An excellent week!

[Padowan]

Just come back from a week on MV Excel in the Red Sea diving the northern wrecks on the new YBOD - and had an excellent time.

I had only had the unit for a week, and had conducted a total of 11 dives prior to going out there, so it was an ideal opportunity to intensively dive the unit and start getting the CC diving skills honed a little.

Unit was shipped out in the supplied case, no wories, stripped down quite a bit for protection with the "delicates" in the hand luggage: total weight of box ~29kg, total weight of hand luggage ~8kg, total weight of small heavy things in my pockets, probably ~3kg! On the way back the box weighed in at 35kg, having put some extra things from my pockets and hand luggage in, and no-one in Sharm airport batted an eyelid!

Anyway, onto the week. Conveniently there was another chap on the boat who'd also just completed his course, so we were able to buddy up and help each other out better than an un-"enlightened" OC buddy would. The dive guide, Andy, is also an experienced CC diver, so he was always there to offer any advice if we needed it.

Conducted a total of 20 dives over the week on the usual sites, Thistlegorm, Rosalie Moller, Carnatic, Ghiannis D, Chrisoula K, Dunraven, Kimon M, and a few reefs and night dives thrown in for good measure. The unit performed flawlessly all week, only error was a battery warning (on solenoid operation) indicating a dying master battery, but after switching to the slave for control the dive continued safely, and the battery was replaced when back aboard. My buddy had a 2nd hand unit and he suffered from numerous little problems (cell errors, difficulty calibrating, difficulty passing +ve/-ve tests) but each was dealt with and by the end of the week his unit was performing pretty well too - however it had reinforced my belief that I made the right decision buying a new unit!

The silence and weightlessness were awesome. Having 2 divers on CC meant that we could do slightly different dives to the OC divers (deeper or less deco) meaning we could appreciate the quiet times. Monitoring the unit I found has become second nature, hardly any noticible additional task loading, and it had now become a standard part of each dive. The preparation of the unit was more than OC, but we were only doing anything substantial once a day (scrubber changing, gasses filled) lopop integrity tests were done on the runup to each dive, and the only other immediate pre-dive check was the prebreathe on each dive.

Did a couple of dives which did take me outside my training and I can perhaps expect some bad rep for this, but I'm being open and honest here:
1) a dive on the Rosalie Moller for 20mins @50m followed buy 25mins @ 35m with about 20mins deco (deeper than certified and more deco than allowed)
2) a 55m bounce on Shark reef, but limited deco because of the slow ascent (again deeper than certified, also deeper than units CE rating on air)
3) a dive to 63m for about 10 minutes with 17/20 trimix diluent (deeper than certified using diluent I'm not CC certified on, but carring additional 7L air bailout - both previous dives were only on the inboard 3L tanks)

Also we were pushing the scrubbers to on average 3.5-4 hours justified because of the warmth of the water, cross checked by looking at o2 metabolised and at the end of each day feeling the reaction front of the scrubber there was still scope to extend this further. But a once a day change seemed appropriate, convenient, and at the on-boat price of £20 a fill, an economical thing to do!

All these dives were awesome and I only used between 30-40bar of O2 and about 40-60bar of diluent for each, which highlights the potential gas benefits I can reap when I go Trimix on the box.

By the end of the week I was feeling nicely confident and things had fallen into a nice managable routine both for preparation and during the dive. I know I took some unnecessary risks with a couple of deep dives, in the was that you do when diving in such good conditions, and have no aspirations of doing similar naughty and, retrospectively stupid things, in the UK any time soon - I'm quite happy to stick to within my certification of 40m for another few months and as such have promised myself to spend more time in the shallow lakes taking a step back and doing drills as this was something I did not do during the week.

I have no desire to become a statistic, so will not be repeating these "dangerous" dives any time soon. I am well aware that I am now in the "danger zone" of rebreather diving, with the confidence building, but the lack of experience leaving gaps in possible problem solving, hence the strict return back to the real world and an acceptance and gradual progression from my newbie status.

It was a brilliant week, and I cannot wait to get the unit back in the water this weekend!

