EoR/EoT class, Monterey, Jan 14-16, 2012

Instructors: AG, Elliott and Dave, teammate Doug

Day 1: Buoyancy, trim, propulsion and Basic Six

Dive #1: 36 ft, 82 mins, 51F, current

First day of class. We did some dry run and 1 dive in the PM.  Was told to stay in trim and on the line. First of all, I wasn’t used to that.  Second, the current kept pushing me over the line and I had to keep re-positioning myself.  It was a little chaotic…  Lesson learned: clipping off unused requip, replace mask with one hand, and stay in trim while performing skills.  Homework from AG: practicing clipping by fire with a bottle of wine! 

Day 2: S drills & direct ascent, V drills

Dive #2: 34 ft, 45 mins, 52F

Dive #3: 36 ft, 44 mins, 52F

We did much better staying on the line without the current, and had better environment & team awareness.  Lesson learned: environment awareness, team awareness, light and cord management, using breathing to control ascent and descent, ascending 3 ft per minute which is more difficult than 1 stop at 20 ft and another at 10 ft for me… 

Day 3: SMB Deploys

Dive #4: 34 ft, 68 mins, 51F

AG tucked my teammate’s SPG between his doubles while it was unclipped.   Doug came up to me with wet note “where is my SPG?”  I looked at the D-ring area, no sight of it, shrugged my shoulders (bad… I know…).  He then went up and showed the wet note to Elliott.  Elliott kept signalling him “teammate!”, “teammate!!”, “teammate!!!”  Doug and I both puzzled because we were right by each other.  He got more frustrated trying to find his SPG, and I wasn’t thinking just kept looking at the D-ring area.  Finally I spotted the hose of SPG, and handed it over to him.  We shot the bag, and it was fun.  It took me a couple attempts though, because I didn’t know how to blow my teammate’s SMB (didn’t have my own).  Lesson learned: know your equipment…  Another chaotic dive and this SPG incident will stuck in my head forever! Big lesson learned:  “stop, think (trace it!), and act”, team awareness, and team work! 

We got pushed and beat up quite a bit but we learned and now know where we need to improve.  Overall, it was a lot of fun, and I’m ready to take next class after another 25 dives or so. Thanks for the training, AG, Elliott, and Dave!