Dry dive November 11th at the London Diving Chamber



What a great time we had in the London Diving Chamber last night.

I met up with Helen, Jon and Marcel to do a 50 meter dry dive.

I now have 5 Instructor Specialities to be able to teach

I finally managed to gain 5 speciality instructor courses now that I'm able to teach, all I need now is to get some people to do the courses and then I can become a Master Scuba Diver Trainer Instructor (MSDT). So please I need some students (Victims) to practice on.




What speciality Instructor courses can I teach:-

Drysuit
Enriched Air (Nitrox)
Night Diver
Emergency Oxygen Provider
Boat Diver
Along with being a Open Water Scuba Instructor I can also do Peak Performance Buoyancy

Drysuit Speciality Instructor Course

Well another Instructor Speciality down and plenty more to go. Last night it was the turn of Drysuit Speciality Instructor.

Yet more fun was had in the pool with our drysuits on being spun around making sure that you are able to dump air from the suit should all the air end up in the feet of the suit.

Along with the usual hoovering and fin pivots both using the drysuit inflator hose and your BCD. The some kick and glide around the pool.

Can an SMB be to BIG?

 Sometimes you have to ask yourself how big do you need have your SMB(Surface Marker Buoy), well I've recently managed to get my hands on a 3meter (10 feet in old money) red smb with it's own cylinder that is used to inflate it.

Well as we was at holborough on sunday it just had to be done, we we sat doing a safety stop I passed the camera to George and out came the SMB, some people have called it a lift bag but I know it's an SMB.

I opened it up and slowly open the valve to allow som air

into the SMB, making sure I was holding the reel in the other hand and with my finger on the release button the SMB rocketed to the surface. We slowly surfaced to be greeted with all the comments form people about the size of the SMB.

However 3 meters is just right when you are doing dives at sea this gives the skipper a great view if where you are, and in large swells just makes it safer for yourself. The only problem is don't get caught up in it otherwise you'll  be rocketing to the surface with it and then you could be having a trip to the chamber in a helicopter.  

Hoborough Lake 7th November 2010

 We decided to visit Holborough Lake at Snodland in Kent on sunday, with a couple of goals, one was for George to test his drysuit after it's come back after repair and for myself to have another play with the Canon 500D dSLR and the Sea & Sea housing.

The weather was overcast and and slight wind blowing over the lake making it a little chilli. We signed in and left the cylinders to be filled.
We started to kit up it was then George noticed he'd left his BCD at home, not a great problem as you can hire them from Holborough at a reasonable price of £5 per day. The got the cylinders back and finished off kitting up and checking the equipment.

Next for me was the camera setup I'd done most of this at home so it was just a matter of doing the last few bits, checking the strobe was working making sure the lense was clean and clear of bits of dirt. A took a quick couple of photo's to make sure everything was working.

We planned to do 2 dives today, as George had never dived here before, Holborough is a great training with plenty of attractions for you to swim around and also lines run between all the items making it good for newly quialified divers to find there way around whilst having a good dive. For a inland lake the visability has always been a good 8-10m making it good for taking pictures.

 DIVE 1:For me dive 1 was all about taking some pictures making sure I could use the camera and get some good photos in the process. For George this was a checkout dive making sure his drysuit kept him dry. We headed out from the slipway following the lines to the platform , then onto the Sweet Mystery which is a large 30 foot wooden wreck in about 8meters of water. George decided to try hiding  however I found him.We left the wreck following another line this took us past a small tyre and onto a platform in 10meters of water. Onwards to the car half car in the side of the lake and then onto the old 100cc motorbike, we continued down the ropes and then turned back which brings you back onto a small rowing boat. Which we could see from at least 15+ meters. 

We started to head for the speedboat where the visability was still 10+ meters. Which made for some great photographs, one with George looking ratehr vertically challanged but nothing new there.

We then headed back out to the slip way and exited the water. on checking the dive computers we had just completed a 45 minute dive with a maximum depth of 10.1m
DIVE 2:This dive was only going to be a short one I was going to show George were the Gargoils was, I set the camera to video mode, and in we went to get them.

This was a simalar route out past the platform with the upside down bomb next to it onto the Sweet Mystery Wreck, but this time we went over it onto the raised platform and to another small speed boat. This fetched us to a large tractor tyre which always seems to have some large perch swiming around it. We then found ourself onto the mould where the Gargoils are the visability was amazing, shortly after the camera said memory card full. Somehow you can't change them under water. We followed the route back and exited via the slip way again. This dive was a maximum of 8 meters and only 25 minutes.

