Depressed & Defeated

[MartyC]

Trip report for my recent Advanced Nitrox & Deco Procedures course with Mr Mark Powell of Dive-Tech fame.
I’ll try not to bore you too much but a bit of back ground first –
I started off with Padi on singles, wanted more bottom time so I decided to go to a twin set, played around with them with the valves up for a while and struggled to reach the valves, so I inverted them.
Then I did a work shop with Mark at Stoney, introduction to twin set diving and buoyancy control, which I thoroughly enjoyed – it was at that point when I met Garf, who was helping Mark out as safety diver, that I got interested in DIR.
So the twins go back the other way and I start sorting myself out to do the DIR Fundies course, please note, these are my ideas and beliefs and I don’t expect you (dear reader) or anyone else to share them, but I love the DIR system, the simplicity and standardisation of the kit, just the whole ethos really.
So I go on to do the fundies course last October (report here on YD if you want to look it up) and I get a provisional pass, I can’t quite manage the shut downs, so I get loads of good advice and encouragement and off I go to stretch and try and get more movement in my shoulders, which essentially is where the problem lies.

I practice in the pool (nice and warm, especially with my dry suit on..Doh) and I manage to do a half decent job of it, so I’m happy as Larry and raring to go, which brings me to date, I wanted to do the TDI ADV Nitrox & Deco Procedure course with Mark, so after lots of messing around we agree on a date (8th Feb) as there is a spare place, venue is Capenwray & Wast Water for the deep stuff.

I get to the digs on the Thursday night to find Mark & James have already hit the sack, so after a coffee I too go to sleep, well I would do if I wasn’t awake worrying about stuff!
Morning comes and I meet Mark and James at Breakfast, we chat, Tom the other diver is meeting us at Capers, so we head off and meet up.
We discuss the course, course objectives, look at equipment configuration, Mark knows I dive DIR so he is expecting exactly what he see’s, in fact we all have kit that’s reasonably the same so no surprises.
James has a beaver reel that is self destructing even before we get kitted up so you can imaging what’s going to happen later!

The first dive is a shake down to find out how we look in the water; Mark has had a quiet word with me about organising the team, basically let the team order work its self out, I’ve dived in a three before but the others haven’t so they have to find their own way without me imposing my way on them, Tom asks me to lead the dive but I wiggle out of the situation, we head off into the water with no team sorted and no dive plan other than we swim out to the Podsnap on the surface then drop down and blunder around a bit, we’re all working independently without a clue and it’s a good illustration of how not to dive, do this in the sea for real and we probably wouldn’t make it back!

We debrief and talk about team work, team order and how to work together, the waters cold and the soup helps to bring some warmth back.

We plan the next dive, we drop in on the helicopter and the oil rig, working quite well as a team, we’ve taken up a “V” pattern as the light signalling a la DIR is difficult as it’s a bit light, we swim round the container and James has an OOA, I donate and we get sorted, off we go again and James really wants to head into the swim through, with a bit of encouragement he heads in with my second, I almost make it in when Mark throws me an OOA, Tom is prepared and everything’s good, back to normal again and we head off to the Podsnap to fire up our SMB’s and do a controlled ascent.
Hmmmmm, this is where things go bad, we basically split up and fixate a sorting our SMB’s, Mark throws me an OOA and I signal to James, with my light and chopping away at my neck like goodun, no response, he’s actually looking at me dieing in front of him and Tom’s away elsewhere – I stuff my reg back in and look at Mark and shrug, he makes a signal to his head (basically a gun to the temple, saying you’re toast) I think he means he wants my mask (I think Basturd) I’m dead and blind! So I wip it off and hold it out, but he doesn’t take it and I’m thinking strange and them buttocks to this no ones noticed anyway, so I put it back on and we ascend…fun, fun, fun.

Full debrief, we have good laugh at how I died and it puts the point home, we need to be aware as a team at all times.
We go back to the digs and run through the theory side of things for a couple of hours, Tom heads off home and we merry three head off for some grub then bed.

Next day is building on what we’ve learnt so far and new skills, mask off skills and getting used to removing and replacing the stages, shutdowns etc, our team work is getting better.
I get a massive free flow from my back up reg, I know where it’s coming from but I don’t know what to do about it, my brain is fried, Tom swims in to help me out, we ascend, at this point James is leading the ascent and the deco, he’s gone to longer and deeper plan, I try and persuade him to just go for a “longer” plan as I’m freezing and my left post is off so I can’t inflate my dry suit – but no joy, full marks to the lad for sticking to his guns though, I can see Mark circulating waiting to pounce, he doesn’t need to Toms reel disintegrates and the spool patch lazily descends into the depths, Tom cuts the line and we continue.
I next see Mark and he’s got James’ slate with his deco plan, I’m laughing hard at this point as James hasn’t realised yet – he twigs it’s gone but unfortunately for little old me he’s memorised the plan, so I still can’t get him out of the water any quicker (damn).

