Fundies 27 Jan 06 Vobster, The Devil rides in

[Mark Chase]

Fundies 27 Jan 06 Vobster, The Devil rides in



So after a disastrous dive on Tuesday where yet again my mod's on the twin sevens had failed to allow shut downs in my lovley warm DUI undersuit, I found my self driving down to Vobster the proud owner of an Exotherm Arctic top and boots. If I were a religious man I would have been praying about now but I am not so I just resigned my self to the fact I can either reach the valves or Ill have to do the course in just a base layer and freeze my arse off. Trim and weighting were left the same as with the DUI under suit so I just had to wing it.


The Tom Tom got me to the B&B no problem but unfortunately the place was shut up
and empty so as the rest all turned up it was decided to go directly to the pool and do the swim tests and get that out of the way. Rich turned up and so did his assistant David who I mistook for a student and inadvertently got into a what’s wrong with DIR chat


The swim tests are pretty easy, I am fat, 42 years old and cant swim particularly well and I managed the 11 lengths in 8min 30somthing out of the 14 allowed. After the first two lengths I realised id be well inside the time so I just cruised it in breast ******. Garf who apparently couldn’t swim until a couple of weeks ago, did it in 7mins something?? The underwater swim test was aced by us all most doing a length of the pool no problem. Backward fining and helicopter turns in the pool were very easy it would be soooooo nice if I could do it like that with full kit on.


Back to the B&B for a course overview and introductory talk and at 8.00pm and the point where the students started licking the left over chocolate crumbs off the table Richard “My life revolves around food” (yeah right I believe you skinny boy) decided to let us eat. I had had a Kit Kat on the journey up and was till then surviving on energy bar & chocolate hand outs from Garf and Ahar. Daz mean while kept having to use the bathroom every 30mins which we all knew was his way of saying he was sneaking outside for a fag.


We settled in to the local Tandori and I made the mistake of sitting opposite Dave during dinner. Dave’s an instructor in training for GUE and was assisting on the course. He is young and typically single minded in his views on DIR and diving so as you can imagine I was having to bite my tongue on a regular basis but still letting through the occasional criticism.


Off to bed and up at 7.30 for the first day of diving proper. After equipment lectures and explanations, game one was lets set up you harness. This was good fun and corrected a few obvious mistakes but it did cause a few problems in that it altered the set up used by most of us in our practice dives. For me the rig was much tighter and this brought the back plate higher. Whilst I was driven mad by the fact this meant it took two people to drag my sorry arse out of the rig after the dive it did at least mean I didn’t have to hitch up the twin set to reach the valves.


I bought a new pair of 5mm gloves but they didn’t fit properly so I went back to my old ones with several holes in. When we jumped in I deeply regretted this decision as my hands went numb pretty quickly. Having said that David was using what looked like 1mm fingerless reef gloves ??? The man is not human.


Dive 1 was valve drills and S drills, shooting a bag. I was expecting to spend the first dive just ponsing about with trim and weighting so being thrown in at the deep end like this was a bit of a shock. I was praying that my trim and weighting with the Arctic was going to be OK. Richard walked through the skills on dry land but I have to admit I would have preferred to go through several dry practice drills before going for it in the water.


Ho hum, in we went and I was teemed with Ian (Bog Moppet) Ahar & Garf had practiced together and made team two and Daz was in with us as third man. David was on the video and we and got the first chance to star in a video nasty.


We dropped on to the 6m platform, well almost all of us. Ian was dumping everything he had but he was glued on the surface. Looking back I should have called the dive there and then as it is pointless trying to do skills in 6m underweight but stupidly I didn’t and in fact helped him get down.


Ian dropped on to the platform and instantly went into shutdown drills not giving himself any chance to recover from the problems on the surface or to sort out some sort of trim. The results were pretty chaotic. I had no idea what to do apart from occasionally push him back to where he should be. Drill over and I was in total confusion as to what had in fact happened so I stopped everything and checked all Ian’s valves to make sure they were on before having my go.


