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Well last Saturday was my first open water dive! When I say dive, it was one dip to complete open water lesson 1 (BSAC OD) and another to have a swim round and have some fun!
We went to a quarry called Eccleston Delph which is North West of Manchester. A gang of us went up from the club, myself and another trainee, Emma, and some other qualified divers. On arrival we had to register with the centre as trainees, and fill out the application forms etc. Then it was to the car park to get kitted up! It wasn't the warmest of days, but we (the trainees!) were that excited about getting in the water it didn't bother us that much, so, it was on with the weezle and straight in to the dry suit. We then assembled all our gear and wandered down to the waters edge, grinning ear to ear... After hooding/gloving up, and fitting fins, we slowly wandered in to the water. The first thing i noticed was that you didn't feel the temperature of the water at all, so far so good. Then we got in as far as our necks and the water slowly seeped in to our hoods and gloves... Brrrrr! It was bloody freezing! But, surprisingly we became acustomed to the cold within a few moments... After the OK's on the surface, we headed down into open water for the first time...
Trout. I always thought fish were timid animals. No so in the 'delph'!! A mass of HUGE (and I WAS accounting for the magnification factor of the mask!) blinkin trout were upon us in moments! Golden, Rainbow, Brown... Lots of different colours, I didn't even know you could get silver/golden trout! After messing with our buoyancy and getting used to being deeper than 7ft for the first time, we slowly drifted down to the side in about 5M. Was strange how dark it got, though we were kicking up the bottom a fair bit trying to get our bearings and bouyancy spot on. Looking up was even stranger, seeing the light filtering down, with the shadows of the huge fish passing over you! Anyway, we had a swim around and heading along the side to a gravel bottom in the shallows. Here we did a few skills, inversion recovery, suit d/f removal and refit, AAS, and then the dreaded mask clear... We were now used to the cold somewhat, but when you take your mask of - jeez! It stops your breathing dead in you tracks! After relaxing a few moments, and after struggling with the first few breaths, we both completed the clearing. After that we headed back to the slip, and jettisoned are weight belts in standing depth to complete the first set of tasks (I know some of you don't agree with that but it's on the syllabus!).
At this point my face is aching from smiling & laughing so much (both on the surface and underwater!). After getting back to the van and de-kitting, it was straight on the phone to all my mates, including my friends who are on the OD course with me but don't have their dry suits yet... It was fantastic, the best thing i've done in years! I put a bit of air in the suit and was lovely and warm on the surface, no problems with cold at all, which I was very happy about. After a brief surface interval, which included a tin of hot soup each, we kitted up and headed back in.
This time it was a proper swim round, at a depth between 3 & 5.5M. We went round half the lake, learning bouyancy and getting used to the environment. We stopped at the far side where a telegraph pole marks a little beach-buggy type car in the bottom and had a poke round. We didn't see masses of fish, but the odd larger fish would scuttle past right next to us, coming from behind to give us a scare! The one problem we had was that because we were close to the shelf, and our instructor was leading, the viz suffered somewhat. I could have gone and swam side by side further forward but I was making sure I stayed right next to my buddy Emma in case either of us had a problem. This proved a good tactic as at this point I followed her to the surface after she had a problem with her mask and wasn't happy with her regulator. After some discussion on the surface, all three of us then swam back to the entry point on our backs at the surface.
That swim back was knackering! We had no idea how far we'd swam around! After getting back to the entry point, totally worn out, we headed back to the van and de-kitted once more. It was hand shakes all round, more soup and then getting back in to our civvies to head home.
All in all, a great experience. And I was totally made up with all the kit i'd gone out on a limb and bought. It's club night tonight, so it'll be time to hassly our instructor once more to get us in the water this Saturday too! Will let you know how we get on...
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Well last Saturday was my first open water dive! When I say dive, it was one dip to complete open water lesson 1 (BSAC OD) and another to have a swim round and have some fun!
We went to a quarry called Eccleston Delph which is North West of Manchester. A gang of us went up from the club, myself and another trainee, Emma, and some other qualified divers. On arrival we had to register with the centre as trainees, and fill out the application forms etc. Then it was to the car park to get kitted up! It wasn't the warmest of days, but we (the trainees!) were that excited about getting in the water it didn't bother us that much, so, it was on with the weezle and straight in to the dry suit. We then assembled all our gear and wandered down to the waters edge, grinning ear to ear... After hooding/gloving up, and fitting fins, we slowly wandered in to the water. The first thing i noticed was that you didn't feel the temperature of the water at all, so far so good. Then we got in as far as our necks and the water slowly seeped in to our hoods and gloves... Brrrrr! It was bloody freezing! But, surprisingly we became acustomed to the cold within a few moments... After the OK's on the surface, we headed down into open water for the first time...
Trout. I always thought fish were timid animals. No so in the 'delph'!! A mass of HUGE (and I WAS accounting for the magnification factor of the mask!) blinkin trout were upon us in moments! Golden, Rainbow, Brown... Lots of different colours, I didn't even know you could get silver/golden trout! After messing with our buoyancy and getting used to being deeper than 7ft for the first time, we slowly drifted down to the side in about 5M. Was strange how dark it got, though we were kicking up the bottom a fair bit trying to get our bearings and bouyancy spot on. Looking up was even stranger, seeing the light filtering down, with the shadows of the huge fish passing over you! Anyway, we had a swim around and heading along the side to a gravel bottom in the shallows. Here we did a few skills, inversion recovery, suit d/f removal and refit, AAS, and then the dreaded mask clear... We were now used to the cold somewhat, but when you take your mask of - jeez! It stops your breathing dead in you tracks! After relaxing a few moments, and after struggling with the first few breaths, we both completed the clearing. After that we headed back to the slip, and jettisoned are weight belts in standing depth to complete the first set of tasks (I know some of you don't agree with that but it's on the syllabus!).
At this point my face is aching from smiling & laughing so much (both on the surface and underwater!). After getting back to the van and de-kitting, it was straight on the phone to all my mates, including my friends who are on the OD course with me but don't have their dry suits yet... It was fantastic, the best thing i've done in years! I put a bit of air in the suit and was lovely and warm on the surface, no problems with cold at all, which I was very happy about. After a brief surface interval, which included a tin of hot soup each, we kitted up and headed back in.
This time it was a proper swim round, at a depth between 3 & 5.5M. We went round half the lake, learning bouyancy and getting used to the environment. We stopped at the far side where a telegraph pole marks a little beach-buggy type car in the bottom and had a poke round. We didn't see masses of fish, but the odd larger fish would scuttle past right next to us, coming from behind to give us a scare! The one problem we had was that because we were close to the shelf, and our instructor was leading, the viz suffered somewhat. I could have gone and swam side by side further forward but I was making sure I stayed right next to my buddy Emma in case either of us had a problem. This proved a good tactic as at this point I followed her to the surface after she had a problem with her mask and wasn't happy with her regulator. After some discussion on the surface, all three of us then swam back to the entry point on our backs at the surface.
That swim back was knackering! We had no idea how far we'd swam around! After getting back to the entry point, totally worn out, we headed back to the van and de-kitted once more. It was hand shakes all round, more soup and then getting back in to our civvies to head home.
All in all, a great experience. And I was totally made up with all the kit i'd gone out on a limb and bought. It's club night tonight, so it'll be time to hassly our instructor once more to get us in the water this Saturday too! Will let you know how we get on...
