StephenT(Offline)

Saturday 18th Capernwray

(DISCLAIMER : this is me probably ranting : read at own risk)

Well i'd thought i'd jump on the bandwagon and give you all a view of my dives with Moz and later on NeilH (from a newbie point of view :]).

Ok, my day started at about 3am when i woke up thinking DIVING TODAY, which kind of meant I only got 3 hours sleep and would probably be none-communicative for the entire day, incredibly boring and less than my usual hyper self . Dad (yes dad got up early too, why? he must be an idiot) made me a sandwich at about 6am of sausages which im sure isn't a DIR diet :p. Read through the Enriched air nitrox newbie manual i got, as i was considering nitrox diving for the day, until ~7:15 when a nice cheery Moz arrived in his taxi(:p). Oh well half asleep the journey up was pretty pleasant but i probably bored Moz to death with my diving conversations, of everything he already knows. And we arrived at the cape around 9:30-9:45. The plan we had decided on was to go in for a quick weight check with me using Moz's 12l cylinder which had about ~50bar left. Car park wasn't that full and we got easily parked on the opposite side from the buildings. I had forgot my capernwray card, (couldn't find it so would have to sort this thing out, anyways nice and easy, pay 2 quid, get name off computer, 2 quid back).

And heres where the fun starts:-

Well kitting up when you aren't used to gear is quite amusing, i managed throughout the day to whack Moz's car with my 7ft hose (which probably isn't wise in respect to Moz's car or my new s600 :]).

. pre-dive

Anyways we got kitted up and walked down to the water, with me holding 4kg of lead in my hands(which didn't seem that heavy at this point :]). We head for the 6 metre platform on the right of the entrance. Well even though i was extremely overweight i managed to have intital trouble getting down :]. A problem with deflating the wing properly :']. Anyways ~1 minute later i managed to deflate it and we headed down to the platform, stayed there for a while, and kept dropping 2 kilo's at a time, and just COULDN'T work out if i could drop them. By the end i could easily stay on the platform with all 4kg's dropped. Had very little air left by this time so we surfaced and headed back. so next dive i would dive with 8kgs :]. Moz's wing inflator was leaking this dive, i think this is a known thing with some eclipse's?

So i took the tank up for a refill (probably whacked my primary into Moz's car again). payed for the refill and not knowing i had to STAND THE TANK UP and put the plastic thingy around the neck, i left the tank in the middle of the floor lying flat, NEXT TO THE PERSON WHO SERVED ME, he obviously saw that i had put it there, and didn't say anything (ok its my mistake for not knowing the procedure, but he could of atleast of told me). so left tank there and went down to see NeilH and Moz who were having a chat about something, NeilH looking amazingly cool in his red on black DUI sig. suit :], Anyways neil was pretty cool (California talk), and looked like a proper serious diver (even though he only has ~60 dives??) maybe its the suit, twins and can light swaying that opinion :]. Well after waiting for what seemed like years (2 hours?) we eventually went back into the shop and had a look around. I really thought Moz was gonna buy some junk, he seemed very easily swayed to part his cash in probably any dive shop he enters (maybe why he has 3 whole sets of kit :p). But he managed not to buy anything, i was impressed. Anyways after a long time i had a look in the fill station and noticed the tank wasn't waiting to be filled, so me being shy :] got Moz to ask the guy why it was in the He section. Apparently placing the tank lying down was DANGEROUS (padi open water manual page1, DIR not withstanding) and that someone could of tripped over it. now no offense but if some1 walks into a 12l cylinder lying in clear view, they are probably pretty dumb. Anyways the tank had been filled so we took it and kitted up for the first dive :P.

.Dive 1 (would involve moz showing me how to launch my dsmb hopefully)

Pretty nice and easy dive for quite a while, with just basically trying to get trim/buoyancy correct, first ~15 minutes was spent just touring the quarry, a few wrecks of bicycles etc. Mask decided to leak the entire dive, going to replace it with a black skirt under rule 6 :p. Nothing great. When we got to the far end of the quarry we were feeling comfortable enough to start practicing some skills. Moz's hit me with an out of air which i took about 3-4 seconds to respond too..... DOH, but eventually donated the hose and switched to my backup, could of be alot smoother, but it's a start. Buoyancy was obviously not good because we didn't stay in the same place and ascended abit whilst doing it. anyways back down, and i forget what we did for the next few minutes :p. nearly out of air by now so Moz decided that because our buoyancy wasn't great and it was a new skill we would shoot the smb whilst kneeling on the bottom. Ok two things :p My scubapro drysuit probably has the SHITTEST pocket of all dry suits ever made, but pre-dive i had managed to fit in wet notes and a reel. Attempting to remove either of these whilst having cold hands was IMPOSSIBLE, so basically i eventually gave up trying to get either out of my pocket. I then tried to remove the smb from the MC-storage pack. And as i was lately to (probably VERY badly phrased) refer to being unabled to pull the blob out of my ass :], i simply couldn't get it out. (i've read somewhere you fold and roll them). So either of these unable to be achieved we gave up and decided to surface. I've had a few problems with ascents but none as bad as today, I simply couldn't hold a steady ascent, and ended up being on the surface whilst (decent diver) Moz held a nice and easy 3m safety stop. I blame being underweight . Which i couldn't of been since i held steady on the platform at 3metres with this weight!!!!! Oh, and we both felt the cold abit on this dive :<. Moz's inflator was fine this dive.

