Dolphin diving-a story in lots of parts.

[Freeflow]

I'll post my experiences so far with my Dolphin here in all their glory, up to the point where I started posting them in the 'Recent Trip Reports' section. The posts are from my biased recollections, and if I can recall enough about the training I will ass it in the training section. I'll be trying to get some modification pictures sorted as well, when I can figure out how to do it.

[Freeflow]

Guildy may not be the most exotic location in the world, but it is good for testing out kit. Ro came with me for a splash, after insisting I call everyone else I know first. The excuses were: Caroline-Xmas shopping. Martyn & Anna-Red Sea. Rob-smashed his car up running over a deer. Claire-too cold. David & Janette-New Zealand.
So after being all paranoid about packing the scrubber, it’s off to Guildy. I had fiddled with kit configuration the day before, and thought I was happy with it. But of course I wasn’t. I had the pO2 sensor coming up over my right shoulder and down again a la Inspiration, but the damn thing floats. The pressure gauge hose is too long and I routed it back on itself to the right hand side and under my arm, where it is readable but slightly too short. The bail out reg was one of my twinset regs adapted for the occasion. Its console came down over my left shoulder and reg came in from the right, under my arm and across my chest into an occy holder. I had already run a loop of bungee around the bail out 3 L cylinder to keep it in place.
Dive 1-shake down dive for the Dolph to 18m for 23 min. 50.7% in cylinder, 60% needle used. Recorded vO2 1.1 L/min Suunto Vyper set on 21%, loop fO2 estimated at 39% on average. Problems encountered: [1] Venting every second breath. Rectified by closing exhale counterlung valve fully. [2] Not enough ‘D’ rings on harness, and those there are, are in the wrong place Rectified by adding ‘D’ rings to shoulder and waist as shown on modification page. Impressions: Not as ‘busy’ as diving the Inspiration, and almost as I remember the course in Malta. I seem to breathe too deeply for the counterlungs as venting taking place every 3rd breath. Breathe more as I do on the surface than when diving open circuit which seems to solve the problem. Buoyancy a little iffy compared to OC, but that was expected. Swap to bail out and several loop flushes carried out.
Dive 2- shake down dive for me to 16m for 21 min. 50.7% in cylinder, 60% needle used. Recorded vO2 1.05 L/min Suunto Vyper set on 21%, loop fO2 estimated at 40% on average. Problems encountered: [1] I’m still breathing more deeply than I need to. Must try harder. Impressions: Defiantly easier than a YBOD, but I don’t look at the pressure gauge enough-bad habit from OC diving where I am able to fairly accurately guess my gas usage. The gauge hose is quite short how I run it so maybe laziness is the problem. Got into the habit of pushing my shoulders forwards when the exhale lung vents to squeeze a little more gas out when the valve vents, this allows an extra breath or two before the valve vents again. Buoyancy feels worse this dive, and I seem to use more bail out gas for adjustments than I should. I may look into purchase of a second 3 L tank for suit gas.
Post dive-Clean unit down and add D rings to shoulders and waist strap, and a sticker to the rear of the shell. Slightly less subtle than the KISS warning? Re calculated loop fO2 for 45% cylinder fO2 and 60% needle at a vO2 of 1.2-should give me 32%, MOD of 29m at 1.2 bar. In this configuration I would dive my Vytec set to 30% with a 21% and 34% back up setting. I can roughly calculate the loop fO2 in my head with a known pO2 reading and if needed adjust the computer to suit. I would also stay within 21% limits and not go into deco.
31st Dec 2004 Usual last dive of the year.
Off to Stoney for the last dives of the year. Rob had fixed his car and got all the bits of deer out of it, but he still cadges a lift from Claire [not diving-too cold]. Martyn came up as well as he is back from Egypt, and his wife Anna kept Claire company on the side.
Dive 1 Cylinder 50.7%, 60% jet used, computer set on 38% as a guess from the previous figures for my vO2 [I used 1.2 as a starting point]. As it’s a Vytec, the other 2 nitrox mixes were set at 50% and 21%. Plan was to dive to the Cessna ledge to plant a gnome from Claire’s garden. Rob was getting over a cold and we had to turn the dive early. I only got one pO2/depth reading, 17.5m, 1.19 bar O2, vO2=0.76. This seems a little low, as do the figures from the following dive. Buoyancy a little better, but plenty of room for improvement. The waistband clips I fitted to the outside of the weight pockets will be moved in board as they are a little too far around my back. +6kg lead over my normal open circuit weight could probably be dropped to +4. Swimming back from the ledge on the surface showed a tendancy to troll to the right as the weight of the 3L pony dragged me over slightly.
Dive 2 Cylinder 50.7%, 60% jet used, computer set on 38%. Rob sat this one out so Martyn & I went to the helicopter, van and wander around the 6m ledge. Buoyancy felt better [still on +6kg]. The pO2 readings were high again:
depth [m] pO2 vO2 [calculated]
4.9 0.70 0.41
14.7 1.11 0.61
17.5 1.31 0.34
20.8 1.41 0.40
5.1 0.71 0.55
5.4 0.74 0.30
[11.4 1.00 0.43 average]
I may be slightly fitter than the average bod, but I can’t believe the readings. The O2 sensor was calibrated the night before and read OK then, I’ll have to calibrate immediately before use in future and see what happens. I could only get a vO2 of 0.30 If I was super dooper fit, which I certainly am not.
As Martyn is up for some winter diving I’ll have a look next time.

