GUE Tech 1 Report

[Rick Huggins]

I found this on the web and thought it may be of interest. We did have one from Davey Willo, but that vanished in the great crash of 04.

Enjoy!


11/9/02 Saturday, Day 1 – I “lost it”

Mark, Joe and I packed our stuff into the trucks under pleasantly mild skies. Only a partly cloudy sky remained of yesterday’s torrent. The class planned to meet at the Breakwater at 8:30, so we showed up around 7:30 to assemble gear, have breakfast, and watch the surf.

The water movement was amazing. One second I could see wash rocks I didn’t even know existed, five seconds later water was climbing up the stairs. I set up my rig, nearly sure it would wait until tomorrow to see some action. One member of the class had just picked up a new drysuit and wanted to try it before class. He charged in through the surf, did a quick trial of the suit, and came out in one piece. This was encouraging except that my double steel 95s would probably be a bit more of a burden in the surf zone than his double aluminum 80s. Oh, and he also reported about 3 feet of visibility. Considering the importance of a video debrief to the dives we had planned, I grew more certain we wouldn’t dive today.

Andrew showed up around 9, a tardiness I grew used to over the next five days. Nick Foster also came from Fifth Dimension in Seattle to be the second instructor for the course. Andrew shook hands all around with typical frenetic energy, and commented to Nick upon greeting me, “See, I told you you wouldn’t believe it.” I had met Andrew a couple of weeks earlier at DEMA and apparently had made an impression with my petite form.

We then huddled around my tailgate to talk. First came introductions, which Andrew used to illustrate potentially harmful attitudes toward diving and to gauge each student’s level of preparation. Actually, introducing the five students took a good solid 30 minutes and I probably should have been taking notes because I was too nervous and self conscious to remember much of what Andrew was saying. Next, we talked a little about gear. Andrew couldn’t resist ripping decorative plastic pieces off my MK20 first stages and “suggesting” that I remove the rest later. He also walked us through the possible failures that can happen with a set of doubles and how to deal with them. I listened closely and actually started taking notes since I knew this would be tested in the water.

Some time around 11am Andrew split us into two teams for practice running line. Mark, Sami, and I were one team, while Pete and Will were a second. Before setting us loose, he used our team to illustrate team positioning and passive light communication. Mark, Sami, and I let Andrew move us around to demonstrate wing-to-wing, single file, and staggered positioning strategies. He drew circles in the sand deposited by yesterday’s storm to show us where our lights would be to facilitate communication. Encumbered with heavy gear that makes spinning around laborious, tech divers rely on tightly focused lights to keep in touch. As long as you can see your buddy’s light, you can bet they are doing alright. If their light disappears for more than a second or two, you can do a visual check to see what’s up. Emergency, attention, and ok signals are easy to exchange with a light as any night diver well knows.

Breaking into our teams, we each ran line around the parking meters, bolts, and other convenient objects near the parking lot. Pondering again the possibility of getting in the water, I noticed there were no other divers in sight. I hadn’t noticed when, but the few openwater classes who had bothered to show up had already dispersed, postponing their first-ever dives for another day. A mid morning Saturday at the Breakwater with plenty of parking spaces is not a day I would normally choose to dive!

Nonetheless, after a bit of line practice, we suited up. Joe and Clinton, our videographers, bravely hit the water first to establish an upline for our dives. Mark, Sami, and I donned our drysuits and doubles, then got together for our predive checks. These checks would be done before every dive in the course. They are nearly the same as for cave diving, with some modifications for the ocean environment. First we do an equipment check, wherein the dive leader runs through the equipment head to toe and the other divers confirm that everything is in place and functioning. I had volunteered to lead our first dive, confident in my cave-trained line running skills and hoping the need to focus would break me out of the pre-class jitters. Next, we perform modified s- and valve-drills to confirm proper hose routing and position of the valves on the manifold and argon bottle (all open), and later on the deco bottle (closed). The remainder of the pre-dive checks and drills would happen in the water, so we apprehensively descended the stairs to the beach.

The entry was bad, but not as bad as it might have been. Staying very close to your buddies was out of the question as criss-crossing currents in the surf zone carried us inevitably apart. But we kept one eye on the ocean and one on each other and all made it through alright. During the kick out I watched the wall for reference and noticed the surge carrying me alternately backwards and forwards. I tried not to think too much about trying to tie in the line under these circumstances.

When we reached the lift bag that Joe and Clinton had used to establish our upline, we went through a review of the dive plan (SADDDD – a pretty strange acronym, but it works), checked each other from manifold to drysuit inflator for inappropriate bubbles (bubble check), switched on our HID lights (so we could find each other in the brown water) and dropped down. The plan was to go through s- and valve-drills in around 20 feet of water then come back up. An s-drill means practicing the response to an out of air situation. Each diver in turn signals out of air (OOA) and each diver has a chance to be the donor. This confirms proper routing of everybody’s hoses and helps emergency responses become automatic and effective.

