Always leave 'em laughing!

[Kirstie]

A minor cock-up, but mine own

Last night, Paul and I had a lovely dive from Aquanauts boat, on a nice scenic reef just off Shagstone Rock, with dogfish, starfish, urchins, a big old cannonball and very good viz. Bloody cold, though.

The time came for blob deployment so, as I badly need the practice, I got mine out. I never seem to have enough hands, and it had been suggested to me that putting the reel on the seabed while inflating the blob might make life easier. So, I placed my reel on the sand in front of me, swapped regs, held the blob open and purged my reg. When I could feel the blob tugging, I removed my reg and let the bag go. Because the reg was upside-down, the water was full of bubbles, so I couldn't see what was going on, but I remember thinking how much easier the whole procedure was, not having to hold onto my reel while I sorted my regs out. I swapped back to my main reg, the bubbles cleared and......nothing. No reel, no smb, just me, Paul and a starfish on the bare seabed.



Guess who forgot to unlock the reel.


Paul said he couldn't see much of my face so couldn't judge my expression, but apparently I stared at the seabed for a few seconds, looked around and behind me, then above me in a 'Huh?' kind of way.

Back on (Paul's) line at 5m I was laughing so hard I was shaking. Paul thought I was shivering, but looked at my eyes and realised I was p*ssing myself laughing as I kept imagining how it must've looked. He said he noticed I hadn't unlocked the reel but didn't intervene as he didn't want to interfere and hoped I'd spot the error for myself. He went to grab the reel when he realised I wasn't going to unlock it, but it was too late.

Of course, Doug Allen wasted no time telling the whole boatload of lads (me being the only girlie) about my stupidity as we had to detour to collect my blob and reel which were heading to France. At least the bloody thing had air in it, though, which makes a change.

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by Kirstie

... it had been suggested to me that putting the reel on the seabed while inflating the blob might make life easier. ....

This will, IMHO, make mid-water deployment a little hard

Chris

[Kirstie]

Originally Posted by chrisch

This will, IMHO, make mid-water deployment a little hard

Chris

Well, yes, I had worked that one out. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, I'm really not that daft

[Buoyant Babe]

Tsk, these amateur blob-deployers...

...me being such an expert

See bird, diving is FUN - we just happen to keep everyone else entertained while we are trying to be dive-godesses

[Kirstie]

Originally Posted by Buoyant Babe

Tsk, these amateur blob-deployers...

...me being such an expert

See bird, diving is FUN - we just happen to keep everyone else entertained while we are trying to be dive-godesses

Absolutely. They didn't have to laugh quite so much, though.

[Scubee]

Ooops!

Thank you for sharing that and giving me a good laugh this morning. Green incoming for daring to share!

A guy I dive with occasionally was testing out his cameras video capability once, as I prepared to launch my DSMB. The reel chose that moment to jam and the 30 secs of video shows more expression than I ever thought possible to display underwater as I tried to free it - before there was any air in the blob!

[wilbo]

I don't understand it - if turbie was a gentleman - then he'd hold the reel while you prepped your reg, the bag and inflated it..

it doesn't have to be a one person task.. use your buddy to help..

(though I admit deploying mid water while on your own kinda complicates things - so being able to deploy on your own is a valuable skill - get an auto blob (DSMBi).. )

[Kirstie]

Originally Posted by wilbo

I don't understand it - if turbie was a gentleman - then he'd hold the reel while you prepped your reg, the bag and inflated it..

it doesn't have to be a one person task.. use your buddy to help..

(though I admit deploying mid water while on your own kinda complicates things - so being able to deploy on your own is a valuable skill - get an auto blob (DSMBi).. )

LOL, I did specifically ask not to be helped as I need the practice and have to be able to do it by myself. I'm a bit of a masochist in that I need to do things in the most difficult way possible, just to prove to myself that I can.

Which is partly why I haven't yet gone down the crack-bottle route, although I probably will once I feel I can competently deploy it the hard way

[chrisch]

Kirstie, do you put a tiny bit of gas in the blob first to make it stand up? If you exhale a single breath into the blob it will stand up but is not bouyant enough to make any odds. Then take the reel off its clip and sort it out. If you put your arm through the loop at the bottom of the blob you have both hands free to undo the reel's brake. Now join the reel and blob with a double ender.

Reel (free to go) in the left hand then inflate with right....

Either that or grow another arm

Chris

[Kirstie]

Originally Posted by chrisch

Kirstie, do you put a tiny bit of gas in the blob first to make it stand up? If you exhale a single breath into the blob it will stand up but is not bouyant enough to make any odds. Then take the reel off its clip and sort it out. If you put your arm through the loop at the bottom of the blob you have both hands free to undo the reel's brake. Now join the reel and blob with a double ender.

Reel (free to go) in the left hand then inflate with right....

Either that or grow another arm

Chris

I've just started stowing the blob and reel ready assembled, which takes a bit of the faff-factor out of the process. I never put any air in to keep the blob out of the way. It's a handy tip that's been mentioned to me before, and one that I manage to forget in the excitement of each deployment, I'm afraid.

A bloke on the boat has a small fishing float attached to the loop at the top of his blob and he reckons this does the job as well.