We do some line laying skills in the next dive, I’m getting slightly annoyed as James has got hold of the line and I can’t keep it tight, Tom has a shut down drill, James thinks he needs help and swims the line around everyone including Mark and I have to extricate everyone, god I love this diving lark!
I have an OOA and James donates, I hand the reel off to Tom and make a complete hash of organising the team to get us back along the line, we make it eventually, dekit and head back to the digs for more theory, same as last night, then an early start to head up to Wast Water.

Day 3, we’ve planned the dive, 35m, 15 minutes bottom time with a controlled ascent, the ascent is based on a bottom time of 30 minutes, so its long than it would be in reality.
As we arrive at the lake, the fog is hanging around and I honestly do not feel comfortable about the dive at all, my nerves are getting the better of me, but as the sun rises and the fog lifts the feel goes and I feel a lot better, we discuss the dive, sort out team order and we head in, we drop down to 6m to do the bubble check and S drill, well I drop down to 8, then back to 5, finally getting sorted (plonker) we do the checks and rills and head off along the shelf, its at this point I discover my Primary light has failed (more later), so I switch to my back up and signal to Tom & James that I’m ok to carry on, we head off again and I realise as we’re swimming that it a Primary Martin failure, aaaargh, guess who forgot to reconnect the battery to the head last night, I chuckle as we swim along, Tom’s trying to keep tabs on James & I and is kicking up quite a bit of silt, we then swing a right to head for deeper water, if we’re not careful we won’t make the depth requirement within the planned dive time – not a major issue as we have a back up plan but its cold and we don’t want to be in here any more than is required, we hit 31.7m on my computer and nearly time, we have agreed a plan of 2mins before final bottom time to bag up, Tom signals me to bag up and I look at my computer for ages without much action – I’m narked as hell but don’t know it, eventually I snap out of it and we head up, I bag off as we go, we hit 21m and gas switch, we carry on as planned but we are behind time so I switch to he “longer” plan, the boys twig what I am doing and we are all on the same page, we’re on our 6m stop and Mark signals to Tom that his Deco gas has gone with 4 minutes to go, no worries, I finish my deco and then donate to Tom, I thought about handing the stage off but it’s only a short duration so I don’t bother and we head up.

We swim back to shore and debrief on the side, we’ve decided to go more or less straight back in to do the final skills dive, so once sorted we head back in, 4m we 45 minutes!
We bubble check and S drill and bag off, Mark throws me an OOA I signal to Tom whose in front of me and wave my hand in front of his face – no response, burger, James hoves into view from the side reg extended, cheer buddy (big smiles), one of the things James has been working on is not being task fixated and bless him, after leaving me to die the first time ha made damn sure it wasn’t going to happen again!

I never really get settled throughout this dive and my buoyancy is pants, I’ve tried shut downs on a couple of occasions during the course and still haven’t managed it, so this is crunch time, after much thrashing I get the right post closed, breath the reg down and swap over, then open it up again and go back to my primary, manifold is awkward but do able, the left post is different matter, I get it closed after a long time but I’m knackered and my arm is so pumped up I can’t get my hand back on the valve to open it up again, Mark resets it for me and we go on to do stage swapping, I have bored a 7lt steel (thank you Ian) and the guys have aluminium stages so the buoyancy changes are fun but we are prepared so not much drama.
Then its buddy breathing off the stage, I completely cock this up and end up on the surface.

Before we had set off for this last dive Mark had discussed the trick of using your hand to capture bubbles so you can read your gauges if you lost your mask, as I look from above James gives it ago, Mark is laughing, it was never meant as a serious option, he he.

So that’s it, we get back to shore an de kit and warm up, have something to eat and have a final debrief.
If I've got the order mixed up guy's I'm sorry, its hard to focus on some things (its my age don't you know).

Mark runs through our good points and bad points, highlights what we need to practice and improve on.

Bless him but the words "you’ve failed" never come up, I know that I haven’t passed, same reason as fundies, I haven’t got the shut down sorted, we agree to tie up at Stoney soon to have another go and complete the course.
It’s been good, I have enjoyed it all, even the cold, my personal view is that Mark is a great instructor, he’s always calm and collected, pushes you enough to test your limits then beyond but never far enough to freak you out (too much), there’s non of the “beasting” that you hear horror stories about, just well structured planned dives with lots of things thrown in to keep you busy and test your skills.

