NDC Saturday 10th September
I was to provide surface cover for a trimix course and buddy Andy Carroll on an evaluation dive today at the NDC.
Arriving at the NDC from the B&B - I won’t name it as I certainly wouldn’t recommend it - there were even more familiar faces to be seen. SimonA, Reikimaster and Finbar Taylor were with Mark Powell, Andy Carroll was there - with Eleanor his wife to be, and Justin and Neil were already running through their dive plans for the trimix course.
Helping the guys kit up for their first dive made me feel like a divemaster for the first time as there were forgotten bits of kit, hoses and crotchstraps left unattached, weightbelts forgotten etc. Its amazing how the pressure of a course makes people forget things which I have no doubt that they would remember normally but I have always been glad for help when struggling with gear - so happy to return the favour :o)
The planned dive time was just over an hour - so it gave me time to grill Andy on the finer aspects of DOTF - and for him to take the piss and declare that “it’s all bollocks really” over and over again. That phrase was certainly the theme of the day.
When the guys got out, Andy and I returned to the car park and kitted up for a dive with Frank. This was to be a basic skills dive and Andy led it - covering valve drills, s drills, stage swapping and smb deployment.
When Andy did his valve drill I took the opportunity to focus my new torch - and promptly fell foul of the screw in the EKPP reflector which is always incredibly tight - I struggled to undo it a tiny bit as it had stuck again - suddenly it gave way and undid quite a bit and the reflector fell off!
This left me an a tight spot - should I leave Andy to descend the two or so meters to the bottom to retrieve the reflector? No - he was in the middle of his valve drill and my place was rightly to stay put. Given that I was blinding us both with an uncovered 21 watt HID I turned the light off until he finished when I could dip down and retrieve the reflector. Andy had to put it back together for me as the screw was so tight I simply could not budge it - neither of us could focus it though.
Andy ran deco and bagged off on the ascent - when the bag floated back down towards us (Frank was playing tricks) he tried again and it came back down for a second time - Frank had removed the dump cover rendering the bag useless. Given that in a scenario where your bag fails it would be helpful to send up another, I offered to put one up and Andy OK’d this. I suppose it should not have been that much of a surprise when this came floating back down too. Nor is it a surprise that seeing I had mistakenly switched to my backup reg after inflating the bag, Frank pulled an out of air on Andy - so we were ascending with him on my long hose, each holding a bag and a spool which had just enough air in to prevent them from being restowed. Who needs a spare hand on ascent ;o) No real problems though - and I left the water with an Ali 80 having entered it with a 7 - result!
The trimix course guys went back in for dive two and I managed to talk Andy into jumping back in again so I could have a bit more time in the water in preparationg for next weekend. I led the dive and deco, bagging off at 21 without any issues. My torch, having been focused on the surface by Andy was much much better - and will be great for tech 1. My valve drill went much smoother on this dive as well.
A good couple of days out - not much time in the water given that I have spent two days away from home but I certainly learnt a lot from chatting to Frank and Andy.