Valve drills involve shutting down and reopening each valve on your manifold in sequence, confirming their proper position and again practicing problem resolution. All of the drills are, naturally, performed neutrally buoyant, horizontal, and off the bottom. We accomplished this reasonably well, but gave up on keeping track of the thin white upline as the surge carried us back and forth a distance three times the visibility. Returning to the surface, we went through SADDDD again, changing the gas plan to reflect our diminished supplies. The plan was deceptively simple: I was running line from the upline out away from the wall until we hit our turn pressures or 20 minutes, whichever came sooner.

Things went just fine until we got to the bottom (that took about 15 seconds). I found the upline tethered to two big rocks, with nothing else but sand for 4 feet around. Since we had to tie in within an arm’s reach of the upline (to be able to find it in zero vis), I searched around to find a mobile rock I could bring near the upline as a tie in point. This was fine, but I also needed a secondary tie off. The only thing I could find was a little two pound rock, which didn’t exactly do the trick. Finally, I gave into Sami’s persistent suggestion that I use one of the rocks the upline was anchored to (a no-no, for the record).

Only 6 minutes into the dive, we were underway. Well, two of us were. Mark was tangled in the up line, courtesy of Andrew. I locked the reel to go help, but Sami was already untangling him. We continued and made forward progress for about 10 feet before Sami’s right post began spewing bubbles (actually Andrew was blowing a stream of bubbles near his post). He properly shut down the post and switched to his back up reg, calling me over to check it out.

I locked and set down the reel, checked the seat on his first stage, then carefully reopened the valve. No more bubbles. Since the problem was solved, we continued with our dive and Sami reached back to make sure his valves were all properly open. Not much later, my right post similarly “failed,” but after my buddies helped me resolve the problem, the reel was no where to be found. I thought for about one second that I actually had lost it in the murk. Swimming back to some rocks we had just passed by, I found no sight of it and concluded that it had a little help getting “lost.” Unable to find the line, we had no choice but to call the dive. Mark and Sami worked together to shoot a bag, establishing an upline for our planned deco stops at 20 and 10 feet.
I took this opportunity to do a flow check, a sort of underwater modified valve-drill to confirm all your valves are in the right position. Seventeen minutes after descending we were back at the surface having experienced entanglement, two resolvable post failures, and a lost line all in our first dive! I was glad we were practicing in only 30 feet of water. And, I would never set the reel down in such lousy vis again!

We regrouped and planned the second dive based on the gas we had remaining. This time Mark was leading and did as well as could be expected tying in with the heavy surge. As we left the upline, I decided to do a flow check and found that my isolator was shut. Within a couple of minutes, Sami’s right post failed again. This time, I helped him fix it, leaving Mark to hang on tightly to the reel. Moving on through the soupy water, I soon heard bubbles coming from my right post. I shut it down while signaling my buddies with my light, but as soon as I switched to my necklace reg I noticed I was moving disturbingly quickly toward the surface. I tried in vain to kick downward and finally grabbed my power inflator to try to dump my wing. By the time I got into a position to dump, all I could see was green-brown water and particles rushing past my mask.

Making sure to avoid a lung overexpansion injury, I exhaled continuously even as I tried to dump my wing. In no time at all, I broke the surface, totally confused as to what had happened. Andrew appeared soon after and asked if I was ok. Still breathing through my necklace reg, I nodded numbly as I tried to inflate my wing to avoid sinking back below the surface. I tried this for several seconds, finally remembering my right post (where the wing inflator is attached) was shut down. Andrew commented I had “lost it” which I didn’t quite know how to interpret. As he redescended, I inflated my drysuit so I could float, then reopened my right post and inflated my wing as well.
I sat on the surface for at least two minutes, confused and upset, before I thought to look for my teammates’ bubbles. I found and followed their bubbles until they surfaced about a minute later. We swam slowly back towards shore while Andrew debriefed us, but my mind was stuck on trying to figure out what had sent me rocketing to the surface.

I vaguely remember my buddies being chastised for doing their entire planned deco while I lay on the surface, dead for all they knew. My dazed mind continued through the exit, but at least I remembered to put my mask on before hitting the surf zone. I was in waist deep water when I went down. Two more waves hit me before I got on my hands and knees to try and crawl out. Just at that moment, I was hauled to my feet by my manifold and Andrew helped me the rest of the way out. I remember seeing Mark further up the beach, also on the ground.

We got out of our sandy gear and I explained to Joe what had happened to me at the end of the dive, hoping he could shed some light on what might have sent me so unceremoniously to the surface. Fortunately, Andrew over heard me talking about it and finally explained. Apparently, a major failure in your first stage can send rather high pressure downstream into your LP hoses, overcoming the valve in your power inflator and dumping tons of gas into your wing. Andrew had simulated this by jamming on my power inflator while I shut down my right post. I was fixated on the valve shutdown and didn’t notice the buoyancy change until too late, and then failed to save the situation by using my butt dump. It was a hard way to learn, but I won’t forget how to deal with such a failure again!

