Day Two
I met Rich at his unit at 07:00 and Terry rocked up shortly after. Gear loaded after being checked by Rich and we set off for Vobster Quay. Getting there for 09:30, I was glad to find we were allowed down into the lower carpark.
We did a full kit check, calibrate, pressure checks and prebreathe, then off to get changed. Now, Terry admitted he’d only done one quarry dive (although many hundreds of sea dives) and was aware it was going to be cold. Wade on the other hand had got cold in the pool, this didn’t bode well!
I use the principle ‘any fool can be cold’ so I was in full Weezle Extreme +, two sets of warm socks, 5mm gloves and 7mm hood, plus of course lots of ‘natural’ insulation
Rich let us know the layout of the dives, 40 minutes having a swim about getting use to the units in open water a bit deeper than the pool, surface and quick chat (but not get out) and then re-descend back down onto the platform for drills. The first part I found really hard, it was a game of follow the leader with Rich in number 1. I found the pace to be a little quick for me and was struggling to control everything and not look a fool to the people following. My mask was giving me grief, mainly due to my moustache and the RB mouthpiece. This obviously had me mask clearing more than normal and I soon found out I could locate the dil button in a millisecond
And more obviously much gurgling was heard in the loop, luckily Rich and Mike had showed us how to clear this into the T piece. Also, I felt I was swimming at an angle with my left side down, listing 10 degrees to port!
Upon surfacing it was clear both Terry and Wade were very cold so the decision was made to get out for 5 minutes for a quick debrief. We soon got back in and decended onto the training platform for drills and skills. Similar to the pool but this time Rich demonstrated the skill and the pointed to us in order, repeating again and again as necessary if we weren’t quick enough or didn’t do it quite right. A minor problem by one of the others but nothing major. The tight mouthpiece closure wasn’t too bad but I certainly wasn’t as proficient as I could be, or should be.
60 minutes in 6deg water and even I was glad to get out, not because I was cold but I was hungry
A debrief and a cheeseburger (or two, soup, chocolate, flapjack and crisps) followed.
The plan for the second dive was to go deeper and therefore have more of an ascent to deal with on our return. Terry then ‘stole’ my spare pair of 5mm gloves to see if they could help with the cold. This mostly went to plan but someone did have a problem at the bottom, so we did an ascent earlier than planned. I was happy on the bottom changing my setpoint down for the ascent when I got prodded and told to ascend with the rest! My diving viewpoint is ‘I’d rather be on the bottom so long as I have enough gas, than ascending too quickly’. I think it was Charles, a fairly new Meg diver tagging along with us who was watching my back at this point, although I’m sure Mike was also very close too, nice to know, although I certainly knew where my bailout was at all times
. Back onto the shelf I was reminded to buddy up with Terry but he was a few metres above me, and as I wasn’t prepared to ascend quicker than I was (I felt I would loose control if I did) so I stayed below him, catching him up on the surface. Drama sorted and we continued the dive. Part of this dive we ran a low setpoint of 0.7 but tried via the inject buttons, to keep the ppO2 up at 1.3. Mask still leaking
Drills completed we exited the water.
Another debrief by Rich, some good, some bad. Units stripped, I emptied my loop, hoses and the water in the bottom of can, I was amazed at how the unit still worked fully despite 10/15mm of water in the bottom. Repacking the scrubber brought back memories of friends with units, the ‘tap tap tap, tap tap tap’
We were the last to leave Vobster and I think the staff were glad to see us go so they could lock up!
A few of us were stopping over a The Vobster Inn
Welcome to The Vobster Inn, which is very nice, especially as its only a 2 or 3 minute drive away.
An informal chat in the evening helped my understanding a bit more of various unit differences. Also what ‘running semi closed’ meant and the importance of later picking the right bailout gases. More food