UTD Trimix 2 (San Diego)

I suppose I should actually put this in the correct place!

Just returned from an awesome class with AG.

Maciek and I took Trimix 1 with Andrew almost 2 years ago now, as we both felt the stepping stone from 1 bottle diving in the 150 range, directly to 3+ bottles at 240+ was too much for us in one go.

In the meantime, we managed to really get out and make good use of our Trimix 1 limits, but were definitely pushing up against them in the last few months.

So it was time to bite the bullet!

Trimix 2 (presuming you already have TMX1) is a very similar format to Trimix1, one day of butt-kicking/drills and (if you dont suck too much) experience dives on the second and third days.

Unfortunately, just before our class, SDUA dive store closed which was supposed to be our source of fills for the weekend. A few phone calls to IB divers ensued, but we basically had to do our best to bring as much gas with us as we could for the weekend.

This resulted in me loading into my (poor) SUV
- 4 sets of doubles
- 9 Al40s
- 5 AL80s
- All the rest of the crud

I definitely had me a low-rider the entire weekend !!

Day 1
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This is the butt-kicking / skills day, where we were hoping not to get sent back to remedial school.

I have always maintained that if you show up on time, with your gear properly rigged and with a decent attitude and at least look somewhat competent, you start off on the right foot, so that's what we attempted to do on day 1.

Until we hit the water of course :)

Well, I guess we weren't *that* bad as AG didn't instantly demand that we drain all the Helium from the next days tanks and go back to La Jolla (although another class we bumped into had to go do two more "night" skills dives for their advanced deco procedures class!!)

I am not going into detail about the skills, but we (roughly) did
- valve and S-drills (modified a little bit due to the presence of a bottom stage)
- bottle passing drills
- ascent drills

We have definitely had finer moments, and I dont think anything I did all day was "video-worthy" except on "america's most horrifying moments"

We definitely learned a lot, among the lessons that 5 and 6 bottle diving is definitely way (way) outside of our capabilities for now :)

We decamped to IB divers for a 3+ hour blending session. IB did a great job (3 sets of doubles, bottom stages + 8 or 9 deco bottles) but had we not brought our own gas, there is simply no way they could have finished the fills.

Finally, Andrew decided that we could actually go diving the next day :)

Day 2
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We did two experience dives, all with a bottom stage + 2 deco bottles (50% and O2) and a scooter.

Dive 1 was approx 200 feet for 20 mins (runtime 75 mins) off of Murray Head, toward La Jolla and back.

After the Dive, Andrew did have a few "refinements" he wished us to make !
- Please try not to scooter into a dead-end Canyon when it's obvious it only gets shallower from then on (Nick)
- Please try not to scooter smack into a wall at full speed. In *30 feet* of visibility! (Maciek)
- Please try to unclip the correct bottle during bottle rotation (Nick) and if you do get the wrong one, dont just look like a cabbage, clip (at least) one bottle back where it belongs and fix the issue! (oops)

So for dive 2, we were determined to get it right(er) and we mostly did !

Second dive was very similar to the first (minus most of the follies) and we did 200 for 20 but going the other direction.

The wall at Murray Head is just awesome. It is covered in Vermilion Rockfish, some kind of white sponge that look very much like the boot-worms I saw in Canada, and huge sheer dropoffs into nothingness. We had 40+ feet of vis on both dives. Simply stunning.

Both dives went off pretty smoothly, and so Andrew felt fine about us going a bit deeper on day 3

Day 3
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We did a single dive, mainly due to time and gas logistics (we actually already had enough dives to complete the class -- this was just a bonus!)

Danny set the yellow boat up just off of Buoy B, on a mark we had made the last time we were here.

The plan was 240 for up to 20 mins (mostly based on amount of deco gas we had and deco we were prepared to do)

We dropped in and took a right. This direction was not the most interesting until we met a huge sheer rock wall face (that I barely avoided scootering into!)

The real treat came when we turned the dive and went back past the point where we had entered the canyon. Huge huge walls. Some vertical, some at 45degree angles, just covered in sponges, gorgeous purple sea-fans. Unbelievable.

All in all, a very worthwhile class that really tries to move the diver beyond a "fixed" way of thinking, and into a much more fluid/thinking way of diving, while also showing us very clearly where our current limits lie but also giving us the tools to slowly work up to bigger diving as we gain experience.

This class was everything I was hoping it would be, and getting another chance to learn from Andrew was invaluable (although maybe not as invaluable as being made to practice with 6 bottles attached to me and seeing how quickly things fell apart!)

Huge thanks to IB divers for the fills, to Andrew and to Danny Howard and the Yellow Boat for taking us out.