Always check it out! Equipment check out dives–my story!

Introduction

At this point I have been living in my new house in Fife now for a month. I wanted to get back into my diving again so I found a local SCUBA diving club. I had met the club on Thursday night and took a liking to them, the club was full of passionate divers but were also extremely friendly and well equipped, the club has its own rib that seats four divers as well as a compressor and a bank! Not bad!

Well, if I’m going to be diving I’d best test out the gear, it’s been a good 9 months since it was last used, probably when I was doing my dive master course (which is still incomplete). The kit has also been lugged up from Essex to Scotland whilst be roughly handled by my granddad, so I thought it would be prudent to give it a test. So I met the club at the training pool in Burnt Island. I wanted to give ALL my gear a quick test, so that including my dry suit, twinset, two stages, my single tank  rig too (that I was using to teach in as part of my DM class).

At The Pool

So to test all the gear, I’d need my dry suit for my “tech rig” and my wetsuit for my “teaching rig”. I decided to wear my wetsuit as a kind of under suit under my dry suit. So imagine how I felt … At a swimming pool, which is heated to like 30 degrees and wearing a 3mm wetsuit and then my dry suit! To say, “sweating like paratrooper in a maths test” would be an understatement. At this point I started thinking what everyone thinks about their gear, “It will be fine, it’s performed me solidly for all these years, nothing is going to go wrong now!”.

But still, I was here so might as well blow a few bubbles, so I jumped in with the twinset, attached the stages and pootled about. I did a couple of valve drills and a few stage drills and switches, like back-gas to stage, stage to stage and then stage to back gas. So twin-12’s, a stage of 50% and a stage of 02 … 2m deep pool, overkill? Ha-ha! Right, time to get out the pool and change out and grab the single tank rig. So out I got and time to get out the dry suit, that was when I ripped one of my wrist seals…. great!

 

Right then, out the suit and into the single tank rig, got it on my back stood up and started buckling up the waist belt. Oh, I better turn my air on before I jump eh? Got it cranked open, SPG up to 150bar, that will do. Right, regs in mouth for a quick test …. all good, inflate the wing and then POP and the sound of screaming air. Got the tank turned off and sat down. Brilliant, so that's a burst hose then?! BRILLIANT!

Reflection

On reflection going to the pool session, whilst exhausting was extremely worthwhile.

To be honest, I have had the suit for about 6 years and the seals have never been changed in that time, and I started using dry gloves too, which would have fatigued the wrist seals too. So I suppose I got good value from them! Again at least it happened in/at pool and not in the middle of a sea dive with 8 degree water!

Also, testing the single tank regs out in a pool to learn that there was a fault was a prudent decision and to have learned that in the middle of a dive in the sea, potentially in a position where people depended on me, could have caused some serious issues!!

It was very easy to tell myself running up to the pool session (and just before I got in the water), “it will be fine” and certainly the effort I had to go through was epic and ultimately cost me dearly, but it was very much a requirement, had this happened in the sea on a “big” dive…. I (and others) could have been much worse off than just annoyed.

So the lesson I learned and hopefully you agree with me, is that a check out dive is definitely worth doing if your gear has been laid up for a while is certainly worth doing!

Dive Trip Report: Buckland Lake (21/7/2011)

Introduction

Today my buddy, Rob, and I were diving at Buckland Lake, Kent. He's recently purchased a Halcyon Single Tank system. I'm trying to get him dived up so we can start doing some shallow sea dives together.

Dive #1 is of no real interest, Dive's #2 and #3 are the interesting ones.

Dive #2

Objective : Find the tunnel in the far wall

Summary:

There are two tunnels at Buckland Lake, one of them is very easy to find by following a trench (follow the line from the platform to the right, as you approach a large boat on the left of the line, if you look down, there is a trench ... follow that for about 2-4 minutes and bang - tunnel #1).  The other one that is on the far wall of the quarry is much more difficult to find.

From the pontoon, we took the main-line to the right all the way out the Lorry Platform, from here we carried on to the tail of the plane. Swimming straight along the length of the plane to the nose, we then took the line off towards the Pump House.

Viz was challenging today, so the normal gin clear water that allows for easy navigation was certainly somewhere else. The line ends at a large pipe. To visit the rest of the pump house you need to veer off to the left. We needed to catch the other line, so I led off to the right. Sure enough after around 20 seconds we hit the line.

After establishing the correct direction of travel, we swam away from the pump house and after around 30 seconds I stopped. I deployed my reel and tied into the line. I then led as I swam away at a right angle to the line towards the wall.

The expanse is pretty much barren apart from the odd tree which I had to tie in to to keep the line taught. It took around 10 minutes before we hit the wall. Again I tied into a tree. I've got a 400' line and I'd put out around 175' of it. At this point we turned to the left as we had no idea where exactly the tunnel was, nor did I know if we had hit the wall left or right of it.

Swimming along the wall we had to travel through quite a few fallen trees, they provided some good tie-off's and meant it was a bit exciting as the tunnel could be hidden behind them. We swam on for around 15 minutes when Rob and I found a suspicious group of tree's. For some reason it was very dark behind them, so naturally we suspected the tunnel would be there.

I tied the line off to a few branches so that it was secure and then we started pushing through the tree's. It was tight and dark. After pushing about 5 or 10m in, we quickly decided it's not worth pushing any further as it's just tree roots. Pulling out we then carried on, searching high and low until I had to turn us around as I was running out of line.

So we tracked back to the original wall tie off. Rob led while I pulled the line.

Returning to the original wall tie off, we then headed in the other direction. It was much like the first side, lots of fallen tree's and some non-fallen - you could see that this was once wooded land until Buckland flooded. Again for another 15 minutes we swam on, looking everywhere and tieing off regularly. It seemed like the wall kept turning to the left.

Looking at my reel I had maybe 50' of line left, I wasn't keen on traveling off without a line in case we lost it, plus it meant an easy way home to just follow the line, rather than a long fatiguing surface swim.

Thinking it was time to turn I started to swim faster to catch up with Rob who was leading at this point. I was just about to wave my light to get his attention when something odd appeared in the wall. It looked like the buttress of a castle. Made out of large terracotta bricks.... it couldn't be the tunnel could it? The quarry wall then disappeared as we rounded the buttress. 

Sure enough this was the tunnel. It was covered with a grid. Circling around the bottom of the tunnel and then coming around the right hand side before reaching the top I got a grasp for how large the tunnel was.... easily large enough for a lorry.

As I came around I found a gap in the grid ... big enough for a twinsetted diver to get through - me thinks a return visit is needed :-). We had a good nosey about, at this point the dive time was around 45 minutes, so we turned about and headed back to shore for drinks and food before planning the next dive of the day in the glorious sunshine!

Dive #3

The previous dive was a definitely Yang, this dive was the Ying...

Objective: Conduct a dive, burn tanks down to low pressure to perform low gas weighting check.

All but the last 10 minutes of this dive were fairly plain and simple. We jumped in and went off "to the left" where the slightly deeper stuff is to get cooled off. We then worked our way back along the mainlines to the plane. We had been inside it on previous dives and Rob had noticed hatches at the back so on this dive, he wanted to try and see where the hatches came out ... So when we arrive at the plane he goes straight for the interior and heads to the tail and sticks his head about the tail to check where the hatches go ... and guesses where on the outside they might be. So we come back outside and swimming along the port side we arrived at the wing, Rob looks under and he believes that one of the hatches is under there. So off he goes, squirming away under the wing with about 2' of clearance between it and the mud. It soon gets very silty and I can't see, nor do I have the inclination to follow! So I saw over the wing to look for Rob coming out .... hmm can't see diddly squat! 

Just as I'm passing over the wing, I feel a tug on my left fin, I turned around and I see an arm coming out of a hole between the wing and fuselage! I swim over, and a diving mask comes into view, its Rob! He's in a gap where the wing has broken away from the fuselage. I must admit, I chuckled, thinking how the hell did he get there! So i gave a light hearted, "you" ... "ok" .... and a very frantic head shake came back to me. 

He tries to wriggle about but gets no where .... Oh shit ..... He's stuck, and we are doing a dive where we are intentionally running our tanks low. He probably has 70bar left in the 12, I look at my SPG, 50 bar in twin-12's ... fuck ... that won't last long with a bit of stress..... My first thought was "how on earth do I tell his family (that I've met and know well) that he drowned, I was with him but couldn't save him". It was a very morbid moment, but a quick snap back. 