HSE Medical Passed for another Year

We'll got myself over to the HSE Doctor yesterday for the yearly medical that all diving professionals need within the UK.

Good news is that I'm clear for another year.

London Diving Chamber 50m Dry dive

Well a few of us made it to the London Dive Chamber last night to complete a 40m dry dive, however after a couple of people not turning up this all changed to a 50m dive. Got to say thanks to the guys that didn't turn up the rest of us enjoyed it even more.

Having never been in a hyperbaric chamber before I thought it would be a good idea to go have a look at one, the good people of the London Diving Chamber http://londondivingchamber.co.uk/ offer this for a small fee



Anyway on the list was Lindsey, Chantelle, Angela, Elwyn, Vicki and myelf(Paul). We paid our money and got changed into our jim jams ready to get into the chamber. We was asked to complete a simple test on the surface which would be repeated at 50m to check how we was effected by narcosis. After a briefing about the chamber and also about the dive, we all climbed inside and the doors was shut behind us.


Even though this wasn't a real dive with regards to kitting up and getting wet this was going to be a first for alot of the group including myself down to 50m.
As we started to descend the chamber started tp warm up and we was soon at 15m we had a quick check to make sure that everyone was OK and then it was down even deeper we was soon at 30m , and then it started Chantelle couldn't controll her laughing so we worked out that she was NARKED already and we was only just over half way down. We soon was at 40m and onwards to 50m. After about 5minutes we was down at 50m, we was given a sheet of paper which had some wording on in a set time we had to circle as many L's as possible.

Well this sent certain people over the edge, like Vicki's pen not working at 50m. We started to ascend with the first stop at 12m for 2 minutes then 9m for 6 minutes, followed by 6m for 28 minutes.

After getting to the surface we all completed our logbooks and checked our dive computers mine read 50.2m.

Result for the narcosis test well I scored 25 on the surface and 25 on the bottom.

Where Next ?

Well after completing my PADi Open Water Scuba Instructor Exam in about 10 days I'll be allowed to teach students for the first time.

The next thing I'm looking at is being able to teach some specialities.

PADi Instructor Exam

The Instructor Exams are being held in Bristol and at Vobster on the 2nd and 3rd of October 2010. The group from Blue Ocean will be travelling down on the friday and staying over night ready for the start at 7.30am.




Day 1

Meet up and get a breifing from PADi staff regarding the flow of the weekend

Standards Exam50 questions from the PADi standards this is an open book exam lasting 1.5 hours

5 Core Exams

12 questions on each topic closed book

Physics

Physiology
Equipment
Recreatational Dive Planning
Enviorment

Knowledge Development Presentation:
OWD Manual, Knowledge Review Chapter 5 question 6 eRDP ML

Q. What is the minimum surface interval required between a dive to 18 meters for 40 minutes followed by a dive to 14meters for 60 minutes.

A. 28 minutes


Skills Circuit: Jon was the lucky man to pick the skills circuit that we had to do, we later found that it didn't matter which one he picked they was all the same.

1. Weight Belt removal at the surface
2. Alternative Air Source Use
3. Hoover
4. Mask removal and Replace

5. Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA)

Teaching in confined water:

Skill: Neutral Buoyancy Underwater (Power Inflation) OWD Course Dive 2

Day2

Teching in Open Water

Skill 1: Alternate Air Source Stationary OWD Course Dive 2

Skill 2: Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA) OWD Course Dive Flexible Skill


Rescue Assesment
These are two very long days and you feel drained after you have completed after the exams you get some time to prepare the classroom presentation, then a short break and into the pool for the skills circuit followed by your confined water presentation. Is required the following:

BREIFING
DEMOSTRATION
STUDENTS DEMO
DE-BREIFING


You are then free to leave and relax that evening ready for day two. If you have failed any exams from the Core Exams then you can resit them in the morning, I'm glad to say that I didn't need to resit any part of the IE.

Finally I was given this

On with the PADi IDC

I've now started my PADi IDC (Instructor Development Course) with Blue Ocean Diving , the first 2 days are all classroom based, going through all the PADi standards and understanding how modules and courses are taught.

Tonight is the first pool session watching a presentation to get the feeling and know how it's done.

4th/5th September was a full on more classrom room presentations with my second classroom presentation of the "5 pieces of specialized equipment used for deep diving. After 6 -7 minutes of my talk I was told that I'd achieved the pass rate however I'd managed to get a 4.0, a 3.6 being the minimum pass mark.

