Dive 18: Drysuit Specialty
Date: Saturday, May 19, 2007, 10:02 AM
Location: Whytecliff Park, West Vancouver, BC
Visibility: 10-15ft
Temp: 48°F
Depth: 20-57ft
Duration: 0:36
Tank: Al80
Start Pressure: 2860psi
End Pressure: 780psi
Gear: Bare CD4, Aeris Atmos XT, Apollo Bio-Fins Blue, Aeris Elite T3
Weight: 30lbs
Wow, first time getting all my new gear wet! I'd bought most of it in August, but then I got sent to Vegas for work. I've heard that Lake Mead looks a whole lot like the rest of the land around Vegas, only wetter. Not exactly worth the pain and expense of draggin all my gear down there. So, a combination of circumstances led to me not taking my PADI Drysuit Specialty until this weekend.
I signed up for the DS course from Ocean Quest, and I got hooked up with Gary my instructor. It was just the two of us at Whytecliff, but there were a few other classes going on. We went through my knowledge review, and discussed the plan of the skills we were going to practice.
The wether was pretty nasty as we were gearing up, it was alternately spitting then poring down rain. I was very glad to get into the suit, once in I was perfectly comfortable. The CD4 is pretty streamlined on me and I've got good mobility.
Before Gary arrived, and off and on throughout the site briefing and gearing up (throughout the day really), Gary and I became familliar with Prospector Howard and his extended circle of acquaintances. I don't know his real name, but if you've ever seen Treasure of the Sierra Madre, he was a modern-day reincarnation of Walter Hudson's character. Howard had a whole lot to say about a whole range of topics. He often couldn't get a word in edgewise between the rest of what he was saying, and would have to interrupt himself only to pick right back up with what he was saying after his tangent. I guess from lack of companionship, you just save up your words and when you meet fellow explorers they just keep spilling out. When he wasn't talking towards us, he was talking to the bluetooth earset on his phone.
Howard had a bit of a hard-luck story that day, his buddy was caught by the police with no insurance on his pickup, because his wife cancelled it as part of a messy divorce (that's the super-abridged version, can you only imagine the detail to which I know of Howard's friend's marriage?). As a result, howard was without buddy, and looking. Naturally you can't buddy up with a class, and he didn't ask. Prospectors may be quirky, but they're nice folk and know the ropes. He had a lead on a buddy coming in later in the day, so he was just wandering around chatting at people between dives. Anyway I digress.
--
On the dive itself I felt less coordinated than I have ever felt in the water. It wasn't much of a surprise, with everything being brand new to me (and learning to use a drysuit), but I sure felt awkward. My computer wasn't on right, the fins needed tightening, and I think I may have slightly too large boots for my suit. I was mostly concentrating on the mechanics of diving, not the dive itself.
We descended to about 20 feet and levelled off without crashing to the bottom. This was met with some applause. After I told Gary that I'd only had 17 dives under my belt in 12 years, and the last cold-water dive was over 10 months ago, I think he was expecting an Ed Harris landing á la The Abyss:
At the bottom we went through some buoyancy drills. These went well, I've always had pretty decent buoyuancy and the DS didn't affect that much. Actually, he had me perform a fin pivot for a minute, and I was having real trouble with it, I think it was mostly due to the fact that there was a slight curent coming at my broadside, but it just wasn't working for me. I could hover with good trim 2ft off the bottom, but I coudln't do the pivot well. We talked about it afterward and agreed that it was a little backwards, but that since I could hover, that was what mattered.
Gary then had me remove my drysuit inflator hose (whip) and reattach. I had a hell of a time reattaching the whip. It seemed like it took me about 5 minutes, but was probably only 60-90 seconds. It's silly to feel embarrassed about a lack of skill while you're taking the course to learn the skill, but I did feel that way a bit. Gary hovered patiently as I worked out what was going wrong. I told myself to be patient and figure it out.
The issue was mostly due to the rental whip; the catch wouldn't retract if you pulled on one tab, you had you pull simultaneously on both tabs to insert it into the inflator valve (the whip that came with my DS isn't like this). For kicks sometime, you should try pulling backwards on the two tabs while gripping the hose with the palm of a 5mm neoprene glove and pushing it perfectly aligned over the valve stem, which really doesn't have room for all those fingers and neoprene. All while not really being able to see much. Once I figured out I needed to pull both tabs I got it fairly quickly. Gary had me do it again, and this time the process took me about 5 seconds. Hooray for learning!