[Freeflow]

For the first dives of 2005 Martyn and I went to Dosthill, a new site for us. Anna came along to enjoy the view from the car park because she had a cold and couldn’t dive. I was still diving on the remains of a 50.7% fill from the last dives at Stoney on 31st Dec. The calculated tank duration pretty exactly matches the actual duration, with a drop of 130 bar for a total of 101 minutes dive time. No drill practice this dive. vO2 readings still make me think that the sensor may be out. It was calibrated in the car park though, so it should be accurate.

Depth pO2 vO2
19.1 1.24 0.82
22.1 1.40 0.73
22.0 1.45 0.57
20.6 1.42 0.46

The dive was approached with out usual method of diving new sites. Kit up, jump in and wander around aimlessly until we get bored and come up. This method works well for the smaller inland dive sites, but it is not recommended for the sea as you may end up in a different county-or country. We found a few lumps and I found a strangely shaped stone which I collected for later inspection.

The second dive was approached in the same manner. I decided to have a frantic fin to see how the pO2 changed with hard work. The first two figures show the working results, the rest the normal workload levels.

Depth pO2 vO2
20.6 1.24 0.99
21.6 1.40 0.60
13.5 1.06 0.59
14.0 1.11 0.48

Carried out an open circuit bailout swap and a couple of loop flushes. Buoyancy getting better all the time, and I was diving on +5kg over o/c weight. The Vytec was set on 38% for the dive, with 21% & 50% as alternatives.

I enjoyed Dosthill as a site, vis was 10-15 metres and it wasn’t crowded. As the site is quite low lying, like Stoney, the wind wasn’t much of a factor either, although there is no shelter if it is raining. The car park is next to a graveyard, which may put people off. There doesn’t appear to be much in the way of big lumps to look at, but there are several small boats and cars.

[Freeflow]

Russ, one of the divers I helped train when I was working for C-Life asked me to buddy him for the day at Dosthill, and who am I to refuse, especially since it meant I could get my Dolph wet again. I met Russ at Jacks Hill Café, just North of Towcester on the A5, highly recommended for pre dive soss sarnies. I had warned Russ to wear his undersuit as soon as he got up to warm it up before he jumped in the water, and he did, but he thought I was trying to make him look silly until I turned up in mine. Which is bright yellow.

I’m still playing around with the tank mix to get a good loop pO2 so I was diving on 44% in the tank. At the start of dive one we were just getting settled in to things when a twinset diver came hand over hand up a scaffold pole to the 3m platform. He seemed more than slightly flustered, not responding to an OK signal. I couldn’t see his buddy, so I asked him where they were, to which he indicated I should be his buddy. I signalled I wasn’t, and his signal seemed to suggest that he would really like me to be his buddy, so could I please be his buddy. I gave the ‘up’ to him and Russ, and we were just starting up when an Inspiration diver appeared out of the gloom to the relief of the diver and myself. That explained why he thought I was his buddy then, two hoses! The rest of the dive went better, but I only managed to note one depth/pO2 reading: 19.7m 0.92 bar which gives 31% loop O2 and a vO2 of 1.09. These figures are more reliable than the ones I had before, so I think that a 40-45% mix through the 60% jet is the way to go for dives below 20m.

The dive was pretty dark and silty to start with, so we stayed at about the 20m mark and saw the boat on it’s side and the rope that leads over the rock on it’s way South. We sat on the rock for a moment so that I could pass another weight to Russ who was getting a bit light, and headed off in the approximate direction of the catamaran and minibus. Unfortunately we hit a wall of silt, which I was unwilling to drag Russ through [he’s OW with less than 20 dives under his belt. Yes, I know we shouldn’t be deeper than 18m, but he has dived to 30 in the Med] so we skirted it and Russ bagged up for practice, and up we went.

Obligatory Soss sarnie and hot choc later we hit the water again. Food service considerably quicker than Stoney.