[turbanator]

Nice post - no Reds from me

This raises a question that I have about training, although I'll probably go the KISS route, I think the questions are relevant to both.

What is the difference between that standard training anf the trimix training?
Is there any credit for OC trimix divers or any need for them to do the trimix bit?

I had heard, maybe in another post, that basic training places the empahsis on getting off of the loop asap whereas more advanced training tries to keep you on the loop as long as possible to maximise gas use at depth.

Like you I don't want to become a statistic and anticipate many fun dives a Wraysbury (where I've been once and hate).

Since we're (you're) being honest, did you find that 'pushing your qualifications' happened because you are gainig confidence quicker than you thought that you might.

Answer in a PM (or not at all if you prefer) but I know that although I'm allowing myself at least a year to get to my current OC depths on the RB, I'll be soreley pempted earlier if all seems to be progressing smoothly.

r
Paul

[Andy the Coastie]

Glad you had a good time ,,,,, what about the others ?


See you bought back the wind and crap viz ....


ANdy

[Juz]

Glad you're back safe and well, you damn loon!!!!!

Looking forward to some dives with you late this year or early next.

Juz

[Pierre Farrugia]

Hello Padowan,

Thanks for this report and you made me jelous apart from diving these wrecks, I still have to wait for an others 4 weeks until I have mine. Just want to ask you some questions, are you trimix qualified? Have you had problems in filling the diluent with mix? I can understand the urge you had to try it deeper, me that's why I am getting the unit in winter as we do not do deep dives in winter due to weather and so will keep me away from deep sites

Regards

Pierre Farrugia

[Narked@50]

Hi Padowan

Glad you had a good time and feel comfortable with the grim reaper strapped to your back! It must have been excellent getting to grips with it in those conditions, and a boon being able to clock up so much bottom time. I know you were a bit naughty, none of us are angels, but don't go too far and let's keep it that way.

Remember those drills!!

James

[Padowan]

Originally Posted by Pierre Farrugia

Hello Padowan,

Thanks for this report and you made me jelous apart from diving these wrecks, I still have to wait for an others 4 weeks until I have mine. Just want to ask you some questions, are you trimix qualified? Have you had problems in filling the diluent with mix? I can understand the urge you had to try it deeper, me that's why I am getting the unit in winter as we do not do deep dives in winter due to weather and so will keep me away from deep sites

Regards

Pierre Farrugia

Hi Pierre,

Yes I'm OC Trimix certified, and have dived deeper than these depths in the UK on open circuit trimix in much more challenging conditions - the conditions you get out there are a walk in the park in comparison. It's amazing how much, (probably false) confidence you have when you can see for miles and are considerably less encumbered (wetsuit, no gloves, no hood, no need for torches), and in your mind if there is a problem, the fact that you have no environmental factors clouding your mind I felt confident that I could deal with it.

There was no problem getting the fill on the boat, the boat is a TDI tech facility, and had all the gasses available, and the dive guide had seen us in the water, we'd talked about it, and he was happy that we could proceed as planned (we';d signed all the waivers at the start of the week). The £7 gas bill for the 17/20 heliair mix made me smile when I thought about paying about £30 for this in my twinset in the UK

It was also a gradual build up over the week, diving 4 times a day does keep the skills quite fresh in your mind, and the deepest 2 dives were on the last 2 days. Back in the UK I will be doing 25-35m stuff for another 20 dives or so before extending the depths in UK conditions - up to the same OC limit that I set myself for non-trimix gasses. On OC if a dive is over 45m I will use Trimix, if it's shallower, I'll use an air-top on a mix prefererably, but will happily do it on air. So applying the same methodology to my CC diving, I'll be limiting myself close to the 40m air limit for probably enough time to build up the experience and dive hours to get the Trimix certification on it (which I will definitely do), at which point I will then start doing the deeper stuff in the UK.

The oncoming winter months will also allow me to spend lots of hours in lakes and quarries practising MOD1 skills and drills and start thinking about MOD2 drills (bailout gasses and configuration, SCR operations etc) in preparation for the Trimix course.