Day one back at school

Mark Chase · February 11th, 2006, 10:11 PM

Having got my provisional pass on DIRF I was heartened by the messages of support and offers to help which almost out weighed the piss taking.

But enough about Garf's piss taking :D

The DIR star that is the mighty Gledders took me under her wing yet again and we arranged a 9am meat at Vobster for which she was only half an hour late.

Not bad for her :D

I finally admitted my demise from hard core diver to failed student by signing up for membership of Vobster inland dive site

Ohhhhhh the shame of it.

Gledders was accompanied by the equally enthusiastic but slightly less good looking Janos with his KISS rebreather. Which as every body who knows anything about CCR is the unit the GUE boys SHOULD be using

Dive 1

Drills and skills dedicated to little old me.

A gentle fin around to the platforms and straight into the center of gravity drill. This didn't even raise comment on the debrief so i assume it was either totally brilliant or that it was so crap she felt i had lost control and was too polite to mention it.

Next into the big 5

I sorted out my trim so I was dead flat..... welllllll i thought i was dead flat but Janos was videoing and in fact I looked like this...

The basic 5 went OK. I felt I held station not to bad and buoyancy was good but I was focusing to much on me and not enough on my dive buddy

Handing off the Long Hose for the modified S drill

This was to continue throughout my first dive. I was doing the skills and drills OK but i was too focused on me and not paying enough attention to my buddy.

Gledders was generous in her appraisal in that she said I was crap especially when re stowing the long hose i turned my back on her, but she would let me off because she understood i needed to focus on procedure :D

Have I mentioned that I think Gledders is a star

Shut down drills were a little tough on dive one as i forgot to do the loosening suit drill before the dive.

Right post and isolator resulted in a little loss of trim....

But the left post (hardest for me due to a buggered left elbow) was excruciatingly painfully and resulted in a total loss of trim but I am pleased to say not a loss of buoyancy..

Drill completed I felt it was OK but not slick which is what I want to be.

OOA drill1 was marred by the fact i took Gledders for granted. I gave her the long hose and immediately went to un wrap the hose from under the cable, just expecting her to be holding the reg. She wasn't so she bitch slapped me and made me do it again.

Following this we had a go at backward finning. I managed about 1,0m of movement from the bar which was as depressing as it usually is when i attempt it. My depression was made worse by Janos having a go and doing it completely wrong but still managing to move back wards several meters and with a lot more grace than I had.

Which is saying something as he looked like he was trying to scratch his back with his left arse cheek

Janos saying, I don't see the problem Chasey your just a tosser,

After this Gledders decided enough was enough and she positively vaulted down the side of Vobster with Janos and I in hot pursuit. We ended the dive with a few swim through skills as expertly demonstrated by Gledders.

Janos demoed a bailout from loop drill which was quite amusing as he as third man signaled me to stop, I stopped and signaled Gledders who missed my first flash and carried on finning. At the point of minimum visual contact she noticed my flash and came rushing back at warp factor 5 with hand on primary reg ready to donate.

OK we were impressed :D

Janos did his CCR drill and it all went well,

Janos re stowing the bailout hose

Janos signaling all OK and good to go

After this I sent up an SMB using a spool. The nice little SMB I used on the DIRF course had a hole in it so I used my old one which has a very small filling hole and is therefore a PITA but it went OK.

Out three min ascent took 4 but yet again I forgot to switch my Vytec to stopwatch mode so I found it hard to get the timing right.

Dive over and its bacon butty time :D

Dive two we did the tunnel through to the washing machine and up and over to the platforms. Gledders went under the platform to the right and I tried the middle. I didn't stand much hope of a cool looking swim through as my tanks were bashing the stage and my chest was dragging through the silt.

The silt cloud i created was fairly epic and Janos just finned over the platform and shook his head sadly at my stupidity :D

The second set of drills went OK ish. I tried to maintain better eye contact but i paid the price with more lateral movement. I had remembered to loosen off my suit so the left post went much better but I forgot to clip off my primary reg so that pissed me off.

S drills were OK and surprise surprise she hit me with an OOA whilst I was sending up my SMB and i made the same mistake as on the course by having the spool in my right hand so donating with the left. It worked but obviously its wrong.

The surface interval was the usual debrief where Gledders was being generous with her assessment but truthfully pointing out the errors.