Dive 2 was a wander around at 10-15m along the West side of the quarry. Not a lot to see except the inverted chassis so we bimbled around and back. I bagged up from 5m as Dosthill insist on an SMB to mark RB divers ascents. My pencil lead had fallen out on the surface interval, so I couldn’t make any notes on depth vs pO2. Russ was quite good on his diving, but he needs a tall 12l rather than a dumpy one. He is 6’1” tall and tends to fall forwards a little while diving on a dumpy, requiring him to paddle with his hands a bit.

My diving felt a tad rough on dive 2, and I seemed to be venting gas a little more than usual. This is a symptom of a flood according to the manual, but the unit was dry on strip down and sterilise.

Dive 1 22.9m 23 min
SI 1 hour 22
Dive 2 15.2m 21 min

[Freeflow]

Off to Dosthill again, this time with Rob. The carpark was quite crowded, but as I had been diving the site in the winter before maybe it is during the diving season [for those who have a break that is]. We had to park on the access road practically in a hedge. The Dolphin was in use again, with the plan of more note taking to work out my vO2 and then to be able to tune my gas choice for a greater depth.

Trogged down to the signing in hut to find a 25% increase in entry fee-now it’s a fiver. I nearly fell over at this above inflation increase. Trogged back up the hill to find some muppet had parked 6” from my rear bumper-well done. As I am not a plank [you may disagree by the end of this report] I had left enough space in front of my car to roll forwards a bit and to get in the boot. So we kitted up and jumped in for a wander to the right hand side. From about 14m down the vis went from OK to almost sod all. I was having a bit of a to do with my buoyancy and spent a few minutes stirring up the bottom and kicking Rob. Then Rob showed me his computer, which was blank, nice! I unstrapped my Vytec and gave him that. Although Rob dives with a backup computer/watch it’s not as easy for him to reach as my divetimer is for me to consult. We carried on the dive, which just got grimmer and grimmer. I was all over the shop and looked like I had done seven dives, not seven hundred. We bumped into the van, which I got Rob to swim through after I had stirred up the silt inside by one careless hand placement. Of course I played the same trick on him as I had Martyn and banged on the outside, but funnily Rob wasn’t impressed either. I need to find a buddy who is as easily amused as I am.

Things went further downhill from there. We somehow managed to find the little speedboat thing, and I was looking to head to the East side of the lake and ascend when my head went funny. I switched to open circuit and got ready to bail, but OC didn’t improve anything, and it was just my disorientation at the low vis. I have a scarred cornea from when I was a kid and if I look at a blank wall or surface I can see the scars, and it was this causing me to feel odd. We then saw a couple of divers below us, so we followed them for a bit until I checked my compass-North-and thought about turning right to the wall and ascending. So we went right, but instead of the bottom getting shallower, it got deeper. OK thinks I, lets try a heading of 45 degrees. Got deeper again. I’m lost now, as the depth should be somewhat less. Right, pop the blob then, so I signal to Rob we are scrubbing, and I switch to open circuit to inflate the SMB from my exhaled breath, something I can easily do while holding a 10m hover. But not today. I drop 3m to the silt, stir it up and feel a right prat. At least the blob went up OK. When we surfaced we were not too far from shore, and heading in the right direction, but I was totally clueless as to where we were. I’m glad I wasn’t leading a whole group around and Rob was too cold to take the mickey.

On the surface Rob was looking at an early bath. He hasn’t been in since 31st Dec, when he had to abort as he was coming down with a cold and felt bad. Today he was freezing cold and feeling bad. I was OK, a water temp of 8 and a rebreather helps, as does diving all through the winter to harden up. I got chatting to a lady in the queue for the food while Rob got a handwarmer out of the car. She was not having fun either, but she was still on her Ocean Diver course and in a drysuit for the first time, and foreswearing British diving. I made her day by giving her some gloves from a garage forecourt to make getting the wet gloves on easier, and leaving. I’m not sure which one made her day though.

I had a quick consult of the tables and we then got ready for dive 2, which was to be shallower and to the East side. The vis was better, and we went a little deeper while I looked for another object or 2 to play with, but below about 17m everything went very silty. At one point I thought we had found the shallow plateau at the South end of the lake, but we hadn’t. We turned the dive at that point and headed back at 5m and we came across the exit earlier than I thought we would. I had to commando crawl out to avoid a stuffing by the staff [no SMB on ascent], and bumped into Paul’s leg.

I know I was diving with Rob, and I hadn’t traded him in for another buddy, Paul was someone I used to teach with at Dodgy Dereks [Northampton Sub Aqua] and I haven’t seen him in years. We caught up and hopefully will be diving in the future, as I have enjoyed a splash with him in the past. Except for the Benny out of Portland, but that’s another story involving portholes, a missing DSMB, and thinking the boat had lost us.