It was around 5:30 or 6 by the time we were in the classroom at Manta Ray eating pizza. I was starving and appreciated a little distraction from watching my mediocre performance, captured somehow on video despite the miserable conditions. After the debrief, I was happy to retreat to the hotel and relax a bit.

11/10/02 Day 2 – Where’d my mask go?

Rolling out of bed at 6:30, I starting gathering my gear for the day in high spirits. The first day jitters were gone and today would surely come off better than yesterday. But as Mark sat up out of bed, my excitement waned. It seems that the roll in the surf the day before had brought Mark’s back close to full spasm. He was in no shape to strap doubles on today. We picked up the tanks at MBDC then met the class at the Breakwater where Mark gave Andrew the bad news. From our original 6 we were now down to 4 students, Anibal having injured his back 2 weeks earlier.

Before getting in the water, we spent some more time working with line – this time learning and practicing the technique for following a line in zero visibility (or without a mask). Sami and I strung a line along the parking meters, then Andrew timed us walking along next to the line. This simulated normal diving conditions – it took about 20 seconds to reach the end of the line. Next we walked the same course in touch contact with our eyes closed to simulate a zero visibility return to the upline. It took us 9 times longer.
Next, we sat on the breakwater wall with our doubles on and practiced going through the motions of solving the possible failures, one by one. For each scenario, we would begin to address the problem while signaling to our buddy, have our buddy check what was wrong and if it was fixable, then decide together whether we would proceed with the dive, return to the upline, or begin ascending immediately.

The ocean was slightly calmer today than yesterday, but there was still a lot of water movement. Sami and I entered close behind Joe and Clinton, so we dropped down to do our pre-dive s- and valve-drills before they had finished setting up the upline. Back on the surface, we reviewed our dive plan, checked our available gas, then dropped down for our first dive. It was Sami’s turn to tie in and Joe had given us a helping hand today, setting a rock right next to the bottom of the upline. After a few attempts, a little unraveled line, and a lot of surge Sami tied into this, then tried to use the encrusted hold fast Clinton had gathered for the secondary tie in. Since it only weighed around a pound, this didn’t work too well and Sami used the sand anchor instead. Before we got too far, I checked my pressure gauge and noticed it hadn’t moved. I checked my left post (where the pressure gauge is attached) and found the “anchor line” had rolled it off, so I reopened it.

About a minute later, I heard bubbles coming from my right post and shut it down while signally Sami with my light. I switched to my back up reg and took about three breaths before I sucked it dry – my left post was shut again! More than a little surprised, I reached back, walked my fingers from the first stage back to the valve, and opened it up, then had Sami check on my ailing right post. After fixing that problem, we continued with the dive for a couple of minutes until I went out of air. Sami donated his long hose, then reopened his left post. We passed the reel back and forth while Sami showed me his pressure gauge, then decided we should head back along the line. We were over open sand so we had nothing to tie off to and simply left the reel locked down. Not long after we started back, Sami’s mask came off. Problems have a way of snowballing. We were already in touch contact, but Sami was groping for the line, so I put him on it.

This caused some trouble since the line wasn’t tied down – I wound up pulling the line through Sami’s hand the whole way back. We made it back to the upline and I moved Sami’s hand to it, then started to think about deco. Unfortunately, our first planned stop was at 20’ and the sand anchor was at only 17’, so we had just blown our first stop. We sat at 17’ for about a minute (the wrong procedure, incidentally) before Sami’s left post started spewing bubbles. Since he was breathing off that reg, I didn’t shut it down, but instead thumbed us up to the surface. Better bent than drowned.
A quick break at the surface to check gas and we were ready to go again. The plan was to follow our line out, clean up the reel and head North. We did this and were actually getting somewhere fairly quickly this time since we didn’t have to tie in again. I did a quick flow check and found a closed isolator. We put in a few wraps, ran out a significant amount of line and actually reached 40’ of depth when Nick gave me the “you’re out of air” sign.

After setting up the air share and checking Sami’s pressure, we quickly tied the reel off to a convenient tube anemone and headed home. In short order, I lost my mask. I got out my back up mask, got it cleared, and actually kept it on my face for about 30 seconds before it, too, disappeared. As we continued back I concentrated on feeling the line, noting the wraps I had placed on the way out (and accidentally pulling a few of them) and dumping air when I felt the line pulling down on my hand. At some point, I felt some kelp snagging me and signaled Sami I was entangled. I got no help from him, but eventually broke free. We rose up the sandy slope, then finally bumped into Clinton’s kelp holdfast that told me we were almost back. I thought I felt Sami taking me off the line – presumably to put me on the upline. After floating freely for a few seconds, I found the upline myself, then let Sami walk me through the deco. As we broke the surface I was surprised to see that Sami didn’t have a mask either! Apparently he lost it on the way back along the line and tried to tell me, but my focused concentration on the line made me fail to notice when he placed my hand on his bare face. Our kelp entanglement had been worse than I imagined – we actually swam on opposite sides of a kelp holdfast catching maybe 20 strands of kelp on Sami’s arm and the long hose. Sami figured it out and swam around, but the one strand that stayed on my lighthead (the one I felt) wound up pulling the entire holdfast off the bottom before I broke free. It was a messy, fairly miraculous return to the upline.

