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Thanks MattBin. Here's day two...
The following day I was still a little apprehensive as this was the open water stuff. I was happy with the kicks and stuff but now we had to do it for real. Breakfast was relaxed and fun. I met Panos Alexakos who was going to talk to the british cavers about sidemounting, finning techniques with wellies, torch positioning on helmets etc (Sorry, cynical I know).
First thing we did was get our backplates back on and tiewrap the regs going through our sdrills. We also had a discussion on buddy skills and positioning underwater. This was mostly done in teams of three and was very interesting and I wish I could remember more of it. There is a lot of info to learn in the DIR fundamentals class and you can expect your brain to be fried and your muscles aching by the end of the course.
We were diving in the marina ?! in only 3m of water, very silty, and about 7 degreesC. Vis was about 1 – 1.5m and so you didn’t see the bottom until you were nearly on it. Add to that bad buoyancy and trim and multiply that by three divers and you end up diving in mucky soup. Of course, being in 3m doesn’t help as buoyancy changes are exaggerated massively. First dive I was teamed up with nickjb and ChrisB. We were doing the basic five skills which are; Remove and replace reg, modified sdrill (an sdrill but without actually donating air), Mask clear, mask remove and replace and valve drill. The mask clear went OK, but when I removed my mask and gave it to AndrewG, I just popped to the surface. He followed me up and we met AndyK who had lost one person (They had given up, This course is all about strength of character as your ego takes a right wupping). AndrewG then put me with AndyK and we went down again. This time we were doing proper Sdrills and I was teamed up with Hens (who had come over from Holland) This time I was better and kept my buoyancy but Hens had problems. We totally silted the place out one time and popped to the surface the next. After a very long 20 minutes we exited for lunch.
Lunch was a carpet burger from the hotel and was tastier than it looked. Or I was hungrier than I thought.
Onto the second dive. This time I was teamed up with Hens and AndrewG. A few people had given up by now and didn’t want to do anymore. Well, I’d paid £250 for the course and driven 5 hours and I’m a Yorkshireman and so I’d have dived no matter how crap I was (which I was by the way!) Firstly we did a valve drill and yes I did it OK. AndrewG came over after and said that it was coming on well but I loose trim when I turn a valve. Each time I finish a valve, I then sorted myself out and then went to the next. I must say that since then my valve drills have been crap. I think it must be my nice stiff cordura drysuit. Because I had split my neckseal I used a trilam suit which must be more flexible. And so a DUI is now on the shopping list ! Hens did OK with his valve drill and then we deployed an SMB. I’d been practicing this with Mark Emery and so this was straight forward. We then had to try to bring it back down again by finning downwards and pulling. No chance !
After that AndrewG said we could swim about and practice but we were not in the lesson anymore due to HSE regs. So Hens and I went for a fin up and down the marina to practice our finkicks and persuade ourselves that we could dive. It was quite good actually, plenty of crabs, a few fish and I found a rifle bullet, which I gave to Hens, as I’m not really into collecting. Apparently when they dry out they tend to explode and so I thought it best that he have it. He He.
After that we exited and as I was packing up Mark Emery turned up and asked how the course had gone. He was joining us for the afternoon lectures and it was good to catch up. Apparently he had asked AndyK how I’d been doing and was told very well. (Head swell again!!). The next lecture was about deco and gasses, stuff I like to learn about and this was excellent. Deep stops were discussed and the reasons why DIR uses standard mixes (its just easier to plan your dive) I wish we could have covered it a bit more to actually be able to use this knowledge after the course but I’ve been told they do it all in Tech1.
After the lecture finished we went for a well earned beer and then on to an excellent meal at the pub over the road before collapsing into bed totally knackered but well pleased that I had done it.
Some people are turned off by DIR because of the idiots who try to wind them up on the lists and stuff, but in essence its all about safe diving no matter whether you are on a red sea liveaboard or an 18000 ft cave dive. Using the same well thought out equipment, proper education and the right experience, means that dives are less stressful and therefore more fun. That’s what I like about DIR and why I’m a DIR advocate. My advice to other DIR advocates. Take the course. It really does give you a good foundation for safe diving in the future.
My future plans ?! To complete the Tech1 in September with AndyK and I’m planning a trip to Mexico at Christmastime to do Cave1.
Hope you enjoyed the report |