Not a too unsuccessful day in all, lots of data for my vO2 calcs, and survived the experience, which is good. Into double figures on my Dolph too!

DIVE 1

24.3m 21 min vO2=1.15

SI 1h 15m

DIVE 2

17.7m 27 min vO2=0.90

[Freeflow]

Off to Guildy for the first time this year. I was diving with Stuart who was getting wet for the first time in 6 months after he had a bijou bendette. Serena and Caroline were also there from C-Life, who I used to work for in Kent, and so were three divers who had trained with us, David, Tony and Ken. David had also been laid off diving for a while as he had fallen 15 feet off a bakery roof and very badly damaged his knee, but he had put the time to good use by having a very impressive full arm tattoo done on his left arm. The tattoo had cost him a grand, so a Dolphin works out at both arms and half a leg based on that price. Caroline, David and Tony were on the DPV course, and must have enjoyed it by the big grins after surfacing.

The Dolphin was in action again for the day, and I had 4 dives in total, the last one open circuit as Serena played with the RB. ClubSub, a school from Rushden were also training 3 Open Water divers and I had the chance to catch up with Paul and Sven, whom I hadn’t seen in a year.

The dives with Stuart were to be sedate so he wouldn’t be stressed and he could have a gentle reintroduction to the under water world. He was following doctor’s orders and diving on 32% nitrox since his incident. For the first dive we got in at the left hand side of the ‘beach’ and dropped down to the 8m platforms for a quick checkup before proceeding. Stuart was straight back into his stride so we went off to the bus. Hiding in the bus were hundreds of fish, and we had a good stare at them before circumnavigating the wreck and wandering back. The visibility was pretty good, about 10m for most of the dive, and the second best I have seen at Guildy. During the dive I was on the remains of a 51% cylinder mix and tracked the pO2 v depth readings for the dive so I could have another calculation of my vO2. However the readings again appear to be spurious and I am wondering if my oxygauge may need to be calibrated immediately before the diving day in air. I have been both calibrating the night before in air and assembling the unit ready to go, and calibrating prior to first use, and it is the latter that seems to give the more accurate readings. I’m finding the unit really comfortable for diving now, and the buoyancy adjustments are becoming second nature. This was dive number 11 on my unit, no 15 in total on the Dolphin.

Depth pO2 vO2
10.8 0.93 0.76
9.3 0.89 0.63
12.5 1.07 0.49
10.9 0.96 0.65
5.9 0.71 0.77

We had an hour on the surface to soak up the sun and for me to get on the outside of a sausage sandwich. Dive two was to the left of the lake, again a slow wander around and see what we can find. Although this side of the lake is less well visited, we had a lot lower visibility on the return leg at 6-8m, which was disappointing as you can normally find a pike lurking in this area. When the vis cleared at the area close to the training platforms we spent some time looking for little life in the weeds that grow in that area. There are normally 3 different kinds of thingies in the lake, a small woodlouse type creature that is about 5mm long, a small fast moving thing of a similar size and a tiny red dot with legs at about 3mm. I think the red dots are only seen later in the year.

Depth pO2 vO2
6.8 0.73 0.88
10.8 0.93 0.76
10.2 0.92 0.69
9.3 0.89 0.63
10.1 0.93 0.62

Just over an hour was spent on the surface again, with Serena tempting everyone with her strawberry cake, and me embarrassing myself by telling Tony off for tucking his weightbelt end away. But it wasn’t his weightbelt it was his BC waist strap. Arse.

For Stuarts third dive we went at 10m to the right hand side. I jumped in from the platform that is about 2m above the water, Stuart swam around from the other entry point. As he is about 6’7” tall he was worried about hitting the bottom, which at his height is a fair risk! We took our time to enjoy the scenery and spent ages swimming in the sunken trees. Most of the trees are upright and quite small, but there are a couple the loom out of the darkness looking like giant squid with their arms outstretched, and one that looks like a ‘Graboid’ from the film ‘Tremors’. We were tiny life spotting again and I found a small worm [again in the 5mm range] falling off one of the trees. During this dive I noticed my unit venting fairly often, and after surfacing found that I had opened up the overpressure valve on the exhale counterlung slightly while showing the unit to some of the people I know up there.

