This weekend was busy not just for one or two groups as usual but for the entire dive centre, with 30 students doing OWR, OWC, AOW, EFR and Rescue courses. Fortunately the weather smiled on us and most of the students could be in wetsuits, which we have plenty of! We took basically every piece of kit from the stores to Wraysbury on the Saturday in 3 vans, with more people coming by car. All LSD people were instructed that we would need to provide all of our own kit this weekend including tanks and weights, which I didn’t mind at all as it meant I could breathe Nitrox on the deep dives 🙂

I was with the group doing AOW, with instructor AD, DM GL, 4 students and fellow DMT DB. As usual we did one day at Wraysbury (PPB and Drysuit 1 and 2) and one day at Vobster (Deep, Wreck and Navigation). Also this weekend I got signed off for Search & Recovery and Discover Local Diving, both at Vobster. The former I did in a buddy pair with DB, locating (search patterns) and raising a 12kg weight belt using a lift bag, managing a controlled ascent by bleeding air from the dump valve. I had hoped to do the latter on the aircraft at Vobster, which I know quite well by now, but instead did it in an unfamiliar part of the lake based on a verbal briefing from AD of “show them X, Y and Z”. The statistics for that dive showed that my SAC was a bit up with the task loading of navigating and also shepherding the students. The lesson learnt here is to allow a margin in gas planning (over and above reserves like 50 bar/rule-of-thirds) for dives with a “mission”. I think with a bit more experience I will get guiding back down to my usual 20ℓ/min.

GL brought up the rear and once again it was very clear (no pun intended) how valuable powerful lights are in lo-vis conditions even if it’s not actually dark; even tho’ I couldn’t see him and possibly at times the second buddy pair of students couldn’t see me, everyone could easily see both the lights casting beams in the particulates. I tried a slightly DIR-style configuration with a compass on my left and the Uwatec bottom timer on my right wrist and as usual my Light Monkey on a Goodman handle on my left hand – this made the compass awkward to use, I think both on right wrist would have been easier. Hmm.

Still outstanding on my DM are:

Just the last lap to go, and then I’m done!