Zac S
New
I recently returned from taking IANTD's CCR Normixic Trimix +. It was held in Key Largo and taught by Georgia Hausserman. We chartered thru Rainbow Reef. I have to say that I did a reef dive with 40 other divers on one of the bigger boats... thank goodness for tec. We chartered the smaller boat for class and we had at most 4 to 5 divers at any one time on our trips, including our class of 3. Others who came along were CCR instructors and very knowledgeable individuals who brought the team up.
We spent everyday in class, as I would expect of such a technical and demanding class. Georgia was a wealth of knowledge. She has everything you would expect from a great instructor and more. Safety and preparedness always on the forefront. I would trust her as my dive buddy / mentor anytime. As a bonus I have my new friends digits so I can call for that mentoring anytime
Dont worry the story goes on. Midweek, we have a deep dive planned. We are heading to 195'. We get to the docks that morning and had a few issues... My buddies O2 cells got replaced and I had to swap the kidney on my unit because it failed the positive test at the dock. Thats right, held neg failed pos. Found a hairline crack in it. Im sure there was another small issue with someone else's gear but i cant remember the details. We finially boarded the boat. Everything had been checked, rechecked, tested and tested again.
Looking good we set sail for the deep wreck of our choice. Seas were a bit choppy and beat us up a bit on the ride out. We expected some current and unfortunately there wasnt a line to this wreck. We hit it with sonar, drove a little upstream and dropped in. I hit the bottom at 195' fairily quickly. No ship in site, thats okay we will swim toward it and hopefully it will appear. Vis was great 80+ easily. Hard for me to judge im used to a lot less than that. Two min went by cruising along the bottom. Im proceeding like usual monitoring PO2 and all thats going on.
Suddenly out of nowhere PO2 on my left computer jumps from 1.2 to 2.1! I switch to my btm bailout look right and my backup comp had flooded. I did the dil flush checked my known dil PO2. Didnt help. Im sure that my PO2 was close to 1.0 on that dil flush comp still showed a 1.9. I bailed out. Now this seems way more calm than I actually was. I have taken some "sanity breathes" when I was newer to the rebreather and still have no quams about switching to OC bailout if anything is amiss. But I have never had a failure that would abruptly end a dive such as this. Thanks to my instructors and all of the practice I hit all my marks and successfully made it out without anything more than an increased RMV rate. Speaking of, planned RMV is difficult to predict. When faced with this particular situation my RMV was quite a bit higher than I had planned (measured). I also wasted 1 min signaling my buddy before starting ascent. I told my teammate promptly that I was headed up and proceeded to go. I was headed to 70' that was my only goal. I got to 70' switched to 50% and felt some relief as I now had all the air in the world. The bottom mix had gone quicker than planned. I continued up slowly until i hit my first deco stop. The whole thing happened so fast I had very little deco. Very quickly I see Georgia appear from behind and below me. She signaled ok and I responded Ok! Little did I know but she had been chasing me as I swam for the surface. I asked my teammate, that I had left on the bottom, after the dive, why he didnt come up with me? He said that he had signaled Georgia to buddy with me and he would ascend slower with our other team member. Because she was behind and below me I didnt see her until I was on my first stop. I learned that I dont believe in team bailout, and perceptual narrowing is real. I knew that anything can and will happen. I prepare and practice constantly, with plenty of fun in between.
The rest of the weeks dives went a lot smoother. I saw the edge of my new certification to 233' It was an amazing experience from a top notch instructor! Rainbow reef may look like a reef diving OC mecca but they can really provide top notch service to a team of tec divers! Georgia Hausserman was one of the best instructors Ive ever had the pleasure to learn from! I would highly recommend her to anyone looking for a good tecnical dive instructor.
That's a bit more than my 2c.. hope you enjoyed the read.
We spent everyday in class, as I would expect of such a technical and demanding class. Georgia was a wealth of knowledge. She has everything you would expect from a great instructor and more. Safety and preparedness always on the forefront. I would trust her as my dive buddy / mentor anytime. As a bonus I have my new friends digits so I can call for that mentoring anytime
Dont worry the story goes on. Midweek, we have a deep dive planned. We are heading to 195'. We get to the docks that morning and had a few issues... My buddies O2 cells got replaced and I had to swap the kidney on my unit because it failed the positive test at the dock. Thats right, held neg failed pos. Found a hairline crack in it. Im sure there was another small issue with someone else's gear but i cant remember the details. We finially boarded the boat. Everything had been checked, rechecked, tested and tested again.
Looking good we set sail for the deep wreck of our choice. Seas were a bit choppy and beat us up a bit on the ride out. We expected some current and unfortunately there wasnt a line to this wreck. We hit it with sonar, drove a little upstream and dropped in. I hit the bottom at 195' fairily quickly. No ship in site, thats okay we will swim toward it and hopefully it will appear. Vis was great 80+ easily. Hard for me to judge im used to a lot less than that. Two min went by cruising along the bottom. Im proceeding like usual monitoring PO2 and all thats going on.
Suddenly out of nowhere PO2 on my left computer jumps from 1.2 to 2.1! I switch to my btm bailout look right and my backup comp had flooded. I did the dil flush checked my known dil PO2. Didnt help. Im sure that my PO2 was close to 1.0 on that dil flush comp still showed a 1.9. I bailed out. Now this seems way more calm than I actually was. I have taken some "sanity breathes" when I was newer to the rebreather and still have no quams about switching to OC bailout if anything is amiss. But I have never had a failure that would abruptly end a dive such as this. Thanks to my instructors and all of the practice I hit all my marks and successfully made it out without anything more than an increased RMV rate. Speaking of, planned RMV is difficult to predict. When faced with this particular situation my RMV was quite a bit higher than I had planned (measured). I also wasted 1 min signaling my buddy before starting ascent. I told my teammate promptly that I was headed up and proceeded to go. I was headed to 70' that was my only goal. I got to 70' switched to 50% and felt some relief as I now had all the air in the world. The bottom mix had gone quicker than planned. I continued up slowly until i hit my first deco stop. The whole thing happened so fast I had very little deco. Very quickly I see Georgia appear from behind and below me. She signaled ok and I responded Ok! Little did I know but she had been chasing me as I swam for the surface. I asked my teammate, that I had left on the bottom, after the dive, why he didnt come up with me? He said that he had signaled Georgia to buddy with me and he would ascend slower with our other team member. Because she was behind and below me I didnt see her until I was on my first stop. I learned that I dont believe in team bailout, and perceptual narrowing is real. I knew that anything can and will happen. I prepare and practice constantly, with plenty of fun in between.
The rest of the weeks dives went a lot smoother. I saw the edge of my new certification to 233' It was an amazing experience from a top notch instructor! Rainbow reef may look like a reef diving OC mecca but they can really provide top notch service to a team of tec divers! Georgia Hausserman was one of the best instructors Ive ever had the pleasure to learn from! I would highly recommend her to anyone looking for a good tecnical dive instructor.
That's a bit more than my 2c.. hope you enjoyed the read.