It was the moment of truth. Hovering as best I could manage I reached back and managed my right post with comparative ease. Isolator next was hard because there is no space between the first stages for anything but finger tips to get on the valve. Fortunatly stripping and greasing everything was working and it was at least turning. Finally left post and halleluiah I had done something resembling a shut down. It wasn’t easy and I needed a long rest between doing the isolator and the left post as my shoulder felt like I was banging a 6” nail into the joint. Trim was about 20 degrees of flat and I couldn’t clip off the primary reg with one hand but hey I was over the moon just to reach the buggers so I didn’t bash my self up too much on that one.


S drills were next and several mistakes were made and Ian was still struggling against the odds with buoyancy and stability in the water. Communication was non existent eye contact was lost regularly and all in all it was a totally crap. To end the dive we all fired up a bag. I decided to just sit and watch Ian in case he got into difficulty and when he managed to fire up the bag I started on my own. My hands were so numb I couldn’t feel my pocket flap and I was struggling to remove the bag and spool. Having eventually managed this I fired the bag no problem and was just about to ascend as Ian dropped his spool. I could see it wedged in between his clipped off torch and his chest D ring but Ian was looking all over the place trying to figure out how his spool could be not in his hand but not on the bottom either. Before I had a chance to retrieve it, it fell loose and dropped slowly down to the floor. I was smiling at this and then turned to see the others as one of them wound line over his thumb. That reduced me to fits of laughter. Christ these spools are good. Mind you I quickly stopped laughing as I realised I could see the spool in my hand but was not physically aware of its presence. My hands were so numb that now winding in the line felt like operating a 16 axis toy crane by remote control and I wasn’t very good at it.


I looked up from 3m to see Ian had lost the battle with buoyancy and was on the surface and that Daz had gone altogether. Probably off for a quick fag before the instructors got out and caught him. Back out of the water for a kit stripping gas fills and sticking your hands under the cold tap to warm them up. I had intended to sit in my kit practicing shutdowns but in the end my need to get warm overcame my enthusiasm and I just focused on that.


Dive two came around all too quickly. If I remember correctly, this was to be Valve Drills S drills and fining techniques. I had had a deep and meaningful discussion with Ian about buddy work and I asked him to slow down everything. The irony of this was to hit me much later. Down we went but yet again Ian was struggling on the surface. What ever changes he had made were not working and he was still underweight but now with half empty tanks.


Ian did a greatly improved shutdown drill during which we maintained eye contact and almost staid on the platform :D Then it was my turn. I did the drill totally wrong. I shut down the left post breathed down the reg, switched to back up reg then isolated and shut down the left post and breathed down the back up reg. And guess what when I switched back to my primary I had no gas. Feeling a little stupid I signalled out of air to a rather surprised Ian who did an excellent job of donating his long hose in a proper emergency this time. We didn’t panic or move much so I actually felt pretty good about this. OK so I screwed up the drill but Ian was cool when it really mattered and we coped without drama.


The drama was to come tomorrow
.

Next was fining. I felt I was fair to good at the various ******s but yet again backwards fining was a struggle. I achieved the occasional successful ****** but despite excellent demonstrations and personal attention by Richard it was still very frustrating. Helicopter turns followed which I could do but I was doing it my way not the proper way but Richard didn’t seem bothered. Ian was getting low on gas so the dive was thumbed soon after and we didn’t do the bag drill which was frustrating as I needed the practice as I was used to using a crack bottle type and not a manual with a spool.


Kit off and back to the B&B for video debriefs and more lectures. The video debrief is a powerful tool. I had seen my self on video before doing dives on CCR but they were just fining along looking at a wreck or reef so apart from the occasional off fin movement it all looked fine. Now faced with myself doing skills and drills I could see my poor body position and all the errors and to be honest it was pretty depressing. When relaxed I was holding station no problem without moving but my body was at least at 20 degrees off flat. Fortunately the others looked less than perfect and frankly Daz just looked silly so that went some way to reducing the pain.


On with the lectures and it was all pretty average stuff with no major surprises for any one who knows anything about DIR. The piss taking by myself and Garf was kept to a minimum and Richard was pretty laid back about it. Daz popped in between cigarettes to see what was happening and tried to convince us that his bladder matched his stature and that was the real reason for the multiple trips to the loo. However his deceit was scupperd when the land lady came in with his tobacco pouch that he had apparently hidden under a phone book in the hall.


