First post-Tech 1 dive!

Bob Bailey, Peter and I went out and did Davidson Rock today off our boat. Davidson is a pinnacle in the middle of Rosario Strait, and you can pick your depth -- I believe the bottom is about 180, but I wouldn't know . . . At any rate, our plan was an average of 120 for 30, on 25/25, with O2 deco.

We had PERFECT conditions for the dive -- warm air, no wind, glass-smooth water, and slack which came precisely when I had calculated it would. Viz was excellent (at least 30 feet), and the wall was, as usual, covered with life. In addition, we had some enormous rockfish, as well as schools of small (Puget Sound?) rockfish, and my second ever adult yelloweye (which, despite their name, are bright red). We swam in a leisurely fashion east until just before the end of our planned bottom time, when the current began to pick up again, and we turned back toward the boat.

I called the deco, which ended up being a bit different from the plan, as we had gotten shallower earlier than I expected. Looking at the graph from my X1, I called the average depth pretty much right on, and calculated the correct deco, although we ended up doing a bit more, because anyone on the team can ask for more deco, right?

The gas switch at 20 went smoothly, and we did our time and a five minute ascent, and ended up about 30 or 40 feet from the boat.

Learning points: Still having bandwidth issues. I got my brain full of average depth data and monitoring buddies, and didn't check my gas as much as I should have. I did spot Peter's backup light being on, about 30 seconds, he says, after he turned it on, which is an improvement; but surfacing and going to clip off my reg, and looking it and thinking, "Whoa, I lost the boltsnap off my regulator!" was an example of the kind of braindead behavior my Cave 2 instructor got exasperated with me about. I just need much more time to internalize the concept that there is gas other than backgas . . .

Final learning point: If possible, don't anchor in thick kelp. It makes life, uh . . . interesting.