Diving, running, sailing, travel… and stuff

Gaius' Adventures

OW Completion, 7/8 September 2013

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Gaius

This was my first outing as a full DM, I am now officially a professional diver! To be honest it was not especially different from the later stages of the training, apart from the added responsibility, so that’s proof that the internship works. Instructors AB and RG, 2 DMTs CD and JD, 4 OW students and myself spent 2 days at Wraysbury doing the 4 dives† of the OW completion. Depending on how you count DMTs we had more staff than students! This was a quiet weekend at the dive centre, only this course, an OW referral with 2 students and an EFR course also with two students, back at LSD. I drove the van on the Saturday. The weather oscillated between bright sunshine and black clouds pouring with rain, but the water was 21℃, so no need for hood or gloves, and all the students could wear wetsuits.

I wore my GUE equipment configuration and took the opportunity to practice buoyancy & trim while watching the students and others kneel on the platforms. Vis was 1-2 metres, and I can report that my new Light Monkey 26W primary light cuts through the murk like a lightsaber. RG described the effect as “mesmerising” 🙂 I’ll get one for B as soon as we figure out how to make it work with ACB, ’til then she can use my 9W LM, which is still an excellent piece of kit.

† PADI teaches a buoyancy skill on dive 4, which is usually done starting from a kneeling position and goes to hovering in a “buddha” position, but I am sure that it could be taught from the “fin pivot” position with knees bent, and hover horizontally, there’s nothing in the standards that says otherwise. Hmm…

Diver’s Cove, 18 August 2013

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Gaius

Yesterday B and I went to reconnoitre Diver’s Cove, a recently opened inland site. Operating on the principle that choice and competition are usually good for the consumer (individual divers and dive schools in this context) we wanted to see if it was a viable alternative to Wraysbury, who have held a monopoly on the South East for many years. I really, really wanted to like it, but unfortunately these hopes were premature. Some of the reasons are general, some are only applicable to some, but in no particular order:

There isn’t much parking and it’s a long way from the water, which is down a gravel slope. It would be a pain to unload kit for 20 divers, and even more so to load it back up. To their credit, trolleys are provided.
The kitting up area is quite small. You could have one operation the size of LSD there, max. There is only one entry platform.
Getting a fill would require going back up the gravel slope to a filling station that didn’t look like it could cope with high demand. I know I am banging on a lot about distances, but logistics are important, and we are often tight-pressed for time. We didn’t try the food, but the catering there would struggle with some demand too.
It’s simply further away. It would be worth it logistically if it had 18+m depth, much as I love Vobster, LSD can’t justify going there for anything other than depth, but at 9m it doesn’t offer any deeper than Wraysbury
The changing rooms are better than Wraysbury’s but the toilets – astonishingly – are worse
Some divers we spoke to there, and our own observations from the surface, were that the vis was worse than Wraysbury too. And on that day at Wraysbury, you couldn’t see from end of a training platform to the other!

Some of these things are structural, while the kitting-up area could be enlarged (a bit) it will always be at the bottom of a slope. Some of them, like the filling station, could be sorted out just by a little investment. All in all tho’, unless you happened to be based in Surrey (and there were some dive schools there) Wraysbury is still the least-worst near the M25. Personally I say just go to Vobster or the sea 🙂

Rescue Diver, 13/14 July 2013

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Gaius

I always enjoy the Rescue courses. With OW and even AOW, you have to watch the students like a hawk and help them with basic skills, but by Rescue time everyone a) has a bit of experience and b) it’s a self-selecting group of people who have the attitude of wanting to improve and a willingness to take responsibility for their team. So you can relax and have a bit more fun, even tho’ the course is very intense, and there is plenty of opportunity for hamming it up in the rescue scenarios. We were a large group, instructor TB and DM GL, both of whom I have worked with before several times, new DM HD, my frequent DMT-buddy SB and 7 students. Also at Wraysbury that weekend from LSD were an OW Completion, a total of 25 people (meaning £450 in entrance fees alone, plus fills, food & drink etc, probably easily over a grand in total).

