Another 5 PADI adventure dives this weekend to take 5 students to Advanced Diver certification.
Saturday 14th May, 3 dives = Peak Performance Buoyancy, Underwater Navigation and Underwater Naturalist: Sunday 15th May = 2 dives, Deep and Wreck
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| Ready to go at Camp Cove |
Peak Performance Buoyancy starts with a buoyancy check on the surface and removal of 12lb in weight from 2 students (6lb each). There was a strong South Westerly blowing which was carrying us away from the flag so the surface buoyancy checks took some time.We descended and practiced fin pivots and then into a hover. Everyone managed to get a good hover going and then I passed them an extra 3lb weight. They has to take in a larger breath to maintain their hover, some had to adjust their BCD and after they settled into a hover I got them to return the weight to me and again watched them compensate for the weight change.
We then had a swim through some hoops at various heights, where buoyancy, breathing and fin kicking became important to complete the exercise. After that we had another hover session and practiced hovering in unusual positions. Most people had a lot of fun with the upside down hover.
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| Top Deck of the Hoochie Momma |
Underwater Navigation dive briefing covers my favorite mall analogy and some practice on land with the compass. Natural navigation is the biggest part of this for me. Most people think it is working with a compass, which it is in part, but I think the most benefit comes from navigating by the current, light, surge, plants and animals. The dive itself consists of a 30 M swim counting fin kicks and timing. Followed by a 30 M reciprocal navigation and a 15M square navigation using the compass.
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| In between dive surface interval |
Underwater Naturalist dives require that we identify 2 plants, 5 invertebrates and 5 vertebrates. These are usually the most relaxed dies of the day as they require little technical interaction. We have hand signals for plants, vertebrates and invertebrates and we go and explore the ocean. I always mention the importance of not feeding the marine life and can usually demonstrate what happens to Blue gropers when divers feed them- they become very lazy.
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| Elyse and Ryan |
Sunday 15th May took us to Camp Cove to meet the Hoochie Momma for our deep and wreck dive. Because there was a 6M swell outside the heads we went to Chowder Bay for our deep dive. I have never dived here before and we had a whole group of other divers join us for their second day of the advanced course so we had 12 divers in the water in total (including Sam and I). Before the dive I gave everyone a fun size Crunchie bar to take down with them to observe the effect of pressure and colour change on it.
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| Long descent to 30M |
I was the first down the shot line and was surprised at how sparse the bottom was when I go there - nothing but sand. But it wasn't sand as I kneeeld on the bottom I sank about 6 inches into it and found that it was pure silt. Chaos ensued as the 12 divers hit the bottom and the cloud of silt obscured all visibility. I managed to compare gauges with 5 of the divers closest to me but then we had to ascend as visibility dropped to an inky black zero. The ascent was interesting and I could see a few people were experiencing nitrogen narcosis. Elise signaled to me that she was down to 40 bar on our safety stop so I gave her the pony bottle to breathe from whilst we waited another minute before surfacing.
The Crunchie bar was liquefied by the pressure and everyone got to eat, or drink, their sugary treat after the dive.
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| Simon Black |
We went to the wreck of the Centurion for our wreck dive. We did a standard circumnavigation of the wreck and the students pointed out obvious dangers that the wreck posed. We stopped by the plaque at 20M for a photo session and returned to the surface.
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| Steven Kong |
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