After the dive I also showed them the amount of drool that collects in the mouthpiece and valve assemblies as I washed them out for Serena to have a go. Funny how no one wanted to shake my hand…

Depth pO2 vO2
7.9 0.65 0.70
10.0 0.69 0.84
10.2 0.73 0.54
10.5 0.77 0.71
10.0 0.78 0.48

Dive four saw me cross dressing into Serena’s TBK wing with single cylinder and integrated weights and her on my Dolph. We again went to the right to look at the sunken trees, and Serena was pretty good on the Dolph, but I think the positioning of the pony reg gauge, which comes over my left shoulder and sits next to the inflator, was irritating her. We saw a couple of divers pretending to be cable cars by swimming along with their octopuses [octopi?] hooked over one of the guide ropes. We both said ‘secure that ******* octopus’ I’m sure. Serena and I dive differently when it comes to buoyancy. I am of the drysuit for everything club and Serena is a member of the BC for buoyancy, suit gas for the squeeze fraternity. One thing I was aware of suddenly switching to OC from SCR mode was the need to actually bite the reg to keep it in my mouth. I’m used to the Dolph mouthpiece floating into place, and if anything pressing a little hard into my teeth. We had about 25 minutes under before I was blobbing up again from 5m to mark a rebreather ascent, something which all inland sites seem to insist on. Trying to launch an SMB while hovering at that depth leaves a sorry looking sausage on the surface, which Janette would describe as ‘no use to a girl’.

A good day was had by all, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and I got the last slice of the strawberry cake. During the last dive I felt a little colder, could it be that the RB’s warm recycled gas is more than psychological, or just that 2 hours underwater in 10 degrees C water had finally chilled me? Which reminds me, as it was the first time this year I go a water temp of double figures C, summer is here, hurrah.

[Freeflow]

Off to Stoney again for Dolphin diving with Steve, I’d rather have been trimix at Cheppy, but you can’t have everything. For this dive I was on a 42% mix through the 60 jet to lean the loop up in case we were off to the pit. With this combination the loop mix should be between 22 & 30%, just about enough for the pit. We decided instead to do a dive to the Cessna ledge, and I was to show Steve the wooden boat, which he had never seen. We were also to do the dive out at 20m, and return at the same depth, so Steve had his four tanks on, and I had the Dolph and a 7L sidemounted deco tank. The dive was also planned for deco, so the trusty Vytec was set on 21% for the Dolph and 50% for the deco. I usually dive with the computer set on 21%, but now I am homing in better on my vO2, and consequently getting more accurate loop calculations I will [hopefully] soon be able to start using a loop gas figure on the comp.

We swam down the road to 20m, headed to the BOP and over the pit keeping the wall to our right. By staying at 20m we were pretty much certain to find the 20m ledge. I’ve missed it before by staying too deep at this point, and as Steve was having to push four tanks through the water, the last thing he needed was for me to miss the stop. The vis on the ledge was pretty good at 10-12m. I found a small crayfish to annoy, which pleased me enormously. For the last couple of years the number of crayfish seems to have dropped off at Stoney, which is one of the only places the British crayfish is still found. The American Signal crayfish has taken over many of the White Clawed Crayfish habitats now, I just hope Stoney won’t be losing its population.

We hit the Cessna, and I navigated over to the barge and van, before heading back along the drop into the pit. As we neared the narrowing of the ledge there was a large cloud of silt. Steve and I felt out way through it as it looked like it might have been caused by a diver hitting the bottom, and although we [fortunately] didn’t find anything, or any body, the boat was out a few seconds later.

We made our way back around the pit, and ascended as I swapped onto my 50% deco mix and Steve used his 65% mix.

Suitably refreshed by the food hatch, and insulted by the girls in the shop again, we kitted up for dive 2. For this one I gave Steve a series of bearings to follow after we hit the Stanegarth, following a navigation exercise I planned years ago. The full course goes blockhouse-coach-Stanegarth-mini-chassis on rocks-helicopter, and takes about 40 min to complete. We found the anchor chain to the Stanegarth and pulled ourselves along it. Steve then set off on the course and made a good show of it, missing the mini by a couple of metres, the chassis by the same and the heli by about 6.

Dive 3 saw Steve on the Dolphin. Dropping in at the bus stop we went to the new APC, and down to 10m, along the wall and up to the Nautalis. Steve’s buoyancy was pretty good when he got going, the git, and we had half an hour in the water. I was diving a single 12 open circuit, much more relaxing than all that tech diving paraphanalia.

Dive data:

Dive 1:

61 min
23.8m

Depth 15.7 18.0 21.4 20.1 20.0 18.9
pO2 0.92 0.94 1.01 1.00 1.00 1.02
Loop % 35.8 33.6 32.2 32.2 33.3 35.3
vO2 0.56 0.74 0.84 0.76 0.75 0.60

SI 1h 59 min

21.6m
35 min

Depth 20.4
pO2 0.97
loop % 31.9
vO2 0.86

SI 1H 26 min

32 min
11.6 m

[Freeflow]

Finally it’s Stoney when I planned to be there. After the ‘plan B’ instead of Cheppy, I had arranged with Geoff from BSAC 955 to meet him for some rebreather diving. Geoff and his daughter Emma are Ray owners, and Emma’s other half has just taken delivery of an Azimuth, so semi closed runs in the family.