We had an interesting discussion about pee valves and feminine catheters and Gledders said that there was no need for ladies to worry about it and hide at home to fit them, they could in fact be done on the dive boat

The demo in the car park was pretty horific...

OK I made that bit up to fit the pic :D

Final dive was a dip down to the wreck at the bottom of buoy and a mooch around. I had a go with an Ali 80 stage which I thought was heavy and massive. It really threw my trim out and Gledders came to the rescue taking it off me after a few mins. I could see why Janos was experiencing such weighting / buoyancy problems clipping off and dropping the stage. It was very disappointing for me as i was contemplating getting two of them.

A fairly relaxed dive was ended when Gledders hit me with an OOA after managing to get some space between us but it went OK so i felt good about it.

Dive over and day over. I felt a lot better about myself than after the DIRF course. The skills I reckon need two or three more sessions to get to be instinctive. God knows when ill learn to backward fin but I haven't given up.

Thanks to Gledders for a great day out. Did I mention what a total star she is and such a fine ambassador for DIR, you lot are very lucky to have her.

ATB

Mark Chase

Mal Bridgeman · February 11th, 2006, 10:27 PM

Good write up Mark.
Mal

*Clare Gledhill* · February 11th, 2006, 10:31 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase)

Mark - you are far, far too generous with your compliments - we just went diving.

Mind you - you make up for it with this photo - which answers the question "Does my ass look big in this" ... It looks like it will barely fit in a bloody plane!

It was a fun day out. Janos managed not to get stuck under the car for once - which is a big improvement :D

Sterny · February 11th, 2006, 10:33 PM

Great post Mark! And good for you keeping up the skills improvement even though you passed.

Gledders is a bit good, isn't she? What indeed would we do without her :D

Mark Chase · February 11th, 2006, 10:40 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by Gledders)

- which answers the question "Does my ass look big in this" ... It looks like it will barely fit in a bloody plane!

:D

Yes but just look how horizontal those tanks are :D

ATB

Mark Chase

LCF · February 12th, 2006, 07:54 AM

I read this with a great deal of empathy.

I did my open water PADI rescue dives today. In the middle of one of the rescue scenarios, they threw an OOA at me.

The instructor's assessment: It was great that you dealt with it hovering. You lost a little buoyancy, but you swam right back down and calmed the other diver. But you didn't grab her BC with your right hand like you were supposed to.

My assessment: I donated my primary and the OOA diver didn't take the reg (as it turned out, she couldn't SEE it, because my glove was black and my reg was black and she wasn't expected it to be there). So I held my breath until she took it, and went up about three feet. My Fundies instructor would have removed internal organs because of that. So I had to swim back down to get where I was supposed to be. Then, because it was PADI, I had to grab my rescuees BC, which I apparently did with the wrong hand. Through all of this, I am horizontal, but my rescuee is vertical, and then we try to ascend . . .

A lot of DIR procedures only work if both halves of the procedure know the procedure and have practiced it.

Anyway, I have a whole video of me looking absolutely perfect, if you just rotate the video about 20 degrees.

Sounds like you had fun.

*JohnKendall* · February 12th, 2006, 08:35 AM

Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase)

Right post and isolator resulted in a little loss of trim....

But the left post (hardest for me due to a buggered left elbow) was excruciatingly painfully and resulted in a total loss of trim but I am pleased to say not a loss of buoyancy..

Drill completed I felt it was OK but not slick which is what I want to be.

Mark,

Top Tip: Keep your head back while doing shutdowns. This increases you reach by about an inch, and will help both getting to your valves, keeping your trim and keeping your buddy contact.

HTH
John

*Brian Allen* · February 12th, 2006, 11:11 AM

Nice write up! TOP report.

Ooooh look lots of smilies....

cool

daz · February 12th, 2006, 12:58 PM

Quote: (Originally Posted by LCF)

I read this with a great deal of empathy.

I did my open water PADI rescue dives today. In the middle of one of the rescue scenarios, they threw an OOA at me.

The instructor's assessment: It was great that you dealt with it hovering. You lost a little buoyancy, but you swam right back down and calmed the other diver. But you didn't grab her BC with your right hand like you were supposed to.

My assessment: I donated my primary and the OOA diver didn't take the reg (as it turned out, she couldn't SEE it, because my glove was black and my reg was black and she wasn't expected it to be there). So I held my breath until she took it, and went up about three feet. My Fundies instructor would have removed internal organs because of that. So I had to swim back down to get where I was supposed to be. Then, because it was PADI, I had to grab my rescuees BC, which I apparently did with the wrong hand. Through all of this, I am horizontal, but my rescuee is vertical, and then we try to ascend . . .

