Essentials of Recreational Diving: May 15 - 17

Friday: Chris and I met at Jeff’s Los Angeles home to do classroom and pool sessions. Another student from Pasadena (Michael L) was already there when Chris and I arrived. So there was one instructor and three students. Nice. We quickly took care of paperwork and started a discussion on weighting. Wet suits and dry suits were discussed as well as aluminum and steel tanks. Of course the topic of weighting was the maximum ditch-able weight what was safe for various configurations. Then we had a very interesting conversation on rock bottom. We talked seriously about reserving 40 cu ft out of an 80 cu rental tank for a 100 foot Cozumel dive. Anyway, it was food for thought.

Next we did dry runs of the kicks on a short wall. I would find that a few more of these dry runs would be needed and I think that these dry runs will also be a good way for me to practice kicks without the overhead of buoyancy and trim to take up too much brain power. This is something that will be evident though out diving. One must manage brain power. There is only so much available for a given moment.

Then we went through equipment setups. Jeff changed the bold snap configuration on my canister light so that I would have both a bold snap on my Goodman handle as well as a double ender on the hose. We put a smaller bolt snap on my long hose. The most important gear issue was the two sets of doubles that I brought with me. I brought both my double steel X7-120’s and my double steel X7-100’s. Jeff took a look at my body type (I am a big guy) and immediately said that the 120’s would be the best bet for me. I was nervous about shore diving with the additional weight of these doubles, so we put the two sets of doubles on a scale to figure out what we were dealing with. The full double 100’s were 90 lbs and the full double 120’s were 105 lbs. I decided to go forward using the double 120’s for the training since it was only an additional 15 lbs (although when you pick them up, it seems like more). Jeff suggested I could dive the 100’s later when I had better control of my trim. Or if I wanted lighter tanks, he suggested selling the 100’s and getting low pressure 85’s.

So we spent about an hour making equipment tweaks before we started dry runs of basic six and air sharing drills. Again I strongly believe that dry runs are an awesome way to be sure a lot of brain power is available to think about what you are doing without distractions.

One of the issues that came up here was the light cord. Jeff mentioned that the method he would teach differs from the GUE practices. That is, Jeff is training us to pass the light cord between our bodies and the long hose so that the light cord does not trap the long cord during an air share. He mentioned something about GUE training this differently, but not having to deal with the light cord trapping the long hose seems the right way to me. We can talk about this later.

Then it was time for the pool work. We geared up and jumped in the pool to practice some skills. The three of us lined up and practiced using breath volume to ascend one or two feet, hold that for a minute and then descending to one foot off the bottom. We did quite a bit of this and it was really fun. We did some frog kicking, modified frog kicking, and some back kicking. Well that was a complete mess. Some of us had some pretty good frog kicks while we were trying to do modified frog kicks, but noe of us had the modified frog kick down. To everyone’s surprise, Chris even got a couple of back kicks right in the pool. Then Jeff demonstrated shooting a bag. I tried it once and got the sequence all screwed up, but I did it one more time and it was pretty good. Anyway the two other guys that were in singles got out and Jeff demonstrated the valve drill for me. Well with a lot of effort I was able to get my right post turn off, breath this down and then switch to the backup. Then I turned my right post back on and checked the regulator before I struck it back in my mouth. This was such a stretch more me that my fingers were cramping up from the exertion. I guess I will be stretch I that is going to be easier.

That was it for the day, so packed up and headed back to the hotel room. It was about 10 PM by the time we got back to the room. And I did not sleep well at all. About 1:30 I finally slipped to sleep and dreamt of frog kicking through narrow corridors. Weird!


Saturday: I needed to be up by 5:30 to get to Redondo Beach by 8:00, but from 4:30 on I was awake staring at the clock waiting for it to say it was time to get up. Chris and I got to the site to find Jeff waiting for us and Michael showed up about have an hour later.

We went in for our first dive and found what I guess is typical for shallow diving at this site: about 5 feet. When we reach 29 feet of depth, Jeff shot a bag and setup a line across the sand for us to line up on. We lined up and faced Jeff as we practiced buoyancy skills by going up a couple feet, holding, and then descending again to 1 foot off the bottom. We did this to 25 feet and then to 20 feet. Buoyancy was pretty easy, but the three of us had a pretty hard time staying lined up. Boy would a back kick help that. Anyway, we then did some kicks, and that went pretty bad. A lot like in the pool. We finished off by going to 20 feet and then doing a six minute ascent. That went pretty well for me until the 8 foot stop and I went to the surface. Then I went vertical and was able to dump air from my dry suit. The placement of the valve in my dry suit does not allow me to dump air unless I am vertical in the water. I went back down and finished the ascent with Jeff. We then made our exit through the surf, but Chris got knocked down. He did just the right thing and stuck a regular in his mouth and crawled out. He did a good job getting out. Nevertheless, never before having done surf entry and exits, he would have nothing more of this site. Jeff made arrangements for us to get a boat ride out to Catalina so that we could have more dives and better conditions.

The second dive was much like the first, only I added more weight. I was diving the double 120’s with no additional weight on the first dive. On this dive I added 4 lbs on a weight belt. This time I did a SADDDDD with my buddy (there was only two of us now). We went out through the surf, did our bubble checks, swam out to the bag and did a nice slow descent. We did more buoyancy drills, made more attempts at proper kicks, and finished up with a six minute ascent. The issue on this ascent was letting the ascent line go out of view. We were in a current and were could have easily kept the ascent line in view at all times if we turned into the current side my side while doing our ascent. This has a lot to do with being aware of the environment. Again, I was not able to hold for the last two stops on the six minute ascent without dumping my suit air at the surface. Jeff suggested that if I cannot dump this air, that I should plan to add this amount of weight to my rig. I planned on just adding Martin’s v-weight for Sunday and seeing how that went.