The evening session (saturday) was to confined water presentation the first being partial mask flood, and fin pivot using low pressure inflator. Sunday's session was regulator recovery, the second skill was remove and replace scuba unit in water to deep to reach the surface.

Well another pool session last night thought I'd got away without doing another demo from the confined open water, wrong as Justin had man flew I ended up doing "Air from an alternate source I happy with the result I managed a 4.6 even that I got a couple of things wrong. So overall a great result and the marks are going in the right direction upwards.

The IDC is a massive learning curve and you have to be committed to it as you could get anything from any of the padi courses, meaning lots of reading, more revision and more practice.

Passed the EFR Instructor Course

Managed to pass the EFR Instructor course, and it wasn't as bad as what I believed it was going to be. Top marks have got to go to Ryby (Blue Ocean Diving) for keeping it entertaining and fun as it's not the best subject in the world.

The road ahead

As my journey to become a PADi Scuba Instructor the time is fast arriving for me to complete my EFR Instructor course.

I can remember falling asleep to the EFR dvd over a year ago, so it's going to be an early night on the thursday and then some large vodka's when I've completed it.

Completion I'll have to pay them £80 for a shinny new EFR Instructor card.

Eastbourne Airshow

After the Alunia dive we headed back into bay at Eastbourne to watch the Airshow as we had plans to dive the Oceana later that afternoon.

This was a great way to let the time go by while waiting for the next dive
All to soon we headed back out to sea for the second dive of the day the Oceana, unfortunately I didn't have enough gas for this dive so I sat it out along with George.

Alunia out of Eastbourne

On sunday the 15th August George arranged for some of the members of UK DiveBuddy to dive the wreck of the Alunia about 10 miles out from Eastbourne.

We all met up at Eastbourne Marina at 8.00am ready to board our boat for the day "SUSSEX". George and myself was joined by Tony, Mark, Cel and Dieago.

Wind could have been better however we gave it a go and headed to the lock, and then the 10 mile trip out to the Alunia.

The Alunia is one of the largest ship wrecks on the Sussex coast approximately 532 feet and standing about 6-8m up from the sea bed and lying in 30m of water. As we all kitted up and checked our gear the usual banter started .

This was Cel and Dieago's first real UK wreck dive, so we buddied up George and Dieago with Cel and myself this left Tony and Mark to do there own thing. The skipper lined up and the first 2 divers went in and down the shot line, the 4 of us had aggreed to go last in giving everyone else a chance to get clear as we knew there could be possible problems with Cel never being deeper than 18m's. It was our time to get into the water as we stepped off the lift one by one into the water. We gathered at the top of the bouy and prepared to desend down the shot line, Dieago and George went first then Cel and myself followed slowly, we got to about 12m and Cel just needed a few seconds to settle himself then down the shot line again we went. we had soon reached 20m so I stopped and shock Cel's hand he'd already been deeper than ever before, this also had the effect of taking his mind of how deep we was, we looked down and could see the dark mass of the wreck below. We reached the wreck the visibility was around 5-8m's the torches was switched on as we started to peer through the hull, George managed to spot a huge conger in one of the holes, the hull had hundreds of small pouting and the occasional pollock swimming by.

Cel followed me to the seabed where eh managed just under 27m of depth again this was another personal best for him. We continued to explore the hull however all to soon our time was up and we had to start back to the surface. I signalled George to send up his SMB passing me the reel he inflated the SMB and off it rocketed to the surface. I then inflated mine and another SMB missled to the surface we split into our buddy pairs andslowly ascended to the surface.

The boat came round and Cel got on the lift first, then follwoed by myself Dieago and George had already been picked up, as we dekitted the boat manouvored around to pick up Mark and Tony. Soon we was all safe on the boat , with Cel having completed his first wreck dive and achieved 27m also.

Aeolian Sky Wreck Dive

George and myself joined some of the usual Wraysbury divers for a trip on TANGO out of Weymouth for 2 dives the first being a dive on a Greek Container ship Aeolian Sky that was damaged in a storm around 20 years ago and the second dive would be a drift over a scallop bed.

George picked me up a silly o'clock (around 5.00am) for the 3hour journey down to Weymouth, well as for kit it was the usual twin 12's filled with 28% nitrox and a seperate 7Ltr pony with 50% nitrox, for the second dive I had just a singlw 12Ltr with 32% nitorx.