We swam around a bit and did a couple more fin pivot and hovering tests, then we got to the fun stuff. A common problem in a drysuit is getting too much air trapped in your feet. Since the exhaust valve is either on your shoulder or your forearm like mine, this can be a problem where it's difficult to get upright. Of course if you start to ascend, the air volume is under less pressure and increases, exacerbating the problem and accellerating your ascent. It's not all that uncommon in a drysuit class to see divers cork to the surface with their baloon feet sticking straight up. To prevent this, you learn a variety of techniques to roll out of the feet-up position. Gary demonstrated, then had me face head down and add some air to the suit until I was positively buoyant, then roll out of the position and vent the excess gas. We did this a few times with the various techniques. Finally he had me turn upside-down and held me down, while holding my inflator down until I was very buoyant. He let me go and I started quickly towards the surface. I rolled out of the position and got my cuff dump up so that the gas could vent. I raised about 7 feet or so in total then dropped back down to his level. It was pretty fun, and I got another round of applause for not breaching.
The rest of the dive we puttered around looking at the beautifully sandy bottom in the middle of Whytecliff. Actually there's quite a bit of life even in the mud, but I was mostly concentrating on my gear and keeping my suit inflated. We did a somewhat undulating dive profile to test out my buoyancy, made it down to 57ft acording to my trusty T3, then headed back towards shore. I felt a little light diving with only 30lbs, and near the end of the dive had to keep my suit pretty tight to maintain neutral. When we were ready to ascend from about 20 ft, Gary indicated that we were going to ascend slowly facing each other in a trim, skydive-like position. We stopped and hung at about 6ft for a short time, at this point I had pretty much no air in my suit and it was quite snug. We raised the last few feet and we were topside.
The first thing Gary said was that I was a natural, and that he was impressed at how much better I did than he was expecting. I was a little frustrated overall with the dive, because I felt awkward almost from start to finish, but I knew that was to be expected. I find that I learn quite a bit semi-conciously. It's like my body needs time to think about the skills it's learning, and after coming back to something, I'm better without having practiced in between. So, I figured the second dive would be better.
Overall the dive was productive, I now had some practical experience to tie to the theory I'd been compiling for months (years) about diving dry. We headed back up the path back towards the parking lot for lunch and a surface interval complete with a live rendition of the audiobook Howard's Thoughts.
Location: Whytecliff Park, West Vancouver, BC
Visibility: 10-15ft
Temp: 48°F
Depth: 20-57ft
Duration: 0:36
Tank: Al80
Start Pressure: 2860psi
End Pressure: 780psi
Gear: Bare CD4, Aeris Atmos XT, Apollo Bio-Fins Blue, Aeris Elite T3
Weight: 30lbs
Wow, first time getting all my new gear wet! I'd bought most of it in August, but then I got sent to Vegas for work. I've heard that Lake Mead looks a whole lot like the rest of the land around Vegas, only wetter. Not exactly worth the pain and expense of draggin all my gear down there. So, a combination of circumstances led to me not taking my PADI Drysuit Specialty until this weekend.
I signed up for the DS course from Ocean Quest, and I got hooked up with Gary my instructor. It was just the two of us at Whytecliff, but there were a few other classes going on. We went through my knowledge review, and discussed the plan of the skills we were going to practice.
The wether was pretty nasty as we were gearing up, it was alternately spitting then poring down rain. I was very glad to get into the suit, once in I was perfectly comfortable. The CD4 is pretty streamlined on me and I've got good mobility.
Before Gary arrived, and off and on throughout the site briefing and gearing up (throughout the day really), Gary and I became familliar with Prospector Howard and his extended circle of acquaintances. I don't know his real name, but if you've ever seen Treasure of the Sierra Madre, he was a modern-day reincarnation of Walter Hudson's character. Howard had a whole lot to say about a whole range of topics. He often couldn't get a word in edgewise between the rest of what he was saying, and would have to interrupt himself only to pick right back up with what he was saying after his tangent. I guess from lack of companionship, you just save up your words and when you meet fellow explorers they just keep spilling out. When he wasn't talking towards us, he was talking to the bluetooth earset on his phone.
Howard had a bit of a hard-luck story that day, his buddy was caught by the police with no insurance on his pickup, because his wife cancelled it as part of a messy divorce (that's the super-abridged version, can you only imagine the detail to which I know of Howard's friend's marriage?). As a result, howard was without buddy, and looking. Naturally you can't buddy up with a class, and he didn't ask. Prospectors may be quirky, but they're nice folk and know the ropes. He had a lead on a buddy coming in later in the day, so he was just wandering around chatting at people between dives. Anyway I digress.