Let's sort this... First of all, lets look around a bit. So I moved over to what would be the trailing edge of the wing and look under, I can see the blue fins, I gave them a pull and squeezed his knee to let him know that there is an easy way out ... Right, I went back up to Rob, and tried to gesture to go down. He shook his head and pointed over his shoulder at the tank. So I came in close, pulled my light out and looked in....

A birds nest of cables would be an understatement, shit, he's well and truly tangled I thought. Now I start thinking of cutting him out of his gear putting him on my long hose and we share air and ascend together, that would be stressful to do (the cutting him out and getting him out) but it could be our last option.

There are dozens of heavy cables and piping dangling all around, so I decide to work methodically, I untangled the obvious stuff from around the 1st stage, that cleared a good bit out. Now jamming my head in (the hole was only about big enough for an average person let alone one panicked guy and one large guy in twins), there's a few more wrapped around the tank, so a bit of pushing and pulling and they came loose.

So at this point, I breathe and do a sanity check, how much gas have I got left? SPG ..... 30 bar ... shit, now we are in the really inaccurate section of the gauge  .... fingers crossed it is under-reading. Breathe deep, I push on his head to try to tell him to start wiggling downwards, which he does, I then go down to grab his leg and start pulling. I then see his other leg and start pulling on that .... It takes a lot of pulling but eventually he pops out.

He gestures to say that he is ok. I then say he is an idiot ... I mean a wanker with the appropriate gesture ... but we just floated above the plane for a bit to relax and then we surfaced and chuckled hysterically!

Summary

Well I hoped you enjoyed that small trip report, quite a mixed day, but thoroughly enjoyable!

Dive Report: SS Braunton (16/6/2011)

History and The Wreck

Twenty-four year old Joseph Richardson and George N. Duck formed the company Richardson Duck late in 1854. In the period up to 1865 the yard built a total of 50 screw steamers, one paddle steamer, 10 sailing ships and 29 barges. the first steel ships built on the Tees were launched from this yard in 1859. Over the years the yard took over numerous other yards on the Tees until 1865 when it amalgamated with the engine builder Thomas Richardson and the shipbuilder Denton Gray, both of Hartlepool, forming Richardson, Denton, Duck & Co. though a year later split back in to its constituent parts. Over the period 1870-72 output of the yard averaged 10,000 tons per annum. By 1882 this had risen to 21,000 tons. In 1909 the company was put on the Admiralty List. The yard was busy throughout the First World War, building, amongst others, two Flower class sloops. During the 1920s the company suffered a fall in orders and went in to liquidation in 1925.

On April 7th, 1916, the British steamer SS Braunton, on a voyage from Boulogne to Newport with a cargo of government stores, was sunk by the German submarine UB-29 (Herbert Pustkuchen), 4.5 miles SxW of Beachy Head. There were no casualties

Source: Wrecksite.eu (http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?169)

About The Charter

Channel Diver is run by Captain Steve who is an excellent skipper. A funny and easy to get along with bloke who serves up lashings of coffee and ginger nuts!

Channel Diver is a catamaran and as such is significantly more stable in the water, good news for those of us who are still trying to find out sea legs.

The Dive

Today I will be diving with my fellow buddy, Rob Waran. From research about the wreck, we knew that she was in around 36-40m of water. Normally Rob and I would be diving 32%, however, this mix would have been quite hot, a ppO2 of 1.47 is not something I'm happy to entertain so a different mix was used. That mix was 25/25 trimix with 50% nitrox for decompression.

We recorded a max depth of around 37m so the helium did take the edge off a bit.

Steve had shotted the wreck perfectly and we were right in the middle of the wreck. The current was running hard and I found it incredible deceiving that I was actually descending as the feeling of the suit squeeze was constant and injecting gas didn't change the feeling as the gas just moved behind me!

Eventually we arrived at the wreck, a minute on the bottom to relax and do a quick bubble check and we were set. We had to make sure we were in trim and looking fabulous of course :-) Current depth 33m. We needed to keep a track on average depth as it would affect our deco profile. And given that I was using an Uwatec D-Timer it didn't calculate average depth, so every few minutes I checked the gauge and did the quick average calc in my head.

We set off and headed over to the boilers, there was a considerable pipe sticking up from the wreckage about 5 feet, a quick peer down with the HID light revealed a crab who was not so pleased with having 21W of HID light in his face and made a go for me! ... so we moved on.

I looked down and saw what I thought was a torch that was still on, the mag lite style. My first thought was "EBAY!", I dropped down to look at it and when I got closer I realised it was a piece of lead used for the fishermen, it was around 8cm long and had a triangular cross-section - easy mistake to make!

Pulling back up and with Rob in the lead we carried on around the wreck. The wreck was quite broken up and it was difficult to tell where on the wreck we were, but I think we found the bow. After coming around the port side of the wreck there was an interesting sight.

I found a crab just floating mid-water. My first thoughts were that it looked like one of those face-huggers from Aliens had been frozen in time halfway through its flight. I saw it just hanging there, so I gave it poke with my light head and it started twitching which scared the hell out of me! Pulling back out of the wreckage we carried on around. There were a few lobsters around as well as some starfish looking creatures.

It was at this point that I found a significant conger! It was a good 2m long with a vicious set of teeth! A few seconds later I found another hiding under some wreckage.

We ended up doing several laps of different parts of the wreck including the bow and stern with propellers.

The Ascent

With a dive time of 35 minutes with an average depth of 37m we called the dive. Rob deployed the bag and I was to run the ascent. Rob started to inflate the bag and let it go, the spool was happily reeling out when suddenly Rob started going up, somehow the spool jammed (to this day we still don't know how it happened) so Rob had to let go of the spool and off it went. I could see on Rob's face the look of "bugger there goes £150 worth of bag and spool ...". There was a few moments of just sitting there looking at each other with Rob feeling sheepish. But true to DIR, I deployed our backup bag and then the roles switch, I was running the bag and Rob ran the ascent.

Other than the loss of the bag the ascent was uneventful. Thankfully, when we surfaced the skipper had recovered the bag! So all in all, a good dive and no one lost any really expensive gear!

Conclusion

The SS Braunton dive was excellent, we enjoyed reasonably good viz of between 5 and 10 meters. There was also a good amount of wildlife to see, I should advise, you need to be wary of fishing line as there was a considerable amount all over the wreck. The wreck itself is very broken up and was more of “bits of metal sticking out the ground”. So whilst it was a good dive and I enjoyed it, it isn’t one I would do again, and I would also advise others to find more interesting wrecks than this.

Adding A Splash Of Helium: IANTD Advanced Recreational Trimix Course Report

Instructors: Howard Payne and Clare Pooley
Location: Vobster & NDAC
Date: 19/5/2011 - 22/5/2011

D-Day Minus 1

For the day before the course I had intended to get one last dive in at Wraysbury, however, typical London quality driving meant that my buddy's friend had been run over and I was left with no way of getting any more bubble time in. I'd managed to get in about half a dozen dives in the few weeks running up to this so I felt OK. Arriving at the B&B in Somerset and you have to take a step back to realise just how amazing it is. We were to spend the Somerset portion of the course at Lower Road Farm House before decamping at some ungodly hour on the Sunday to make it for the qualifying dive.

The local pub, The Horse and the Groom (clearly the inbreeding of the West Country has become dull, therefore they are expanding their circles to include the animal kingdom!), is fantastic and serves amazing food and was surprisingly busy considering the fact that we are based in the middle of no-where. An early night was due as I'd struggled to get any decent sleeps this week and for the pounding that Howard would inflict upon us, I thought it would be a great idea.

D-Day

Any day of diving calls for an excellent breakfast, and I had a breakfast of champions - a full fry up! I also met the first course victim Glyn.

Arriving at Vobster for 830 only to get a phone call from Howard informing us that he will be late.... so slowly setting up the kit wasted a bit of time. During that time Glyn and I met the other two victims ... Geoff and John. We camped under the tent and milled about chatting and getting to know each other. Eventually the hippopotamus arrived at nearly 11am, we moved up to the class room to start introductions and fill in paperwork. We started off the theory by discussing gases and calculating gas mixes. Very simple and easy maths. Glyn and I had changed into our under suits and by this point we were sweating like paratroopers in a maths test. So a quick change out into normal clothes. Or so I thought.... I changed into my normal board shorts and carried on walking around in my shoes as I had forgotten trainers. Glyn's situational awareness was clearly switched on as he spots this and described my shoes as "paedo" shoes....