The first day we spent working on the skills, such as search patterns, CBLs, the O₂ kit, rescue management and the second we did ever more elaborate and far-fetched scenarios, making use of all of us LSD people and a few random people that we knew, as victims, interfering members of the public, etc. There are a few photos on LSD’s Facebook page. The students handled it with aplomb, they quickly gelled as a team, they were easily one of the best groups I have worked with over the last few months. When we returned to the dive centre the OW Referrals were still running (2 × 1 instructor + 6 students, no assistants, alternating between the pool and the classroom) so I jumped on the panel and refilled some tanks for them, only to 150 bar but that’s all there was in the banks.

Still remaining on my DM:

Divemaster Conducted Programmes:
- Scuba Review

The weekend was a bit of a disaster in terms of lost kit, with 4 masks being lost to the mud at the bottom of the lake. SB found one and rightly earned her S&R module signed off!

AOW, 29/30 June 2013

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Gaius

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.

Dive	Max/Avg Depth	Min Temp	Time	Consumption	SAC
1 (DLD)	22.3m / 14.6m	7℃	28 mins	136bar/ 1632ℓ	23ℓ/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:

400m swim

Divemaster Conducted Programmes:

Scuba Review
DSD: OW dive

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

AOW, 25/26 May 2013

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Gaius

Another extremely busy weekend, with instructor ES, DM GL, myself and 4 AOW students, 3 of whom were also doing the Drysuit Spec, and 1 student doing an OW Completion. We were at Wraysbury one day for Buoyancy, Drysuit and Navigation, and Vobster the next, for Deep and Wreck adventure dives, and the optional second drysuit dive to complete the certification, 6 dives in total of which I did 5. Not much to say about this one, it all went like clockwork, the sun was shining and all the students had their acts generally together, their own transport and most of their own equipment, so the logistics were very easy. It was strange how empty the van looked compared to how it usually is! We stopped off for icecream on the way back from Vobster and were still in the pub an hour before the team who had been teaching an OW Referral!

We did the deep dive on the Jacquin II in the middle of the quarry, and the wreck dive on the aircraft again. Even in good vis, it was very apparent how useful powerful lights are for signalling. On the deep dive I used 80bar from a 12L tank in 22mins at an average depth of 12.2metres, giving a SAC of 19.6L/min. I am reasonably confident now in using 20L/min as the basis for gas calculations. It will be even more conservative in warm water gear. No kit changes this week, as while it was warm on the surface, I still expected it to be cold below the thermocline. The OW student was in a 4mm steamer with a 4mm shortie over the top, and did feel the cold at even 10m depth. On the DMT sign-offs front, I completed the 800m swim scoring a 4, and completed the surveying for my mapping project, which I will submit in a few days. Fellow DMT SB and I keep trying to get a few hours in the pool at LSD to practice our skills circuit, which I plan to video on my little Canon S95 with an UW housing for feedback, but slots are few and far between, and we both have busy lives too! So we shall have to see.

OW Completion, 18/19 May 2013

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Gaius

The water at Wraysbury this weekend was a balmy 11-13°C, at the surface a full 10°C warmer than my first dives there this year! The next dive I will try in just merino baselayer rather than the PBB, of which I only wore the farmer john and in which I was rather warm. This might mean dropping a little more weight. No kit changes this week.

My new skill this time was driving the van, which apparently doesn’t get anything signed off for DM, but it should 🙂 This weekend it was instructor KT who I have worked with several times before, fellow DMT JP, 3 students and myself. The logistics were super-smooth and both days we were finished around lunchtime, then back to the dive centre for debriefs and paperwork. All students passed, but one had brought her boyfriend, an already qualified diver, with her. I did have to ask him not to keep helping her; this is a class after all. And everyone makes mistakes – if he inadvertently makes her a “dependent diver” at this early stage, then it’s his buddy check that’s going to be skipped, with potential consequences if he say forgets to turn his air on…

As of right now, the things I have outstanding are:

400m and 800m swims
Skills circuit
Search-and-recovery and mapping project
All the Divemaster Conducted Programmes

From next month, I will be concentrating on filling in these gaps.

Oh, and one bizarre thing I spotted this weekend, on several divers presumably from the same club or school, it’s bad enough strapping a knife to the outside of your leg, being an entanglement hazard and hard to reach if you need it, but then attaching it to its sheath with a lanyard – what are these people thinking?!