After this, we reviewed the techniques for handling an unconscious diver and a convulsing diver. Sami’s ears were starting to squeak, so we only got to put the first of these into practice. We descended to the bottom at about 15 feet, where Sami pretended to go unconscious. It was my job to bring him to the surface in a controlled way. This was the same technique we had learned in Cave 1 and I was glad for a chance to practice it. Basically, the rescuer dumps their wing to become stable lying on the back of the victim. Then, your right hand reaches around to hold their regulator in and their airway open. With your left hand, you use the victim’s power inflator to make both of you together neutral. As you ascend, you simply rock the victim forward and use his butt dump to control the rate. It works beautifully!

We ordered from Turtle Bay for the video debrief and a somewhat convoluted lecture on nitrox, trimix, oxygen toxicity, and gas management. Then it was back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

11/11/02 Day 3 – A dive that was never meant to be

This was to be our first day out on the boat. We chartered the whole boat for the class so, unlike the usual Monterey boat dive, we planned to leave the wharf around 8:30. Of course, Andrew didn’t arrive quite that early, so we had time to get all our stuff setup, quarters in the meters, etc. The boat was the nearly brand new Escapade, and it’s pretty sweet. There is a well protected covered area, loads of doubles- and singles-friendly tank racks, and a mostly-dry area down below. Oh, and it hauls @$$ as we would find out the next day.
But for today, we had a short trip out to Hopkins Deep Reef, in Monterey Bay near the aquarium. Our back gas was still 32% nitrox, but we were adding 40 cu. ft. deco bottles filled with 50% nitrox. Today, while still working on handling problems that occur “on the bottom”, we would also start to focus on the ascent. Since the dive site was so near by, we stayed at the dock for the briefing. Andrew made some suggestions on setting up our deco bottles (which are labeled “70” to indicate the MOD of the gas) and overviewed the procedures for timing deco and switching gases.
Pre-dive preparation on the boat mirrored that on shore – gear checks, modified s- and valve-drills, then a plan review on the surface. The in water drills for today included s- and valve-drills at about 15’ near the anchor line, plus “ascent/descent drills.” The latter consists of starting at the surface, dropping down the line ten feet at a time (30 seconds to move, 30 second stops), then ascending the same way from 60’. We did this drill twice, the second time adding a gas switch at the 50’ stop on the ascent. This drill is about staying together and being able to stop and solve problems on the descent, and developing precision and discipline in your ascent – very valuable for getting out of the water in a timely fashion without draining your tanks or getting into bubble trouble.
The drills went fairly well until I switched to my deco bottle. My reg was breathing awfully wet and this distraction made my diving become a major violation of Rule #6 for the rest of the ascent. We got to the surface where Andrew bluntly confirmed that my performance had been sub par, then kindly passed my reg up to Dave on the boat to fix the dimpled diaphragm.

The drills had left me a still little shaky and nervous for the first dive. I hoped my mind would settle down when we got underwater, away from the wind waves regularly slapping my face. After a quick gas check and review of the plan, we ducked under and kicked our way down the anchor line. I was leading this dive, so I reached back to unclip my reel for my butt D-ring in order to be ready to tie in when we reached the bottom. However, I managed to get my arm stuck behind my stage bottle, clutching the reel in my hand. I tugged to no avail and started to plummet down faster, my drysuit squeezing me tight. Finally, I passed the reel into my other hand around the bottom of the stage bottle, freeing my arm and allowing me to shift my attention to regaining near-neutral buoyancy.
During the descent, I enjoyed a nice break from the snotty vis of the last couple days. The anchor line could be seen from around 15 feet away. But near the bottom, the muck returned, reducing visibility to 3 feet. At the first sight of the bottom, I started to tie in, but Sami suggested we move further down the anchor line. It was a good suggestion since it would move our line away from the sawing action of the anchor line right where it reaches the bottom. However, when we reached the anchor we found it nestled among slabs of flat rocks without any suitable tie off points visible. We worked slowly back toward the boat and I quickly found a nice projection for the primary tie. Another piece of rock, cantilevering out into a crevice made a convenient secondary tie off point and we were on our way.
The anchor was resting on a rock pile that was fairly well covered with life, and the bad vis didn’t allow me to pick out any other interesting destinations, so I ran the line around the rock pile, making placements here and there. Four minutes after I finished tying in, I noticed some slack in the line behind me. Figuring one of my wraps had inconceivably pulled free, I tried to pull in the slack. But the line kept coming until I was holding a broken end. Sami helped me clean up the loose end, I put the reel away, and we agreed to back track and look for the upline. Just then, bubbles began spewing from Sami’s right post and didn’t stop when he shut down that valve. He properly then shut down his isolator and asked me to take a look. I found that the bubbles were indeed coming from the manifold, so Sami had lost half of his remaining gas supply. He had enough gas left for us to continue to look for the upline, so we again started to look. But before we could get going, Sami went out of air. I donated my long hose and checked my gas supply. At this point, we basically forgot we were looking for the upline and agreed to head up toward the surface. We ascended about 5 feet to our 70’ stop, where we switched to our deco bottles, then shot a bag. The planned deco was one minute stops all the way up, then three at twenty feet and one again at ten feet. At each stop, I would clip the line to the spool, giving us a convenient depth reference. Around 20 feet, I found that the spool I was reeling in was threaded through the loop at the end of another line running down towards the bottom. Confused, I left the spool there and proceeded up to the surface.