First dive was off to the pit. This would be the deepest dive I had done on the Dolph so I was using 40% through the 60% jet. From yesterdays figures this should yield a loop O2 of 30% ish, which is acceptable for 36m. Geoff was diving 36% through the 32% jet on his Ray. The Ray doesn’t have a combined dosing and bypass valve, but dosage valves that are swapped out depending on the mix. There are only two jets available, 32 & 50%, which restricts the choice of gasses more than the Dolphin. I was diving 50% as a deco mix again, mainly to get used to the extra gear. Geoff had his computer set to 25% O2, I had mine on 21 and 50 for deco. We went down the road to the pit, around the wall clockwise and up onto the Cessna ledge for a quick peep at the Cessna and then back to the step to get out.

I only had time to get two pO2 readings as I had to fin my legs off to keep up with Geoff. I don’t know if I am lazy from multi tank diving, diving with Martyn and his little legs, or from teaching and not wanting to fin too fast. The dive was a bit of a blur, but more from the effects of speeding through the water than narcosis. The readings suggest that I should try 38-39% for 36m, still through the 60% jet. Geoff demonstrated the flow rate of the 32% jet by using all his gas up on a dive where I got through 50 bar. The 7L I was using as a deco gas tank seemed fine yesterday whichever side I wore it, but today I felt lop sided if I wore it on the right, so I may be wearing it on the left and I’ll have to get my left hand deco regs O2 cleaned. I’ll give it another dive or two first though.

The surface interval was marred by Chris, Geoff’s non diving wife, taking the mickey out of me, and a sausage sarnie. It’s nice to see Stoney toughening up visiting divers by going back to the good old days of sausages that have been re heated so many times it is lke eating a burnt stick. Thankfully mustard, gallons of, iffy food for the disguising of, was available.

For dive two we, or rather Geoff, tackled the nav course. Thankfully the compass use slowed him down and I hardly had to use the DPV I had hired. Geoff owes me a new set of batteries for the oxygauge I lent him as it was alarming all the way through the dive. I think that there may be something wrong with it at higher O2 percentages as the readings he got suggested a negative vO2, and I don’t think he is a plant, and if he is I don’t think he would photosynthesise too well at 20m in a drysuit. I did feel a bit under dressed without a pO2 meter, but as I was on the same mix as I was in the pit I was not worried about high pO2.

All in all a good days diving with a fellow SCR user.

Dive 1

34.4m
48 min

SI 1h 47 min

Dive 2

21.3m
46 min

[Freeflow]

The Saturday after helping Caroline with her gear saw me trotting up the M6 to Capernwray. I had dived this site before in the dim distant past with Nursy Anne, who I had helped teach her OW with Northampton Sub Aqua. She’s now an instructor-may god bless all who dive with her, amen!

I remember the site being very murky and moderately basic, slightly above Guildy standards. Well, things have changed. The site boasts an impressive shop and caff building, and they don’t mind wet clobber in the caff, a real high point compared with the dreaded hatch at Stoney and Guildy being all precious about wet kit. I suppose if I was in dry clobber and all these soggy diver types were dripping on me I would be a bit annoyed though. I made the 190 mile each way trip as Yorkishire Divers and the Drager users forum were having a meet. I think the main day was the Sunday, but as usual I was playing Cinderella and missing the ball. I was to meet Lee in the shop at 1000. He emailed me and said he was ‘tall and pierced’. I’m average and bland, so I wore a bright red sweatshirt as I wasn’t able to get a carnation from the florists in time.

I met up with Lee and his friend who was over from the Czech Republic. How many times I have typed and deleted the phrase ‘Czech Mate’ you have no idea, but even I couldn’t stoop to that. I won’t even attempt to spell his mate’s name though, so I’ll call him ‘M’ as it sounded like it began with an ‘m’, although sometimes I think English is my second language. Lee, like me, has a pretty standard Dolphin, although he has a pair of 90 degree adaptors on the shell to route the hoses more comfortably. But he is a big bugger. I can make do with the standard rig.

Also there was ‘Narked at 90’ John, and his mate Andy and another chap who’s name I didn’t get. John and Andy scratch build their own rebreathers and convert Drager SCR into CCR trimix units. I was making sure that I didn’t turn my back on them for a moment in case I suddenly found I was diving a KISS valve CCR Drager.