Well done on getting some rescue skills, I hope you never have to use them for real but if you do at least you know have some insight and training in what is required.

Quote:

A lot of DIR procedures only work if both halves of the procedure know the procedure and have practiced it.

This is a very important point that everyone should be aware of, not just with DIR but any prescribed diving style.

I guess the question I would ask is, what would you do differently next time? I don't think there is a right or wrong answer but it is important to question mistakes and problems.

Was the person you were rescuing briefed in long hose donation?

Some people who donate from the mouth use a brightly coloured face plate on the donating reg so it is more visible.

I don't mean to be critical but it is important to look at the divers you are diving with and accept that you might need to adapt your procedures or alternatively if this is not acceptable for you then stick with divers who are trained in exactly the same procedures.

Quote:

Anyway, I have a whole video of me looking absolutely perfect, if you just rotate the video about 20 degrees.

Story of my life

BTW: Well done Mark and well done to the willing torturers who put themselves out to make your life hell

Daz

LCF · February 12th, 2006, 06:08 PM

The person I was "rescuing" was a DM who had been involved with the class through all the pool sessions, and knew I was diving a long hose, but she and I had not done an air-share together before.

I think I am going to try to find a yellow cover plate for my primary reg to help solve this problem, as I do a good deal of my diving with non-DIR people.

February 11th, 2006, 10:11 PM	#1 (permalink)
Mark Chase(Offline) New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Kent England Posts: 905	Day one back at school Having got my provisional pass on DIRF I was heartened by the messages of support and offers to help which almost out weighed the piss taking. But enough about Garf's piss taking :D The DIR star that is the mighty Gledders took me under her wing yet again and we arranged a 9am meat at Vobster for which she was only half an hour late. Not bad for her :D I finally admitted my demise from hard core diver to failed student by signing up for membership of Vobster inland dive site Ohhhhhh the shame of it. Gledders was accompanied by the equally enthusiastic but slightly less good looking Janos with his KISS rebreather. Which as every body who knows anything about CCR is the unit the GUE boys SHOULD be using Dive 1 Drills and skills dedicated to little old me. A gentle fin around to the platforms and straight into the center of gravity drill. This didn't even raise comment on the debrief so i assume it was either totally brilliant or that it was so crap she felt i had lost control and was too polite to mention it. Next into the big 5 I sorted out my trim so I was dead flat..... welllllll i thought i was dead flat but Janos was videoing and in fact I looked like this... The basic 5 went OK. I felt I held station not to bad and buoyancy was good but I was focusing to much on me and not enough on my dive buddy Handing off the Long Hose for the modified S drill This was to continue throughout my first dive. I was doing the skills and drills OK but i was too focused on me and not paying enough attention to my buddy. Gledders was generous in her appraisal in that she said I was crap especially when re stowing the long hose i turned my back on her, but she would let me off because she understood i needed to focus on procedure :D Have I mentioned that I think Gledders is a star Shut down drills were a little tough on dive one as i forgot to do the loosening suit drill before the dive. Right post and isolator resulted in a little loss of trim.... But the left post (hardest for me due to a buggered left elbow) was excruciatingly painfully and resulted in a total loss of trim but I am pleased to say not a loss of buoyancy.. Drill completed I felt it was OK but not slick which is what I want to be. OOA drill1 was marred by the fact i took Gledders for granted. I gave her the long hose and immediately went to un wrap the hose from under the cable, just expecting her to be holding the reg. She wasn't so she bitch slapped me and made me do it again. Following this we had a go at backward finning. I managed about 1,0m of movement from the bar which was as depressing as it usually is when i attempt it. My depression was made worse by Janos having a go and doing it completely wrong but still managing to move back wards several meters and with a lot more grace than I had. Which is saying something as he looked like he was trying to scratch his back with his left arse cheek Janos saying, I don't see the problem Chasey your just a tosser, After this Gledders decided enough was enough and she positively vaulted down the side of Vobster with Janos and I in hot pursuit. We ended the dive with a few swim through skills as expertly demonstrated by Gledders. Janos demoed a bailout from loop drill which was quite amusing as he as third man signaled me to stop, I stopped and signaled Gledders who missed my first flash and carried on finning. At the point of minimum visual contact she noticed my flash and came rushing back at warp factor 5 with hand on primary reg ready to donate. OK we were impressed :D Janos did his CCR drill and it all went well, Janos re stowing the bailout hose Janos signaling all OK and good to go After this I sent up an SMB using a spool. The nice little SMB I used on the DIRF course had a hole in it so I used my old one which has a very small filling hole and is therefore a PITA but it went OK. Out three min ascent took 4 but yet again I forgot to switch my Vytec to stopwatch mode so I found it hard to get the timing right. Dive over and its bacon butty time :D Dive two we did the tunnel through to the washing machine and up and over to the platforms. Gledders went under the platform to the right and I tried the middle. I didn't stand much hope of a cool looking swim through as my tanks were bashing the stage and my chest was dragging through the silt. The silt cloud i created was fairly epic and Janos just finned over the platform and shook his head sadly at my stupidity :D The second set of drills went OK ish. I tried to maintain better eye contact but i paid the price with more lateral movement. I had remembered to loosen off my suit so the left post went much better but I forgot to clip off my primary reg so that pissed me off. S drills were OK and surprise surprise she hit me with an OOA whilst I was sending up my SMB and i made the same mistake as on the course by having the spool in my right hand so donating with the left. It worked but obviously its wrong. The surface interval was the usual debrief where Gledders was being generous with her assessment but truthfully pointing out the errors. We had an interesting discussion about pee valves and feminine catheters and Gledders said that there was no need for ladies to worry about it and hide at home to fit them, they could in fact be done on the dive boat The demo in the car park was pretty horific... OK I made that bit up to fit the pic :D Final dive was a dip down to the wreck at the bottom of buoy and a mooch around. I had a go with an Ali 80 stage which I thought was heavy and massive. It really threw my trim out and Gledders came to the rescue taking it off me after a few mins. I could see why Janos was experiencing such weighting / buoyancy problems clipping off and dropping the stage. It was very disappointing for me as i was contemplating getting two of them. A fairly relaxed dive was ended when Gledders hit me with an OOA after managing to get some space between us but it went OK so i felt good about it. Dive over and day over. I felt a lot better about myself than after the DIRF course. The skills I reckon need two or three more sessions to get to be instinctive. God knows when ill learn to backward fin but I haven't given up. Thanks to Gledders for a great day out. Did I mention what a total star she is and such a fine ambassador for DIR, you lot are very lucky to have her. ATB Mark Chase __________________ The only DIR Inspiration diver in the village

