Monthly Archives: November 2014

Rec → Tech, 02 November 2014

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Since achieving only a recreational pass at GUE Fundamentals in April I have been meeting up with people from the GUE UK Facebook group over the summer at Vobster for skills’n’drills (and thrills and spills!) with a view to upgrading to a technical pass. Looking back over the logs, this amounted to 14 dives and 585 minutes in the water practicing, in addition to all the other diving I was doing which would have generally helped with in-water comfort. Finally a couple of us felt we were ready so we booked a day with GUE instructor James Sanderson aka Badger.

The format of the day was to spend the morning as a coaching session, with video feedback in the surface interval, then the actual evaluation in the afternoon. I am glad we did it this way rather than jumping straight into the evaluation as I had a couple of things to brush up; my backkick had gotten a bit sloppy, and having just gotten back from the Red Sea I was quite unprepared to do mask-off drills in water of 12℃ and lost buoyancy control 😦 Fortunately I was able to knock both these problems on the head in time for the afternoon, where we took it in turns running a gas-sharing ascent from depth with stops every 3 metres, deploying a DSMB on the way, in addition to valve drills and simulated lost-mask exits, and dealing with a casualty on the surface (basically a repeat of the last dive of the full course). This went swimmingly and I achieved the technical pass I have been coveting 😀 Unfortunately it didn’t go so well for my teammate; he was having an off-day as usually his skills are better than mine. He just couldn’t get into trim, which meant neither valve drills nor backkick would work. I will help him practice more and it will come in due course.

A few videos that helped me to prepare were this DSMB deployment, this s-drill and this valve drill. And remember: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. My advice for anyone who stumbles across this who is also trying for an upgrade, is first just to practice getting into the trim position and remaining still, not doing anything. When you can do this for a minute, start adding in simple skills, like 1 and 2 of the Basic 5, and flow check. Work your way up to the full 5 and a valve drill, and finally DSMB deployment. All the while try to maintain team awareness. Don’t worry about any skills before you have “the platform”, you will just waste valuable practice time.

This all took place at Stoney Cove, the first time I had been there, and hopefully the last. Compared to Vobster I was somewhat underwhelmed:

  • No kitting-up benches, which is especially a pain using a twinset, several people had brought folding DIY benches, which was a very good idea
  • No Nitrox, only air. Not such a big deal for shallow skills dives, but it meant I couldn’t get a fill afterwards, I like to keep my gear ready to dive at all times. Right now I have about 100 bar of “EANx25” in my twinset. What am I supposed to do with that?
  • Air fills cost more than Vobster, £7 for a twinset versus about £5.
  • No indoor facilities to review video, we used the back of Badger’s car
  • Closed at 3pm, tho’ to be fair they let us stay in the water a little longer
  • It costs more in entry fee than Vobster, and they even charge members to reserve parking!
  • Vobster’s catering is better too
  • It has a reputation for things getting stolen if left unattended even for a moment, that was just one more thing to worry about which was distracting.

Basically if you go there, be completely self-sufficient as if you were diving in the middle of nowhere, because you might as well be. Other than that it was a very successful day, it was good to meet Badger, and I look forward to diving with him some more. Plans are now afoot for Tech 1…

Red Sea, 20-27 October 2014

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B and I dived the North & Brothers itinerary on MV Tala, flying into and out of Hurghada. Red Sea Explorers handled the transfers, taking us straight from the airport to the boat, and from the boat to the airport on the last day. We booked the diving directly, and the flights separately with Easyjet from Gatwick North direct, tho’ another option would have been EgyptAir via Cairo, which would have included 2×23Kg bags each, rather than the 32Kg bags that Easyjet charged us a fortune for (I think we could have managed with the very slightly cheaper 29Kg option). We chose RSE simply because they are the GUE facility in the Red Sea, which is the guarantee of quality. Of the 18 planned dives we did 16, sitting out 2 night dives to chillax with a beer 🙂

Dive Location Description Max/Avg depth (m) Runtime (min)
1 Fanous East Checkdive to sort out weighting and thermal comfort 13/9 47
2 Salem Express A penetration into this famous wreck, surfacing just after sunset. Shot some video inside. 30/18 56
3 The Brothers Small Brother, saw sharks 31/16 60
4 The Brothers West side of Small Brother 31/18 46
5 The Brothers Small brother again, with more sharks 30/15 54
6 The Brothers South plateau of Big Brother. Nice but uneventful. 30/18 48
7 The Brothers North plateau, wrecks Numidia and Aida. Would be good to come back on mix and have a proper look at them, they were just below MOD for 32%. Negative entry off the RIB to 10m. 36/18 53
8 The Brothers South plateau 22/12 50
9 Abu Nuhas Wreck of the Giannis D, which I have done before, but its a good one 🙂 20/13 62
10 Thistlegorm Strong current and unfortunately bad viz. Penetrated the forward section, saw the locomotive lying off the portside. Every time I dive her, I am dismayed at how much she has deteriorated since the last trip. 30/17 56
11 Thistlegorm Night dive 22/15 42
12 Thistlegorm Down the shotline to the bow, through the holds to avoid the current, then around the stern 31/18 50
13 Rosalie Moller Down the shot amidships, around the bow, back around the stern then up. Only around the top of the deck at 34m – would love to come back and do this as a mix dive. 34/21 38
14 Gubal Island Wreck of the Ulysses and many, many friendly dolphins 24/15 46
15 Siyul Soraya A gentle drift dive with lots of life 23/14 60
16 Carless Reef Double pinnacle with lots of life 15/12 63
Total runtime: 831

The skill of the guides and captain was very apparent in that we often had the dive sites completely to ourselves, the only boat there. I have been on Thistlegorm for example on dayboats where there are over a dozen boats tied on, and 200-odd divers in the water, it’s insane, but having the leisure to explore it without anyone else was infinitely better. Definitely worth paying the premium for! Another thing worth a mention was the trip onshore to visit the lighthouse on Big Brother. Kit wise, I wore my Argonaut drysuit with Icebreaker 200 baselayer, no hood or gloves, and identical to the UK kit configuration otherwise. The cylinders were twin manifolded AL80s (11.1â„“ each) with which I used a 3.6Kg v-weight, so pretty much the same weighting as I’d have with a BZ200 undersuit and a steel twinset in the UK or Malta, which is very handy to know for the future. My SAC averaged about 18â„“/min, which is normal for me, we were often surfacing with 100 bar in our twinsets limited more by 1hr dive times or no deco limits (or currents). All this might seem like odd kit configuration for a recreational trip in warm 25℃ water, but it’s what we’re used to now, and gave me the opportunity to practice a few skills ready for a Fundamentals upgrade to Tech pass evaluation, the weekend after we got back.