Stoney Cove.........again

Rob Andrews · December 22nd, 2005, 01:13 AM

It was a couple of weeks ago when a friend (Ste) and I met up with NeilH for a few training dives at Stoney. I was looking forward to it as I had spoken to Neil and knew he had taken DIRF and I had lots of questions as I’m interested in the course myself.

1st dive.

We started off with a gentle bimble out to the staingarth, now usually when we ask Ste to navigate on a dive we end up anywhere but where we are aiming. So we enter at the bus stop after taking a surface bearing and Ste leads off. After five minutes and still no sign of the anchor chain I’m starting to get worried, after a further five minutes and still no sign I’m ready to turn round when I look up and nearly swim into the damn boat! Respect! All the way there on just a compass.

As agreed beforehand Neil now took the lead as he had swum the full length of the staingarth inside before, something neither Ste nor I had done. We all signalled that we were happy to enter and Neil took us on a guided tour. After a good look around we exited and followed the anchor chain back to the exit. On our safety stop we spotted Gledders, Ands and Mark Em’s stages in the side and were sorely tempted to take off with a couple but not knowing whether they were in the water or still on the side decided against it! Also knowing Clare it wouldn’t have taken her long to get her own back!

Excellent dive and Neil demonstrated very well the usefulness of a good primary torch for signalling.

2nd dive.

The plan was to drop in at the bus stop then across to the heli where I would send up a dsmb then we’d have a little swim then ascend. One of the things the friends I dive with and I regularly practise is OOA drills with no warning after all you get no warning if it happens for real, so before we descended I asked Neil if he was happy with this as we hadn’t dived together before. He said no probs so off we went.

All was well and I’d launched the blob when I thought now might be a good time to throw an OOA drill on whoever was closest. Its worth mentioning at this time I’ve never tried an OOA drill while holding onto a blob at the same time. I had a quick look around and as Neil was closest I gave a little tug on his fins and signalled OOA, I was immediately given a reg but the combination of trying to maintain buoyancy and look after the blob proved a bit much. We ascended about 3-4m and I had to drop the spool that I had clipped off and just hold the line, I wouldn’t say this was an out of control ascent but it wasn’t tidy either. As soon as we’d halted the ascent I signalled ok to Neil and gave the reg back. I dropped back to the spool and wound in a bit of line but I still didn’t feel quite right, I still felt positively buoyant, in the end trying to nail my buoyancy and deal with the line got a bit too much and I nearly wrapped it round my manifold! I signalled Ste to have the spool and I just finned a short distance away to get by shit together before we moved on. The ascent went fine after that but some valuable lessons learned.

It’s very easy for the simple things to go wrong when your task loaded, I’ll definitely be practising more OOA drills with blobs but with a bit more planning next time, in hindsight Ste could have taken the blob as soon as we shared gas but that’s the benefit of hindsight (or maybe GUE training).

3rd dive.

You see dive two can’t have been that bad as we did a third! Just a skills and drills dive on the shelf. I decided against the mask removal as demo’d by Neil due to a slight headache and my shutdown drill was going very well until I got cramp while shutting down the left post! Oh well you can’t win em all.

All in all a very good days diving in good company with more lessons learnt, which can only be a good thing.

P.s. If you got this far well done, I only intended to write a few words.

December 22nd, 2005, 01:13 AM	#1 (permalink)
Rob Andrews(Offline) New Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Wombourne, West Mids, UK Posts: 133	Stoney Cove.........again It was a couple of weeks ago when a friend (Ste) and I met up with NeilH for a few training dives at Stoney. I was looking forward to it as I had spoken to Neil and knew he had taken DIRF and I had lots of questions as I’m interested in the course myself. 1st dive. We started off with a gentle bimble out to the staingarth, now usually when we ask Ste to navigate on a dive we end up anywhere but where we are aiming. So we enter at the bus stop after taking a surface bearing and Ste leads off. After five minutes and still no sign of the anchor chain I’m starting to get worried, after a further five minutes and still no sign I’m ready to turn round when I look up and nearly swim into the damn boat! Respect! All the way there on just a compass. As agreed beforehand Neil now took the lead as he had swum the full length of the staingarth inside before, something neither Ste nor I had done. We all signalled that we were happy to enter and Neil took us on a guided tour. After a good look around we exited and followed the anchor chain back to the exit. On our safety stop we spotted Gledders, Ands and Mark Em’s stages in the side and were sorely tempted to take off with a couple but not knowing whether they were in the water or still on the side decided against it! Also knowing Clare it wouldn’t have taken her long to get her own back! Excellent dive and Neil demonstrated very well the usefulness of a good primary torch for signalling. 2nd dive. The plan was to drop in at the bus stop then across to the heli where I would send up a dsmb then we’d have a little swim then ascend. One of the things the friends I dive with and I regularly practise is OOA drills with no warning after all you get no warning if it happens for real, so before we descended I asked Neil if he was happy with this as we hadn’t dived together before. He said no probs so off we went. All was well and I’d launched the blob when I thought now might be a good time to throw an OOA drill on whoever was closest. Its worth mentioning at this time I’ve never tried an OOA drill while holding onto a blob at the same time. I had a quick look around and as Neil was closest I gave a little tug on his fins and signalled OOA, I was immediately given a reg but the combination of trying to maintain buoyancy and look after the blob proved a bit much. We ascended about 3-4m and I had to drop the spool that I had clipped off and just hold the line, I wouldn’t say this was an out of control ascent but it wasn’t tidy either. As soon as we’d halted the ascent I signalled ok to Neil and gave the reg back. I dropped back to the spool and wound in a bit of line but I still didn’t feel quite right, I still felt positively buoyant, in the end trying to nail my buoyancy and deal with the line got a bit too much and I nearly wrapped it round my manifold! I signalled Ste to have the spool and I just finned a short distance away to get by shit together before we moved on. The ascent went fine after that but some valuable lessons learned. It’s very easy for the simple things to go wrong when your task loaded, I’ll definitely be practising more OOA drills with blobs but with a bit more planning next time, in hindsight Ste could have taken the blob as soon as we shared gas but that’s the benefit of hindsight (or maybe GUE training). 3rd dive. You see dive two can’t have been that bad as we did a third! Just a skills and drills dive on the shelf. I decided against the mask removal as demo’d by Neil due to a slight headache and my shutdown drill was going very well until I got cramp while shutting down the left post! Oh well you can’t win em all. All in all a very good days diving in good company with more lessons learnt, which can only be a good thing. P.s. If you got this far well done, I only intended to write a few words.