Rescue Diver, 11/12 May 2013

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Gaius

Someone said to me when I started, but the Divemaster course won’t make you a better diver. My response to that is, it entirely depends on what you mean by “better”. A good diver has, among other characteristics:

Good situational awareness
An ability to handle a bit of task loading
The ability to look after themselves and a helpless buddy if necessary
Has actually practiced rescue skills, since taking the Rescue Diver course
Takes a preventative, pro-active approach to safety
…

The DM course teaches all of this, or requires that you learn it yourself in order to progress. Better means more than “deeper”…

I had the rather dubious honour of being first in the water at Wraysbury on the Sunday, the vis was better than the Saturday but still pretty poor due to algæ, I would estimate 2-3m, tho’ of course that depends what you’re looking at. I spent much of the weekend being a victim/patient (these words have specific meanings in the PADI system) assisting instructors RR and ES with 3 students, but also got the chance to practice the skills myself. Happy to say that there was little rust on them, and I have been signed off for performing a “demonstration quality” rescue. This puts me roughly halfway through all the required sign offs. Most of the rest aren’t internship, they are all assessments of specific skills, so I just need to organize getting them done.

Kit configuration changes this week:

Moved 4Kg to trim pockets on my upper tank cambands, with 6Kg in my BCD’s integrated weight pockets. This is a much more comfortable configuration. I can descend very easily and have good buoyancy control in the 0-5m range but still feel too negative at around 8m. Perhaps I could drop even more weight. I still wore a weight belt tho’, empty, in order to conform with PADI standards for the course!
Swapped the default rockboots that came with my drysuit for a pair of Northern Diver Rock Swim Boots. These are the same boots that are issued to UK military divers. I see this question being asked all over the Internet, so for the benefit of the wider diving community, these boots in size 10 fit perfectly the Hollis F1 fins in size 2XL. They are slightly buoyant and that in combination with the weight change are making me flatter in the water, tho’ without any weight in the belt to inhibit air migration, I was a little worried a couple of times about the dreaded floaty feet. I’ll stick with this configuration for a few more dives to get a proper feel for it.
It was a bit warmer in the water, around 9°C, so I risked removing the top half of my undersuit, wearing just the farmer john over a wicking t-shirt. Got a bit cold waiting to be rescued, playing the “unresponsive diver on the bottom” while the students faffed around, but should be able to reach valves for a shutdown drill, using the head forward, wrist on back of head, head back method. A great relief to know I won’t need a new drysuit when I start diving a twinset!

AOW, 27/28 April 2013

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Gaius

A very intense weekend comprising one day at Wraysbury and one further afield at Vobster Quay, my first time at the latter (as I have mainly dived in the sea). I was very impressed by Vobster, it is much better equipped and run than many “real” dive operations. The group comprised instructor AD, DM GL, 5 students and two DMTs, myself and JK, who just had a few things to get signed off for his DM. AOW as taught by LSD includes PPB, navigation, drysuit, deep and wreck, the latter two done at Vobster where it goes down to below the OW limit of 18m, 5 dives in total, of which I did 4. The surface of Wraysbury had warmed up as far as 9°C, but below the thermocline at Vobster it was still 4-5°C. My repaired drysuit wrist seal held and apart from a bit of dampness from perspiration, I was nice and warm and dry.

Altho’ we started early on Saturday, it took us a while to get into the water due to logistical difficulties: with several other courses running, and the students needing to borrow almost all their equipment, it took a lot of time for people to try things on and get comfortable, at least as comfortable as you can in a borrowed drysuit, which is very unlikely to be a perfect fit. We were really pushed for time, exiting the water last at Wraysbury. I am not sure what we could have done differently to make that quicker. That is one thing that is very different about the UK from where I did my training up to Rescue Diver in Egypt – in a hot climate, there is no issue with popping in and out of the water, whereas in cold conditions, we need to shuffle things around to minimize the transitions, even when doing pool work.

Sunday was an even earlier start but proceeded smoothly, we met at 5:30am at LSD, loaded up the van with the previous day’s kit and set off, arriving at Vobster just before the gates opened, and parking in a reserved spot very close to the water. I did surface support for the first dive and went in for the second, the wreck dive on the aircraft, buddied with one of the students, who had hoovered through 160 bar in an instant on the first dive. I watched her and her gauges like a hawk, but there were no issues this time, due no doubt to my reassuring presence! I used 114 bar from a 12L tank in 34 mins at an average depth of 8.8m giving a SAC of 21L/min, which was slightly better than last time. I still need to do more work to improve it, especially with the maneuvering and task loading of monitoring student divers. One student did not complete this time; she was unhappy on the – to be fair – very cold and dark deep dive, and sat out the wreck dive. It’s good that we are training students with the self-confidence to call a dive, even having spent the money, traveled a long way, and potentially peer pressure to do it (not that there was any of that this time, that I could see).