Off to the curry house for yet another fantastic meal and I managed to remember not to sit next to Dave but with so few of use the inevitable happened and some minor ribbing about CCRs and DIR divers ensued. At one point following on from an earlier comment made that DIR divers wouldn’t expose them selves to a situation where a problem could arise or some such inflammatory statement, I pointed out that Dave was five years old when I started diving. He did the math and came back with the fact he was actually nine years old to which I had no ready answer so I did my very best to shut up. I failed of course but I did try :D


Day two.


I was determined to make this day go well. S drills were a faf but doable it was the dammed shutdowns that were doing me in. Kitting up in the car park I was hoping to get ready early and dry run them again but an empty Argon bottle ruined that brilliant idea and I ended up last to kit up and jogging around to the drop in point. I was in 3mm gloves today and I felt that the tactile nature of the thinner gloves would help and the fact they weren’t leaking would at least make them better than the holey 5mm ones.


Ian was heavy enough to do a proper decent this time and we dropped down for the skills. Buddy skills were much better as was eye contact but Ian was still struggling with reaching his isolator. However the job was done without the massive movement of the first day so that was good. My turn followed and I shut right post breathed down and reg swapped, clipped off the primary and went for the left post. David cut in and stopped the drill I realised my mistake and reset to start again. It seemed a simple drill but trying to keep still and flat as possible combined with the massive effort and not insignificant shoulder pain made thinking straight, hard work. I went through the drill again and this time got it right all the way to the left post. I had unclipped the primary when David stepped in again and put my hand on the primary. I flicked it away to show it was properly unclipped but he put my hand there again asking me to hold the primary as I did the shut down. I was thrown by this as I didn’t remember this being part of the drill. My hand were numb again and I was trying to hold a torch and the first stage in my right hand whilst shutting down with my left. Inevitably I dropped the torch. I picked it up and finished the drill but I was very angry because apart from this silly mistake it felt like it was going well.


The basic 5 followed and Ian had a torrid time with a mask that refused to clear and then refused to fit back on properly. He finished the dive with the mask at about 45 degrees across his face and half full of water which was a tad off putting but I was not going to attempt to straighten it for him as it might have flooded with freezing cold water again.


I did the five and it felt good to me so I was happy with that. I think we did the centre of gravity drill as well but it could have been on the first day I am not sure. Anyway that went OK and was pretty easy.


Our last S drill with Ian donating was less than perfect. As I turned to fin off as usual and thankfully holding long hose I suddenly found it was all that was stopping Ian from hitting the surface. I was totally perplexed here not knowing if it was the best to bail back to my own reg or to hang on and hope Ian got it all together. Thankfully he did and we finished the drill


Finally we did a 3min ascent decent drill that apparently we got spot on which was amusing as I had to count it in my head as I had forgotten where the time was on my Suunto and had been looking at the wrong figure. Obviously I don’t normally use a Sunnto it’s normally in my pocket and is just there to record the dive profile.


Dive over and back on dry land Ian is loosing it. He is pretty angry with himself over the mask thing which is just a typical example of don’t attempt this course in kit your not familiar with. This is pretty daft coming from me as I was diving totally foreign kit and having only done 9 OC dives in the last year and a half.


I was feeling good about shutdowns now thinking I had cracked the concept but very aware that I had only one dive left to shine. Unfortunately Richard and Dave had decided the next dive would be on the steps to the crushing plant so our nice point of reference platforms would not be there to help.


Kitted up with Ian now resplendent in his faithful old mask complete with pink slap strap we set out for our last attempt to impress.


I had a cunning plan to find a visual reference point at 6.5m and hover above it to do the drills. Ian had other ideas and tried to do his shutdowns in open water. The inevitable happened and we dropped down to 9m by the time the skill was complete.

I did my absolute utmost to drive Ian back to the 6m ledge but he seemed determined to stay hovering over deeper water. I think he got it when I screamed this f#@ing way” through my regulator at him.


Once over the visual reference I had given my self every chance of doing a smooth drill. As far as I could remember after, it went perfectly. Examining it later on video I still couldn’t see an error. However the situation was about to get desperate.

Having completed the shutdown drill I went for the S drill. I handed off the primary to Ian and blip purged the back up before sticking it in my mouth. I got one good breath and then sucked water. The reg didn’t stop like a switched off valve it just delivered water instead of air.


