The Tigger School of Diving - Vobster 17th June

[Brian of Aquanauts]

We hooked up on YD and myself, Little Pete, Gledders (Team Boss), Madfish and Sterny schelped it over to Vobster for a 9am start. You traveling divers really have it tough with early starts, i thought a 6am leave was bad (have since heard about a 3am start for a 7am ropes off - you mad people you).

After turning up late thanks to a round the houses AA route planner (thanks pete) we met up with 3 smiley faces in vobster car park ready to show me and pete the DIR ropes. I'm sorry i forgot your drysuit Pete, but with a quick trip to the office we hired the official Tigger school drysuit colours of orange and black so were all sorted to get wet and have our finning techniques torn apart by our host Gledders.

Dive 1: WoW they've got fish!!! we descended through a cloud of ducklings into a shole of salmon or trouty things. A bit of a fumbled start found us swinging along to the right to find a mashed up car, a weird tiny boat wreck and our destination the 6m platform. Gledders got us all lined up ready to do some fin stuff and then sprung an S-Drill (long hose deployment for Out of Air), somehow i got confused and forgot to deploy anything or even duck my head leaving a surprised Gledders stuck 3 inches from me... Oooops. Pete did his with consumate excellence as did Sterny (a bit more practiced than either of us 2 fresh faces from Plymouth). Our host demonstrated the mystic DIR art of backwards finning, and laughed while me and pete went back 3 inches then forward 3 then back again... this day was going to be hard!

Dive 2: More organised now that we had our team positions we went back to the 6m platform for some more weird fin techniques, my personal favourite was no.3 the modified flutter bit of a funny ankle twitch that left your calves burning and moving at a rate of a 3 foot every minute, looking every much as like an openwater student finning as well as a spider stuck in a bath - apparently useful in very confined heavily silted areas which we found out later. After this i was pretty much lost in the amassed jungle of wrecks, frames and platforms that we swam over through and even under! Madfish, mad as she is, managed to squeeze through the tinest gap under a 12m paltform that none of the lads could even attempt without burying their faces in silt! SO funny!

Sterny had to escape off for another dive trip in swange but the rest of us cracked on.

Dive 3: Ouch So Cold! We descened down onto a larger wreck in about 18m through a 12oC to 4oC thermocline!!! More S-Drills, we were starting to get the hang of it... pity pete couldn't hang onto his torch tho, and in the confusion of pretending to be dying of yet another OOA dropped his torch, good job he turned it on before unhooking. Loads more S-Drills, and I got caught out not watching the team. There I was practicing my new backwards fin kick and gleds (bless her) sprinted away at mach 10 hawling herself along the wreck. Only just spotted her as her twin bootless yellows dissappeared into the 6m haze - very nearly got busted again. She got us back tho making us do mask floods in 4 degrees brrrrr... a very slow but very effectice ascent involving 3m/min up to 6m then 1m/min to the surface proved how usefull backwards fin kicks are.

Hats off to those that have passed DIR-F truly a good course judging by the standard of your young padowan Gledders. After years of diving I didn't think i could learn anything new, but just the trim and profile required by you guys is so hard to acheive perfectly I have a new found respect. Before today I may have been one of the masses that judged without knowledge, but all the little kit configs and jems of knowledge are all starting to make sense.

Looking forward to my own DIR-F in July, and Gleds thank you so much for your time today see you in Plym for a scylla dive soon

Brian

[Martin Burnard]

Good call Brian
Tell me more on Monday
Morgan can back fin in the bath.... belch powered!!!!
Sounds like you and Little Pete have a lot to show me.

[Brian of Aquanauts]

Originally Posted by Martin Burnard

Good call Brian

Morgan can back fin in the bath.... belch powered!!!!
Sounds like you and Little Pete have a lot to show me.

Shame you couldn't come along we had so much fun! Gledders is damn fine in the water... twas good to watch.

We'll show you all on Monday's seasearch.

[divingniknaks]

GLEDDERS !

Skills on platforms ? PADI ? She's a witch, burn her, burn her

Brian, save her immortal soul and tell us they were "near" the platforms please

I'm off to bed before I dig an even bigger hole.

[divingniknaks]

Brian,

Seriously though, good report and thanks for it. Have a blob.

[Clare Gledhill]

- platforms... well ... I had to make our resident PADI instructor feel at home..

some were near the platform...

some were on the platform...

and some were underneath them

It was fun guys - if somewhat like herding cats at times.

Pete, our resident ballerina, demonstrated the lazy art of air sharing, once your buddy has dontated air, sod your trim, just sit on the rail of the wreck and chill

Brian - I know you are an instructor but when I take my reg out of my mouth it is nice to be able to use my arm to put another one in - "LET GO DAMMIT - I'M NOT GOING TO BOLT FOR THE SURFACE!"

For my part, I had a great day and a lot of laughs

Full marks for throwing yourselves into it whole heartedly - and thanks for letting me go diving today.

Have fun on the course.

[Brian of Aquanauts]

Originally Posted by Gledders

It was fun guys - if somewhat like herding cats at times

Now you know what PADI life is like... imagine the same every day forever... and ever and ever... and ever

[Clare Gledhill]

Originally Posted by Brian of Aquanauts

Now you know what PADI life is like... imagine the same every day forever... and ever and ever... and ever

I would definately prefer the cats

There I was practicing my new backwards fin kick and gleds (bless her) sprinted away at mach 10 hawling herself along the wreck. Only just spotted her as her twin bootless yellows dissappeared into the 6m haze - very nearly got busted again

Erm... no - wasn't trying to catch you out. Got a bit bored so just a bit of pull and glide round the boat - not at all DIR - but damn good fun

[Brian of Aquanauts]

Originally Posted by Gledders

- platforms... well ... I had to make our resident PADI instructor feel at home..

Am I missing something, the first time i've ever seen a platform was on my DIR practice session today...

Us real PADI divers do it in the sea, no platforms there...

[Martin Burnard]

Yes
BUT we can play noughts and crosses with the starfish and sea-urchins on the deck of the scylla.......
Who said that?