Our first dive was with Lee and ‘M’. Lee knows the site well, so I played follow my leader and we hit the ‘oil rig’ heli, Podsnap and diving bell before our ascent. I lost Lee and ‘M’ around the oil rig, damned annoying not being able to look for bubbles, but I found them again after a couple of minutes. ‘M’ is one of those lucky gits with lead bones who doesn’t need any lead to sink, and Lee found a weight as we wandered around. The vis was in the 10m+ range, rather better than I remember. I had set my Vytec on 30%, but this was about 3% out for the loop gas. I will have to look at using the 50% jet and tuning my tank gas a bit more. It appears to be quite critical when using the 60% jet once you drop below a tank gas of 40%, and not something I want to risk. I will also plan using a vO2 of 0.90 and 1.15 for the worst-worst combination.

We had a good old chin wag on the surface, as divers, and especially those of a ‘tech’ orientation do. John and Andy had some interesting kit, I’m sure it works a lot better than it looks. The experimental CCR they were playing with was a Drager/Inspiration/KISS/Kerry McKenzie unit, with some hand made bits. It worked well according to Andy, and the only problem was a small leak from the right hand hose junction.

The second dive saw the six of us joining forces for a tour around the gnome garden, with ‘M’ taking our pics with Lee’s Nikonos 3 camera. From the state of it, I believe Noah may have used it to knock barnacles off the Ark. The RB’s worked well, and we all had a great time following Lee doing his Red Arrows impression by stirring up the silt. I tried to get everyone into ‘diamond nine’ but we were three short. There wasn’t a lot to see on the dive, but we made do with what we had. There is the same type of weed at Cap’ as at Guildy, and I had a good look through for some life, but drew a blank.

On the way back to the cars to dekit we had a quick chat to some Inspiration divers. They were telling Andy he had beat the bookmakers by surviving two dives on his home brew, and since we were lined up in a row chatting they called us the ‘usual suspects’. Bloody ignorant YBOD* divers. The day was good fun, and it’s nice to be able to put faces to names when chatting on the net.

[*YBOD-Yellow Box Of Death, a term of endearment for Inspiration divers from Drager divers]

Dive Data

Dive 1

37 min 17.4m

Depth 16.4 14.4 15.9 16.7 16.2
pO2 0.79 0.67 0.71 0.79 0.79
vO2 0.92 1.08 1.09 0.94 0.90

SI= 2 h 24 min

Dive 2

48 min 18.0m

Depth 16.8 16.7 15.8 13.1 9.6
pO2 0.82 0.88 0.87 0.74 0.68
vO2 0.87 0.78 0.64 0.77 0.56

[Freeflow]

A lazy Friday off work means a day at Stoney with Geoff and the Dolphin. Geoff’s Ray was out for a spin too, and now that he is using on oxygauge and a gas calculating spreadsheet he is tuning his mixes as I do. I ran a 40% through the 60% jet, and Geoff was running the same through his 50% jet. I had made a couple of mods to my kit for this dive, slinging the 7L to my left with a Scubapro reg, and moving the console for the bailout to the right hand side. I also bought a knife with a hose clip on it from the shiny new shop at Stoney, and as it’s made from titanium [although I didn’t know that when I bought it] I feel like a true rufty-tufty techie now. Geoff had brought Chris, his wife along to take the mickey out of me mercilessly, and Joanne his daughter to get me to marry her, more of which later.

The plan for dive one was to head over to the Cessna ledge and then around the perimeter at 20m Geoff’s tea was suitably spiked with a mild tranquilliser to stop him from fining off at 5 knots. While Geoff was doing his final kit checks I amused Chris and Joanne with a simple card trick. I also amused myself by forgetting to turn on the oxygauge before I hit the water. Although it wasn’t a serious error, and I was able to turn it on at 4m, it was somewhat complacent of me to miss such a simple thing. We wandered down the road to the pit and bottomed at 32.3 m where we wandered around the wall and onto the Cessna ledge. I haven’t been much past the plane before, usually turning right to the barge and van before heading home. I was having one of my over active imagination moments as we worked our way into the corner past the aircraft. The bottom had a circle of large-ish rocks around a darker patch, which I thought looked like the remains of a camp fire at 20m. Quite close by there was a similar formation. Geoff was swimming slowly so we could admire the view, and I was going to fill the tyre I found with air and send it up when I noticed about a dozen crayfish in it. I showed Geoff, who seemed impressed, although his admiration of my all round diving skills came to an abrupt end when I played ‘human pinball’ off just about every part of the wooden barge as I swam through it. We began an ascent to 12m at this point, swimming over the top of the transit and keeping the wall to our right we swam around the perimiter of the cove. We found a couple of 2½ foot pike to stare at, and in Geoff’s case dazzle with a torch, and a jack pike trying to get some p&q over the far side, which it was until we arrived. I was getting a bit hacked off with the hose that feeds the wing throughout the dive. It was pressing on the back of my head in the most annoying way. At 60 min into the dive we went to 5m to do a travelling stop and passed the winch block. At this point I also shut off my gas and went on to the stage. I must admit I don’t like the hose routing or mouthpiece on the Scubapro, both will have to be changed at some point. The first stage lacks the turret found on the DST4 first stage so I may put an Apeks first stage on the Scubapro second to see what happens. The other option is to use an Egress so that I am Apeks all round, but I shall have to dive one first. The position the tank sat in was also annoying, and I think I will have to reposition the ‘D’ rings to stop the bottom of the 7 hitting my left thigh, a problem I have with my 10 sidemount. One thing that did work well was using the knife on the end of the oxygauge hose as it stopped the floaty gauge a treat [pics of this are on my Dolphin site, under modifications]. I blobbed up at 70 min, the official duration of the scrubber in the Ray, and we were about half way between the pub and the galleon wreck.

