Category Archives: GUE

Tekcamp, July 2015

Posted on by
Reply

We are just back from another amazing TEKCamp. I didn’t take as detailed notes as last time but had some great dives with Paul Toomer, Rich Walker, John Kendall, Mark Powell and Phil Short and attended some fascinating and inspiring talks. We also visited Fourth Element‘s underwater shop! Thanks to everyone involved and to the Vobster crew for organizing and hosting it!

One thing I will say tho’ – sure if a wreck is on the seabed, eventually it will be reclaimed by the sea and no-one will be able to see it, but that might take 50 or 100 years. If you nick the bell and the maker’s plate from the boiler and the portholes and stash them in your shed, then definitely no-one will see it and in 50 years your next-of-kin will probably sell them to a scrap merchant to be melted down. There was one speaker who bragged about his collection, then complained all the wrecks near the coast were “dived out”. The only negative thing about an otherwise brilliant event.

GUE Tech 1, Malta, March 2015

Posted on by
1

The first thing I should say before going any further is not to read too many blogs and writeups about T1. Going into the course with preconceptions, will only slow you down getting where you need to be. You should probably stop reading now.

The story begins in October last year when JK mentioned on his Facebook that he would be teaching at Techwise in Malta again the following March. Within hours a team had formed for Tech 1, GUE’s equivalent of Normoxic Trimix. I began preparing soon afterwards, taking advantage of my GUE membership to download the course materials, got my Fundies upgraded to Tech pass, did a dive trip to the Red Sea. Why T1 given that I already have ART which takes me to 48m and 15 mins deco? Isn’t this an expensive way to get another 3m? Not if you see your diving future as diving with GUE teams and participating in GUE projects. Then it makes perfect sense.

I am not going to write too much about the course; all 3 of us got Provisional ratings for reasons that JK explained in the debriefing that were entirely fair and accurate. A number of things conspired against us such as unseasonably bad weather in Malta that greatly restricted our choice of sites and blew us out altogether for 2 days; would that have made a difference to the end result? Well an extra 6 or 8 hours in the water couldn’t have hurt, but there is no point wondering what-if. We all have detailed plans going forwards to upgrade to full passes which I hope we will all manage in less than the 6 months allowed by GUE. We learnt all the skills, it will just take a little time to bed them in and get fluent in operating as a team. In the meantime we all have Rec3 cards (which allow 40m max depth, 21/35 backgas and a 32% stage for deco).

I will say tho’ that the gap between Fundies exit point and T1 entry point was much bigger than I expected; the 25 dives between courses that GUE requires, really do need to be in comparable conditions to the next course, and maybe should be 50 dives. Speaking for myself only, I did most of mine in the bright clear water of the Red Sea, where visual references for depth and natural navigation were plentiful, and I struggled with the task loading of executing the new skills “in the blue” with limited viz. It is actually surprisingly hard to use a teammate (+ gauge + compass) as visual reference, especially in a current, what tends to happen is vertical and directional oscillations ensue as each individual diver overcorrects. That too will come with time and a few more dives.

For future reference, the water was around 14℃, I wore merino baselayer and my Santi BZ200 undersuit, with 3Kg of v-weight. I started out with a lightweight hood and 1.5mm gloves but was glad I’d also brought a 5mm hood on the longer (2-3 hr) in-water times, near the end of which I was getting quite cold. Also very glad of my p-valve…

2014 in Diving

Posted on by
Reply

Another good year for diving, tho’ like every diver every year, I wish I had dived more in it! Particular highlights in no particular order were:

Looking forward to next year already, plans afoot for GUE Tech 1, and places booked at TEKcamp (which is going biennial, alternating with EuroTEK), and hopefully lots of just diving! Also perhaps getting involved in some Project Baseline initiatives.

Rec → Tech, 02 November 2014

Posted on by
2

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

Posted on by
4

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 (11.1ℓ 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 18ℓ/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.

TEKcamp, July 2014

Posted on by
2

Where to begin talking about TEKCamp? It really is an experience like no other – mentoring and coaching from some of the world’s truly pioneering divers, eager to pass on their knowledge and experience to divers even more eager to soak it up. I had booked B and myself onto the 9-dive package, which was incredible value for money, tho’ we didn’t actually dive together during the week, we both got loads out of it. I’ll run through a quick summary of the dives and talks according to my notes, but really, no-one can be told about TEKCamp, you have to experience it for yourself.