The theory bits are well delivered and never too taxing, whilst getting the points across and I look forward to finishing things off, which leads me to the title!

Depressed – bleedin shut downs! I am getting better but there just isn’t enough movement in my shoulders to be able to do it properly, I’m really p#ssed off with it – I do not like to fail at anything, it goes against the grain.
I get home I’m feeling low, Jayne asks me “did you pass then?” and I say, well not quite, to which I get the reply “huh, waste of money”, I give it a “whatever” and sulk, which brings me to Defeated.

I may get a lot of stick for this, I hope not, but I’m going to invert my tanks again, I tried it last night and it took me a few second to easily open and shut all the valves – basically folks, at the moment if I have a problem at depth I have to rely on my buddy to get me out of it, this is not right, its not safe and its not fair on the people I dive with.

I will continue to work on ways to get the mobility improved, as I said at the start, I love diving DIR but until I can work this out, I’m banjaxed (Depressed again, see the theme?) and please don’t start an invert or not to invert conversation, it’s been done to death, as far as I am concerned it’s a way for me to continue diving safely for now, even if its not my ideal choice and no I don't think its wrong, if it works for the person then that's fine by me.

To my GUE instructor and friends please understand where I’m coming from, you’re all an enlightened bunch and I hope you see the logic in my choice.

Wow, I was trying to keep this short!

Once again, thanks Mark, you’re a top bloke and Thanks to Tom & James, it was a pleasure diving with you and I hope we get the chance again.
TTFN

Marty

[GLOC]

Excellent report but don't beat yourself up. You have learned lots and there are always things to improve on, no matter where you are on the skill scale.

There is hope for you yet; look at Wilbo, he used to be weird too

[Bottle Maker]

Thanks for taking the time to write up your course. Its you that is diving so make sure you can work your kit if your in the poo chances are you will be all alone.

[big_si]

Excellent report Mate. Don't beat yourself up over it. You'll get the ticket soon enough.

I know that you're down about not (YET!!) being able to adopt DIR fully.. That's not to say it won't come together soon though... I think the most important thing is that you're safe and can deal with the poo-fan interface.

[Garf]

Hi Marty

That course is an eye opener for many people mate. I myself left the course feeling totally dejected having had three days of feeling more like a bag of shit diver than normal. However, you need to realise the only person beating you up is yourself!

Give it a couple of days, and I bet a lot of what Mark was talking about and showing you will start to sink in. Remember that the AN and DP course is basically holiding you just outside your comfort zone for three whole days, so right now you're depressed and knackered!

Once you have rested, then decide what you are going to do about the valves. It sounds to me like you've got two out of three, so you can read that as being nearlyu there! Some people take months and months of stretching and practice before they can do it (It took me 18 months). However, if you decide you've had enough, then fair enough! If Inverted cylinders is what you need to shut the damn things down, then that has got to be better than NOT being able to shut down at the end of the day. The DIR mob won't care, we're not the dive police, mate. However, if you are going to invert them, please ensure you do not mention me in any of your posts again, or contact me for any reason.

cheers

G







that was a joke btw, for those that have had a sense of humour bypass









of course we're the dive police








that was another joke btw...

[andrew079]

Wow, I'm intending to do just this course a bit later on in the year, sounds well challenging. Anyway, it's something new and important to know, looking forward to it. Great report btw. Cheers, Andreas

[The Duck]

Great write up Marty - have a green

[copperband]

Excellent read, hope you manage to get the shut downs sorted. Mind you, I'm sure the cold of Capernwray and Wastwater won't help, especially if you have extra layers under your drysuit.

Well done for getting to where you are and to what you have achieved through the course.

[Digger]

Another very valuable post. And to be honest the fact that you know what you have to do and you have been challenged (and absolutely no doubt your diving will have improved) so you have gained from it.

If you want someone to go play with who has seen a whole lot of attempts at shutdowns then give me a shout. I'm sure the GUE course and Mark's course will have identified what you need to be doing to get there, keep working at it and keep diving.

Don't forget to go diving where you don't even think about shutdowns. If your diving is all about getting it shut down and you're not getting it in a hurry it will be demotivating, which isn't what you need. Just shut the isolator and dive indies and do fun diving where you can. I have had gear problems that pissed me off for ages and I found a way through it, but you have to make sure you don't forget why you're working so hard in the meantime. This is especially true with rebreathers that keep trying to do you in no matter how much gaffer tape you use

Digs.

[Steve S]

Hi Marty,

great write up mate, don't beat yourself up and good luck with finishing the course whichever way round you do it.

Safe diving,
Steve