--
On the dive itself I felt less coordinated than I have ever felt in the water. It wasn't much of a surprise, with everything being brand new to me (and learning to use a drysuit), but I sure felt awkward. My computer wasn't on right, the fins needed tightening, and I think I may have slightly too large boots for my suit. I was mostly concentrating on the mechanics of diving, not the dive itself.
We descended to about 20 feet and levelled off without crashing to the bottom. This was met with some applause. After I told Gary that I'd only had 17 dives under my belt in 12 years, and the last cold-water dive was over 10 months ago, I think he was expecting an Ed Harris landing á la The Abyss:
At the bottom we went through some buoyancy drills. These went well, I've always had pretty decent buoyuancy and the DS didn't affect that much. Actually, he had me perform a fin pivot for a minute, and I was having real trouble with it, I think it was mostly due to the fact that there was a slight curent coming at my broadside, but it just wasn't working for me. I could hover with good trim 2ft off the bottom, but I coudln't do the pivot well. We talked about it afterward and agreed that it was a little backwards, but that since I could hover, that was what mattered.
Gary then had me remove my drysuit inflator hose (whip) and reattach. I had a hell of a time reattaching the whip. It seemed like it took me about 5 minutes, but was probably only 60-90 seconds. It's silly to feel embarrassed about a lack of skill while you're taking the course to learn the skill, but I did feel that way a bit. Gary hovered patiently as I worked out what was going wrong. I told myself to be patient and figure it out.
The issue was mostly due to the rental whip; the catch wouldn't retract if you pulled on one tab, you had you pull simultaneously on both tabs to insert it into the inflator valve (the whip that came with my DS isn't like this). For kicks sometime, you should try pulling backwards on the two tabs while gripping the hose with the palm of a 5mm neoprene glove and pushing it perfectly aligned over the valve stem, which really doesn't have room for all those fingers and neoprene. All while not really being able to see much. Once I figured out I needed to pull both tabs I got it fairly quickly. Gary had me do it again, and this time the process took me about 5 seconds. Hooray for learning!
We swam around a bit and did a couple more fin pivot and hovering tests, then we got to the fun stuff. A common problem in a drysuit is getting too much air trapped in your feet. Since the exhaust valve is either on your shoulder or your forearm like mine, this can be a problem where it's difficult to get upright. Of course if you start to ascend, the air volume is under less pressure and increases, exacerbating the problem and accellerating your ascent. It's not all that uncommon in a drysuit class to see divers cork to the surface with their baloon feet sticking straight up. To prevent this, you learn a variety of techniques to roll out of the feet-up position. Gary demonstrated, then had me face head down and add some air to the suit until I was positively buoyant, then roll out of the position and vent the excess gas. We did this a few times with the various techniques. Finally he had me turn upside-down and held me down, while holding my inflator down until I was very buoyant. He let me go and I started quickly towards the surface. I rolled out of the position and got my cuff dump up so that the gas could vent. I raised about 7 feet or so in total then dropped back down to his level. It was pretty fun, and I got another round of applause for not breaching.
The rest of the dive we puttered around looking at the beautifully sandy bottom in the middle of Whytecliff. Actually there's quite a bit of life even in the mud, but I was mostly concentrating on my gear and keeping my suit inflated. We did a somewhat undulating dive profile to test out my buoyancy, made it down to 57ft acording to my trusty T3, then headed back towards shore. I felt a little light diving with only 30lbs, and near the end of the dive had to keep my suit pretty tight to maintain neutral. When we were ready to ascend from about 20 ft, Gary indicated that we were going to ascend slowly facing each other in a trim, skydive-like position. We stopped and hung at about 6ft for a short time, at this point I had pretty much no air in my suit and it was quite snug. We raised the last few feet and we were topside.
The first thing Gary said was that I was a natural, and that he was impressed at how much better I did than he was expecting. I was a little frustrated overall with the dive, because I felt awkward almost from start to finish, but I knew that was to be expected. I find that I learn quite a bit semi-conciously. It's like my body needs time to think about the skills it's learning, and after coming back to something, I'm better without having practiced in between. So, I figured the second dive would be better.
Overall the dive was productive, I now had some practical experience to tie to the theory I'd been compiling for months (years) about diving dry. We headed back up the path back towards the parking lot for lunch and a surface interval complete with a live rendition of the audiobook Howard's Thoughts.
posted by Temple at 5:10 PM
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