Anyway, after discussing the theory of gases, it was onto talking about the rig and why the gear is configured the way it is. Finally we talked about all the different options when it comes to stage bottles and the merits of each.

The plan for the first dive was to simply bimble about and get used to carrying a stage. This was made significantly more difficult as the Royal Engineers had decided to stop by and drop the best part of 40 tonnes of rock in Vobster! This didn't ruin the visibility at all! It absolutely destroyed it!

Dive #1

Dive time - 43 minutes
Max depth – 13m

Jumping in at the far end of the lake to try to avoid as much of the sediment as possible. We conducted bubble checks on each other on the surface before finally dropping down. After getting settled we swam through a small tunnel, it was at this point two members of the team got lost (but didn't know that!). We swam around until we found a platform. Only two of the students had made it! So Howard told me to wait and he would see if he could find the other students, about 10 minutes later they arrived and we practised dropping and picking up the stage, amazing how much of a buoyancy change it caused!

After that we carried on swimming around the crushing works and then back to the entry slipway. During all of this though the viz was no more than 2m. So it was very slow moving and difficult work, at the very end John and I lost the rest of the group even though they were only a few meters away. We surfaced and haggled the soldiers for destroying the viz.

It was a case of rapid de-kits and departure back to the B&B as we had massively over-stayed our welcome due to the late arrival of Mr Payne, but Vobster are great like this and didn’t kick up a fuss. Back at the B&B we discussed about decompression which ended on a demonstration of using deco planner. We departed for the Horse and Groom again which rounded of a great day - the 16oz steak did help as well!

Day 2

I woke up this morning and first feeling I had was that of being bloated.... I was still digesting that half a cow from the previous night. And although I was still full, I made myself have the full cooked breakfast - always a good start to the day! Today Mrs Darkness was joining us.

The first dive of the day was to learn about the various drills. So we jumped into pea soup and bimbled around to the 6m platform where we got around 5m viz - wow! John and I buddied up; we were both GUE Fundamentals students so we made a good pair. We took it in turns to do the valve drills. We managed this fairly well. The previous day John had said he was struggling with his twinset as the valves were quite stiff, I let him borrow my 12's and he managed to do OK today. I also did fairly well.

Next skill was the gas sharing, or S-Drill. Again we both managed to do OK with this.
Now there was one more skill, the one I had been dreading more than anything.... the no mask swim.... It was me first ... actually glad it was that way because it meant I got it done with..... Anyways ... a bit of apprehension (!!!!)... I got John to grab my arm and then slowly peeled the mask off.... Bend Me over Backwards and Screw Me Sideways with a Banana ... it was cold!! My in water comfort as a diver has come on miles since Fundies as there was none of the panic I had during Fundies. During fundies I had been like a lead-cork floating and sinking massively and hugely stressed throughout it. Through touch contact John was telling me what to do, with him guiding me I felt quite comfortable (as you can). I was trying to keep my eyes open so I could see what was coming and after what felt like a life time my mask was pressed into my hands. On it went, got settled and passed that test. It was John's turn now and he did well, again I guided him through touch contact and we made it well.

Finally it was time to pop the bag, again a fairly simple procedure. Bags launched but we did have the issue of lines getting tangled on the ascent but we managed. Looking over to Glyn and Jeff though they seemed to be having trouble with the drills - primarily because they were new to them, and Glyn was new to the skills in a twinset.

A nicely controlled ascent and we surfaced, a bit of banter started about how Howards team (John and I) were doing well and we had to wait for Jeff and Glyn, at this point I started saying something on the lines of how amazing we were as a lads only team ... this obviously incurred the wrath of the Dark Lord and I would receive suitable punishment, 50% of it was psychological and the other 50% was physical!

Dive 2 was actually two dives. The first dive basically failed straight away as we lost half the team within about 5 mins ... it’s at this point high power primary lights (HID and LED - The EOS was pretty damn good!) are a godsend. Jeff and I managed to stay with Howard, yet John and Glyn were lost, 15 minutes of waiting on a platform while Howard went hunting and we called it quits.
Thus we managed to find Clare's team and we jumped in with them further around the quarry. It was more V and S drills, as well as practicing using the pull and glide technique - Howard, the hippo he is sure can shift when he does that!! We all had a go and managed it to some degree or another.
Also the 15m OOA swim… OK, I was poised at one end of the platform with Glyn and Howard, Clare was at the other end with Jeff and John. Howard gave me a reminder to get some deep lungful’s of air and then go for the 15m OOA swim. I was supposed to leave my reg in my mouth but I forgot and spat it out - which helped for the realism a bit both for my donor and me.
It was at this point 15m is a damn long way when pushing through the water with twins and a stage. Lungs were certainly crying but kept going as I knew air was somewhere ahead.... keep going, keep pulling, keep finning ... a-ha! Someone appears in the distance! Waving my light furiously as I swim forward towards John...

He's just staring at me - maybe he's a bit shocked seeing someone appearing with no gas ... OK he'll react eventually .... I arrived a foot or two from John, he still hasn't reacted or started donating his reg ... bear with it a second.... which felt like a life time.... nope he's still not reacting, sod it I'm breaking the rules and taking a breath on my back up as I physically couldn't wait any longer .... AH FRESH AIR! God you taste good!

At this point, Jeff, for I found out it was him later, donated a reg and we got sorted. Funnily enough when I came out from the silt cloud OOA and no reg I heard Clare literally yell through her reg WTF and it was quite funny afterwards ... Poor ol' Jeff though, Clare was in the middle of going through a valve drill with him 1-on-1 (ish) nice and slowly, thankfully he had just re-opened his right post when I arrived! John was still waiting to donate to me a little further along the platform.... Anyway an underwater debate and the dive was called to which the surface chat was very amusing - probably the one and only time you'll find Clare startled!

And then came the really exciting bit - climbing the ladder in twin-18's ... yup it was difficult work but I am a man so I got up! Post dive de-brief was useful, but then the post-debrief debrief was a bit harder to swallow... Clare and Howard are convinced that although I feel better in the water in my 18's - I'm actually not ... hmm I spent the rest of the day mulling it over.... By the end of Day 2 I had mixed feelings, in some senses I felt good, in others I felt nervous. Oh well, bring it on was all I could think of ... And the next day... And oh did they!

Day 3 - Hump Day

It was hump day - it was the day in which we had to impress Howard and Clare to let us do the mix dive tomorrow. It was planned for the Salsette. However weather isn't looking particularly good, Howard is saying doing a mix dive in the sea with weather like it is could be "interesting" - Glyn say's it’s like a Weymouth Girl.... Eh? Puzzled looks all around - Rough But Do-Able....

First dive of the day was to do a dive down to 22m ish and then do an ascent with a switch at 6m. And stops at 12m and 9m. On the first dive I was popping the bag and John running the ascent. My first "issue" was that I didn't get the bag out of my pocket on the way up.... Second "issue" was I didn't have the bag pre-built on the spool - no real problems as such but just delayed the ascent. Bag popped using the dry suit inflator - running it off my argon bottle its a few inches shorter than is nice so when I'd finished launching the bag I couldn't find it ... oh well; don't need the suit for the ascent any way ... Ascent went OK we survived.

A surface debrief and John and I swapped roles, I ran the ascent and he popped the bag ... so we dropped down ... this time we tried to hit a descent rate of 20m/min ... and at about 10m I go to start inflating my suit .... Well that was the plan... I press the inflator and squat happens.... I pound it ... still nothing happens! By this time we are at 15m and the suit is tight and starting to hurt ... time to call the team in Clare being the rock she is was below me so all I could do is prod her head while I attracted John's attention - stabilised at around 17m and he attached my inflator. Ooft much better now! I truly was shrink wrapped! We carried on the descent and got comfy again at depth.
And then thumbed it, during the ascent John had the bag out and ready for launching at 12m, we did our 9m stop and then switched at 6m to our deco bottles. Then a nice ascent. Went well. Another quick surface debriefs and then we swam over to Howard. Clare said she was impressed and surprised at how good we were. Bugger me! I take compliments well, but getting a compliment from a diver of such high standards is something that meant a lot to me!