Sausage [for me] and bacon [for Geoff] sarnies were called for as usual on the surface break. Chris seems to think I am the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to suitors for Joanne. I think that her judgement took the day off when she made that decision, although the offer is tempting, as I would be six camels better off. I’m not sure Joanne is too happy with the idea of her mum trying to marry her off though. Chris’ mum was there as well, but I didn’t get much help from her when Chris was picking on me.

I had a quick relax in the boot my car while Geoff repacked his scrubber. I rerouted the hose from my bailout tank [pictures on my Dolphin site] and then it was time for round two. As Geoff was running the 50% jet, and I had not used the Dolph tank during the last ten minutes of the first dive I still had 100 bar left, and Geoff had 70. The nominal figures for the flow rates are 5.8 l/min for the 60% jet, 7.3 l/min for the 50% jet, 10.4 l/min for the 40% jet, and 15.6 l/min for the 32% jet. The short version is that I would be running at just under 80% of Geoff’s consumption of gas. When I test my jet flow as part of the set up procedure I have noticed that it is at the lower end of the allowable flow rates, so that may also be a contributory factor. In we jumped, remembering to turn the pO2 monitor on. We went from the bus stop to the cockpit, over the edge to the Stanegarth, which we reached by pulling along the anchor chain, a bit easier and quicker than fining out. From there Geoff led us East because my compass sticks and I was feeling lazy anyway. I need to have a look at replacing the compass module soon. Geoff was stirring up the silt at this point with his front slung 3L bailout, and I think he might have gone to the same dive classes as Lee from the Drager dive-in at Capernwray to the 6m ledge from where we could complete our swim around. We finished back at the bus stop, where I asked Geoff how much gas he had to which he replied with the clenched fist of 50 bar, so we had a quick tour around the APC that was dropped in this year. When we got back to the ladder Geoff had switched to open circuit as his Ray cylinder was empty. I asked why he had indicated that he had 50 bar left, and he laughed it off. “Well, I did have more than 50 bar in my bailout”, he replied. This is the man that told ME off for getting him down to 20 bar the last time we went diving.

On the surface I was chatting to the other two old lags that usually dive with Geoff on a Friday and one of those had come out with 10 bar on open circuit gear. Perhaps it’s the Kamikaze branch of BSAC this lot belong to. In the pub Chris was complaining that I was a slow worker and that Joanne and I weren’t even engaged yet. I don’t know if she was expecting us to run into the toilets for a quickie, but she was offering the use of her mums wedding dress. I made sure that all plans were put on hold by drinking a cocktail of grapefruit juice and coke, which tastes a lot better than it looks, which is fortunate. Chris lulled me into a false sense of security by not extracting the Michael too much, until she told me my nickname would be ‘Twinkle’. Nice.

Dive 1

32.3m
1h 10 min

Depth 23.1 30.6 25.4 22.4 19.0 13.0 avge
pO2 1.00 1.31 10.4 0.99 0.91 0.73 --
vO2 0.81 0.66 0.87 0.79 0.73 0.70 0.76
Loop% 30.2 32.3 29.4 30.6 31.4 31.7 30.9

SI 1 h 57 min

Dive 2

21.6m
34 min

Depth 19.9 20.0 19.9 15.5 5.1 avge
pO2 0.89 0.89 0.84 0.75 0.53 --
vO2 0.85 0.85 0.96 0.87 0.44 0.79
Loop% 29.8 29.7 28.1 29.4 35.1 30.4