.Lunch

We had those Narcosis Burgers (chili). all i can say, whilst being pretty nice, they were VERY hot, :P maybe getting one was a newb mistake :/

.Dive 2

Well this tank refill was pretty easy, as Moz handed them in, not me ). Turned air on whilst wearing the dry suit (i was really impressed, me=super flexible /o/) and found that air was leaking. Moz pointed out one of the hoses wasn't connected properly(my great octopus :P) and tightened it up with his spanner (not much air lost, no big deal :>)
We would be diving with NeilH and his twin sets/can light and DUI :/. Well despite bumping into both of them throughout the dive, i felt i did pretty decent the first half of this dive, obviously not great, but felt pretty relaxed and was actually enjoying using the frog kicks(probably not right but... ). I liked the can-light beam, i can now see how good it is for communication. Neil was leading so it wasn't that useful but i can see if we all had them how well the communication would work. My buddy skills were pretty poor the entire time, this is defintely one of the things i must work on. Still think my breathing is poor, but i think this is just newbieness, it's not nerves so.. you tell me . Anyways having used ~40 bar 15mins or so in neil led us to a sump. I have to admit my decent wasn't as slow as i would of liked it to of been, was slightly faster and i went forward faster than neil and eventually overtook him (GOLD MEDAL!¬!!). Forgot to add air to the dry suit and noticed the squeeze, and probably spent a good 8 minutes trying to press the none-existant inflate button (it has a side inflate LOL, i did this when i dived with RichW too, he must of thought WHAT AN EEDIOT). Anyways eventually found it and inflated suit, probably too much. My buoyancy throughout this deeper bit was in complete anarachy, with me having to fin down, to stop from rising. I was finding the regs pretty hard to breathe through and realised that the viva? control was tuned down to lowest setting LOL, it was soo much nicer once i had adjusted this :>. anyways when we came to ascend, my ascent gremlins kicked off, and i just couldn't dump the air, i had spent ages trying to stick into my dry suit, totally missed the safety stop the other two did. and despite my finning downward, hit the surface with quite a full dry suit. Although my ascent wasn't too fast, i wouldn't like to be repeating this again, lots of drysuit practice needed!!! anyways on the surface with a huge dry suit, i contemplated breaking a seal to release the air, the auto dump simply wasn't working very well. AND IT WAS OPEN, i'm blaming my undersuit for all this, as it is bulky, so i'm likely to purchase a new one soon. eventually got the air out, Fins probably popping off :> ended about 10 metres away from where neil and moz surfaced WTF???

.Conclusion

Well it's been a very useful day for me to be perfectly honest. I (sorry RichW) think it would be pointless for me to do DIR-F until atleast another 20 dives or so, i simply don't have the basics anywhere near there yet. I've realised how to get gas fills at the cape :>. I've realised that the chili burger is pretty hot :p. I know that my weighting is something i've got serious problems with, i for one really dislike the weight belt getting in the way of the harness. I know i need alot of work with the dry suit, dumping is a serious issue for me, and i think it might be half solved with a less bulky undersuit. i now know how to inflate my dry suit :>. I now know that the pocket on my dry suit is simply pathetic, either i need to just add another one beside it. or complety scissor around the current one and add the DIR pockets to both sides. The obvious solution is a new dry suit :>. I found i could actually reach the knob with the 12l tank, but had absolutely no chance with the 15l, (Richw was right about not using a weighted sta, no chance with it i feel). Most of all i need to increase my buddy awareness, which was severly lacking, what with bumping into them and everything :@), i feel such a newbie, and PADI calls me 'ADVANCED' :'). Oh well i expect to be better next time... it won't take much

(edited to improve on pre-schooling grammer errors, probably still barely readable. :@ )

keylimepie(Offline)

Enjoyed reading that, Stephen. Your skills will improve over time, even if it feels like one step forward and two steps back on occasions You missed a cracking day on Sunday.

Dave

Moz(Offline)

Stephen,
my bouyancy was just as bad!!(I have the profiles to back that up!)
I think we were both having the same problem, with trapped air in the legs with a (sort of) horizontal trim. We need to practice:D

The OOA drill ...... Erm......was actually me trying to communicate the your trim was nicely horizontal by motioning with my hand.
It didn't register with me that it would look like an OOA signal! But it was good practice anyway and actually worked quite well.

The DSMB practice kneeling on the bottom was as much for me as it was for you. I'm still very new to the use of spools and blobs and am certainly in no position to show anyone (unless you want an example of how NOT to do it!!)

Now Sunday was a different kettle of fish.... 50m viz......25degree water temp, although the bikini clad girls did hamper entry and exit from the water. You should have been there!

Fundie's awaits in the summer, Stephen. IanS has expressed an interest so that would be 4 of us - plenty of time for drysuit practice.

Ian S(Offline)

If we have four lets get something sorted with Mr Walker..

I've been avoiding it long enough!

Rich Walker(Offline)

Excellent. If you have a group of 3 or 4, then you can pretty much pick your dates. I presume that you'll want to do this at Capernwray?

Rich

__________________
Education, Equipment, Experience
GUE training with Rich Walker

Ian S(Offline)

Cool, We're just sorting dates amongst us now, yep Capernwray's best all round I believe.

Cheers

neilh(Offline)

Nice report Stephen, and good to dive with you, Moz, Keylime and Ian over the weekend - thanks all!

Good to see you all getting geared up for fundies too - you'll have a blast! You'll have your bouyancy nailed well enough by the time you do the course if you can get some dives in. Practice reaching your valve(s) and you're good to go :D

Little Pete(Offline)

If you wanted some tips on using the spools there was a good YD thread with a written walkthrough and a good video link to Andy Carrol deploying.

http://www.yorkshire-divers.com/foru...tml#post343132

keylimepie(Offline)

PM sent Rich. If we do it at Capernwray can we do the swim test in the quarry?.....waits for multiple expletives from Ian

Moz(Offline)

FROM IAN?, YOU'LL F****** GET EM FROM ME!!

(Note to Rich - If we can do the swim tests in the pool and Dave/Ian do theirs in the quarry that'll be dandy!)