A surface interval for lunch and talking about the kind of failures that "may" happen to us on the next dive. It was the dive where it all goes wrong! You know the kind where you swim two feet and then you have a failure, then you swim 6 inches and you have another failure? That one. It was an “all hell breaks loose type dive” is what I was thinking.

We gathered at the crushing works. All the students waited with Clare for around 20 mins with nothing to do.... just sat there, chewing gas ... I was quite unsettled as I knew hell was awaiting, trim was out, breathing was high, in general a complete loss of fabulousness! At some point Howard came back, then something happened with Glyn and Jeff, we started ascending and then dropped down again ... OK I still don't know what happened. Then it came time for John and I to do the course Howard laid and take the failures....

It was Cave 1-esque ... the swim out to the end of the line was fine.... but the return journey was where the fun happened. I had a meagre 70bar left at the EOL. I can't remember exactly what order things happened in but …. there was a reg failure that was fixable ... then a primary light failure, then my stage reg got caught on some wreckage (that was partly genuine and partly assisted ..), I then went out of air .... When we came back to the pit of the crushing works I was relieved ... ascent time.... I remember once we started our deep stops, Howard looked over and asked me if I was ok, I just shook my head!

Up we went.... at 12m I switched onto my deco bottle, then John did.... at 9m we had a brain fart.... I forgot who was running deco so we spent about 5 mins at 9m until I remembered it was me ... bloody stress! 6m for a few mins and then the surface.... Surface swim back to the Quay and out on to the benches ... at this point a delayed dose of hysteria kicked in I think. I sat on the bench still in full gear just giggling away. Probably for a good 15 minutes. Once I calmed down a bit we dekitted. I still couldn't believe we survived that lot. That dive was one of those dives where you wish you were sat on the surface, wishing you could be diving, rather than diving wishing you were on the surface! So I was glad to survive it!

We got the news that we were blown out of the Salsette and so we were off to NDAC the next day - I must admit I was very relieved.

Day 4 - Qualification Day

We convoyed the drive up to NDAC and we lost John just outside of Frooom (Frome). Oh well ... we met him again at NDAC. NDAC is actually a fantastic dive site; its one issue is that you have to minibus it down to bottom of the quarry.

Dive #1

John and I had Clare to ourselves for this dive. We started by descending down onto a cargo container. Here we did some valve drills to each other and we did quite well - trim was good and so was buoyancy. Clare led us off to where Howard had laid a nice long course with my Pathfinder 350 :-)

We had agreed that I would go #2 and John would go #1. We regularly swapped roles through the course so no one person had it more difficult than the other. Clare had asked us to note our time and pressure. So we wrote it in the wet notes.

So off we toddled down the course and would you believe John had a right post failure. He switched to his back up and I came into look. I gingerly re-opened the valve and it turned out to be fixable. I got kudos for that. It took a bit of persuasion to get John to switch back to his long hose, but after a while he did! He didn’t believe me that I had re-opened the valve. It was a case of monkey-see ….

I then though, Because we had "dodgy" kit - we made the call to end the dive ... off we toddled - Clare gave us the kudos but then told us to carry on with the dive - damn and I was hoping to get out the water!

So we carried on. Then I had the same failure.... same procedure and we called the dive again started heading out but then Clare told us to resume the dive - we really didn't want to carry on! Ha!
So we plodded on, I was number 1 at this point, on we went and then John had a light failure. Quick communication so we both knew what was going on and he was on his back up, now he was #1. We called the dive, started the exit, got the kudos but then were told to carry on (see a pattern?).
So we carried on ... the line went through a container, it was an overhead environment and had a potential tangle hazard on the bottom, so John (as #1) did the obvious thing of going to cuddle his bottle in close to him ..... He then did a helicopter turn.... he gave me the "You" ... "look" ... and then pointed to under his left arm ....I'm sure there was an ally-80 there last time I checked!

Yep the Mistress of Darkness had somehow managed to steal a bottle. So a bit of cursing and a quick look around and we couldn't see it ... so guess what we did? Yup we called it and made our exit.... guess what? Ally-80's form rain now because one came raining down on us.... So we donned it and continued the dive....

We went through the container and got to a plane, as #2 at this point my mask was taken. Thankfully NDAC water was significantly warmer than Vobster so I could keep my eyes open, I was swimming after John frantically waving my light - I swear I wasn't getting closer to him! Eventually I caught up and he noticed - I poked myself in the eye signalling I had no mask. He pushed me down to the plane so I had a solid object to hang on to.

So I tried to deploy my back up mask.... to make it easier I decided to just pull out my entire right pocket and then grab the right thing. Got the mask on and settled and then got on with the dive. A minute later Clare told us to note time and pressure again.... so I reached into my right pocket to grab my wet notes.... I patted around the entire pocket.... I then pulled out the bungee.... nothing in the pocket ... Bugger.

After a bit of cursing, a set of DIRZone wet notes fell from the sky - lesson learned - pack away pockets.
So we plodded on with the dive.... we came across the APC - the line went through the roof hatch and through the interior - Clare went through it, but John and I thought better of it and went over it, at this point we reached the end of the line yay! I stowed my primary light and picked up the reel. And we made our exit.

John went through the APC first.... I followed, keeping the line as taught as possible (cavern training kicking in here). John went out through the hatch and turned around to wait for me to come through. I'd stuck my head through the hatch and guess what? John goes OOA - great timing John!! I donate a reg with my right hand, reel in left, once he had the reg I then use my right hand to lock the real down ... at this point I realise it would be a good decision to throw my back up in my mouth as I am starting to feel oxygen-starved!

Clare took pity on me multi-tasking and took the reel off me. I went in to try to fix his right post, but it was an unfixable failure. So we got the long hose deployed and did a gas sharing exit. I went into touch contact and secured the hose.

The exit went well, because Clare was busy reeling in! John had a serious loss of fabulousness when he banged his head on some kind of buoy near the container. At this point we went single file and I had hold of his thigh. Clare had gone over the container and was upside down looking in at us ... I gave her a considerate wave. Finally back at the exit and did a shared air ascent and surface! Alive!
The debrief was pleasant, although we were credited for being good thinking divers, we missed the obvious thing of examining our deco bottles MOD and our actual depth - the perfect team would have switched the OOA diver onto the deco bottle as we were shallow enough to be safe. Oh well.... we are alive.

A long surface swim and we dropped down to 24m. I was hit as OOA. We started the ascent - it was a bit slow to start with but we got going. The switch was good but a bit shaky at one stop. I think at 9m, John lost his mask. While getting his mask out he dropped his wet notes which went plummeting down into the depths - Clare went after it while we did our ascent and we met her on the surface. She was doing a bit of o2 deco too!

OK those dives done with it was time to head up to the top get debriefed and get trimix!!! Twin-12's with 25/25 was £35. Didn't hurt too much - I was expecting closer to £50. A long debrief over lunch. John's luck was certainly running low as he managed to rip his wrist seal. Clare managed to repair it and it held for the mix dive.

Trimix Dive

The plan was to do 10 mins at 45m and then do the deco schedule as if we had done 20 mins.
So off the far end of the jetty and dropped straight down! Pulling ourselves down the line.... bugger me 45m is a long way down! At about 35m I started to look up and not concentrating on the line and wow! The viz was 30m easily! There was a large boat sunk at around 48m, but my MOD was 48m and John's was 46m so we had to be careful. We bimbled around a bit and before you knew it time was up. Thumbs all around and we started the ascent. I was actually using the inflator to get some ascent speed. It certainly did help - god if PADI instructors knew that they would have a coronary!

The ascent seemed to take forever to hit 21m - I was running the deco, John was bagging up. I wanted the practice of running the times etc.

21m for 1 minute. OK, up to 18m ... launch the bag, I took the bag off John and told John and Howard to get ready to switch. John was ready first.... did the checks, ok had him switch, checked out Howard.... OK there’s the reg.... follow the hose to the cylinder.... look down the cylinder.... OXYGEN 6 - what depth we at? 18m. I told him no and had him restow. Bag back to John and I switched. Turned on the valve and got a shower of bubble pissing out from the valve. My first thought was "bugger - we are going to have to do the No-Deco gas deco profile - all 45 mins of deco! I thought about it rationally, let’s try this again and see where the bubbles come from.

