Good report mate!
Before I respond to a couple of things, can I just ask this. Who was it that got me to jump in off the bus stop to look for a mask that they had dropped in? 5 minutes later of looking all around and under the bus stop, I surface to be told that it was on his stage!
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| Originally Posted by Garf Dive 1 - Depth 21M Time 55 Minutes.
before venturing inside and allowing Ian to stand in the bridge and salute divers as they went past. |
I was pretending I was a flag waver (iani) suppling the skipper with with tea and biscuits and having dilusions of grandeur and acting as if the bridge was a place where mere plebs were not allowed. I thought the salutes was a nice touch. Wait till we do the Scylla!
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| Originally Posted by Garf After about 25 minutes into the dive, we proceeded to the bus and then Ian signalled he was going to put a blob up. first error of the day was me lauighing my head off whilst Ian attempted to fire his self inflator having filled the bottle from his missus's (empty) 12 ltr cylinder the night before. After a couple of minutes where I could literally hear the gears turning in his head, I filled the smb using my primary reg and sent it up. |
I think you waited till I went to the lavvy and emptied it??
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| Originally Posted by Garf Sunday
Dive 1. Depth 35 Metres, Time 65 Minutes
We then proceeded at 20 metres to the Stangarth. Welll, that's not quite right. Old Chris Columbus managed to miss the Stangarth completely and we ended up at the cliff face directly opposite the pub. We decided to put a blob up, and then head up to 6m and swim back across the quarry. Ian was having real bother with his spool, as his hands were so cold he had real issues simply gripping up. He dropped it and it lodged in the cliff face about 4 metresa below him. I retrieved it and held it for him whilst he put the blob up and then handed it back. |
Oh, that's rich that is! Remind me, last time at Stoney, you were navigating, out of the however many attractions there are in there, exactly how many did we find by either luck or judgement. Let me just check... Hmmmmm. That's it! A big fat 0 in an hours dive. IIRC, we saw the cliff face on the other side of the quarry then didn't we? That is truly a feat!
Anyway, you know my compass was sticky.. Seriously though, I have never felt so cold on a dive before, never had the feeling that I really had very little use of my fingers and couldn't actually feel something in my hand.
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| Originally Posted by Garf We swam over the Stangarth, which was a bizarre sight I had not seen before, as you could see the whole wreck buzzing with divers. |
That was quite weird actually, wish I had had my camera for that. See, if it hadn't been for my sticky compass we would have missed that.
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| Originally Posted by Garf Ian and I were both very cold indeed at this point, so much so that we dumped all the kit in the car asap and headed straight to the pub for some warm food and coffee. After an hours defrosting, we discussed a second dive. Ian Decided to call the second dive as he was still feeling cold, and I made the traditional response. For those that do not know the traiditional response it is easy, you follow these instructions.
1. Stand up straight, then bend knees so that you things are now about 45 degrees from the ground.
2. Bend your elbows so that your upper and lower arms are at 90 degrees to each other
3. Now, continuing to keep your knees and arms bent, pivot both shoulders simultaneously so that your elbows move away from your body repeatedly
4. Cotinue to keep your knees bent whilst walking in a circle around the person that called the dive
5. Finally, repeat the age-old mantra "buck, buck, buck, buck, bbuuuuuuuuuck" |
I'll remember that..
Weekend's Lessons.
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| Originally Posted by Garf 2. Team skills are well worth practicing, and make a hell of a difference to the dive. |
Absolutely. After talking about them and then putting them into action, makes the dive a lot easier knowing where people are going to be.
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| Originally Posted by Garf 3. Navy people can't navigate for shit. Explains why there are so many wrecks I guess. |
See note above re: Garf+Compass+Quarry full of attractions = Nothing seen.
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| Originally Posted by Garf 5. there is a lot of value in picking a kit configuration, whatever it may be, and simpyl sticking with it, rather than changing things on every dive. |
Agree with that. Time to stop tinkering for a while.
Main things I got out of the weekend
1. Gaiters seemed to work for me. Whilst attempting drills me feet didn't feel as floaty.
2. Get a working compass
3. Buoyancy control without the aid of a SMB on deco stops was very good between us.
4. "Team" understanding getting better.
5. Managed to lose another kilo off the belt. Down to 2kg now.
6. After loosening the straps on my harness, and removing my crotch strap, managed to get a lot closer to the isolater and was almost able to shut it down on a couple of occasions. A vast improvement. Off to the pool this evening to experiment without and undersuit to see if this could be causing any restrictions as I suspect.
7. An hour + in 6-7 degrees water, even with 5mm gloves is stretching it a bit.
8. Meeting fellow YD'ers.
Just like to thank Gareth for a great weekend. As always, had a good laugh and listening to his views on certain subjects is very entertaining.
Dive Inn's bunny got away with an incident free weekend for a change
All the best,
Ian