Day Session With Notes
1 Dive 1 Rich Walker A warmup dive, 90 minutes on the 6m platform with teammates Clare and Ben and safety diver Dave H, who we had met while doing Fundies in Malta and stayed in touch with. Propulsion, v- and s-drills, DSMB deployment, etc.
1 Talk 1 Mark Powell The author of Deco For Divers on various myths that surround deco diving. I asked him why Staying Alive hadn’t been called Disco for Divers 😉
1 Talk 2 Garry Dallas “Sidemount Bob” on his exploration of caves in Mexico, sponsored by Apeks
1 Dive 2 John Kendall Practicing ascents, up and down in 1m increments from the entrance to the tunnel. Teammate Toni and safety diver Greg.
1 Talk 3 Paul Toomer Diving Bikini Atoll, where a fleet of warships left over from WW2 were sunk for early nuclear weapons trials. A fascinating talk about penetrating the aircraft carrier Saratoga and the treats to be found therein. £8k for the trip. Hmm…
2 Dive 1 Mike Potts Trydive on a Sentinel. The first thing to know is that failure at the beginning of Sanctum is actually perfectly survivable on a Sentinel, you just switch the BOV to OC, no need for trying buddy breathing in a FFM! I achieved neutral buoyancy easily enough, the benefit of GUE training, but I wasn’t comfortable, the tightness at the end of a breath running minimum loop volume, the bulk of the loop cutting off peripheral vision. I still see a Sentinel in my future, but it will take some getting used to. Teammate Giles, safety diver Tom.
2 Talk 1 Kieran Hatton Scapa Flow “in depth”
2 Talk 2 Graham Blackmore Cave diving in the Philippines and China
2 Dive 2 Rich Walker Stage handling and lost deco gas procedures. Teammate Heather, safety diver Greg
2 Talk 3 Martin Robson A mind blowing tale of deep cave exploration in Russia, the Blue Lake project. Soon to be a book but not available yet for pre-order on Amazon. He suffered a spine bend and spent 9 days in the pot being looked after personally by an Admiral in the Russian Navy!
3 Dive 1 Ian France Equipment failures, rescue and lost-line drills, teammates Paul and Luke (who “died” so many times it became a running joke for the rest of TEKcamp 🙂 ), safety diver Xavier. Absolutely fascinating to watch myself on the video later attempting to locate the line with a blackout mask on – what you think you are doing is often very different from what you actually do! I am looking forward to joining Ian for some mine diving after I have done C1.
3 Talk 1 Mark Powell A lecture on dive computers, in summary 10 years ago they weren’t very good, nowadays they’re a lot better!
3 Talk 2 Adam Wood Filming sharks and wrecks off the North Carolina coast with the BBC
3 Dive 2 Paul Toomer A dive simply entitled Brown Hawk Down based on a particularly hairy dive Paul and safety diver Alex had done on the Black Hawk. Paul mentioned in the briefing “I don’t think we’re going to have too much by way of reliable equipment on this dive” 🙂 Blackout masks, line following, stage handling, shutdowns, air-sharing all followed. At one point I had 3 stages clipped on and a spool and DSMB in each hand! A 60 minute dive that seemed like 6 minutes. Awesome fun 🙂
3 Talk 3 Dr Duncan Price A visit to Wookey Hole for a guided tour and to hear a talk from the man who has dived furthest in there.
4 Dive 1 Graham Blackmore Trydive on Suex DPVs, excellent fun, I think GUE have successfully sold me another course, whenever I get round to it (C1 being a priority for me). Teammate Stewart, safety diver Dave H.
4 Talk 1 John Kendall JK talking about the St George cave survey in France
4 Talk 2 Martin Robson Cave survey techniques
4 Dive 2 Martin Robson The “practical” session from talk 2, a team of 5 of us surveyed the crushing works, depths, distances, bearings of various features to produce a 3D map. We did one pass to lay a line between the points we wanted to survey, then another pass, at each of the tie-offs, recording depth and bearing to the next, then following the line a metre at a time to record distance. It was eye-opening just how much time such a simple mission took, surveying for real is a massive undertaking for a team of divers!
4 Talk 3 Rich Walker Croatian wrecks. Another trip to plan… 🙂
5 Dive 1 Rich Walker A simple mission to retrieve a spool and a reel, tied off “somewhere” past the aircraft. It started very well, we planned exactly what we would do – I would lead on the way in, to the end of the spool, then we would turn and I would be lineman reeling in, and Heather would lead us to the end of the reel, then we would would turn, she would be linegirl, and I would lead us out. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, and we all died 🙂 Teammates Heather and Andy, safety diver Alex.
5 Talk 1 Gareth Lock Learning from others, primarily the military aviation community, on safety, the creation of a “just culture” in which people can talk about accidents and mistakes without fear or stigma.
5 Talk 2 Roz Lunn A sales pitch for Eurotek. Don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity this year but it looks good.
5 Talk 3 Ian France A talk on the UK Mine and Cave team. I am really excited about joining these guys when I am ready
5 Talk 4 Kieran Hatton Wrecks of Norway

All in all an incredible, action packed week in which I learnt alot and met a bunch of cool new people to dive with 🙂 I cannot wait for next year’s…

Why Tech?