Bubbles piss out from the thread - thank god that means it’s not a 1st stage failure - I was preparing for a feathering of the valve through deco, but it wasn't needed. So purged the valve and retightened the 1st stage a touch and then reopened the valve and it held. Thank god, I did the switch.
Start the clock 3 mins at 18m.
And up to 15m - hold for 1 minute....
And up to 12m - hold for 1 minute.... I checked my deco pressure - 110bar - plenty (I went in with 140bar - Clare told me it was plenty so don't bother getting it refilled)
And up to 9m - hold for 1 minute....
And up to 6m - hold for 10 minutes... I got Howard to switch now it was his time.
About 5 or 6 mins in I check the pressure of the stage again - 50bar ... EEK that went fast ... I signalled this to the team ... carried on with deco. At this point I realised just how much in water comfort I had - I was off the line and just floating mid-water - no effort at all to maintain stops - I just sat there - maybe dropped down 6.5m at the most but I was so comfy it was amazing.
Howard wrote a note to us - "You both did very good! :-)" - I thought that’s it - I've done it I've passed.

2 mins of deco left - 30bar left in the stage... bugger me
1 minute of deco left - 20bar ... hurry up clock!!!
I saw 40 on the D-Timer and I indicated to Howard and John that I was switching off the stage and onto back gas. I did so and did a nice restow to by swinging the bottle out in front of me. All while looking fabulous!

We then did the 1m/min ascent to the surface. I broke the surface and I was laughing - wow that was an incredible dive - Clare said I'm easily pleased but that really was the best dive I've done - OK apart from diving Manatee cave system.

We got dekitted and packed up the cars. I met Imogen who apparently liked my look of board shorts and tan shoes ... Glyn still insist on his comment though.....

We rendezvous at the toll bridge services for the debrief went well-ish. The other three were told to go and were wished congratulations - I was told to stay. I haven't passed have I?

Well I did pass. That’s about as much as I am willing to disclose about the conversation - that conversation stays strictly between Clare, Howard and I. In a nutshell I got some excellent advice and even better compliments which again stay between us but were certainly well received and cherished - I can still hear it now.

So after finishing the debrief we part ways. I just have to do the exam and then I'll be officially an IANTD Advanced Rec Trimix diver!

Summary

The course was incredible, I strongly recommend it. Clare and Howard are excellent instructors with a phenomenal amount of experience to back up what they have to say.

I do strongly advise divers to have done Fundies prior to this; it builds on those skills and being solid in the water makes everything so much easier. I won't admit to being rock solid - I'm still hunting for those hooks that Clare suspends herself from in the water.... But I was certainly a million times better diver than I was coming out of Fundies, which made me a billion times better than when I went into it.

The course teaches you all about failures and equipment management, it allows you to dive deco gases up to 100% oxygen and dive a trimix with at least 25% o2 and as much helium as required to give an END of 24m.

It was an incredible experience made very enjoyable by Glyn and his stories, combined with Howard's crude humour and me generally egging it all on.

A Journey To The Dark Side: GUE Fundamentals

Day 1

I don’t do mornings … really I don’t! I took 30 mins of snoozing the alarm plus a phone call from the fiancée to get me up! So I staggered bleary eyed down the stairs to receive a fantastic fry up from Barbara at 8am.

Clare soon arrives and introductions are made. Assisting Clare is John Grogan. My first impression of both Clare and John was surprise … when you read about “celebrities” such as these on the forums such as direxplorers, I was expecting GI3 type characters … but when I met them they are down to earth normal people!

I’m by far the youngest and most inexperienced of the group. Walking into the class at 20 with only 72 dives to my name. That eventually came back to haunt me. Coffee peculators are distributed and then the course officially starts at 9:30am. A round the table introduction gives each other a quick insight into each other and why we want to do the class. I wanted to do the course to become a better diver and become more proficient in the water.

The lectures started – I was particularly interested in the decompression lectures and how the DIR way of recreational deco is conducted. Rather than the typical “stop at 6m for 3 minutes” that most divers who have come up through PADI/BSAC know, this is more of a gradual/continual deco – known as Minimum Deco. At this point I started picking brains into the details of decompression at the levels Clare and John dive at. Wow it gets fun!

Then we rolled onto nitrox … of even more interest was the oxygen toxicity and the mechanisms behind it and why 32% is considered ideal for its balance of 02 content and reduction of nitrogen. How Sudafed decongestant tablets are proven to be exciters of oxygen toxicity, why PP02 should be kept as low as possible, how to track CNS % and OTU counts …

At this point I could feel steam raising off my head … the knowledge to take in is immense and I considered myself quite wised up before walking into the class! Lectures rolled onto minimum gas … why 50bar is absolutely useless! Even in twin-12! It’s incredible the amount of gas that is required to do a safe ascent from depth., at some point we all had to do the calculations, my minimum gas (in twin-12’s) for a 30m dive is set at 80bar. Clare asked us what pressure we would turn a dive at – later it revealed that what we thought was safe … wasn’t! Colin revealed that he would end a dive at 80bar on a 15 … after crunching some numbers he decides to up it to 100!

John told a story of when he was doing a push dive in Ressel, he had left twin-18’s plus other safety reserves of gas as back up, when something went wrong and they decided to leave, they managed to burn through all that gas (that’s two twin-18’s at 240 bar … nearly 18,000 litres of gas purely for emergencies gone). Minimum gas calculations for our dives may seem a bit trivial, but it could save your life later on…

More lectures on trim, finning techniques, buoyancy characteristics, balanced rig … you name it we learned (well tried to absorb!) it. An interesting lecture was narcosis where Clare admitted to being narked at 3m. I found this truly ridiculous. 3m! I mean come on – admitting to being narked at 30m is understandable! In theory you are narked the minute you descend, the effect just increases with depth. However, thinking that when we do a deep dive where we are nervous and tense we usually feel more narked, the same process should apply shallow. Looking back I am convinced I was narked at the 6m platform during the first two days diving on the course… I was stressed to the max and I can’t remember parts of the dive. Hmmm … I think helium is on its way soon as humanly possible…

Day 2

We went out into the car park and learned the S-Drill. Actually quite a simple drill, but you have to really take your take and think. What we must have looked like to the people walking around nearby I have no idea.

Dive #1

Depth: 12.5m

Duration: 45 mins

The first dive was to try out the new finning techniques Frog Kick, Mod-Frog Kick, Flutter Kick and Mod-Flutter Kick. It was supposed to be a nice easy shake down dive. Pleasant swim round to the platforms, we go straight through a silt cloud where I lose my sense of direction and have a buoyant ascent … I get back down and carry on and arrive at the platforms.

Clare demo-ed each kick and then we did laps around the platform. Everyone did OK although I had the problem of dropping my knee’s during the power phase of each kick. The back kick was a failure; I just couldn’t do a thing! I just stayed where I was, if anything I went forward and down!!

Next was no-mask swim … was not looking forward to this whatsoever. Richard led me well and gave me the all important feedback of where I was … managed to get my mask on and hey – still somewhere near the platform! I ended up having some buoyancy issues as I was getting ready to lead Richard on a no-mask swim which resulted in massive stress and an equally massive CO2 hit (I learned this in the evening).

Gas got to my feet and no matter what I did I couldn’t get comfortable, I was getting extremely stressed. Although my average SAC for this dive was 30 l/min, at this point I was hitting close to 70 l/min. Although I was panicked and stressed I tried my best to get it sorted, in the end I did a gradual ascent and relaxed for a bit – I could see everything with the appearance of fog/mist – a positive sign of C02 hit caused by stress and an ineffective breathing cycle.

We ended the dive with an attempted 9m/min ascent to 3m, a stop then slow ascent upwards.

I just went up and up and I felt horrible, I had two buoyant ascents, a stressed but vaguely controlled ascent, couldn’t do the drills, couldn’t do the finning techniques, couldn’t keep trim, couldn’t get comfortable, had floaty feet … I just wondered why I dived.

But after feeling low and a chat with the fiancée I shaked myself down for dive #2 – I refused to be beaten – I would not quit at this. I was determined not to be beaten.