I signalled for the return of my primary and Ian yet again did a fantastic job of staying calm and returning it. I just managed to get it in my mouth and purged but I had no air left in my lungs to cough out the water. I swallowed what was in my mouth and tried to breather through the rest which was rather like gargling with your throat open. It went ok with me catching a few short gasps of air but then I retched into the reg and my world went to rat shit.

I have never thrown up in a reg before so this was a new experience for me. During the gasp of air that followed the retch some bile went into my lungs and it burned like acid. There was nothing any one could do to help, I had a viable air source I just couldn’t breathe it with a mouth full of vomit. I desperately wanted to take the reg out and spit it out but I just couldn’t bring my self to do it. I was still lying pretty flat and face down at this point and I decided that in 6m there was nothing for it but to go for the surface. In my scramble to do so I went vertical and managed to swallow the vomit and blessed air was once again able to get to my burning lungs.


I don’t know where I stopped but I didn’t break surface so I am guessing I went about 3m up. Dave was quickly on hand and I forgave him all his over zealous DIR behaviour for his quick reaction at being there in case I needed him. I indicated my reg was playing up and we thumbed the dive. On the surface I rinsed the primary and flow checked and tested the back up. They both seemed to be working fine and the gas was most defiantly on and the tank full so after a few cautious breaths on the reg and a running repair of the necklace with one of David’s conveniently stashed cable ties we went back down and continued the dive.


I was pretty dejected about now. I felt through no fault of my own my last chance to impress had ended in abject failure. We re-did the S drill which went fine but I didn’t take much pleasure in it. Then we set off around the wall at 6m heading back to the platforms. Ian was the unfortunate recipient of my lack of patience at this point as I gesticulated for him to speed up as we were barley moving. Ian was suspecting we would be hit by an OOA any second so concentrating on going as slow as possible but I was just focused on ending the dive.


Sure enough Richard hit me with an OOA and I flashed Ian who responded well and we did the skill with minimal drama. I signalled to continue the dive to the platform on the air share but suddenly remembered we were supposed to thumb it if we went OOA so I confirmed with Richard and thumbed the dive at which point Richard cut the drill.


We re stowed the hoses which I think went well but I didn’t really care at this point and we carried on to the platforms. Richard then signalled for us to send up a bag. We had agreed that I should do this and I did the necessary and sent the bag up. Just as I was about to clip off the reel Ian hit me with an OOA. Great I had a spool in one hand and the double ender in the other. I couldn’t help thinking that if I had been using a decent ratchet reel I could just dump, it would be great about now. I did a left handed donation as the spool was in my right hand and we sorted the long hose. I was about to ascend on the SMB as it suddenly decided to sink. Even now I have no idea how this happened, Richard was there beside us and David was shooting video but at the time I was convinced David had sunk the bag.


I thought sod it and I tided the line and clipped off the spool still attached to the bag and indicated to Ian we should free ascend. He was cool with this and we did a pretty good job with a nice pause at 3m.


That was it DIR over all but for the debrief. I was frozen solid and feeling pretty dejected.



Garf and Ahar tried to make me feel better by saying they had had a torrid time too but I was pretty down still convinced I must have made some error on my shut down to cause the reg to fail.


Back for the video debrief and I watched the sorry tail unfold. I had a perfectly clear view of my shutdown drill and it all seemed fine I even purged the back up reg at the end to make sure it was working. I started to feel better, perhaps it was just a buggered reg and it really wasn’t my fault. The rest of the bits I was involved in were ok and I now regretted letting my head drop after the flooded reg incident. Still it didn’t look too bad.


In the end we had to go through the torture of personal debriefs. I went last which was an error I wish I had gone first. Having watched the videos I reckoned Ahar would pass and the rest of us would get provisional. However Garf passed which got my hopes up. Daz got a provisional which I feel was mainly due to his numerous fag breaks rather than his diving which I thought wasn’t bad. Ian got a provisional and I think he knew that was going to be the result.


Then it was my turn.


So Mark… what do you think are your strengths and weaknesses?


Oh great I love questions like that.


