Aquaholic\’s Diving Antics

Agreed to act as instructor for Yorkshire Regional Advance Diver Course back in February (must be daft). Due to illness of the majority of instructors the course had to be postphoned (phfffuuu) and I ended up taking two trainees for their assessment dives in Stoney Cove. Decided to take my KISS along as I am currently out of twinsets and the 12s are full of trimix.

Kath came along for the ride to have a dive in her drysuit and to keep me awake on the drive down. A couple of YDers (Andy - Ahar and Andy - Weaslez) meet up with us onsite to ‘babysit’ Kath. Her report is on YD - see here -

http://www.yorkshire-divers.com/forums/ recent-trip-reports/34494-first-wetting-report.html

Prepared the unit the day before to find that all three batteries in the O2 displays were dead. Took the displays appart, changed batteries and had trouble putting the backs back onto the casings… the orings kept sliping out of the grooves.. When I finally manged to close everything up again the Orings ‘looked’ to sit just fine. So finger crossed I drove to Stoney on the sunday.

Once on site, fully assembled and tested the unit. All seemed well. New displays had held their calibration overnight, backlights were working and all looked set to go.

Off we went for our dive. Jumped in from the busstop, surface swim to the start of the pit. Then down to 20m where the pole is reaching to 6m from the bottom. Kept checking displays.. seem a bit slow to respond, but were working. Trainees did their mask clearing (brrr, rather them than me..). Checked displays again.. two of them were now fluctuating between showing propper ppO2 and dancing digits. One worked fine.. hmmm. Trainees commenced CBL to 6m. Beautifully executed and controlled. Stop, separte and back down. (I do hate these BSAC multiple ascent assessments and drills - always fly into the face of everyhing I normally teach.)
Now the two displays were just dancing merrily. One still steady and reading what it should. Bummer, oh well - one ascent to do, so might as well. AAS assent to 6m.
Another beautifully controlled ascent. All happy. Safety Stop at 6m. Then ascent to surface for AV & Tow. Well done again.. wish it was always this easy. Swim back to shallows, finished off weight ditching drills, then out.

Back at car checked the offending displays - could see water swishing about inside the two faulty boxes - bummer. But at least the lights were still on and the displays showed somthing, so were still working. Screwdriver out, open up backs and use tissues to dry off the water.
Left the unit in the car to dry out. Borrowed Kath’s OC kit to finish of the second dive, as she was too cold to even consider going back in (lucky for me). Ahar tagged along for the dive wih us.

Brrr.. diving OC is much colder than CCR - my teeth hurt with the cold air coming out of the reg, when they didn’t on the first dive. Haven’t been on OC for over 18 months.

Completed the second assessmet dive. Full marks again. Well done, Jo! Swam at 6m back to the shallows instead of just hanging around for the stop. Then out.
Went for debrief and a warmup hot chocolate to the pub than back home. What a day!