Dive #2

Depth: 12.5m

Duration: 55 mins

This dive was an attempt at the basic 5...Step 1 – take your primary regulator out and put it back in – did ok. Step 2 – take your primary regulator out, stow it and switch to back up – did ok. Step 3 – deploy long hose, switch to back up, restow and return to primary – did ok. Step 4 – Mask flood and clear – did ok. Step 5 – Mask removal and refit – massive problem.

Doing step 5 horizontal compared to kneeling on the floor was freaking hard! I also had a bad habit of spitting my primary reg out when I took the mask off! Don’t understand why that happened! The first time I did this I floated up and had to be pushed down, the second time I did quite well and stayed within about a meter of starting point.

Doing the second one took a bit of building myself up to – although I didn’t show it, I really hated having my mask off. In warm Florida waters I would open my eyes so at least I could see, even in a pool I can do it however the water was freezing and it gave me headaches when I had my mask off, so that wasn’t an option to me. In return it did panic me a bit. Which is why it took me so long to do it the second time.

Day 3

Dive #3

Depth: 6.4m

Duration: 49 mins

Clare ran us through the pre dive checks and demonstrated valve drills. I even noticed one bloke who kept shuffling over to us and then whenever I looked at him he would pretend to not look at us and look the other way … that guy wanted a free lesson.

This dive was all about S-drills and Valve-drills. We got in and did a left turn around the scaffolding to the deeper platforms. I was buddied up with Richard, I let him do the valve drill first, he did well looking very relaxed. Then it was my turn, for a bit of safety I moved over the platform, as the last time I did a drill like this I dropped down quite a bit. OK breathe deep, quick wriggle to stretch the suit out and then throw the arm back ... right ... the valve is around here somewhere.... couldn’t touch it! I was nowhere near the valve! I kept trying and trying I got to the point where lactic acid had built up so much I just couldn’t move my arms any more. So I cut the drill.

Next was the S-drill, again I let Richard go first, the drill went well. My turn OK I went OOG got a reg ... a little nervous and ... hey those sodding floaty feet are back!! I resisted the urge and carried on with the drill but it just got worse. Eventually all my energy was going on keeping down, Richard eventually took his reg back and I went to my backup.... no time to grab my primary – my legs gave up and off I floated ... feeling sheepish again.

I came out of the dive feeling shite. The past three dives on the course made me feel so low – I couldn’t do a thing! I kept wondering how I was so bad and that I’m letting the team down. Another chat with the fiancée and I’d shaken myself down ready for the next dive. As always I wasn’t giving up. I had come into the class with the attitude of not being fussed if I failed – I was going to do my best and if I wasn’t up to scratch then at least I knew where the bar was!

Dive #4

Depth: 12.5m

Duration: 55 mins

In my opinion I had been performing the worst in the class. Clare recognised that I was unhappy and struggling and that the team was stressed, so decided to call the end of the class for the day, she made us jump in for a nice long pleasure dive with no instructors to try to relax and enjoy a dive. 52 minutes later we surfaced – the others felt better, I was less convinced, I had tried to do what I was told such as arching my back, clenching butt cheeks etc came out feeling low as I was still useless in the water.

Day 4

On the surface we practiced valve drills and s-drills. I had also decided to scrap the HID torch – reason? I was too task loaded doing the skills and handling the torch. So I figured that since things are difficult enough, lets start to simplify the problem, complicate it later.

Dive #5

Depth: 6.1m

Duration: 50mins

This was actually two dives rolled in one. The first was recovery of an unconscious diver. Richard tried to raise me, however I wasn’t having a good time with my feet and he couldn’t manage the lift. Clare stayed eye level with me which gave me an excuse to relax as I concentrated on her – still didn’t get the feet sorted, I ended up hanging on to the platform while Richard got himself in a good position but eventually Clare cut the drill. I didn’t know this and I was raised to the surface by Clare! Size doesn’t matter she said …. If you know Clare, think off opposite to her, Clare is a short petite woman and I’m well ... quite simply not short, not petite and certainly not a woman! 6ft 5in and a few stone of man!

We descended and I recovered Richard, I felt I did really well on everything except the trim, we went vertical on ascent. And I managed to knock the reg out of his mouth …. Oops! But this was while he was on the platform so he got it back in and we continued the drill. Clare was at eye level with Richard, so if anything were to go wrong Clare wouldn’t have been more than a second away. Clare told me horizontal is best because (for me) if it were to happen at the back of a cave, you would have to swim out horizontally but she did congratulate me for a good recovery and controlled ascent. At least the fella would be alive!

We dropped down again to conduct valve drills, S-drills and then finally SMB deployment. Since taking a knife to my under suit and learning to stretch my legs out to keep my trim, I managed my first ever valve drill quite comfortably. The S-drill also went well. Clare was impressed and I got a strong congratulatory hand shake. Finally things are looking up!

I can actually do this diving malarkey! Now the adrenaline was pumping, but it wasn’t for fear, it was for excitement, it was starting to come together, I thought that I might just be able to prove myself worthy.

Colin and I did the S-drills, we finished and then had to wait for Richard and Stathis to finish their SMB drill, because, somehow, Stathis dropped a semi-inflated SMB through the platform and it got completely stuck! While waiting I even asked John how my trim was while we waited for Stathis and Richard to finish their drills– he said I looked good! My moral was picking up.

SMB deployment went fantastically although I did forget to look up. I came out of this dive with an ear-to-ear grin! I was the happiest I have ever been on the course– I dekitted and rang with missus and I was beaming! For the first time on the course I felt like I actually was half decent under water. My trim and in-water comfort had improved so drastically in four dives it was incredible. At no point on the dive did I have a problem with my feet!

Dive #6

Depth: 12m

Duration: 37 mins

For this dive, John was joining us as our #3.

Colin and I were to plan and execute a dive including calculations for minimum gas. The plan was to go in the slipway, drop down to 4.5m and hang to the left of the path where a square shaped boulder would mark a location for us to do S-drills. Colin seemed chuffed to find it he was constantly signalling “THERE!”

We then followed the quarry wall to the right and headed for the 9m platform. Clare hit us with S-drills; again Colin struggled to keep horizontal and silted the area out! In the middle of the drill we lost John (I think Clare told him to swim off – we found him sat over a hole waving at us). I felt sheepish that I couldn’t keep track of a bloke with a HID torch sat next to me when I’m usually quiet aware of the team. Yet again shows how team awareness goes out the window when a bit of stress and hard work is put on me.

Clare led us to a platform to conduct backup light deployment and then we continued to the crushing works, which is actually a really impressive place! We hovered over a bridge which would have been an amazing Kodak moment! John was made out-of-gas and it was my job to deploy the SMB and lead the ascent. I was half way through deploying the bag and Colin (tried) to tell me to look up before launch, I couldn’t figure this out, he took the bag off me and I thought he implied a free ascent – particularly as we had two divers sharing air, I figured that it is on its way to being depleted very quickly, so I put it away, Clare told me to launch the (damn!) bag so I launched it and still forgot to look up. The ascent started OK but I soon ended up being pinned against the trapeze and then in the mess that followed I floated up to the surface.

A long surface swim back to the shore and we dekitted and waited for the other team to eventually got our results. Part of me felt that I could get the rec pass as I had shown determination through the course and at the end it finally came together. But another (more significant) part of me felt that I just wasn’t anywhere near the standards. Fingers crossed!

Reflections

How was the course? It was officially the most difficult diving I have ever done. However, the knowledge I am leaving the course with has made me an infinitely better diver. Anyone who thinks they are a good diver should take the course. It will reveal you for your true colours, yet also give you the tools to walk away far more competent even if you failed the course. Knowing the outcome, would I still do it? Absolutely, my in-water comfort has improved so much and it was due to a lot of little things. That on its own was worth it. My skills and abilities and even my capacity has improved.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely, if you want to improve you’re diving and become a better diver you NEED to do this. I thought that I was half decent underwater and that I was safe. However on day 2 of the diving I came to a realisation that I was nowhere near as good as I thought and that I wasn’t safe. But by the end of the course I can at least say that I am a safe diver and that I’m definitely improving the right way.

Have I changed? Absolutely, I have always admired cave divers and technical divers for the discipline and the dedication to the level of diving that they are at. I have even more respect for technical/cave divers, particularly the DIR crew. I can see how high the bar is held and I have almost been humbled by the course.