At the surface, Andrew pulled up the line and my reel, which was tethered to it in order to keep us from drifting far from the anchor line. (Ah, so that was the other line, I thought.) He asked us why we turned the dive and it took Sami and I three tries to remember that the broken line was our first problem. Even at 80 feet, nitrogen narcosis had a definite effect on our brains. Andrew also pointed out that we were within about 5 feet of the anchor line when we decided to shoot a bag. The rest of the debrief was left for the evening when Clinton’s video would reveal the rest of our nitrogen-aided poor decisions. I switched to a new deco bottle, we checked gas, then prepared to do another dive. This time, it was Sami’s turn to lead and he had his reel ready before we even left the surface.

We reached the bottom and Sami started to tie in across the anchor line from where my old line was still firmly tied (Andrew cleaned up the line). As Sami was cleaning up a small mess that the line had made, I noticed something odd. My deco bottle was missing! I signaled Sami that I had somehow lost it and we discussed what to do about it. I thought we could continue with the dive, using the contingency rule of doubling the deco if you lose your deco gas. This wasn’t so smart (chalk it up to narcosis – maybe?) and Sami suggested we look around a bit to try and find my missing stage. Low and behold, it reappeared, nose clipped to my hip D-ring. I moved it back up to my chest D-ring and was trying to clip off its butt end when Sami signaled he was having a problem. I looked over to see his right post spewing bubbles and his trim starting to go heads down. I realized immediately that he was experiencing the same busted reg-buoyancy failure I had two days before at the Breakwater, but it somehow didn’t occur to me to jump in and help. Sami struggled to find his butt dump around the stage bottle as he rapidly rose toward the surface. I followed him up more slowly until he started to come back down. I checked if he was alright and “fixed” his failed post then continued trying to clip off my stage properly. To expedite the process, I enlisted Sami’s help.

At this point, I checked my gas supply I noticed I had already reached my planned turn pressure, so I called the dive. As we started up the anchor line (which we hadn’t departed from this whole time), Sami lost his mask. I tapped his pocket to suggest he get out his backup mask, but he didn’t seem inclined to get out his mask only to lose it so I started up the anchor line. At 70’, I switched Sami to his deco bottle, then got ready to switch my own gas – my stage was gone again! I remembered to double our deco times since I was breathing back gas and proceeded to walk Sami through deco. At some point, probably while I was noticing my errant stage, Sami had tried to get his backup mask out. At 50’, I noticed it dangling out of his pocket and grabbed it for him. He put it on and actually got to keep it. At 30’ or 40’, I went out of air and Sami donated his stage reg (the one he was breathing) and switched to his necklace reg. He didn’t realize he should hand over the whole stage bottle, so we ascended to the 20’ stop connected by the short 40” stage bottle hose. I didn’t communicate very clearly that I wanted the stage, but Andrew eventually got frustrated with us and moved the bottle from Sami’s harness to mine. Once I was breathing deco gas, I stopped doubling our stop times, forgetting that Sami was now on back gas. At 10’, Sami noticed his D3 was reading 2’ – he used the international sign to tell me it wasn’t working. Otherwise, we made it to the surface alright after a failure-filled aborted dive.
We were back on shore early enough to actually eat lunch. We also had plenty of time for a revealing video debrief and a lot of lecture time to cover everything from carbon dioxide to decompression theory. Then it was back to the hotel to clean up my reel and charge my light for another day.

