:Gledder\’s diving blog…

Friday morning found me at the station picking up Daniel (Galobeast) and driving to Vobster to meet Diane for a couple of dives.

Daniel, who is from Brazil, was very excited to see it begin to snow as we kitted up for the first dive. I can’t say I shared his enthusiasm. We just pootled about, practiced a few gentle ascents so Di could get comfortable - very nice. Daniel thumbed the dive as he was cold - I found out later on the surface that he was diving in just a 200 gramme fleece

After much choccy on the surface and an achingly funny session where Di compared me to Eva Braun (ve ave vays of getting you into ze trim!) we headed back in for another dive. Di did an excellent shutdown and Daniel and I had a bit of fun throwing some stages about until our hands were so cold we couldn’t feel the clips anymore.

Fun day.

Saturday morning I really didn’t want to get out of bed. But I was expecting Janos at 6:45 am so struggled out and got the extra kit that I would need after the day before into the car. It was chuffing freezing! To say I was non too pleased when I found he was running late and I could have had an extra hour in bed would not be an exaggeration!

Getting to Vobster it was great to see DJL, as well as Al and all the boys on the DIR F course.

After a few weeks (well months if I’m honest) of ignoring skills a bit, Al and I were determined to get some done today. First dive though I was going to try to get more comfortable on the Gavin - which I’ve not been very happy with since I got it.

We scootered out round the quarry without stages. Al had added a bit of weight to mine and whilst it was easier to manage in the water it was clearly too heavy as it went negative below 10 meters and I stopped and gave it the last rites as it settled on the bottom Much more comfortable though - unlike my shutdown drill which frankly sucked. Far too slow and a real struggle to reach the left post in the new (but really warm) undersuit.

Second dive was three stages each and an attempt to start finding our way round the switching drill we need to get sorted. I have to say scootering out to the 12 meter platform I felt like an aircraft carrier with the gavin and the stages… Woe betide any OW diver I came across in the vis - I may take a while to stop

The valve drills went better this time, but the stage switching was horrid, and I was again unable to unclip my pressure gauge when the leash is in place. Talking to RichW on the surface my leash is too long and my hip D ring may need repositioning further back for multiple stages. All food for thought next time I suppose. Scootering back we saw SoB and his mates - even if he couldn’t tell who was who!

It really was warmer in the water (5 degrees) than on the surface so we got back in again. Janos joined us on dive 3 so Al and I decided to swim the stages around. Shutdowns were a bit easier still so mustn’t let the practice slip again - every dive until we are Mexico bound methinks.

All in all another good day. But all the nicer that this morning I got to stay in bed in the warm!

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The day started when I arrived at Stoney, met Al, and parked the car in the bottom car park without having to use the reserved space. that’s what you get when you tell people that Andy Kerslake is coming - space at 8am in Stoney on a Sunday

We then headed off to Willowmead for breakfast. I don’t think Frank was too impressed when we left him in the car park saying ’see you later when we’ve had a full english fry up’ Infact, he swore he would have his revenge on us

Al

Back at Stoney we kitted up and met up with Justin and Mal. Dive 1 went ahead without any problems (apart from Mal’s aforementioned torch) We agreed a thirty minute bottom time - S drills, valve drills (oops - sorry - wrong order) and we then set off for the Stanegarth with Mal in the lead. Al had a fixable valve failure on the way - no problems dealing with that and then, as Mal said, a few simulated failures on the boat led to my thumbing the dive early but all involved coped with the ascent well (two out of air, one DSMB deployment failure) as described.

Whilst Al went off to play scooters with Pete, Dive 2 for me was with John Kendall, Mark, David Martin and Rachael, to put up the snowman. Hopefully some underwater photos of this will emerge eventually I know Mark got some good ones. But it was a laugh.

Dive 3 was to be rescue skills with Kerslake and Frank again. Dropped in told to do valve drills and s drills first. I was number two so launched in to my valve drill when requested. Shut off 1st post, breathed it down, clipped it off, switched it back on. Isolated etc., Left post off, breathe it down, switched back to primary. NO AIR! Switch to back up - NO AIR! Hmm…

I simply have no idea what is going on. I go OOA to Al and once on his long hose signal WTF? He indicates by use of some *choice* signals that Frank has been playing around. He fires up my right post and I flow check to assure myself that all is well.

So what happened? Essentially I turned off my right post, but whilst I was breathing it down and clipping it off, Frank turned it on again. This means that when I returned to it and turned it ‘on’ I was actually turning it off again. Neat trick Mr Bruce - teach me to think about what I am doing in future.

We then do some toxing diver and unconscious diver lifts. When Al comes towards me for the toxing diver lift I cross myself as when he tried it on Tech 1 I almost drowned Much, much better this time - for both of us and we certainly feel that we have a sound enough basis to permit further practice now.

A bit of stage juggling next. Justin and I pass the stages between us quite quickly and wait for Al and Mal to do the same. I’m chilling out (literally) when two eyes appear upside in front of my mask - Kerslake has got bored and whilst lying on top of me - has ducked his head down to give me a fright! Funniest thing is that I discuss this with Justin yesterday and he was of the view that Al had passed him the stages - that’s what we get for matching drysuits then

I’m so cold that I appear to be toxing myself (shivering so much it is visible) so Frank orders me out of the water. But all in all a fun day - and I hope everyone else has as good a time as me

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