We arrived at the boat and loaded all the dive gear onto we was the first to arrive.
Finally everyone had turned up all the kit was loaded aboard and the engines was soon started and the mooring ropes was released and we started down the channel. The trip out was going to be about 2 hours so we had plenty of time to setup and check the kit. George and myself was going to buddy up together as we are regular dive buddies anyway.

We arrived at the wreck and Phil the skipper throw in the shotline, we arranged ourselves in order to go into the sea George and myself we the second group to go.

Phil brought the boat around and George and myself lined up to jump into the water, then splash we was in we swam over to the shotline. One quick last check and we started to follow the shotline down to what was the accomodation block on the wreck. Phil had managed to get it spot on we was at 18m. We dropped over the side of the accomodation block and onto the lower part of the wreck which was around 28-30m,

George was already looking for eating crabs or lobster, he;d already missed a lobster. As we continues to look at wreck we both saw the mother of all lobsters, what went through my mind was I was going to need a bigger bag to put it it, however this lobster was having none of it and then decided it would chase us, so we let it off.

After 30 minutes on the bottom it was time to ascend we moved up to around 25m and George sent up his SMB, we did a deep stop at 21m for a minute this allowed me to swap onto my 50% deco cylinder and then made a nice slow ascent upto 6m where our final safety stop for 5minutes.

Once on the surface Phil brought the boat around and George got on the lift first then I was on next, that was dive one completed.

Once everyone was on the boat we headed back in to Weymouth so we could do the Scallop dive, which was only going to be around 30 minutes. Phil provided us all with hot cross buns and more tea's and coffee's.

After nearly 2 hours we were ready for the second dive a few people decided not to dive however this didn't stop George and myself, so in we went again this time straight to the bottom and start looking for scallops, they was all around us and we managed to get around 50 between us.

Once back onboard we started to sort them out with all the undersize one going back into the sea, we ended up sharing about 40 between us.

We moored up again unloaded all the dive gear and went round for a drink in the local pub, then after we had fish and chips on the quayside

Night Diver Course

 Well I wanted to do my PADi Night Diver Speciality and found a local club down in Eastbourne that could do this. After speaking to them they told me it could be done over 2 nights in the Marina, which was good for me as it was on the way home so I could take my dive gear to work and then straight to the dive centre to do the diving.

The Instructor Dee went through all the classroom items first and I'd already completed the the reviews.

The first dive would just be for 20 minutes and this would be the navigation part of the course, which was good as I'd dives the marina a few times and had also already completed my PADi Underwater Navigation Speciality.

As we spent a bit longer on the first dive we didn't have time to complete the second dive that night. This wasn't a problem as we always had next week.

The next week we met a little earlier so we could get the two remaining dives completed, we all kitted up and got into the marina as we descended into the darkness I led the way out, we would then stop and switch off the torches and alllow our eyes to adjust to the darkness, it's amazing how much light there is and to what you can see, the silver flecks of the small fish.

Dive 3 was really just putting it all together and we completed the dive apart from my torch decided go pop and I had to switch to the backup one .

Anyway another speciality completed.

Padi Rescue Diver

The PADi Rescue diver course is the last of the non professional courses, one of the great things with this course it prepares you to being a better dive buddy. As you become more aware of what is going on around you.

Anyway back to the course, this was done with Maidstone Scuba, the course is broken down into 3 segments, the first being a classroom based which as usuall was done in the corperate headquarters better known has the kitchen in John's house, beware of the dog also as it has a tendancy to want to shag your leg from time to time.  I was glad I'd watched the PADi Rescue Diver DVD and also a glance at the course book and completed the reviews. Well the classroom part was rushed and then onto the exam , then marked all passed.

The second part was set in the pool where we would go through all the scenarios, which included saving a tired diver, paniced diver, onto the three different types of diver tow's. The next part was to get the diver from the bottom of the pool, we then practiced a search pattern. It was then onto how to get the diver out of the water and also how to de-kit them.

The final part was at Wraysbury where we would be given some scenario's and had to complete them, my first was the paniced diver, however the second was the missing diver, we had to go down onto a container which was the last place they was seen and then find them, both Steve and myself descended we got down to the container at around 8m we then found our missing divers playing naughts and crosses I ended up with Tracy and Steve got Ray. I started to find her Inflator hose and then slowly brought her to the surface and then towed her to the slipway which was around 50m. We had to dekit her and then lift her out which was easy as she's only small.