Richard at one point said I was being too hard on my self and for a second I thought I had sneaked it but in the end he gave me a provisional. I was told my trim was a little off which was odd as I thought wasn’t too bad compared to the others and I was taking too long over drills and he wanted to see them slicker? Every one had told me to take it slow, pause between moves and make sure buoyancy and trim were good before continuing so at this point I nearly laughed out loud. Nothing about switching off both valves or nearly drowning which I felt were my major F/ups??? I was quite taken aback.


Then he asked me how I felt about being given a provisional? Welllllll I felt like crap about it to be honest. I had to admit that the course had not unfolded the way I had expected. The format was unlike any other course I had done before in that it felt more like a two day assessment and evaluation rather than a new skills course. I had thought I could do it easily with my years of OC experience despite only 9oc dives in the last 14months and diving with a stranger. I was wrong.


The course is demanding and what should be simple skills are made difficult by the shallow depths. I had been concerned with reaching my valves and backward fining to the exclusion of all else but in the end these were not the main problems. Simple tasks like following a routine or one handed clipping off of a primary reg screwed up the obvious tasks like holding station and buoyancy control. The devil is in the detail. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before I just hadn’t.


I don’t think Ian will be too upset at me saying he had a bloody awful two days diving. Not having the rig balanced or correctly weighted is a disaster on this course and something I don’t think he will forget in a hurry. Working with a new buddy is sometimes hard and with Ian having a crap time I found it very hard to stay focused on my own problems and at the same time aware of what was going on around me. I had to put a lot of effort into my own diving and I wasn’t capable of doing both.

Richard was generous in his praise of my team work but that was at the expense of concentration on my own issues.


Richard asked me what my greatest weakness was and I said something daft like I wasn’t happy with my buoyancy but in the end I spent the whole journey home mulling over that surprise question and I think I have the answer. My greatest weakness is I can’t multi task well. I need to be totally comfortable with one situation before I can cope with another. If I am under pressure from two directions at once I struggle.


Ironically one of the main reasons I want to do DIRF /Tech1 is do dive with disciplined and sorted divers. Looking at it now I realise this is because I feel totally ill at ease diving with flustered divers. When I dive with my wife I don’t dive I just spend the entire time focused on her and her alone. When I dived with Andyp on OC we just did the dive. If something went wrong neither of us would go into a big flap that’s the sort of diving I like. Either that or solo. Of course when it really mattered Ian was there for me despite his own problems. He was aware and did an excellent job of saving my arse. In this respect he is surely a better team diver than I am.


So this begs the question as to whether or not I would be a good team member on a DIR teem. I like to think I would but I realise that it’s going to take a lot of work.


Many thanks to Richard for the course. It’s been an eye opener, I am going to do some practice and then go do my re-assessment dive ASAP.


ATB


Mark Chase

[Sterny]

Great write up Mark! You obviously put a lot of effort in, and I'm sure the reassessment will be fine

[Rob Andrews]

Respect Mark for a very frank report and well done on the provisional.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Mark Chase again." One in the bank.

[Clare Gledhill]

Well done

[Divingniknaks]

Mark,

Maximum respect for that write up.

You deserve a big hand for having gone through it and in lousy conditions from what the others have said as well.

Well done.

[Alastair]

Excellent write-up Mark. I'm sure you'll pass the re-assessment - it took me several dives after fundies for things to come together. I'd also suggest you do have a dive where you don't practise any skills and just go for a bimble in your OC kit, it helped me a lot after I got a provisional.

Cheers
Al

[Howard Payne]

Doesn't get much more brutally honest than that, top report, thanks Mark

[Seydlitz]

Credit were credits due Mark ..Well done for having ago and being honest to boot

Best Andy

[Alex]

Nice report Mark

Quote: (Originally Posted by Mark Chase)

And guess what when I switched back to my primary I had no gas.

.

Thats exactly what happened to me on my fundies
My first thought was "Rich shut my valve down". In reality he was opening them all the time, as my cold fingers just refused to work.

In fact, if I had passed the course straight away, I would have been very disappointed and considered it a waste of money and time. It is amasing how some skills like shutdowns became easy and natural after half a year of practice. It does not mean I could not do them before- I just was struggling, now it's smooth and easy!

And yes, task loading and situational awreness is the hardest think on the course.

Anyway, I think that the cousre helped me a lot indeed.

Cheers
Alex

[And]

Well Done Mark

I think you were all completely bonkers to do DIRF in freezing cold water.

Andy