11/12/02 Day 4 – Trials on trimix

I boarded the boat both excited and nervous. Excited because today would be my first trimix dive (in this case, 30% helium and 30% oxygen, or 30/30) and nervous because the dives today would determine if I would pass or not.
The seas had calmed down a bit today, so we headed for Carmel Bay and the Outer Pinnacles. I tried to relax on the way down, to mentally prepare to make calm decisions underwater. We anchored in 120’ of water and quickly went through our predive checks, then hit the water. Today, we would drop down to around 15’, do s- and valve-drills, then continue to the bottom for our first dive. The drills were less than pretty due, in part, to the bubbles of our classmates percolating up around us, obscuring our visual reference of the anchor line and generally causing chaos. I also managed to catch a jelly in the face. In any case, we finished up and started down the line. As we crossed 70’, I noticed my bottom timer read 13 minutes and my watch 2 minutes (I started it as we finished the drills). It had taken us 10 frustrating minutes to run through drills, but I tried to focus on the dive ahead. We reached the bottom and continued down the line to near the anchor where Sami looked for a place to tie in. Hovering a few feet above him, I pointed with my light to a rock that looked suitable, then checked my depth gauge for reference. I was shocked to read 123 feet! The helium in my mix had eliminated the usual mental indicators of deep water. Paranoia and numbed mental processing, no matter how subtle, usually clue us into the fact that we have ventured deeper, even at 60’ or 80’, and increasing dramatically beyond 100’. I realized we had blown right past our planned maximum depth (and the MOD for our back gas), but Sami was finished tying in. I suggested a shallower rock for the secondary tie in.

After that, we moved along a wall, then headed across a canyon, securing the line around convenient projections. The visibility was spectacular compared to the previous days in Monterey Bay and I reached my planned turn pressure far too quickly (maybe this had something to do with ten minutes of drills). We turned and Sami began reeling in so fast that I swam hard to get ahead of him to help pull the line free of the placements. I noticed I was swimming into the current and wondered why we hadn’t noticed it earlier and gone against it at the start of the dive. In any case, we quickly reached the anchor line, cleaned up and put away the reel, all without a single failure. I had only a moment to be suspicious before I “ran out of air.” Sami promptly donated his long hose and we started up the line. Around 100’, I lost my mask (must have bumped it off on the anchor line). Grasping the upline with my right hand, I fumbled with my left to get out my back up mask. Doing this one handed wasn’t easy – reaching around the stage bottle didn’t help much either.

I alternated working on my pocket with concentrating on buoyancy as Sami guided me from deco stop to deco stop. Finally, I yanked the mask out of my pocket. I left it dangling from the bungee while Sami moved us to the next stop, then went to retrieve it. Unfortunately, this was the 70’ stop and Sami promptly started switching me to my deco gas. I patiently left my mask hanging until he had finished. He moved us up to 60’, then started his own gas switch. Since I had a few seconds, I decided to retrieve my dangling mask. Too bad the sea monster had already snagged it. Shaking my fist at the vicious ocean, I turned my attention fully to my trim and being tuned into my buddy’s touch contact signals. When we broke the surface several minutes later it felt great to know my buddy could bring me through deco maskless.
We passed our stages up, then climbed aboard the boat for a surface interval and a chance to plan the next dive. Sami switched over to a new set of doubles, so my gas was definitely the limiting factor on this dive.

We decided that we would swim into the current this time and that we would not run line. I was leading this dive and would try to navigate back to the anchor line, but the captain was warned he would need to pick us up if he saw our safety sausage break the surface. Andrew told us we had done pretty well on the last dive, and he would see how well we could handle a similar situation without the upline. In the process of thinking through what that would mean, I totally forgot that my wing had been getting hard to dump on the last dive due to a good collection of water in the bladder.
As we headed down the anchor line, I shivered with anticipation despite the insulating argon filling my suit. We got to the bottom and carefully stayed above 120’, then headed into the current.

The site turned out the be wonderful and I led us through a series of canyons and over bull kelp covered plateaus. I was really enjoying the dive – practicing alternative kicks, looking around for fun places to explore – but also keeping a sharp eye on my buddy’s light. At one point, I realized I could see Sami’s light, but had no idea where he was so I wouldn’t know which way to turn if he signaled for help. I looked behind me and saw only Andrew, about 20’ back. Looking around further I found Sami on my left and relaxed a bit. At 11 minutes, I turned the dive and watched Sami gracefully backwards kick out of the canyon we were exploring. About a minute later, I felt a sharp tug on my fin and turned to see Sami giving me a clear OOA sign. I whipped out my reg, stabilized Sami, then checked my gas supply. We had enough to continue back towards the anchor line a ways.
Before we ever got moving, Andrew swept in and yanked off Sami’s mask and showed me thumbs, indicating I should call the dive. I did this, shaping Sami’s hand into a thumb and grasping it. Sami did a great job of whipping out his backup mask, putting it on and clearing it only to lose it immediately. I reiterated the thumbs and started to take us through our deep stops – one minute each 10’ starting at 90’. It didn’t take long, however, before I remembered the water that had built up in my wing. Trying to give Sami clear signals on how to adjust his buoyancy while fighting to dump my own wing was almost more than I could handle, but I forced myself to concentrate and not give up. At 70’ I switched Sami to his deco gas. It was time to move to 60’ before I could do my own switch. Sami did a heroic job of staying trimmed out and pretty nearly neutral so I could switch to my deco bottle. By 50’ I was really worried that I was giving Sami confusing signals as I spun around to dump my wing. But he continued to concentrate and keep track of his own buoyancy. I was grateful that I had had trouble with water in my wing before so I knew a few tricks to get the air out. It was nonetheless a wild ride that I somehow managed to keep more or less on our planned deco schedule (one minute stops, with three minutes at 20’). At some point I noticed that one of the staff had shot a bag.
I figured I should use all the resources at hand, so I started to swim my maskless buddy toward the line. The line swam away, so I figured it wasn’t fair game. When we got to 20’, I fought my wing again to get neutral then enjoyed the chance to stay at one depth for a few minutes. Then ten feet, then the surface and a chance to curse my wing. Andrew was all smiles, though (and so was Sami, but I think his were from relief), and announced to the boat that there were two new Tech 1 divers. The boat crew threw us a current line and we all hopped aboard. My morning nerves had given way to happiness at the result of the days dives. Andrew just kept saying he wished I had shot a bag, then it would have put it all together. He pointed out that the 20’ stop would have been the perfect time to shoot it. There were two reasons I didn’t shoot a bag from 20’. First, I was really happy to just sit there for a few minutes. Second, I hadn’t shot a bag all week. It seemed I was going to make it all the way through Tech 1 without once shooting a bag. I didn’t want my first attempt to be from 20’ (shallower is more challenging) while I was fighting my wing and trying to keep my maskless buddy at a constant depth. Oh well, I really only wanted to pass, not to score a home run doing it.

