Twisted, knotted, tangled, and loose . . . and FUN. Yeah, that was this morning.
Peter and Kirk and I are taking a wreck workshop this weekend. Last night was the opening lecture, which included wreck-specific things to think about, starting with "How do you find it?" which is more of an issue with wrecks than reefs, as the latter tend to be more massive, shallower, and harder to miss. Reefs don't percolate or silt out, either.
After the orientation, we ran line around the dive shop. This was amusing, as one of the most available places to tie off was on random tanks, which weren't willing to stay upright if any tension was put on the line. This meant our "lights out" blind line following exercise was punctuated by sudden, loud "clangs" which were accompanied by an immediate huge slack in the line we were trying to follow in the dark. Very entertaining, at least for the people watching us.
This morning, we tried to transfer some of the skill we had ostensibly acquired the night before to the underwater environment. I have been known to say before that merely submerging my head in water reduces my IQ by 50 points; doing so while attached to the malignant life form known as a reel reduces it by 50 PERCENT. I lost my buddy and my buoyancy control, and discovered that even a hand put on the bottom can liberate a ferocious amount of silt. Even the things we did right, like our beautifully controlled, accurate ascent done in constant eye contact and with perfect positioning, was done off the upline and was therefore unacceptable. I was clearly a "newby" in this environment!
After our debrief, and the obligatory lengthy, complicated and tedious process involved in a pit stop, we got back in the water and tried again. This time, Kirk was the reel-wrangler, and I got the relatively easy job of keeping myself where I could be seen (diving to stay found, as HBDiveGirl would put it), right up to the point where both of us had light failures simultaneously. We had been briefed that if this happened, we were to close our eyes. I immediately made a potentially lethal error, by heading for Kirk instead of the line. Kirk was trying to tie the reel off, and our instructor eventually batted it away from him and made him understand that we should just drop it and get the you-know-what out of Dodge. Then we spent the longest ten minutes I've spent underwater, trying to follow the line we had inexpertly laid back to our starting point. I was amazed to discover that I wasn't frightened or disoriented, although our buoyancy control lacked a certain something. We made it back, including successfully negotiating the place where our line had crossed the other team's, and then I got in an argument with the instructor and Kirk -- underwater -- because the instructor told us to surface, and I didn't want to do it until we were at the upline, because I had been scolded once and didn't want to get scolded again
But I have to say, this was really a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a morning. It was challenging and interesting (and we were diving throughout in about 6 to 8 feet of viz), but the guys who were teaching us kept it so positive were so enthusiastic that I can't wait to get in the water tomorrow and do it all over again.
Great fun!
Peter and Kirk and I are taking a wreck workshop this weekend. Last night was the opening lecture, which included wreck-specific things to think about, starting with "How do you find it?" which is more of an issue with wrecks than reefs, as the latter tend to be more massive, shallower, and harder to miss. Reefs don't percolate or silt out, either.
After the orientation, we ran line around the dive shop. This was amusing, as one of the most available places to tie off was on random tanks, which weren't willing to stay upright if any tension was put on the line. This meant our "lights out" blind line following exercise was punctuated by sudden, loud "clangs" which were accompanied by an immediate huge slack in the line we were trying to follow in the dark. Very entertaining, at least for the people watching us.
This morning, we tried to transfer some of the skill we had ostensibly acquired the night before to the underwater environment. I have been known to say before that merely submerging my head in water reduces my IQ by 50 points; doing so while attached to the malignant life form known as a reel reduces it by 50 PERCENT. I lost my buddy and my buoyancy control, and discovered that even a hand put on the bottom can liberate a ferocious amount of silt. Even the things we did right, like our beautifully controlled, accurate ascent done in constant eye contact and with perfect positioning, was done off the upline and was therefore unacceptable. I was clearly a "newby" in this environment!
After our debrief, and the obligatory lengthy, complicated and tedious process involved in a pit stop, we got back in the water and tried again. This time, Kirk was the reel-wrangler, and I got the relatively easy job of keeping myself where I could be seen (diving to stay found, as HBDiveGirl would put it), right up to the point where both of us had light failures simultaneously. We had been briefed that if this happened, we were to close our eyes. I immediately made a potentially lethal error, by heading for Kirk instead of the line. Kirk was trying to tie the reel off, and our instructor eventually batted it away from him and made him understand that we should just drop it and get the you-know-what out of Dodge. Then we spent the longest ten minutes I've spent underwater, trying to follow the line we had inexpertly laid back to our starting point. I was amazed to discover that I wasn't frightened or disoriented, although our buoyancy control lacked a certain something. We made it back, including successfully negotiating the place where our line had crossed the other team's, and then I got in an argument with the instructor and Kirk -- underwater -- because the instructor told us to surface, and I didn't want to do it until we were at the upline, because I had been scolded once and didn't want to get scolded again
But I have to say, this was really a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a morning. It was challenging and interesting (and we were diving throughout in about 6 to 8 feet of viz), but the guys who were teaching us kept it so positive were so enthusiastic that I can't wait to get in the water tomorrow and do it all over again.
Great fun!