Posted on by
Reply

Someone asked me recently, why are you doing all this techy stuff? The answer for me is very simple: because I couldn’t do the dives I want to do at the level I was at. Still can’t, actually, but now I have a way to get there.

Consider the wrecks of Scapa Flow, which lie in 35-50m of water, just as one example, there are many more. I’d love to see them. So what are my options? I could use my PADI Deep Diver cert, to 40m, and have a quick look on a single 15ℓ tank of air while staying within no-deco limits (9 minutes on the RDP). Or I could crossover my PADI DM to BSAC Dive Leader and go down to 50m, again on a single, and risk a little deco on the notorious BSAC 88s. Or I could just go and do the dives regardless; there are no dive police lurking at the recreational limit (tho’ I might have some explaining to do back on the boat!) and surely my trusty Suunto Mosquito could run the deco for me. None of these options are particularly appealing. At least one of them is downright stupid. Then there is the issue of gas narcosis. I have done enough dives below 30m to have a first-hand understanding of this. I have seen people do some improbable things, and I have done (or been told I have done) some some myself. And I’ve reviewed the photos I’ve taken or the video I’ve shot after the dive and realized I couldn’t actually remember seeing alot of what’s on the camera. Seems pointless to spend time and money on some big dives and not even have the memories to show for it! And then there’s caves… I can’t deny the allure. For this I need to get the training and build experience gradually.

So so far I have taken two baby steps into the technical realm, IANTD ART, which takes me down up to 48m, with enough helium to reduce the narcosis to half that, and accelerated deco, and GUE Fundamentals, to hone the basic skills and give me a way into GUE training. I achieved only a Recreational pass at the latter, so my next step is to refine my skills to Technical pass level and book an instructor for the upgrade. I hope to do that over the next few months. Then either GUE Tech 1 or IANTD Normoxic, and then I will be ready to begin phase II of my diving career. Now that I know a bit about what’s out there, this is even more exciting than learning to dive the first time ’round was!

GUE Fundamentals, Malta, April 2014

Posted on by
4

About a year ago I wrote:

a large part of being a good diver: having the basic stuff as taught on the OW course absolutely perfected, before worrying about anything fancy.

This was a link in a chain of thoughts that lead me inexorably from a cenote in Mexico in January that year to GUE Fundamentals, and that will hopefully see me proceed deeper (and darker) into the GUE world. But I get ahead of myself.

B & I landed in Malta, dropped our gear off at TechWise and spent the next day being tourists, exploring Valletta. There was still a day before the course began so I got in a couple of fun dives, at Circewwa on the reef and the wreck of the Rozi. Here are the stats:

Dive Max/Avg Depth Temp Runtime Consumption SAC
1 25m / 13m 18℃ 35 mins 90bar/ 2160ℓ 27ℓ/min
2 32m / 15m 18℃ 57 mins 130bar/ 3120ℓ 22ℓ/min

The SAC is still higher than I’m used to but now I don’t think it’s just lack of fitness; it’s also over-using my lungs for buoyancy as I settle into new gear, namely the twinset and the membrane drysuit. I started off with 4Kg of V- and P-weight but felt light as I breathed the gas down on the first dive, so added 2Kg more for the second dive, also topping up the twinset with a decant cylinder. I am very happy with TechWise; they are a polished operation with slick logistics, and we’ll definitely be back there.

The following day it was time for the course to begin, we réndèz-vous’d with John Kendall bright and early (well 8:30am) at the dive centre and met our teammate Steve, a PADI Tec Trimix instructor working at TechWise and Dave of Siren Diving, an instructor intern and our intrepid cameraman for the next few days. One of the most powerful techniques of GUE training is the video feedback after each dive. Day 1 started with a lecture on the history and ongoing mission of GUE (much of which B and I had heard before on the Primer) then over to the National Swimming Pool for the swim test and some practice of trim and back kick without any kit on. The tests we all passed without too much drama. Then back to the dive centre for a workshop on equipment configuration. There were not too many changes to make to my kit, but I did gain a bungee loop on the back of my primary light head, and a “working boltsnap” on my right shoulder D-ring. Finally it was the GUE EDGE pre-dive checks. Over the next 3 days, we would do 6 dives of approximately an hour each. The water ranged from 15-17℃, I wore a 3mm hood and no gloves, with merino baselayer and PBB+ undersuit, mostly fine but a little chilly by the end of each dive.

