1st UK dive on Sunday....Wahoo!

[hogen-deifar]

Glad it went well for you!

I had the same buzz on my first OW dive. Brilliant isn't it! Still brings a smile to my face and it comes out in your writing that you loved it!!

See you at some of the Chesil/Swanage gigs, at this rate!!!

[String]

Originally Posted by Tunicates are Mad

We're about half way there (wherever 'there' is) with me checking back on them regularly as I'm in front. Well, the next thing I know, I'm there, and they're nowhere.........I wait.......no - they're not coming. I swim back a bit.......no sign of them........look upwards .....only murk.......mild alarm now.......So I surface.

Well done on doing the right thing but am i correct in thinking this was a paid for course (as its PADI?). If so, how many staff were in the water with you? Legally there needs to be a minimum of 2 to satisfy HSE requirements so even if the instructor had gone up then someone else should have been there.

A model of something very floaty.
Though I'd stuck an extra 2 kilos on my belt, I did my 1st ever rapid ascent while trying to fine tune the squeezeyness of my suit.

Its not impossible that an extra 2kg could have caused the rapid ascent - if as the course suggests you were told to use your suit for buoyancy then 2l more gas in the suit can mean lots of expansion and it cant dump fast enough. How did the pool based drysuit stuff go (You did have pool ?) Weighting should really have been nailed near enough in there before going to open water.

I'm blaming those stupid Apex low-profile shoulder valves. How rubbish are they?

The new ones ("new" being a few years now) are supposedly fine. (that said i've never seen one as fast or reliable as a cuff dump)/

I think that Padi says that a dive should be over 20 minutes to be a loggable dive......I think It was more like 7! Possibly cos the instructors neck seal was leaking, but I cant be sure.

The PADI standards dictate:

For training purposes, an open water dive is a dive during which a student
diver spends the majority of time at a depth of at least 5 metres/15 feet
and:
a. breathes at least 1400 litres or 50 cubic feet of compressed gas.
OR
b. remains submerged for at least 20 minutes.

They also state you should have a pressure gauge and depth gauge (but oddly, not a timing device). The instructor is meant to go through logs after a course as well to provide those exact details.


The course just seems very sloppily done from what i've read and seems to break PADI standards as well as HSE rules (unless im interpreting it totally wrong which isn't impossible). Do YOU think that the course prepared you to potentially go out and dive with a similar experience buddy in the drysuit safely and competently?

-----

As for the drysuit itself - i think its the only safe way to actually dive in the UK all year round and in my view not even in summer is the UK "ok" for wetsuits so you made the right call to use it. They are nothing to be afraid of. If the suit fits and your weight is correct they really aren't difficult to drive at all and the more you do the easier it gets.
UK diving can be superb - certainly more life than in the med etc but it can also be very frustrating at the same time with bad weather, poor vis etc. The one superb dive can make up for the 10 crappy ones before it though so persevere and dive as often as possible.
As others have said, its the coldest time of the year now for inland sites so if you can stick it here you'll be fine elsewhere.

[angleseydiver]

String:

As for the drysuit itself - i think its the only safe way to actually dive in the UK all year round and in my view not even in summer is the UK "ok" for wetsuits so you made the right call to use it

Sorry, String, I'm afraid your view is blinkered/b*ll*x... a decent wetsuit is fine for shortish shallow dives even at this time of year... in late Summer a decent wetsuit is more than fine
ATB,
Terry

[Simon TW]

I've pretty much got to agree with everything that String says. I don't wish to dampen your spirits.

You paid for instruction and that includes diving under instruction. 7 minutes isn't what you paid for on dive 2. You also should have expected that your safety was paramount, it doesn't sound like it was if you were one instructor alone with two students and no safety diver.

I'm glad that you enjoyed it though.

[String]

Having personally had (and seen several more) students start shaking the instant they hit the water or at best be shaking too much to even perform the basic skills i'd disagree with that.
Yes *some* people maybe ok in a wetsuit but from my experience most aren't or at best they can do 15 minutes uncomfortably and most resolve never to dive in the UK again or rush out to buy a drysuit. The last course i had to teach commercially (which was last month) we started the open water weekend with 5 students. 3 of them passed the course completing the required 120 mins, dives and skills - one only just. The other 2 managed a 20 minute and 15 minute dive on day 1, 6 minutes on day 2 first dive and didnt even attempt the 4th all due to being borderline hypothermic in what actually were fairly good fitting wetsuits. Sadly as i was contracted to teach i had no say in the choice of kit given to the students but our club now is basically 100% drysuit although that does mean a wait while students buy their own drysuits before open water dives (but we had to wait for them to buy wetsuits before that so its not much of a change).

Personally i'm in a drysuit any time its less than about 20/21c but i dont think its safe to throw people in water <10c with a wetsuit as a fair number of them will have issues.

[ShinyD]

Nice report T.A.M Sounds typically Wraysburyish!

I look forward to the summer arriving so I can leave the drysuit at home and dive the semi-dry - 60 minute dives at Chesil in a semi-dry in the summer and I'm just beginning to feel the chill. Surface, dry off and bask in the summer sunshine between dives...luxury I do agree there's no way I'd be in any water in the UK at this time of the year in it though - I can't even face getting into the water in my neoprene drysuit at this time of the year!

I start shivering just seeing someone at Vobster in a semi outside the summer months

[Tunicates]

My spirits are undampened, dont you worry.

After we'd swapped suits everything went much better. The only thing I might do in the short term is to get my own gloves as my hands were suffering more than anything else.

7 mins is what my comp said but that only logged the time untill my erm....unintended ascent. It treated the follwing descent as a new dive. I could have been clearer in my report. I think total dive time was closer to 15 mins tbh. We also spent a fair bit more time in the water, doing the jacket and weight belt removals - which, with my freezing hands, were noticeable harder than I would have anticipated.

On the first dive I was totally comfortable with dealing with buouancy, I had chosen to carry some extra weights on the second dive precisely because of the extra difficulty involved. I just over-cooked it.

I will have a word with the organisers of the course about the other concerns raised. Myself - I think Padi really only teaches you enough to not kill yourself, and its up to you to take that forwards, learning more and gaining experience as you go. For deep rooted learning, I accept that BSAC is probably the better way.
Do I think I learned enough to safely dive with a dry-suit? Yes, most certainly.
Do I have enough experience to go out and dive one with a buddy? I think so. But I'll get some more practice in for sure.

One other thing......I didnt see anyone doing any dives longer than 20 - 25 minutes. It was cold.

Cheers,
TaM

[MJH]

I'll be at Wraysbury Sunday provided I survive running 25k before work.

I'll be the one moaning how much my legs hurt very loudly all day.

I think a base layer of thermals is a very good idea. As is a decent hood and gloves.

The water is 6 degrees atm

Make sure you introduce yourself