That was really all there was to the Rescue course and I passed as a Rescue diver

EFR Course

Again George and myself was on this course, we had to travel upto Maidstone one evening to complete this Martin would be running it and was being helped by John's son. Martin went through all the reviews and then showed us the oxygen and and also the defib.

It was on with the roll play where we had to deal with different problems, however when it came to applying a bandage to John's son feet I just wouldn't go there they looked like they hadn't seen water in weeks.

We completed the exam and all passed it

Advanced Open Water Diver

George was also on this course, the Advanced Open Water has 5 parts to it of which 2 are compulsory (Deep & Navigation).
We was going to complete the first two dive at Wraysbury then the last three at Guildenborough the next day.

The first dive was Peak Performance Bouyancy which was basically swim out to a bouy descend down to a platform, hoover and then swim around the platform in a neutrally bouyant, then it was out dive completed. Second dive was navigation, which included walking around the carpark with a towel on your head whilst using a compass to walk a square, the next part was back into the water swim out to a container and descend then in buddy pairs we had to navigate a square underwater and return to the container, George and myself set off and made it back with no problem at all, then it was swim out on a bearing and turn 180 degreesand return from where you started. Lastly we swam back to the exit point which was the natural navigation part.

Day 2 at Guildenborough, George picked me up at about 6.00am as we had a 3 hour drive up there, when we arrived, we met up with the group and was given the days plan, dive 1 deep dive, dive 2 wreck and then dive 3 fish aware.

George and myself went for a coffee and a bite to eat, we both noticed that the staff at Gildenborough hate divers don't want your business and are more arsed over the ducks and geese. WE HAVE NEVER BEEN BACK.We kitted up ready for dive 1 "The Deep " the plan was to swim out to a bouy descend down the line and onto the top of a container, then we would write our name backwards and they would time it and see how much difference there was from when we did it at the surface. The would also demonstrate how the different colours are affected by depth. We made it down to the container when I looked at my dive computer it was saying only 16.5m after a few minutes we all dopped off the side to get the 18m requirement, however as it was a large group by time the first lot was coming up as we was descending onto them, finally managed 18.1m for around a second or two before it was back onto the top of the container and then swim back to the shore and get out.

We had a break for a bit before it was time to do Dive 2 "The Wreck" this time we was to descend down in 2's and when we got to the wreck we was to measure it and draw on a slate the position it was on the bottom, the ascend to the surface and out the water well that was the plan. However George and myself was last ones down we had managed to drift off as there was a strong surface wind which meant that we ended up an another platform at 19m, we didn't have either a divemaster or instructor with us and no one seemed to notice we was missing either, George and myself made sure we was OK and then signalled to go upto the surface at 5m we did a 3 minute safety stop and then swam to the exit point. None of the instructors seemed bothered that we hadn't seen the wreck which was a bus.

The last dive "Fish Aware" , again we was told just togo for a dive around the sides and see what fish we could see note it down and then come back and tell the instructor job done. This was a total joke as the visability was less than 1m and you couldn't hardly see your buddy never mind any fish. We got out and we was all told well done your now Advanced Open Water Divers.

To be honest the Advanced Open Water with Maidstone Scuba was a total joke I didn't benefit from any of it I felt like it was a con to get more money out of you.

1st Real Boat Dive

It seemed to take ages for wednesday to arrive, ever to slowly did that clock turn, then at 12.00 o'clock we set off to Keri and the boat.

When we arrived at the dive center only a few had turned up so we had a drink and waited , then we started getting the kit ready to be packed into the van for a short trip to the quayside and then unloaded onto the boat.

We walked down the quayside to the boat in the baking heat, I then found out that everyone mucks into get the equipment unloaded onto the boat. After about 15 minutes this was completed and the boat headed out from the quay. The water was clear blue and you could see down to the bottom.

The boat moved up a gear and headed over to Keri Caves, I'd been there a few years ago on sight seeing tour, but never in the water. About 40 minutes later we slowed down and anchored the boat, as I was the least experienced diver onboard we was going off last letting all the other divers go off first,Sabina told everyone that this was a 45 minute dive. I watched as they went off the back of the boat one at a time then disappeared into the blue depths, then it was my time to step off the boat, I placed some air in my BCD and then stepped off, coming up with a mouthful of water, the regulator seemed to be on the small side, however after a couple of minutes we was right to descend, slowly we began to go under, it was amazing it looked to be around 60 feet deep or maybe deeper.