Day 2 covered the 4 forwards propulsion techniques, frog, modified frog, flutter and mod flutter, of which we did circuits on a line laid out by Dave, followed by a team ascent with minimum deco, 1 minute @ 3 metres. We did the same again on the second dive, and at the end drained our cylinders to 40 bar and performed weight checks by attempting to hold a stop at 3m. I lost a kilo, bringing me down to 5Kg, 3Kg V- and 2Kg P-weight. We also did lectures on gas planning and practiced several goes of the S-drill on the surface. This is a far more sophisticated affair than the PADI drill, requiring coordination between the donor and the OOG diver. I mean to practice it a lot with B until it is second nature. A specific takeaway for me is that while it is far easier to see the team hovering a couple of feet above, it makes things much more difficult for them, and makes drills nearly impossible. Got to break the DM habits!

Day 3 included a lecture on deco and oxygen toxicity, and practicing the valve drill on the surface. John explained something that had been puzzling me, that this is not what you would actually do in a failure situation, it is just an exercise to build up muscle memory. In the water we practiced the basic 5 skills: reg remove and replace, reg exchange, primary donate, mask clear and mask remove and replace. These all sound trivial to any diver but believe me they are not at the level GUE expects, maintaining perfect trim and buoyancy. In my DM I learnt to perform skills to “demonstration quality” but I am well below the GUE standard and will need to work hard on my “platform”, which is the ability to maintain your position in the water, motionless, even when task loaded. The video shows that even when I am unaware of it, my feet are constantly moving as I struggle to remain stable. We practiced the S-drill in the water as a team of 3, two doing the drill and one acting as a reference for depth and also maintaining orientation to navigate to the exit. We did more propulsion work, both forwards and backwards and helicopter turns (in place). This time the team ascents were performed with one diver OOG. Steve observed afterwards that B’s “you and you watch me” signal comes across more as “you and you… fuck off!” 🙂

I had heard stories about GUE instructors playing pranks simulating failures by making off with e.g. stage bottles without the student noticing due to being task fixated, but JK managed to snaffle the boltsnap from my primary light while it was in my hand (!)

The final day introduced DSMB usage (hence the loop and extra boltsnap) and no-mask swimming. The latter was fascinating to watch on video; without a mask and being guided by a teammate, everyone showed much better buoyancy and trim, proving that we all can do it, once we relax. We brought all the skills together: valve drills and flow checks, then team ascent with an OOG diver and the third team member deploying a DSMB. All the course dives so far had been conducted on the house reef, but today the weather closed in, we tried the first dive of the day around the headland but it was still very rough (and involved climbing over a fence wearing a twinset to get there). That and the exit were the only times my injured ankle really affected me; I was terrified getting out in the swell that my foot would be caught between two rocks. That wasn’t pleasant at all. The second dive – the 6th overall – we headed over to Manoel harbour and the X127 for. This was basically a repeat of dive 5 but to a (slightly) higher standard. We had a lecture on DCI, and the exam and final debrief at the end of a 12-hour day.

I achieved a Recreational pass, which is pretty much what I was expecting. All the pieces are there, they just need to be executed on a solid platform, which I have yet to develop. I have aspirations towards Cave 1† but I am under no illusions as to the gap between what I am presently capable of and the skills needed to do all of these drills in an overhead environment with silt on the bottom, let alone linework or operating a camera. There isn’t any point in me doing any more training I understand now until I have gotten the Tech pass, and that is simply a matter of finding teammates to practice with, and putting the hours in, then a checkout dive with JK or another instructor. I’m looking forwards to it! After that, GUE mandates 25 dives to bed the skills in before more training, something other agencies would do well to adopt.

UPDATE 2nd November: Tech pass!

† Jury’s out on Tech 1 or continue with IANTD’s syllabus.

