Day Three
Lovely breakfast, made even nicer by the fact that I didn’t get up until 07:30 and we were still at Vobster before the gates opened.
It was no surprise to find that we were down to two students today. Wade had called it a day due to confidence despite Rich talking to him. We looked at the video Mike had done so far, I was glad to see I wasn’t as bad as I thought although Mike had cut me out of most of the shots
A few friendly faces were met around the carpark and quizzical looks gained when I explained why I was there, as well as several requests for first dibs on my OC gear if I was selling up
Units prepped and checks done. Into the changing rooms to get changed, I exited to be told we were now done to one, ie ME! Terry had an equipment failure and couldn’t dive. So now it was Rich, Mike and me. No escape from video camera today
Extra drills added today were the high O2 alert and manually keeping the ppO2 above the setpoint.
We set off and I found I was much more comfortable today, the pace was slower, perhaps as there was only me to look after and watch. One thing that reminded me though was stopping, anyone can have fake neutral buoyancy whilst finning (and compensating) but once stopped, generally I sank slowly onto the ledge, still I felt a lot better than yesterday. We went over and down to the 20m area for 20mins, this time I didn’t land in a heap at the bottom, hurrah! On the turn point, Rich asked me to leave the setpoint at 1.3 but turn the O2 off at the valve and by turning it on & off (very quickly I soon found out), keep the setpoint as near 1.0 as I could (suggesting solenoid failed open). I had an attack of the task loading gremlins to start with and must have slipped down a bit as Rich pointed to his wing inflate to indicate buoyancy. Recovering after a minute, I followed Rich back at 20m for 15mins, and then ascended up the wall (fairly slowly) trying to keep it between 0.9 and 1.1, failing a couple of times, allowing a bit too much O2 in but not enough for it to rise to alarming levels. I found this a really hard skill. More drills on the platform, including the high O2 drill. I messed the first one up and paid for it with having to do it at least 8 times after it seemed. I got my own back on Rich though, as I kept moving forward across the platform and forced him off the other side so he had to keep neutral buoyancy
. My own buoyancy I felt was getting marginally better as I was doing the drills sometimes with only my fin tips touching the platform.
Breaking for lunch, another debrief and plan for the afternoon.
Afternoon dive was more of the same, only colder and less enjoyable but I felt the benefits of the buoyancy improvement. Also, I’d nicked Mikes loop as he’d got an extended handle on the front of his mouthpiece which I could grip and bailout drills were a lot easier.
Further debrief going over my many shortfalls and that was it for the weekend. A long drive home but fortunately not a huge amount of kit to dry. More food, then bed, I was knackered.