The ride home was relaxing – I changed out of my drysuit and exchanged smiles with Sami. We had made it. Tomorrow would be time for just diving.
Back in the classroom at Manta Ray, we finished up the previous day’s discussion of decompression theory by going over the basic ideas of the oxygen window. Then, Andrew gave us a demonstration of how to use GUE’s decompression planning software, Decoplanner, to generate deco tables and how to use the tables in our diving. We went through several examples to be sure we understood the procedures properly before taking them underwater. Finally, Andrew gave us a quick way to generate deco plans on the fly for dives using the gases, bottom times, and depth ranges we would most often experience in Tech 1 level dives. In addition to allowing generation of a deco plan without consulting tables (especially useful for modifying dive plans on the fly), this new approach to deco pushed some of the shallow stop time into the intermediate stops, making it “cleaner,” according to Andrew.
Back at the hotel, we popped in a video of the GUE Britannic exploration and I began meticulously copying tables from Decoplanner into my wetnotes. This took much longer than I anticipated, and I was pretty tired by this point, so I hit the sack before writing the on the fly deco rules in for reference.

11/13/02 Day 5 – Rough water, delving to depths

Since this was the last day, we packed everything into the trucks and drove to the docks. We were planning two dives again today, so we set up our gear on one set of doubles and loaded another full set onto the boat to use on the second dive. We also had two deco bottles each. The plan had been to load the boat, then drive to Point Lobos where we would swim out to meet the boat. Beto and Susan, already Tech 1 certified, would join us on the boat today. They came and loaded their gear then drove off to get breakfast while we waited for the instructors to show up.

When they did, there was a great deal of confusion as some thought we would board the boat immediately, instead of at Lobos, since conditions were relatively favorable. After much discussion, we agreed to board and pick up Beto and Susan at Lobos (we couldn’t get a hold of them).
Turns out the ocean wasn’t really flat, but was sufficiently smooth to make the ride comfortable and quick. Beto and Susan swam on board in Whaler’s Cove where we had another confusing discussion about where to dive. We needed a range of depths from 80 to 150 feet to accommodate our two teams. While Flintstones would work, it was too rough to anchor there. E3, a pinnacle inside Point Lobos, would have worked, but we couldn’t dive inside the park since we had entered from outside. In the end, we headed toward the outer pinnacles and picked up a promising spot on the depth finder where the captain felt he could anchor. The anchor would lie in about 80 feet, with deep water lying to the South.

We finished gearing up and ran through our pre-dive checks. I was nervous but excited to do my first official decompression dive. I would be leading and so planned to run line toward the South. We planned for 20 minutes at an average depth of 150 feet.

I awkwardly stumbled toward to back of the boat, the rough water threatening to toss me overboard prematurely. Once in the water, we swam up to the bow anchor line and dropped down quickly to get off the choppy surface. On the way down, I got my reel out and checked the direction of the anchor line for reference. Upon reaching the bottom (80 feet), I found a convenient tie off just in time for a major set to pass over head. The surge was impressive – I used my partially completed tie offs to stay in one place, hanging onto the reel to prevent being blown away. Back on the boat after the dive, Andrew told me his depth gauge was changing by 10 feet despite his staying the same distance off the bottom. The boat crew reported a 10’-14’ set rolling through shortly after we descended. Once I got the secondary tie in place, Sami pointed out that we needed to head across the anchor line to go South. I was grateful for his awareness – I had switched North and South in my head on the way down the anchor line.

Crossing the anchor line meant I had to run the line under it. Using the surge to position me near the anchor line at the right moment, I passed the reel under the chain as it pulled up under the influence of a big swell. Finally, we were underway.