Are you considering doing Fundamentals? You should definitely do it. It is money well spent. Getting four days to pick the brains of an instructor is worth the money. If you are having issues with trim & weighting, don’t worry – it will get sorted on the course! My issue of rolling over head first was solved by stretching my legs out! Every tail weight under the sun wasn’t fixing the problem!

How can you prepare? DO NOT PRACTICE SKILLS! Best thing you can do is just get in the water and toddle about and get more comfortable. Ask a DIR diver to demonstrate the skills but don’t bother doing them yourself. Experience in the water is the best thing you can do for yourself. Hope this has been an interesting read for you all - it was certainly the best course I have ever done in my life.

If you are reading this and pondering whether to do fundies, it’s very difficult for me to sell it to you. After all, if you have done PADI AOW, Rescue and Nitrox, you are already “qualified”. But what you will get is the advice and training to really add finesse to your diving. As I said, it is impossible for me to explain just how good fundies is, you just need to trust that I, and other GUE divers know how you feel and that we are giving you sound advice!

Playing shadows on the wall: PADI Cavern Diver Course Report

Introduction

I took a 6-week holiday to Florida, and my aim of the holiday was two weeks of solid diving, followed by three weeks of being with my family - after all they did pay for the flight! I was taking $2,000 with me to Florida, $1,500 of it to spend purely on diver training. Now I am a lucky guy! My diver training has been carried out by SCUBA West, in Tampa Bay, from OW to MSD, my instructor is Nickol White.

Day 1

Morning

I had been in Florida now for more than a week I still haven't acclimatised. I was wearing beige shorts and a white shirt thinking that will shield me from the majority of the heat, nice mentality but not so! It was 105 oF at 10:30am and was set at that temperature until around 3pm.

PADI doesn't have any official manual for the cavern course, the only way they manage to do it is if the instructor is trained as Full Cave. So it was very much a course based on experience.

We wandered over, or rather rode over, from the SCUBA West shop to the grotto across the road all of 50 yards! But having two twinsets - my Double-104's (pressured to 3000 PSI to make them into 130's - equivalent to twin-15's - someone left them attached to the 3500 PSI bank a bit too long! Hose pipe was on hand to keep them cool though!) And filled with nitrox. The instructor’s twinset - Double-High pressure-100's- equivalent to twin-12's) as well as Ian's single 104 weighs a lot and I saw the Gator and I couldn’t be bothered to carry it so I chucked everything in - two twinsets, one single, four kit bags and a bag of HID torches and went over!

I must say, If your at the grotto and not stood on the concrete part, don't stop for a second, the ants are huuuge and will bite through even the thickest of northern-English skin! My feet had red sores for days after!

First thing - compass work - I hadn't really used my compass ever since I was trained to use it! But I managed to do quite well and can navigate to land within a foot of where I want to be so it’s sufficed. Nickol's brother who came along on the course to make up a team of 3 (and to get a free course) struggled a bit but got the gist of it - I can never remember if I add or subtract when I want to make a turn!

Next thing - reel work - this was fun - especially since I got to use my shiny Pathfinder 400 that I've never used up till this point - Nickol showed me how to make tie-off's and two different ways of doing them, i.e. if you can pass your reel around the object or not!

Laying the line was ok and we ended up tying off to the posts of the shelter, a bin (bad idea - rotting food with maggots crawling out made me change my mind soon after making the tie), the gator and a breeze block. Now the fun part - leave the reel and follow the line back "OKing" it - easy enough to follow back to the start, now I had to go back to reel "OK-ing the line" and with my eyes shut.
I would love to have known what it looks like a 6ft4 inch British bloke shuffling his feet moving half a foot a time with his hand out in front of him feeling for objects must have looked like. I came across a tie off point - now Nickol had put another line in the way so I had the trick of running my figures over the line trying to find the "exiting" line - I spent about 5 mins doing this as I wanted to be sure to follow the right line - you have to think 5 mins making sure you go the right way out of a cave, or go the wrong way and drown.

Carried on and I inevitably hit my head on something - now I don't usually curse or swear that much unless I've had too much of the devils drink or am really angry but cracking my head on the roof of the shelter made me take the lords name in vain a few times, it was made funny when I ended up tripping over the line I just laid and fell about 3 inches from a Fire Ant's nest - even Nickol had to laugh - after all when I swear the Scottish accent part comes through. Posture regained I navigated the rest of the course with few difficulties.

Afternoon

Happy with my "dry" performance it was time to hit the water - to me, 85 oF water is quite warm, but still cooler than the air so I loved it, Nickol took 5 mins to get complaining it was cold!
I was also wearing a 3mm wetsuit so I was cooking. I know I wasn't balanced at all - double 104's, 6lb stainless back plate (I brought it with me from the UK for use with my dry suit!) meant a very heavy rig and even the Explorer 55 wing struggled - it had to be almost full just to float the kit! Thankfully I am a buoyant person so when underwater the wing only had to be about half full. Still wrong I know but let me continue.

Hudson Grotto is a sink hole, we dropped to the 20ft platform where a stage bottle of 100% o2 was left - Nickol wanted me to feel carrying a stage since it would be me carrying it in Manatee should things go tit's up and we need extra gas for deco etc

The o2 was left on the 20ft platform and we got ourselves comfortable and swam over to the wall. At the wall I was to run a line from a suitable tie off point and make 4 tie off's.

The limestone structure of Florida meant tie off's were in ample supply and I made a sufficient course - I came across several other line's that were laid so I knew that would be interesting later on.
I laid the line and then we had to return to the start following it no problems. Then we had to follow the line by OK-ing it. Again no problems. Finally I had to follow the line with eyes shut. Definitely more complicated and much slower. It was at this point that I realised that rule of thirds is not very conservative at all. After taking 5 mins to do a course that took me about 2 mins to follow when OK-ing it you realise you need a bigger reserve.

Next were out-of-air drills. When teaching PADI Cavern, the instructor must be in full cave kit i.e. Hogarthian rig. I was also in the DIR kit setup, however Ian came along in his single recreational set with standard length reg hoses and "octopus" when it came to myself and Nickol air sharing - it was a piece of cake - 7ft hoses make life a dream. But watching Nickol and Ian air share was a different story. Not an issue when Nickol donated as it was usual scenario donor at the back. My only issue was that because my wing was so full I struggled to deploy my hose fully. I managed to get my reg to Nickol, and then I had to fight to get the rest of the hose from behind the wing.

But watching Ian donate to Nickol was painful to watch and gives you plenty of reasons why long hoses are advocated in caves or other over-head environments. Ian had to swim on his side so that his octopus could reach Nickol - their swim was painful to watch. You wouldn’t get through a restriction like that.
Now back to me, OOA and following the line. Crickey - it’s not so much difficult just hard work. Nickol was behind me in touch contact and I was leading following the line - I must say we simulated zero viz too - I was only giving the occasional fin kicks because I was struggling to deal with the line. When it came to a tie off - Jeez!! - The tie off with multiple lines caused no end of problems; simulated zero viz meant that I had to figure out which line of 3 to follow. 10 minutes I spent there before determining the right line. Just as I realise which line to follow, the limestone crumbles in my hands and a block of limestone about the same size as a small suitcase falls - I spent the next minute looking for any bubbles praying no one was deep. There wasn't.

(On a deep dive - using nitrox 27 at 140 feet - we found that rock and the silt cloud extended for hundreds of feet in every direction - a rock falling from 30 feet to 140 must have been going a hell of a speed with a lot of momentum).

Again, using 1/3rds, and taking 10 mins to follow a line that took 2 mins to lie makes a sobering thought. If it were a real cave I probably wouldn’t have made it out alive.

By this point we have been in the water an hour and the biggest mistake you could imagine occurs, Nickol and myself are doing the drill again because I wanted to improve my ability and Ian is hovering away from the wall watching us I'm figuring out a tie off and I hear a blood curdling scream through a regulator - I open my eyes and I see Ian swimming over with no reg in his mouth - he's out of air - I donate my long hose and we end the dive - thankfully all the skills were completed and with a bottom time of 65 minutes at 30 feet I did 5 mins of stops.

Everyone surfaced and we found out that Ian had never checked his SPG since jumping in - Nickol gave him a shouting but I got a hand shake congratulating me on successfully passing the open water element of the cavern course.

Day 2

5am - Alarm goes off - I don't do mornings. I'm a student - I like lie-ins
Nickol picks me up at my villa with her brother – I had left my kit at the dive shop and had them fill my twinset and pack the van for today - kits in the back and we mount up for the 90 minute drive north to Manatee Springs.