February 11th, 2006, 10:27 PM	#2 (permalink)
Mal Bridgeman(Offline) New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Suffolk, UK Posts: 661	Good write up Mark. Mal __________________ Opinions and beliefs are correct at the time of posting but are subject to change without any notice or obligation on the part of the author.

February 11th, 2006, 10:31 PM	#3 (permalink)
Clare Gledhill(Offline) GUE Instructor Site Admin Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: UK Posts: 1,540	Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase) Mark - you are far, far too generous with your compliments - we just went diving. Mind you - you make up for it with this photo - which answers the question "Does my ass look big in this" ... It looks like it will barely fit in a bloody plane! It was a fun day out. Janos managed not to get stuck under the car for once - which is a big improvement :D __________________ Clare . "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions....Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great." Interested in DIR dive training? Always happy to chat/answer questions so get in touch via PM or visit www.dirdiver.co.uk Last edited by Clare Gledhill; February 11th, 2006 at 10:36 PM.

February 11th, 2006, 10:40 PM	#5 (permalink)
Mark Chase(Offline) New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Kent England Posts: 905	Quote: (Originally Posted by Gledders) - which answers the question "Does my ass look big in this" ... It looks like it will barely fit in a bloody plane! :D Yes but just look how horizontal those tanks are :D ATB Mark Chase __________________ The only DIR Inspiration diver in the village

February 12th, 2006, 08:35 AM	#7 (permalink)
JohnKendall(Offline) GUE Instructor/DIRX Moderator Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Cambridge, UK Posts: 1,097	Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase) Right post and isolator resulted in a little loss of trim.... But the left post (hardest for me due to a buggered left elbow) was excruciatingly painfully and resulted in a total loss of trim but I am pleased to say not a loss of buoyancy.. Drill completed I felt it was OK but not slick which is what I want to be. Mark, Top Tip: Keep your head back while doing shutdowns. This increases you reach by about an inch, and will help both getting to your valves, keeping your trim and keeping your buddy contact. HTH John __________________ John Kendall http://www.guetraining.com/ GUE Instruction, Santi and Halcyon Equipment NEW - Online Santi Shop