The conventional wisdom is to only change, or introduce one new piece of kit per dive, but I bent that slightly this weekend, with mixed results.

Switched my Scubapro split fins for Hollis F1s. These are great fins, very powerful, very suitable for frog kick. Unfortunately size XL is slightly too small for my rock boots, and size 2XL slightly too wide. I’m going to solve this by getting slightly bulkier boots I think, as I like the fins. But even more unfortunately, with an undersuit on, in my drysuit I don’t have enough flexibility in my hips to do a proper frog kick anyway! Nor would I to reach valves for a shutdown drill. That is going to be an expensive problem to solve 😦
Switched my conventional 5mm gloves for Waterproof 3-finger mittens, which GL had been raving about. This was a great success. Much easier to don and doff, much warmer, actually minimal loss of dexterity. You do need to remember that you’re wearing them for some hand signals tho’.
Switched my 3mm hood for a 5mm from Fourth Element. Warmer and more comfortable than the Scubapro, but I can’t hear a thing while wearing it! Despite that I had no problems equalizing.
Semi-retired my trusty Scubapro Nova torch, which has accompanied me on many adventures, to backup status and introduced a Light Monkey on a Goodman handle as primary, on my left hand. This was also a great success, and altho’ it wasn’t dark at all, the staff having our lights on made a huge difference in the turbid conditions, often the light would be visible when even the bright yellow tanks were not. When I move up to a BP/W setup, LM will be my first choice as a canister light. Closer the time I might badger Deep Ideas to start importing LM wings too 🙂
Dropped from 12kg to 11kg weight. I thought I needed 10kg to be neutral, and added a little more so I could help students with buoyancy problems if necessary (it was), but this weekend I felt a lot more negative. Perhaps it is just because I am more comfortable in my drysuit now (I have only a couple of dozen drysuits dives myself, if that) but some of it will be the different fins. Next time I will just go for 10kg or perhaps even less. The formula off the top of my head is something like 7% of bodyweight + 3kg for the tank contents, which matches at my current (far from Marathon-fit :-/) bodyweight. I should be able to fit that into my BCD integrated weights/cam band trim pockets, and do away with a weight belt altogether. That will help with drysuit buoyancy too, partly because of the weight location relative to CoG but also because it impeded air migration to and from the lower half of my body.

Hmm, 4/5 of those changes involve replacing Scubapro with something else. Certainly not my intent, there’s nothing actually wrong with any of it and I am still a fan of the brand, just that I am diverging a little from the style of diving of their head of product development…

OW Completion, 6/7 April 2013

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Gaius

During the week I had hastily “repaired” my drysuit’s right wrist seal by slathering on the Aquaseal, in the process discovering, where it seeped through, that the leak wasn’t where I thought it was at all! Or rather, that the seal in general was in quite bad shape. There were lots of cuts at funny angles through the neoprene. As I have only a dozen or so dives in this suit, I can only assume that it was actually damaged by people with long nails or sharp jewelry trying it on in the shop, and had deteriorated in use. Next time, if I don’t go custom, I’ll buy one shrink-wrapped from the Internet – and feel no guilt whatsoever about going back to that shop and trying on drysuits there first. I hope tho’ that needing to buy a new one is years in the future. My repair seemed to do the job when I tested in the bath, so I have added a tube of Aquaseal to my kit. And I got a 5mm hood too.