Back in Black, 10 March 2014

Posted on by
Reply

This was my first time back in the water since breaking my leg and my ankle last year. B and I drove down to Vobster the evening before and stayed in our usual place, the Oakhill Inn. I can report that I can basically dive again, but the lack of mobility in my right ankle seems to have slowed down my frog kick somewhat. We got in two leisurely dives:

Dive Max/Avg Depth Temp Runtime Consumption SAC
1 18m / 10m 7℃ 21 mins 50bar/ 1200ℓ† 28ℓ/min
2 12m / 8.8m 6℃ 31 mins 60bar/ 1440ℓ† 24ℓ/min

I have put on about a stone in weight with my forced few months of inactivity, and that is on top of thinking before that I could stand to lose a stone :-/ The lack of fitness really shows in the SAC, my usual benchmark is 20ℓ/min

I made a lot of kit changes too, all the changes I had planned to make over the winter, in one go. Most of these come out of ART but also in preparation for Fundies next month.

  • Switched my neoprene drysuit for a membrane, a Fourth Element Argonaut with silicone neck and wrists, neoprene socks and drygloves.
    • As a consequence of that, switched my size 10 Northern Diver combat rockboots for size 11 Hollis rockboots‡. These are paradoxically bigger on the inside but smaller on the outside, so I dropped my Hollis F1 fins from 2XL to XL‡ which fit perfectly. They also give less support but more mobility for the ankle.
    • As a further consequence of that, wore my O3 PBB Extreme undersuit instead of the PBB+ I would wear under neoprene in these conditions. On the first dive I was perfectly OK but on the second, I was starting to feel the cold.
  • Switched my 6mm, 5.1Kg Agir backplate for a 3mm 2.2Kg by Light Monkey.

On ART with the neoprene suit, twinset and 6mm backplate I felt overweighted however with the membrane suit and the 3mm backplate (and no additional weights) I definitely felt underweighted, the undersuit presumably making all of the difference. So I can assume that my buoyancy works out the same for an equivalent level of thermal protection, which means I will go back to the 6mm (remains to be seen how this works out for traveling). OR in warmer water, with the lighter undersuit, the 3mm backplate might be perfect, hmm. There is plenty of flexibility in the membrane suit compared to the neoprene, but I need to re-learn the finer points of buoyancy control in it. The drygloves are very nice, but fiddly to get on and off, and I am wondering how much I dare trim off the neck seal to get it perfect. It’s quick change, and I have a spare, in case! All in all it was a successful mission and infinitely better than showing up to Fundies in completely unfamiliar kit. But there is still a long way to go before I am happy.


†Twinset
‡Bought at the Vobster shop on the day.

2013 In Diving

Posted on by
Reply

2013 has been a good year for diving. In January B and I went to Mexico for 2 weeks on a trip organized by LSD, we dived a few days in Cozumel, saw some bull sharks and lots of coral, one day locally in Playa Del Carmen, and the rest in the world famous cenotes with Aurelien Naudinat as guide and instructor for the PADI Cavern Diver cert.

On that trip I met a few more LSD people, including some instructors, and was inspired when I got back to sign up for Divemaster at LSD, starting in March and finishing in July, doing almost every weekend. My experiences of that are chronicled in this blog, but in summary I found it a very rewarding experience, and got to meet lots of interesting people, esp. my fellow DMTs. I did some work for LSD so am officially a professional diver. I added another pro qualification later in the year, EFR Instructor, in October.

August was a busy month, with a week’s holiday in the West Country with B, diving at Vobster in the mornings and visiting National Trust properties in the afternoons. While there we dipped a toe into the mysterious world of GUE taking the Primer course. Also in August, again with LSD we dived for a few days in the Farne Islands, with the seals. This was my first time in the North Sea, and B’s first in the UK, apart from inland. The following month in September, I added IANTD ART, the first step into technical diving. Unfortunately 2 dive weekends planned in October to exercise these new skills were both blown out, so I still have a twinset of 32/15 that I need to use! I have also located a local source for fills.

Now for the bad news, I had planned to continue diving all throughout the winter, but in November at Wraysbury I slipped on the ramp and ended up breaking my leg in two places. At first I thought it was just a sprain and tried to “walk it off”, then went to the pub, but it wasn’t getting any better and so B drove me to A&E where an x-ray showed what had happened. Weirdly, I couldn’t even feel one of the breaks. Next month hopefully I will be getting the screws out then can properly heal, and insh’Allah will have enough strength and mobility in my ankle to manhandle a twinset on land and on deck, and do a back kick! Otherwise it might need to be sidemounts.

This has been quite a training-heavy year, but I feel that my diving has come on leaps and bounds, next year we have GUE Fundamentals in April in Malta and Tekcamp but I want to get a lot more “just diving” in, and perhaps a nice easy Red Sea trip with my regular dive gang the Sons of Narky (Red Sea Original), which I missed this year due to a scheduling clash.