February 11th, 2006, 10:33 PM	#4 (permalink)
Sterny(Offline) New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: The limpid tropical lagoons of Ealing, West London Posts: 550	Great post Mark! And good for you keeping up the skills improvement even though you passed. Gledders is a bit good, isn't she? What indeed would we do without her :D

February 12th, 2006, 07:54 AM	#6 (permalink)
LCF(Offline) New Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Seattle Posts: 622	I read this with a great deal of empathy. I did my open water PADI rescue dives today. In the middle of one of the rescue scenarios, they threw an OOA at me. The instructor's assessment: It was great that you dealt with it hovering. You lost a little buoyancy, but you swam right back down and calmed the other diver. But you didn't grab her BC with your right hand like you were supposed to. My assessment: I donated my primary and the OOA diver didn't take the reg (as it turned out, she couldn't SEE it, because my glove was black and my reg was black and she wasn't expected it to be there). So I held my breath until she took it, and went up about three feet. My Fundies instructor would have removed internal organs because of that. So I had to swim back down to get where I was supposed to be. Then, because it was PADI, I had to grab my rescuees BC, which I apparently did with the wrong hand. Through all of this, I am horizontal, but my rescuee is vertical, and then we try to ascend . . . A lot of DIR procedures only work if both halves of the procedure know the procedure and have practiced it. Anyway, I have a whole video of me looking absolutely perfect, if you just rotate the video about 20 degrees. Sounds like you had fun.

February 12th, 2006, 11:11 AM	#8 (permalink)
Brian Allen(Offline) GUE Instructor Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: London & Plymouth Posts: 593	Nice write up! TOP report. Ooooh look lots of smilies.... cool __________________ ...dive planning again ... GUE fundamentals and Halcyon Equipment Online www.ocean-explorers.co.uk

February 12th, 2006, 12:58 PM	#9 (permalink)
daz(Offline) "Don't worry I'm approved" Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Bristol Posts: 209	Quote: (Originally Posted by LCF) I read this with a great deal of empathy. I did my open water PADI rescue dives today. In the middle of one of the rescue scenarios, they threw an OOA at me. The instructor's assessment: It was great that you dealt with it hovering. You lost a little buoyancy, but you swam right back down and calmed the other diver. But you didn't grab her BC with your right hand like you were supposed to. My assessment: I donated my primary and the OOA diver didn't take the reg (as it turned out, she couldn't SEE it, because my glove was black and my reg was black and she wasn't expected it to be there). So I held my breath until she took it, and went up about three feet. My Fundies instructor would have removed internal organs because of that. So I had to swim back down to get where I was supposed to be. Then, because it was PADI, I had to grab my rescuees BC, which I apparently did with the wrong hand. Through all of this, I am horizontal, but my rescuee is vertical, and then we try to ascend . . . Well done on getting some rescue skills, I hope you never have to use them for real but if you do at least you know have some insight and training in what is required. Quote: A lot of DIR procedures only work if both halves of the procedure know the procedure and have practiced it. This is a very important point that everyone should be aware of, not just with DIR but any prescribed diving style. I guess the question I would ask is, what would you do differently next time? I don't think there is a right or wrong answer but it is important to question mistakes and problems. Was the person you were rescuing briefed in long hose donation? Some people who donate from the mouth use a brightly coloured face plate on the donating reg so it is more visible. I don't mean to be critical but it is important to look at the divers you are diving with and accept that you might need to adapt your procedures or alternatively if this is not acceptable for you then stick with divers who are trained in exactly the same procedures. Quote: Anyway, I have a whole video of me looking absolutely perfect, if you just rotate the video about 20 degrees. Story of my life BTW: Well done Mark and well done to the willing torturers who put themselves out to make your life hell Daz

February 12th, 2006, 06:08 PM	#10 (permalink)
LCF(Offline) New Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Seattle Posts: 622	The person I was "rescuing" was a DM who had been involved with the class through all the pool sessions, and knew I was diving a long hose, but she and I had not done an air-share together before. I think I am going to try to find a yellow cover plate for my primary reg to help solve this problem, as I do a good deal of my diving with non-DIR people.