However all this turned out to be unnecessary as I found myself on surface support all weekend, for an OW Completion at Wraysbury, two groups of three students, my group having OWSI KT, DM GL in the water as safety diver, and myself. Keen not to repeat the lead shortage of last week, we checked out everything apart from the kitchen sink from the stores, then found ourselves assigned parking for the van as far as it is possible to get from the water at Wraysbury! The whole weekend was pretty uneventful, involving making sure all the logistics ran smoothly, which I think I have a handle on now. I would have liked to have gotten at least one dive in, but I fully understand that this is “work”, and it’s still valuable experience, and better to get it out of the way and ticked off while it’s cold, and we’re at a murky pond rather that somewhere that’s a better dive anyway! I took advantage of the situation by dropping the drysuit at Mike’s for a proper wrist seal replacement and a fly zip fitting, which Christian there assures me can be ready before my next foray into cold water, currently scheduled for the end of the month. Eventually I will want a p-valve too, I expect. Later in the pub, I got some good advice from Lead Instructor AD, on needing to actively manage my own rate of progress through the DMT programme. It was good to meet some other DMTs too.

Drysuit Spec, 30 March 2013

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Gaius

This Saturday saw us at Wraysbury with a class of 4 students for the Drysuit Specialty course, Duncan OSWI, plus another 4 doing an OW Completion, with an OWSI, another DMT and a recently qualified DM. I did this course myself in 2010. Water temperature 3-4°C, easily the coldest I have dived in (previously that was 9°C at Plymouth last Easter). I was actually fine in my new PBB+ undersuit bought at LIDS, and my neoprene drysuit, apart from that my right wrist seal is leaking, and my head in a 3mm hood was very cold at first. I’ll need to get both of those sorted, urgently, as I am back again next weekend, both days! Also I test-dived the Suunto Cobra I got on eBay for less than half new price. It read my initial tank pressure as 165 bar, which seemed a bit low but was possible, and my gut feel is that it tracked my air consumption correctly (82 bar from a 12L tank used in 24 mins at an average depth of 5.8m gives 25.9L/min SAC which is reasonable considering it was cold and I was swimming constantly). I need to compare it with another gauge, and maybe get it serviced too.

Specific feedback/lessons learned:

When doing surface support, kit up. For the first dive, I was the surface support, checking divers in and out of the water (times, air, etc), handing in or taking back weight as people buoyancy checked, keeping an eye on divers still on land or who had returned early. Another DMT had told me not to bother getting my drysuit on, but I did find myself up to my ankles in the aformentioned cold water as the pontoon wasn’t in the greatest shape, then had numb feet for the rest of the day!
Double, triple check kit before leaving the dive centre. We arrived on site with what we thought was 20Kg of spare lead; when we came to dive, there was only 4Kg which got used almost immediately, despite each student supposedly having been issued 10Kg at the centre. Even the belt we threaded it on was taken. I had 12Kg from the centre for myself, which vanished before I could use it (as I was surface support for the first dive, and in on the second) In the end I just rented lead to save hassle, but I shouldn’t have had to put my own hand in my pocket for this. I even had to pay to get into Wraysbury! But the DM(T) has to be responsible for everyone else too. It’s Divemaster as in quartermaster.
Think about where the students will be, and position accordingly. I think this will just come as I assist on more courses and get a feel for the flow of things. It’s important to be able to see everything, to be in a position to react quickly, and yet be out of the way. This means thinking one step ahead of where the instructor has put the students and what he is doing with them.

Every diver knows how to do a buoyancy check, and every diver knows that if you are overweighted, buoyancy control is a lot harder, since the air you add to be neutral at a given depth changes volume as you ascend and descend†. The really experienced divers with us, the instructors and experienced DM all seemed to be negative enough to hold down a flailing student, yet had great buoyancy control of their own without obviously adjusting their BCDs. I think 10Kg should have been enough weight for me in that kit in freshwater, but I went in with 12Kg for that purpose, yet my own buoyancy was all over the place, or at least it felt that way. How they do that is something that I’m going to have to learn. Another thing to think about is what exactly to do if a student shoots up like a Polaris. On the one hand, we are responsible for them. On the other, in a class like this they are already certified divers and responsible for themselves. Blowing an ascent rate if you only dive once a year is one thing, doing it several times a day, every weekend is bound to take its toll, even if only from 10m, and I want to go on being a healthy diver for a long time!

† When I did the Cavern Specialty in Mexico in January, we learnt one trick cave divers use: 33% of your weight is only needed for descent and to control ascent with depleted tanks, so to ensure perfect neutrality in the confined environment, they simply have some of their weight clipped on, which they leave at the entrance to the cave and pick up on the way out. Why are so many divers overweighted then? Because it makes the descent very easy and they dive a very simple profile that is down, along a reef wall say, then up (and then blow their safety stops!).