Drive went well – I spent it reading my Emergency First Response manual for the course next week - we soon arrive - I treat Nickol to free entry as I pay her fee and we drive down to Catfish Hotel - we asked not for Manatee Springs as Nickol knows the flow rate of the water coming out is horrific.
We park up and carry kit to some park tables and set up. I am shown the dive site - first impression - a swamp!!! The "pond" must be about 150 feet across and covered with duckweed. That proved to be a right pain to get out of the kit and ourselves later.

Manatee Springs Entrance

Catfish Hotel Entrance

What you can’t see in that picture is the flow, you could actually see the surface rippling with the flow of water coming out the cave which is in the bottom right corner of the photo.
We kitted up and headed down the steps – having two people in heavy twinsets its not a nice feeling having the wood bow under your feet. The water level was high and I was told about a concrete ledge under the steps - found that very cautiously and found the edge - now I was told to jump as far away as possible as the water is only about 6 ft deep. It’s not a pleasant feeling not being able to see what you’re landing in when you jump but it had to be done and I regretted it straight away.

I landed on a limestone rock and it gave me a dead leg! Thankfully the wetsuit wasn't ripped and I was OK it turned out to be a hell of a bruise and a bit of a graze - I was passed the O2 stage and I helped Ian and Nickol into the water by pointing them to a deeper bit of water with no rocks!

First dive

I started with 200 bar in twin-15s/Double-104’s. The first dive meant that Nickol would lay the line and do a tour and I would observe - using 1/6ths that meant a turn pressure of about 170 bar.

We descended and found a tree running from 15 feet down to 55 feet. Half way down we shoved the 02 bottle under the tree for emergency. At the bottom Nickol tied of the lie to a primary and secondary and we went in the cavern zone. Just before we entered the cavern, Ian bottled it; he didn't like the over-head environment and decided to stay outside.

We plodded on and explored - I was anxious - so my SAC rate was a bit up and we only got to explore the first 30 feet of the cavern. We mostly put our efforts into heading left towards manatee springs until Nickol realised that if we go much further the flow would catch us and push us all the way which would have been a bit much for my first ever cavern dive!

I turned the dive far too soon and I surfaced at 150 bar. Being on nitrox 32 we decided to sit on the surface for 30 mins. We found out that Ian called it quits because he didn't like the over-head environment.

While conducting surface-decompression (don't slate it - it works!) a pair of German cave divers started setting up kit consisting of a pair of 100% o2 deco bottles and a pair of stages. They were kitted up DIR style and when asked I found that they were Cave 1 certified. Although they were German it sounds like they trained in America as they referred to turn pressures in PSI.

I must be said that it made me crack up listening to them; the Germans are very methodical and hearing their procedures, "HID Light ... spark .... Confirmed ... check ... (other person) HID Light.... spark ...confirmed… check" and so it went on and they discussed their turn pressures.

I didn’t understand the mentality of their turn pressures, they chose to do ½ + 200 on the stage, so when Nickol kindly interrupted and asked about their planning they explained they reserve the exit gas of the stage in their back gas should they lose the stage. Made sense.We let them go on their way for 20 more minutes before we went down.

Dive 2

This time I was to lead the dive and lay line into the cavern zone.

Primary tie off

I tied off my primary and second tie off's and continued into the cavern zone, I dictated my new turn pressure to Nickol (again fudged for the flow a bit) I headed towards Manatee again, we found Ze Germans, Nickol realised they were heading to the spring and tried to tell them the way to Sue's Sink, they didn't understand and she grabbed one by the hand and led them over! I found it comical but I sat where I was until she came back.

Looking out from the cavern.

We then headed around the back of the cavern until I found the Grim Reaper sign that  marked the edge of the cavern zone. At this point you are now heading towards Sue's Sink.

At the Grim Reaper sign

Going over this I found how strong the flow is! The passage bottle-necked at this point and jeez it was tough to move! I thought of the flow in terms of fluid dynamics and guessed that the weakest flow is at the edges in the corners so I stuck to there while Nickol went straight through the middle. She made little progress and some turbulent water threw me to the roof of the cave and an almighty metallic ring. I stopped still for what felt like a life time listening for the violent flow of bubbles that would erupt from a 1st stage getting sheared off - it never came - when I reached back I felt that the rock was no where near by valves and the rock hit further down on my lower set of bands. Phew!
I swam over to Nickol who had just got through the bottle neck - the panic and the effort to fight the flow meant that I hit my turn pressure too early again and surface after a total of 30 mins bottom time. Again over far too early. I surface with 100 bar remaining. Given that this meant I had half gas of my twinset, it was the same as diving a single, so we used 1/3rds on the remaining gas - expecting to surface with about 50 bar.

Final dive

I was determined for a good dive, each successive dive meant slightly longer bottom time and more penetration. We dropped straight down on the log and I made the tie off's and headed straight in the cave. I found a log just before the grim reaper sign so I tied off here, I saw that the Germans were still in there and figuring that they would be in longer than we would, and they would have to pass me to get out I laid my line on top of theirs. This turned out to be an excellent idea.

I pushed past the grim reaper and stuck to the sides of the cave - the flow was picking up throughout the day. Once past the "restriction" I tied off again and made a push for a turn in the cave. At this point I was about 70ft in (by PADI rules this is max pen – the PADI rules dictate a maximum of 150’ from where you are to the surface, so if you go down 80’, you can only travel 70’) but my instructor wanted to demonstrate the edge of daylight zone, so we pushed past the corner another 30ft, we found a split where one headed to Sue's sink and I don't know about the other - we carried on another 20 feet or so and stopped at the wall - I was around 150ft in we faced the way we came and covered our lights - there was no ambient light around here - so we were beyond the cavern zone - this lesson was to show I am not qualified to go further in. I happened to hit my turn pressure too 60 bar ish

We headed back - the flow was monstrous and it meant I didn't have to kick and I had to swim to fight the current while I untied the tie off's.

Laying line at the back of the cavern.

Heading back to the grim reaper meant that I was almost out and I felt almost upset - cave diving was my thing I knew it would be a long time till I was in a cave again - Nickol pulled out my camera and snapped a few pictures of me - she put it in video mode and recorded me coming out of the cave untying as I went. The video stopped after 2 mins and at that point I bird-nested my reel - a lot of slack came and I tried to reel it in too fast and it didn’t work out.

Also when I reeled in my line, the line laid by the Germans had come lose and floated up with the risk of getting cut on the sharp edges of some rocks. Nickol quickly moved to secure their line under a log.

I was 65 feet down with 55 bar left - Nickol came over - probably cursing - and tried to undo the reel - we spent 15 minutes there - I snapped off some pictures of the local fish during the hang.

Catfish

Another fish

I watched my contents gauge dropping - 55.... 50.... 45.... 40.... at this point Nickol gave up and we made the ascent - I was worried that my regs would cease operation as I knew they needed a minimum pressure just to operate - we made the ascent to 15' - at 25' I had a horrific reverse-block. I had to drop to 30' and made an ascent at about 3' per minute. I did this through the 3 minute stop dictated to me by the tables and my Suunto computer (I wanted to keep it happy too!)
I probably should have gone onto Nickol’s long hose at this point but figured that I am very close to the surface so I would be OK. My instructor sat with me throughout the ordeal.

Nikol - my instructor

The ascent to 10' was painful I had to keep stopping, descending and then recommencing my ascent - I didn't want to look at my gauge as I was bothered it could panic me - I surfaced 5 mins after the stop was completed - with 20 bar remaining.

Soon after we surfaced the Germans exited, completed their decompression and surfaced. After having a quick chat we quickly noticed they were out of breath. They were equipped with Double-104’s (pressured to 3000 PSI – therefore they were double-130’s, twin-15’s), an AL-80 stage and an AL-40 full of O2 dedicated for decompression and they only managed 600ft of penetration.

I had passed the course. A total of 2 ½ hours of bottom time and 4 hours of dry practising and I am now a cavern diver. I was given 3 line arrows as a gift. I continued on the rest of my holiday to complete a total of 10 courses : Nitrox, Deep, Rescue (very difficult but very rewarding!), EFR, Cavern, Photography, Peak Performance, Multi-Level, Night and Master SCUBA Diver.