us home on the first boat out of town.

(Dive 2 – A rehash of Dive 1) – 1:43 pm

Our strategy must have worked, because after repeating the drills, Gideon told us on the surface that we could now progress to the next dive, where we would begin our first scenario. In truth, the man-abreast positioning worked like a charm and didn’t require any of us to fight the current in order to stay near the line.

(Dive 3) – 2:18 pm

On this dive we were to descend to the tie-off (9 meters or so) and run a reel while heading as far as we could, parallel to the beach, for about 10 minutes or until the “Angel of Death” (AoD) appeared and caused us to reevaluate why the hell we had chosen diving in the first place, I mean, until we were forced by the *ahem* circumstances to carry or abandon the line and make for the exit.

As it turned out, I was the only team member with ZERO cave experience and my dry-run line skills proved to be about as adept as lobsters were at knitting sweaters. So naturally, the team wanted me to lead the charge! We dropped down to the tie-off and, I swear, it took me three and a half minutes to tie off the line to two rocks even though I had correctly unclipped the reel on the descent and was ready to wrap the line ahead of time! (I would later mention to Gideon that I was sure that the rocks were endangered and I was doing my best not to harm them…)

Eventually Michael came and helped me secure the primary and secondary ties and we were off, though at a turtle’s pace ever wary that the AoD could strike at any minute. Sure enough, not a minute had gone by when the AoD paid Paul’s right post a visit. I secured the line and held it taut while signaling for Michael to go have a look. He went over, determined it was fixable and we resumed our swim after Paul did a final valve check to make sure everything was on.

After one more tie-off the AoD quickly smote my right post which, when Michael came over to inspect, turned out to be fixable as well. Paul temporarily held the line, keeping it taut. He passed it back after I did my flow check and we continued on. But the AoD was apparently having a bad day and felt the need to strike Michael’s right post. Again, I kept the line taut while Paul went over to inspect. As he was trying to fix Michael’s post, I noticed that we were already at about 10 minutes into our dive and decided to give the line a final tie-off and leave it there as the other two were sorting out the post issue—why, I don’t know, as we all have fixable problems up until that point. As I was preparing to leave the reel, the AoD suddenly claimed Michael’s mask. Though Paul was nearby, I quickly finished off the wrap and went over to help guide Michael to the line while he fished for his backup mask. And just as he was donning his backup, the AoD came for mine (damn the AoD)! All I saw was two fingers tapping on my mask lenses and after about 10 seconds of Gideon “asking” for my mask I finally understood and pulled it off my face. I figured that Michael was probably still putting his on, so rather than signal with my light I simply tapped Michael on the arm to let him know that something was going on. As I got my mask on, the AoD finished his circuit of greedy mask collecting by claiming Paul’s. Michael had apparently just finished adjusting his and, without looking back, took off down the line like the lone gunman whom Mike Taylor was more than happy to videotape! After about 15 seconds he turned around, turned three shades of red when he noticed that his teammates weren’t with him and executed a 180-degree helicopter turn in about a second flat. Gideon, realizing his good fortune, instructed Michael to call OOG and, seeing Paul still busy with his equipment, I kicked over and thrust my primary reg in his face. But apparently Paul had noticed the OOG call as well and offered his to Michael who, since he was already facing Paul, took it.

As I switched back to my primary, I noticed we were already on the upline (I think I had taken us maybe a total of 30 or 40 feet in 10 minutes with the reel!) and positioned myself around it as the other two swam over sharing gas. But, looking back, I positioned myself on the side of the donating diver (Paul) when I should have put myself on the outside so that the OOG-diver was in the middle.

As we dawdled on the line knowing that we had to go up but forgetting who was to run simulated deco (hint: it was me), Paul took charge and motioned for us to ascend to our 6-meter stop. After a minute there we ascended to our 3-meter stop and then the surface without any further incidents.

The dive was a seeming success and I couldn’t help but laugh at the surface. Despite the failures, they were fun to solve and it was refreshing to have something to do while underwater, to be able to think under pressure (literally)!

(Dive 4) – 2:55 pm

Apparently, “GUE EDGE” does not stand for “Good Underwater Equipment Encourages Divers to Get Efficient”, though I’m sure Halcyon might not object to me saying this. I found this out at the surface before heading down again, as it was my turn to run through the list. Of course, it actually stands for:

G – Goal/Objective

U—United team

E—Exposure: depth and time

E—Equipment

D—Deco profile

G—Gas: type and amount

E—Environment (endangered dolphins and rocks, etc.)

It’s a bit hard to get used to because there are so many E’s in the list, but if you can make it through all the D’s in the previously used acronym “I’M SO SADDDDDDDDDDDDDD” (or something like that), then it should be no big deal. After having Michael and Gideon prod me through the list, we began our descent. In this dive we simply had to descend to 6 meters and do valve drills, OOG drills and then shoot all of our bags and ascend on them together. Paul was our captain.

After all this practice in the water, our group awareness skills had gotten better and it showed. We were, however, still on the slow side as if we were waiting for something to happen. Eventually, we made it through our valve drills, OOG drills and shooting bags without incident and ascended to the surface.

Gideon wanted us to do a fourth dive to go and retrieve the line, but my gas was low from all the excitement and, though a little disappointed, Gideon told the three of us to head back in while he and Mike Taylor went back to pick up the reel. Gideon would stress throughout all the dives that there might me more to my low gas levels than purely fast consumption—something he wanted all of us to continue to monitor throughout the week.

Well, the currents were a bit strong still so the three of us dropped down to the floor and came into shore on the bottom. Then we walked ashore and walked into the outdoor pool that has steps leading into it so we could rinse off our gear just by floating there. Paul surprised us by buying some beer and setting it by the side of the pool so we wouldn’t “dehydrate” whilst floating in the hot sun!

Another nice thing about the LLBC was that we could unload our gear on tables inside the fill station that were just low enough for us to sit on and slide the harness straps off. Simply by unscrewing our right posts, we could avoid having to “de-kit” after each dive, receive our next day’s fills and come back again the next day without having to set anything up except our lights, which we would take back to our rooms to charge during the evenings, and screw in our right post first stages once again. Many divers even left their deco bottle regs wedged into the rubber straps on the outside of the bottle and received their deco fills simply by unscrewing the first stage from the post just as they did to their doubles. This was probably my favorite thing about taking the class at the LLBC. When you’re having to haul around all the necessary gear for five days straight, simple thoroughly thought-out amenities like this one become a real asset. I can only imagine how nice it must have been for the Tech 2 class with the two additional bottles!

Anyway, after changing and grabbing supper where we rehashed some of the things we thought we did right and wrong during the day’s dives, we regrouped in the classroom where we spent the next four hours going over gas laws and the history of technical diving.

And finally, rest.