We went over some interesting terrain that headed generally downward. We didn’t hit the expected drop off, but rather meandered through large boulders in a gradual descent. Finally, around 120’ and 10 minutes into the dive, the depth increased more quickly. At 130’ I could see the drop off just ahead, but we had reached our planned turn time. I checked my gas, which was still above the planned turn. I inquired with Sami whether he thought we should turn. He kind of shrugged then gave the turnaround signal back to me. I saw Andrew swim ahead to scout out the deep portion of the reef.
Disappointed to have missed the drop off, but not wanting to violate the dive plan, I started to reel back in. The trip back to the anchor line was fairly relaxing. But, back at 80 feet, the surge kicked in again just in time for me to thread the line back under the anchor chain and undo my tie ins.
We left the bottom and Sami got out his wetnotes to discuss deco while I put away my reel. He suggested minimum deco with an extra couple of minutes at 20 feet for good measure. Based on our short (20 minutes) bottom time at a relatively shallow depth, I agreed. Deco went without a hitch. Back on the boat, I was a little disappointed that we didn’t make it to the drop off, but glad the dive had gone smoothly. Andrew pointed out that we could have modified the plan on the fly and stayed longer to account for the shallower than expected depth. I filed that away for future reference and changed over to my second set of doubles.

For the second dive, we planned to head straight for the overhang without tying in. After our 20 minute bottom time, we would ascend and shoot a bag so the boat could follow our location while we did our deco and pick us up afterwards. Sami was leading so I would shoot the bag for the first time the whole class. I had a larger safety sausage than Sami so the boat could see it easily, plus this would split up the task loading.
We splashed in and headed down the line again. This time, we hit the bottom and headed South immediately, finding the drop off in a few minutes. Sami lead us along walls and through canyons. My mix was a little light on helium and I could feel narcosis starting to creep back in at 150 feet. Nevertheless, the terrain was awesome and I was reluctant to leave the bottom after 20 minutes.

We moved up along the pinnacle as we did our deep stops, keeping the bottom in sight for a visual reference. I was puzzled that Sami always seemed a couple of feet above me at the stops. Only around 100 feet did I realize my fresh water calibrated gauge was the difference (see, I was a little narced). We left the bottom behind around 100 feet and, upon reaching 70 feet changed to deco gas then prepared to shoot a bag. I reached into my right pocket and pulled out my sausage and spool. Sami threaded the spool through the bolt snap on the bag while I detached my argon. This is actually a bit tricky for me with a stage bottle on since I can only reach my drysuit inflator with my right hand. I had only done it once before, but it went fairly smoothly. I filled the bag partially with argon then checked that Sami was ready before I let the bag go. When the bag hit the surface, Sami locked down the spool and handed it back to me to wind up to the next stop. Andrew pulled some slack into the line, which I spooled up quickly. Meanwhile, Sami produced his wetnotes to confirm our planned deco schedule. I gave it the ok and we continued our stepwise ascent.

During our intermediate stops, I tried to locate my argon hose to reconnect it. As we got shallower, the swells pulled up and down more dramatically on our line and I ended up not bothering with the argon in order to focus on maintaining depth. From the ten foot stop, we did a very slow final ascent and found the boat waiting for us. I handed the bag to Joe while I stowed my stage reg. The boat crew threw a line in my direction and I grabbed on. Joe and Andrew were off the line, so Joe was stuck with my bag while I was pulled in to climb aboard. The captain came back around for the rest of the team and we all clamored happily aboard after a great dive.
If anything, the swell had picked up over the course of the day. While we dropped off Susan and Beto in the sheltered cove at Lobos, the rest of us secured our gear for the ride home. It was, in fact, a rough ride.
We almost lost the rinse bucket full of expensive camera gear and lights. A couple of us almost lost our stomachs. The prop got caught up in kelp. In the end, though, we made it back to Monterey fairly quickly and with all our possessions.
The crew was enormously helpful in unloading all the gear from the boat. My truck was again filled with four sets of doubles, then we headed back to the shop. After dropping the tanks to be filled, we settled in for the final exam. It ended up taking a long time and I was really ready to be home before the drive even began.
Only when I was back in Berkeley did I really start to relax and realize the accomplishment of finishing the class. Soon, I would go tech diving without the simulated failures and also without the watchful eye of the instructor. I couldn’t wait to start building my experience using the enormous tool set I had been given during the class. Thinking back on it, I am amazed at how much Andrew manages to teach in five days. My uncontrolled ascent on day 1 had focused my energy for the rest of the course and I had absorbed as much as possible. I am sure the diving I do will raise questions – some will be answered by my notes and memories from class and others will need sorting out. I look forward to applying my training and experiencing more and more ways that the DIR system makes it easy to move between different types of diving. I am still excited to apply my new deco understanding to cave diving in Cave 2, but am even more thrilled to have a sensical approach to executing the dives I do all the time in Monterey. Tech 1 was a great class and left me ready and excited to go diving. My buddy Sami and I really worked together to solve all the problems we experienced, illustrating how important the team is to effective diving. Nick and Andrew did an excellent job in and out of the water and really effectively used video. All in all a really intense, great experience!