We dropped our tanks off for fills, went to lunch and reviewed the video. This was all very telling stuff. The most telling thing was that when I found myself grossly out of trim, I naturally tried to extend my fee to flatten myself out to get horizontal in the water. Jeff explained that this will never work, since my extending my feet back, flattening myself out, I am pushing more weight at the end of the fulcrum, dropping my whole lower body, which is exactly opposite of what I am trying to do. Rather, I need to bring my feet closer to my body in order to get horizontal. This was something that went combined with the video of myself I could grab onto a work on.

Since Chris had to work Saturday night from 11 PM to 4 AM, Chris went to sleep while I made a field trip out to Hollywood divers to get a Halcyon 3½ ft SMB. I got back and enjoyed a walk to work out some of the soreness from going up and down 68 steps between the parking lot and the beach with double HP120’s.


Sunday: As I am getting ready to leave in the morning I got email from Chris saying that he has to work until noon, so he would not be able to make it out to Catalina with us. That really sucks, but Jeff said that he would take care of Chris at a later date.

We made our first dive of the day and wow! The stairs go right into the water. We were at low tide and I banged my shins on a boulder going in, but it was amazing. When you stick your face in the water right at the entry point, there is really clear water with amazing wildlife to see. It was like making a boat dive. Well, enough about the conditions. We came here to learn.

We got out to a spot where Jeff shot a bag and tied off to a pipe. We did some kicks and then Jeff had me do some tilts. He had me drop my head and tuck in feet in my rear to bring me over to trim and past. Then I would raise my head and extend my fee to reverse this. It was a great exercise and I think the exercise that will ultimately allow me to find my trim. Later, I would see from the videos that when I thought I was ass up, I was actually in trim. Anyway this will be one of the key things I will be working on in the pool. We did some basic six and that went pretty good. The most important thing that I learned doing the basic size was to continue breathing when doing the skill and to not take a big breath before taking a regulator out of my mouth. This really helps maintain buoyancy when doing these skills. We then did our six minute ascent and this time before we started the ascent, I dumped gas from my suit. Well I was able to hold each and every stop on the six minutes ascent. So, here was a little victory.

Jeff had a talk to me about where I was in the water. I explained that I was having a really difficult time staying in position to the rest of the team. He let me know that this really looked like I was doing my own thing and that it did not look team oriented. He also explained the importance of keeping your line and you buddy in site at all times. The mantra he used was “Line – Buddy - Depth, Line – Buddy - Depth, Line – Buddy - Depth” And that these were the things that I needed to know at all times.

We also did some dry runs of back kicks on the wall. And the required steps started to actually make more sense to me at this point. At least enough to work it slow while at the bottom of a pool.

By this point Michael and I were doing our pre-dive checks and yet, I still banged up my shins again. One other thing happened. My mask broke and I lost a lens. Michael and Jeff did a little work while I got out and rented a mask, came back and met them back at the float. I got back to the float and looked down and there they were. We made another descent and again we practiced kicks and I practiced tilts. I did not realize it at the time, but reviewing the video later, I got a couple of back kick right. Amazing! We did another six minute ascent and I was getting good at this. Nice!

By the third dive for the day, the tide came higher and I figured out to go into the entry point flat footed to avoid getting my shins all banged up. We did a tour with a max depth of 45 feet that led into, guess what, air share drills. Well the first drill went okay fairly well, but the second drill (where I was out of air) went a little off. After the drill was cut I returned the hose to Michael and he put the regulator back in upside down. Well, while this was going one, I was in my own little word finding my own regulator because I missed getting my own regulator squared away before returning his regulator. By the time I figured out what was going on, my buddy was breathing on an upside down regulator for 10 – 15 seconds and he looked really panicked. Here is what I should have done. I should have offered him my regulator. Here is what I actually did. I plucked the regulator out of his mouth, righted it, and then put it back in his mouth so that he could breathed on it. Not really what you want to do with distressed diver. In any case, not following the sequence of the air share delayed and reduced my awareness and caused this to go wrong. Jeff later mentioned that while Essentials is not a critical skills class, we seem to be able to create our own failures.

Next I tried to shoot the bag. Actually shooting the bag went pretty well, put then I tried to decoy captain while managing the bag and I lost control of the slack at 20 feet and ended up with a big mess of line. Michael swam in and Jeff and I descended to 40 feet to try shooting the bag again with him as deco captain while I managed the line. This time it went pretty well. The only thing that I would do differently it to allow a little more slack in the line so that it is easier to wind up.

One the fourth and last dive for the day we sent back to our line, which Jeff pulled down as we descended. We did some basic six and then we did another air share that went bad fast. My buddy handed me a regulator that he did not duck well enough and I put the damn thing in my mouth with about four inches of hose. Well, I thought that the long hose was trapped under his backup, but later from the video it was only trapped behind his head. Instead of settling down and working with my buddy to unwind this, I released the regular and tried to unscrew the hose. While this was going on, we ended up at going from 25 feet to 3 feet in about 5 seconds. This was a good lesson in communicating problems with your buddy before trying to solve them on your own. In any case it could have gone better, and it did the next time we tried doing an air share.

During the wrap up session for the day Jeff pointed out one very important point on this. As you begin spending less brain power on basic issues like trim, buoyancy, propulsion, or how to do a skill, more brain power is available for other things like solving problems or just having more fun on the dive. You can see it on a pie chart, but it really does not make sense until you brain is actually tasked with too much and you mess up because of it.

Another great thing is I have a much better idea on how to do these skills now. And while I can do some of them okay, others are just practice and work from getting better. I can tell you one thing, I had no trouble sleeping that night.