Just a morning dip

[Martin Burnard]

Popped in for a dive this morning before work with 2 totaly non DIR buddies, generaly I hope that a few things might gradually rub off.

One is so engrossed in photo's that he is essentially unaware of anything else, the other has gradually copied a few things.

Then I realised that I was wrong, a few things have rubbed off, namely before the dive my photograhy buddy said " I have 120 bar to start with so if we stay shallow I will call the turn at 80 bar which should be about 20 minutes". He was right with the timing and he called the turn.

So he has picked up thirds, worked out his expected gas consumption, and relayed that info to the rest of the team, and he was right.

12 months ago he would not have called thirds, nor worked his gas consumption, and would not have volunteered any info to the team.

I know he was taught it on his PADI courses, now it's clicking into place. It just shows that as he has been exposed to divers of that mentality (not neccessarily DIR), it gradually rubs off.

All in all a pleasant dive. Viz was low (2m down to 20cm) so navigation by compass was essential (cobble and silt bottom with no major features).

Run time was a a gentle 35 minutes max depth 7m, water temp 14 degrees.

A nice start to the day.

Happy diving

Martin

[David Martin]

Martin

I'm slighlty jealous of the option to get a dive in before work!

I'm curious as to what you were doing in the ocean that needed the dive to be planned on thirds? All useable/halves (less min gas) would be much more common.

Also, what was the photographer taking photos of given the vis & silt/cobble bottom?

David

[Martin Burnard]

There was no need to run thirds given that we could have surfaced and swum in from any point in the dive, but I was pointing out that he has picked up some points which add to his safety as a diver, without me preaching or any other diver preaching to him.

Example of marine life present. The habitat is good for molusc, sponges, juvenile fish etc. They still lurk even when the viz is crap. Getting in close renders the low viz less of a problem.

As you can see even a velvet swimming crab sinks into the silt bottom whilst hiding under a cobble

[LCF]

We just spent two weeks on a cruise in the South Pacific, with a bit of diving involved as well. We had the experience of having other divers thank us for doing the pre-dive equipment checks, and having them begin to run through them with us as we did them.

A lot of people aren't stupid, or even lazy; they've followed what they've been taught and what they have seen the people around them do, and when they see somebody doing something in what seems like a better way, they're happy to follow that example as well.

No preaching necessary. (And in fact, the only "preaching" on this trip was the guy who made some remarks about "stupid long hoses" as we were gearing up for one of the dives )